Laughter and Shivers Abound in Ticktock

“But the damage–”
“I’m used to it.”
“You are?”
She said, “There’s frequently damage.”
“There is?”
“I lead an eventful life.”
“You do?”
“I’ve learned to roll with it.”
“You’re a strange woman.” he said.
She grinned “Thank you.”

Tommy Phan has finally achieved his version of the American Dream when he finds a mysterious rag doll at his door that holds within a supernatural creature driven to kill Tommy before the night is over. Even with the help of the beautiful, quirky and unflappable Deliverance Payne, Tommy’s chances of seeing another sunrise are not good.

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TITLE:

TICKTOCK

WRITER:

by Dean Koontz

GENRE:

Horror Fiction, Humorous Fiction.

DESCRIPTORS:

Vietnamese-American, American, Mothers, Family, Screwball Comedy, Supernatural Suspense, Monsters, Race Against Time, Magic, Hunting, predator, prey,

CHARACTERS

Tommy Phan/Tuong Phan, A Vietnamese-American author who is achieving the American Dream.
Deliverance “Del” Payne, An unusual woman who helps Tommy survive the night.
Scootie, Del’s dog.
Mother Phan, Tommy’s somewhat judgmental mother.
Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith, Del’s somewhat eccentric mother.
Gi Minh Phan, Tommy’s least traditional of his tradition-bound brothers.
Mummingford, Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith’s British butler.
Chip Nguyen, The hard-boiled detective from Tommy’s novels.
Doll snake rat-quick little monster thing, The supernatural assassin.

SUMMARY:

Tommy Phan has spent years working for the American Dream. A Vietnamese immigrant at a very young age, Tommy only wants to be an American. Unfortunately, just as he has quit his newspaper reporter job to write full hard-boiled detective novels full time and purchased the car of his dreams — a brand-new Corvette — he discovers a small rag doll with a note pinned to it, at his door.

“The deadline is dawn.”

Once inside, it leaves an omnious computer message and then slowly the stitches come out to reveal a small but invulnerable little monster, as Tommy called it — a doll snake rat-quick little monster thing. It attacks him and even bullets fired point blank barely stun the creature.

And it has human-like intelligence.

Barely escaping his house with his life, Tommy discovers he has not escaped the creature, now shorne of it’s doll clothes and bigger. After crashing his car, he is picked up by a waitress who served him earlier that day. Her name is Deliverance Payne or Del for short and she is one remarkably resourceful waitress.

On the run, with the creature uncannily persuing them, they only have to survive until morning — they hope. Even so, that means they must run fast and hard and get through the night.

APPEAL:

Ticktock is a short novel of humorous horror. Dean Koontz, know for being a pioneer in mixing genres with abandon, combined generous amounts of humor, using the screwball comedy genre rules, and supernatural thriller.

The story is told in the third person, past tense from Tommy’s point of view. When things happen off stage, we don’t get to see them. Remaining at Tommy’s view point, allows Del to be mysterious and for misunderstandings and suspicions (of a funny kind) to arise. The reader is kept as off-balance as Tommy.

“Tommy, at the rate you’re going the creepy-crawler will catch you by one o’clock, tear your head off — and still have four or five hours of spare time on its hands.”

Tommy is a fully realized character, partially because we see the story from his view point. But he is interesting enough to hold his own against a quirky character like Del. He is a conflicted Vietnamese-American who wants to be just American but finds himself estranged from his tradition bound family because he follows his heart. Del is a quirky character and a half. I wouldn’t be surprise if Odd Thomas and Jimmy Tock had their origins in Del. Tommy is the straight man while Del is the seemingly ditzy blonde who is, in truth, so much more.

This is one of those books that has an almost gentle kind of horror — as gentle as a killer monster can be. I would recommend it to anyone who likes humor and thillers but wants to take a stab at horror.

NOTES:

In October 2000, Dean Koontz published a book in paperback only — not a revision of an earlier work but a brand new story which never reached the length he felt was reasonable for a hardcover print run. Tick Tock is Koontz at the height of his genre mixing powers for here he combines the screwball comedy (which has more rules than I ever suspected) with suspense and horror.

Ticktock was a book I’ve wanted to read for year but the size of the print was hard on my faltering vision (yeah, even with glasses life is fuzzy but it isn’t failing . . . yet). Finally I found a copy on MP3 and made time to listen. It was well worth the wait. My only issue with the story is that the afterward explained the origin of this book and described what a screwball comedy which I would have preferred to know ahead of time. I think it would have enriched my enjoyment of the book — but that’s just me. The afterward contains no spoilers so you can read it first.

READALIKES:

Not all of Dean Koontz’s books would be enjoyed by the same audience but readers who love Ticktock would do well to check out Life Expectancy, and the Odd Thomas Series — Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd (my favorite) and Odd Hours.