History YMMV / DeanKoontz

* PoorMansSubstitute: Of Stephen King.

* CompleteMonster - Many of his villains are violent sociopaths with no redeeming or humanizing qualities whatsoever.

* NightmareFuel: The RetroVirus in Fear Nothing and Seize The Night, and what it does to the infected. Also the things that occur in the egg room in Fort Wyvern. Plenty of his villains and their actions are worthy of mention. Chances are if its a non-satirical Koontz story, parts of it venture into very scary territory.
* ParanoiaFuel - The entire ''plot'' of ''FalseMemory'', especially for anyone who has ever visited a therapist. [[spoiler:The BigBad is a psychiatrist who [[MindRape mind rapes]] his patients and forces them to do all kinds of things for his own entertainment. He implanted many of their phobias in the first place, and once he's done screwing with them (sometimes [[RapeAsDrama literally]]), he often [[DrivenToSuicide drives them]] to creative suicides and/or homicides. He was doing this for ''twenty years'' before somebody finally figured it out.]]

* TearJerker : Numerous moments can qualify, especially those involving apparent character deaths, flashbacks, or musings on the world at large.

* TearJerker : Numerous moments can qualify, especially those involving apparent character deaths, flashbacks, or musings on the world at large.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Roy from The Voice of the Night is the ONLY villain from Dean Koontz's work who isn't a CompleteMonster.
** The Outsider from ''The Watchers'' also qualifies, as it was basically ''made'' to be a killing machine and knows it. It hates what it is but can do nothing to change it. It's habit of [[EyeScream ripping out its victims' eyes]] stems from the fact it knows everyone sees it as a monster.

* BrokenAesop: ''The Taking'', like many of Koontz's recent works, is essentially one big AuthorTract on the downfall of Western civilization. So apparently [[spoiler: the solution is the TOTAL GLOBAL GENOCIDE of all insufficiently virtuous adults, including many a FateWorseThanDeath]].
** Really? I always took it as [[spoiler: a modern re-telling of the Noah's Ark story. The novel even ties in to Noah's Ark at two points - Render mentions it early on, and in the epilogue, Molly asks her husband what prompted God to cause the Flood. And "Total Global Genocide" is actually what happened according to the story of the Ark, with a new group left behind to carry on life. According to the Bible story, nobody except Noah, his wife, their three adult sons, and their wives were left behind, whereas in Koontz's story, many adult humans and all the children survived; also, many humans who did not "survive" were shown going to heaven - according to the children who lost family members, some of them were happy and laughing as they were taken. So, if, as many theologians believe, the Flood did not literally wipe out all humanity except Noah's family, the way the world looked to Molly and her husband probably looked a lot like that to the survivors of the Deluge. Also, keep in mind Koontz is Catholic, and doesn't hold with most dooms-day beliefs, so it's more logical to see this as a re-telling of the Ark story, since the events Koontz portrays couldn't happen in a universe where we're awaiting the Second Coming. Finally, I wouldn't see this as a "solution," but instead as a warning about the consequences our actions have for ourselves. Remember, Neil, Molly's husband, was a priest who broke his vows and left the Church, so he's hardly a saint, and Molly seems to have her share of sorrow for her sins, too.]]

* AlasPoorVillain: So far, only TWO of Dean Koontz's villains can be pitied.
** Roy from The Voice of the Night is a [[spoiler: sociopathic 15 year old kid who has killed at least three people, two of them on purpose. Everything about the character makes you hate him even more, until you learn that he accidentally killed his sister when he was a child, and ever since then his mother treated him like complete shit.]] In the end, the heroes take pity on him and call the police in hopes to help him.
** Bruno Frye from Whispers. Where to even begin? In a nut shell, [[spoiler: Catherine gave birth to identical twins and raised them into believing they were one person. When one Bruno did something wrong, she'd punish both. When one Bruno did something good, she'd reward both. If they ever acted as if they were two people, she would lock them in a cellar filled with bugs. Said bugs caused the twins to scream so much that their voice boxes were permanently damaged, this also gave them constant nightmares that always resulted in them waking up and remembering the cellar, even as they grew up. Now adults, the two Brunos (still believing themselves to be one) are still traumatized and kill anyone wo resembles their mom. When one of the twins actually dies, this drives the other one insane, wondering how he can be alive and dead at the same time.]] Basically, he's still a CompleteMonster, but he's the most [[TragicVillain sympathetic villain]] DeanKoontz has created.
** What, no mention of [[spoiler: the Outsider from Watchers? If the stolen Mickeys don't break you, it begging to be killed during the climax will.]]
** What about all the guys Victor Helios created in the FRANKENSTEIN trilogy? [[spoiler: They were created without the ability to feel hope, unable to have anything good in their lives, created by a man who thinks that positive emotions are useless, and they're the most pitiable creatures that ever graced a novel! From the boy who was created autistic so that Helios could have free slave labor that didn't need to stop working to eat or excrete to the household staff that are slowly losing their grips on reality, these guys even inspire pity in the novels' protagonists.]]

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Specifically in his earlier works.
** The RetroVirus in Fear Nothing and Seize The Night, and what it does to the infected. Also the things that occur in the egg room in Fort Wyvern. Plenty of his villains and their actions are worthy of mention. Chances are if its a non-satirical Koontz story, parts of it venture into very scary territory.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Roy from The Voice of the Night is the ONLY villain from Dean Koontz's work who isn't a CompleteMonster.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Specifically in his earlier works, YourMileageMayVary on how much so now.

** Bruno Frye from Whispers. Where to even begin? In a nut shell, [[spoiler: Catherine gave birth to identical twins and raised them into believing they were one person. When one Bruno did something wrong, she'd punish both. When one Bruno did something good, she'd reward both. If they ever acted as if they were two people, she would lock them in a cellar filled with bugs. Said bugs caused the twins to scream so much that their voice boxes were permanently damaged, this also gave them constant nightmares that always resulted in them waking up and remembering the cellar, even as they grew up. Now adults, the two Brunos (still believing themselves to be one) are still traumatized and kill anyone wo resembles their mom. When one of the twins actually dies, this drives the other one insane, wondering how he can be alive and dead at the same time.]] Basically, he's still a CompleteMonster, but he's the most [[RagicVillain sympathetic villain]] DeanKoontz has created.

* TearJerker : Numerous moments can qualify, especially those involving apparent character deaths, flashbacks, or musings on the world at large.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Particularly when it comes to Christian themes or Libertarian philosophy, although YourMilageMayVary.
** ''One Door Away from Heaven''. ''Sweet CrystalDragonJesus'', but ''One Door Away from Heaven''. Anyone who in any way, shape, or form supports utilitarian bioethics is [[GodwinsLaw the next thing to a Nazi]]? [[DidNotDoTheResearch I take it he's never heard of a little thing known as triage]].

* JumpingTheShark - According to many reviews on Amazon, Koontz has done this quite a few times, namely with ''Darkest Evening of the Year'', ''One Door Away From Heaven'', ''Your Heart Belongs to Me'', the last two ''Frankenstein'' books and most recently, ''Breathless''. [[spoiler: Seriously, Breathless involves all of humanity's problem's being solved by the inexplicable appearance of adorable talking simians? [[FridgeLogic What if we can't feed them all?]] ]]

** ''One Day Away from Heaven''. ''Sweet CrystalDragonJesus'', but ''One Day Away from Heaven''. Anyone who in any way, shape, or form supports utilitarian bioethics is [[GodwinsLaw the next thing to a Nazi]]? [[DidNotDoTheResearch I take it he's never heard of a little thing known as triage]].

** ''One Day Away from Heaven''. ''Sweet CrystalDragonJesus'', but ''One Day Away from Heaven''. Anyone who in any way, shape, or form supports utilitarian bioethics is [[GodwinsLaw the next thing to a Nazi]]? [[DidNotDoTheResearch I take it he's never heard of triage]].

* ChaoticEvil: Moongirl from the ''Darkest Evening of the Year'', the assassin from ''The Good Guy'', the mad scientist turned monster in ''Shadow Fires'', the Ancient Enemy from ''Phantoms'', and [[spoiler: Helios' clone]] in ''Frankenstein: Lost Souls''.
** And Junior Caine in ''From the Corner of His Eye'', the Regressives in ''Midnight'', ... hell it'd be easier to list the Koontz villains who ''aren't'' Chaotic Evil.

* LawfulEvil: Many of the villains in Koontz's novels act in a LawfulEvil manner. Helios from his ''Frankenstein'' Trilogy wants a perfectly ordered world run with the efficiency of a beehive and wants to replace humanity with a new race that will do just that. Thomas Shaddack, the villain in ''Midnight'' also works towards this, even though he only wants it to be his playground to fulfill his perverted and sadistic desires. The villains in ''Nightchills'' come up with an effective method of mind control through {{SubliminalAdvertising}} and seek to make the [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans world perfectly ordered]], but their agent quickly succumbs to PowerPerversionPotential when testing its effects on a small town. The government assassin in ''Dark Rivers of the Heart'' wants a world where everything is moderate and no one is ugly and is eager to kill those that seem too imperfect to live. {{The Conspiracy}} in ''Door To December'' wanted to rule the world and were willing to perform cruel psychic experiments on a little girl to give them the perfect spy. The cult in ''Servants of Twilight'' were {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s and {{Knight Templar}}s and worked methodically to kill what they thought was the {{Antichrist}}. Even the sadistic and arbitrary serial killer in ''Intensity'' always keeps his word, has a well-ordered and scrubbed clean house, and even paid for his purchases made at a gas-station after killing the attendant...because he is a killer, not a thief.
* MisaimedFandom: DeanKoontz takes special care to depict his villains as {{Complete Monster}}s and [[EvilIsPetty petty-minded]], yet when compared to the heroes, who are not only almost always [[NiceGuy Nice Guys]], but are often [[HolierThanThou judgmental]], [[TheFundamentalist preachy and self-righteous]], if not downright irritating when [[{{Unfunny}} humor is attempted]]. This often makes his villains into far more interesting characters by comparison. Even if the villains wants to murder innocent people or destroy mankind, the villains often had [[BigFancyHouse nice houses]], clear motivations and the [[VillainousValour determination]] to reach them, EvilVirtues, and often [[BadPowersBadPeople cool powers]] resulting in MisaimedFandom. As result, in recent books, Dean Koontz has been increasingly making the heroes even more virtuous [[DeadpanSnarkers Deadpan Snarkers]] and his villains having even less [[StupidEvil intelligence]], depth, personality or backstory with even more pointlessly evil goals [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain that could never succeed]]. It doesn't always work, and the villain is ''still'' more interesting to read about, proving that even when the author goes out to say that BeingEvilSucks, some readers will still say EvilIsCool.

* NeutralEvil: The villains Vincent Nasco from ''Whispers'', Lavelle from ''Darkfall'', and Bryan in ''Dragon Tears'': all are obsessed only with their own power, but will show a degree of devotion to one person in their lives.

* BrokenAesop: ''The Taking'', like many of Koontz's recent works, is essentially one big AuthorTract on the downfall of Western civilization. So apparently [[spoiler: the solution is the TOTAL GLOBAL GENOCIDE of all insufficiently virtuous adults]].

* MisaimedFandom: DeanKoontz takes special care to depict his villains as {{Complete Monster}}s and [[EvilIsPetty petty-minded]], yet when compared to the heroes, who are not only almost always [[NiceGuy Nice Guys]], but are often [[HolierThanThou judgmental]], [[TheFundamentalist preachy and self-righteous]], if not downright irritating when [[{{Unfunny}} humor is attempted]]. This often makes his villains into far more interesting characters by comparison. Even if the villains wants to murder innocent people or destroy mankind, the villains often had [[BigFancyHouse nice houses]], clear motivations and the [[VillainousValour determination]] to reach them, EvilVirtues, and often [[BadPowersBadPeople cool powers]] resulting in MisaimedFandom. As result, in recent books, Dean Koontz has been increasingly making the heroes even more virtuous [[DeadpanSnarkers Deadpan Snarkers]] and his villains having even less [[StupidEvil intelligence]], depth, personality or backstory with even more pointlessly evil goals [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain that could never succeed]]. It doesn't always work, and the villain is ''still'' more interesting to read about, proving that even when the author goes out to say that BeingEvilSucks, some readers will still say EvilIsCool.