Dean Koontz hears titles before stories. Sometime in the nineties, TICKTOCK
as a title was already brewing in his skull like something trapped and desperate
to get out. Wearing the borrowed skin of DRAGON TEARS, it almost escaped,
before being politely ushered aside by publishers with sharper marketing
instincts. But compulsions don’t fade; they incubate. Eventually, they demand a
body.
This novel is that body.
In an Afterword, Koontz admits to requesting minimal
publicity for TIKTOCK … which feels fitting. Because, in 1996, I missed it
entirely – as though it had slipped between the decade’s floorboards. But there’s
something almost appropriate about that. A story concerning something small,
hidden, and malicious… overlooked until it’s far too late.
We begin with Tommy Phan, a Vietnamese/American Detective
novelist who has just purchased a Corvette, that gleaming altar to the American
Dream. To him, it’s not just a car – it’s proof the machine of capitalism has
chosen not to devour him. Yet even in his moment of triumph, the author injects
a tremor, a premonition. The narrative equivalent of a shadow passing over the
sun.
That shadow arrives in the form of a doll.
Not just any doll, either. A devil doll with
cross-stitched eyes, the kind of object that looks like it was never meant to
be loved. It appears on Tommy’s doorstep like a punctuation mark. From there,
the clock begins its countdown. The doll is sentient, malevolent, and fueled by
purpose. It wants Tommy dead. Clean, efficient, relentless.
And then, as if summoned by the same narrative gravity
that governs so many Koontz worlds, Deliverance Payne arrives.
Del is chaos wrapped in charm. Quirky, abrasive, funny in that off-kilter way
that suggests she’s either the sanest person ever … or the most unhinged.
Probably both. Her dynamic with Tommy becomes the book’s second engine, running
parallel to the horror. Their dialogue crackles with wit, though not the kind
you’d ever overhear. Real people don’t talk like this. They don’t volley
philosophical one-liners while fleeing supernatural death. But that’s beside
the point. Fiction, especially this breed of fiction, isn’t interested in
realism. It’s interested in momentum.
And Ticktock moves. It lunges forward with possession
sequences, chases that rip across roads and water, and encounters with family
that peel back layers of cultural and supernatural history. By the time Koontz
begins revealing the why behind everything, the novel has already committed to
its own heightened reality. Explanations, in keeping with the novel’s inanity,
are controversial.
And there’s no dodging Ticktock’s weight.
This is a long book. Scenes stretch, loop, and there
are moments where you can feel the prose indulging itself. Entire passages
could have been halved without losing their substance. Then again, this was the
nineties, an era where excess wasn’t just tolerated, it was expected. Books
sprawled. They took their time … whether a reader liked it or not.
More frustrating, perhaps, is Koontz’s enduring
affection for destiny as a shortcut. Characters don’t so much fall in love as
surrender to romantic hogwash. In theory, it’s a beautiful idea. In practice,
it rarely mirrors the awkward, uncertain machinery of human connection. But
again, realism isn’t exactly the contract here. This is myth wearing modern
clothes.
And, maybe, that’s the point.
Because for all its excess, its improbabilities, and
occasionally indulgent heart, TICKTOCK knows exactly what it wants to be. Escapism
with teeth. A carnival ride through horror and humor, where the world outside
the page fades into something dull and distant.
We don’t read books to find reality.
We read them to leave
it behind.
