Haikuphobia [Review: False Memory]

Atmosphere of dread.
The monster is in yourself -
watch out for haikus.

Martie Rhodes, the programmer heroine of Dean Koontz’ novel False Memory, starts to experience episodes of fear. Initially this is a vague fear of her own shadow or reflection, but this develops into a more specific fear that she is going to kill someone. Martie’s fears develop as she is helping an agoraphobic friend get to therapy, and drive her obsessively to remove or destroy any potential weapons in her house. Meanwhile her husband Dusty (that would be Dusty Rhodes) is trying to talk his suicidal half-brother down from a roof.

Martie’s initial fears, and her plausible, obsessive response to them, create a tangible atmosphere of dread and mystery, a feeling that something is wrong with the world or that disaster of some sort is about to happen. Having introduced a few more mysteries and clues, the novel then jumps, harshly to the villain’s point of view – and Koontz has created a paranoid, nightmare-inducing vision of a villain with an appetite for abusive and demeaning treatment of those within his haiku-drawn power. His abilities lead to a shift in perception of the world, a small-scale Matrix or Truman Show, as the characters are unable to trust themselves or anyone else. The many references to the Manchurian Candidate are appropriate if crude – Koontz wants to credit Condon as openly as possible as the origin of some of the ideas in the book.

As the novel continues it loses some of this earlier strength. I find that in some of Koontz’ novels, he is a little too fond of his perfect heroes – and so once the abusive nature of the villain is established through cruelty to a supporting character (admittedly in a well-written, disturbing sequence of events), the heroes are spared the most demeaning stuff and have to make do with taking bullets or other more heroic injuries, despite the fact that they have been within the villain’s sphere of power and vulnerable to him for a long time.

There are also plenty of serial killer mistakes, which detracts from what would otherwise be an immensely powerful position - and too many coincidences and quick fixes in the plot although they are portioned out evenly between the good and bad characters. Some opportunities are missed – for example, Martie’s programming skills are barely explored yet there are obvious parallels to be drawn between them and the villain’s abilities, and this could have contributed to their discovery of him or a defence against him.

Mega Novella vs Giant Novel

If you are a Freudian psychoanalyst STOP READING THIS NOW. You have been warned.

I’ve just started a new Peter F. Hamilton brick, The Temporal Void. I’ve also just finished a Dean Koontz novel, False Memory, of similar proportions – more about both novels will follow in future posts.

I came across an astute comment by fanzine editor Claire Briarley (I can’t link to it! It’s on paper!) about how it’s become much harder to get a short sci-fi novel published. There must be something in this, at least for mainstream publishers and bookstores where the shelves are dominated by Hamilton-scale novels – while the books I buy from second hand shops or borrow/steal from friends and relatives are tiny slips of things.

Who’s responsible for this timeshift? Are we, the book-buying public, assuming that bigger is better, and buying our books like groceries, by the kilogram? Are we guilty of judging a book not even by its’ cover but by the cost per page?

Alternatively is this something to do with economics or insurance – the risks of publishing a sci-fi novel or some kind of cost benefit analysis that is only justified for books above a certain weight? There does seem to be a difference between the major publishers and some of the smaller, more independent labels – who seem more able to take risks with shorter fiction.

I think it’s worth remembering that so many classic sci-fi novels are small - Farenheit 451, for example, or Flowers for Algernon. Short stories have always been the heart of sci-fi for me, and many novellas or short novels are more like extended short stories, requiring the same degree of tight control. Go back to John Wyndham and you’ll find stories that have everything – but are never a word too long, always ending at a perfect dramatic point.

The short story form, happily, is alive and well – despite the loss of some subscriber magazines in past years Interzone and other magazines carry on, author collections and compilations are being published all the time, and there’s a wealth of free stories on the net. The novella may be an endangered species.