Watchers
Cross Lassie with E.T., add a touch of The Wolfen and a dash of The Godfather, and you get a sense of some of the ingredients in this supernatural thriller, which should move Koontz ( Strangers a notch closer to Stephen King's high-rent district. When Travis Cornell, Koontz's appealing hero, encounters a stray dog while hiking, he quickly realizes that the animal is most unusual and that something terrifying is stalking them both. The encounter with the dog is the beginning of a tightly woven plot involving genetic manipulation that has created two extraordinary animals; one is the dog, named Einstein, the other is a murderous hybrid called "The Outsider." Hunted down by both the government and a professional killer who has learned the secret of the animals, Travis, Einstein and Nora Devon, a lonely woman befriended by man and canine, attempt to escape their pursuers all the while knowing that a confrontation with The Outsider is inevitable. Though the climax packs a little less wallop than it deserves, this is the sort of thoroughly frightening and entertaining tale that has its readers listening for noises in the night.
By The Light Of The Moon
Perhaps more than any other author, Koontz writes fiction perfectly suited to the mood of America post-September 11: novels that acknowledge the reality and tenacity of evil but also the power of good; that celebrate the common man and woman; that at their best entertain vastly as they uplift. His latest is one of those best, exciting and deeply moving, shorter than usual and also less prone to the overwriting, the flood of similes and metaphors, that sometimes overwhelms his storytelling. As usual for Koontz, the novel opens at full throttle: a mad doctor invades a motel in Arizona, injects both itinerant artist Dylan O'Connor and struggling comic Jillian Jackson (strangers to one another) with an unknown substance that, he says, is his life's work and will have some unknown effect, then warns them to flee before his enemies kill them; soon after, the doctor is slain by heavily armed assailants. The rest of the story is an extended chase, as Dylan and Jillian, along with Dylan's high-functioning autistic brother, Shep, dart around the West, only steps ahead of the assassins. Within hours, the effects of the injections materialize: Jillian experiences portentous visions-a flock of birds, a woman in a church; Dylan is overcome by the need to rush to the aid of people in distress (among others, in an intensely poignant scene, an elderly man searching for his missing daughter); and Shep learns to teleport himself and others. (Interestingly, Koontz bases the science behind these developments on nanotechnology, the same mechanism used by Michael Crichton in his just published Prey, an object lesson in how two writers can take the same premise and generate two very different yet excellent novels). The novel's only flaw is its abrupt ending, contrived probably to allow sequels-a probability that Koontz fans, but also anyone else who reads this novel, a predestined bestseller and rightfully so, will applaud.
The Face
Ten-year-old Aelfric Manheim is home alone when he receives a call from a stranger with a simple and terrifying message, "There is trouble coming, young Fric...You're going to need a place to hide." Meanwhile, security chief for the Manheim estate, former detective Ethan Truman, is tailing a "deader than dead" body that got up and left the morgue when he vividly experiences his own death--twice. In The Face, Dean Koontz delivers yet another spellbinding and chilling novel, where real and imagined monsters walk the streets, ghosts travel through mirrors, and the devil makes house calls. Stalked by both real and supernatural evil, the bright and sensitive Fric, virtually orphaned by his A-list Hollywood parents, and the brave but disillusioned former detective Ethan Truman, himself suffering from the loss of his wife, must rely on their wits and each other to escape a dark and disturbing fate.
The supernatural lurks just beneath the surface of the "real" in Koontz's novels, and The Face is no exception. Ghosts, angels, demons, child predators and serial anarchists run rampant in Koontz's tale--the unsuspecting reader never knows what is real orimagined until the characters themselves know--creating a disorienting and frightening experience, and one that is vintage Koontz. Whether it's the real-life "agents of chaos" who roam the world creating mayhem and death or the phone lines that carry words of the dead to the living, this is Koontz at his most powerful and terrifying.
In The Face, Koontz has created a modern fable for adults, taking the bones from tales of old and breathing new life into the characters. Clearly written for adults, The Face nevertheless channels the wit and wisdom of Aesop as well as the violence and villainy of the Brothers Grimm. While Koontz's penchant for elaborately singsong descriptions can sometimes be grating, ultimately it helps lend this tale its folkloric quality, i.e. "The June-bug jitter, scarab click, tumblebug tap of the beetle-voiced rain spoke at the window, click-click-click." In this fable, the world is a menacing and threatening place for adults and children alike, and the naïve and uninformed go trip-trapping through life with no notion of the trolls that lurk in the dark. The moral of this story is that, good or evil, you will get what is coming to you; it's up to you to succeed or fail; you alone decide your path punishment or redemption.
Odd Thomas
“The dead don't talk. I don't know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it’s a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and Odd’s otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it's different.
A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd’s deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15.
Today is August 14.
In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe. As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares—and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere.
Insensity
Past midnight, Chyna Shepherd, twenty- six, gazed out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend's family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Forman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed "homicidal adventure," Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as the arise, to immense himself in sensation, t o live without fear, remorse or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.
Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive-until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess's next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource.
Strangers
The author of Phantoms, Whispers and other thrillers takes an unconscionable time to tell his latest story. The "strangers" are thousands of miles apart when they begin to suffer inexplicable terrors. In California, Dom Corvaisis sleepwalks, fleeing from an unseen menace. In Massachusetts, gifted young Dr. Ginger Weiss's panic attacks threaten her career. A priest in the Midwest loses his faith suddenly, then finds he can heal fatally injured people. And, in Elko, Nevada, the owner of a motela tough ex-Marinebecomes paralyzed by fears of the dark. Mysterious clues bring these characters and others, similarly afflicted, to the motel, where apparently they had met long before. As they compare experiences, the victims realize they've been brainwashed and determine to find out why. That means facing death at the hands of a maniac in a scene that finally induces frissons of terror in the reader. But it's too late; Koontz has vitiated suspense throughout the narrative with numbing repetitions and long explanations of such matters as Jewish cooking, the baldachin over the altar at St. Patrick's Cathedral, a weaver's tools, etc. 75,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild dual selection.
Sole Survivor
Joe Carpenter, the hero of Dean Koontz's newest novel, Sole Survivor, is a man nearly paralyzed by grief. One year earlier, his wife and two children had been among the 230 victims of a plane crash that left no survivors. So when Joe encounters a woman who claims to have been aboard that plane and survived the catastrophe, and then she almost immediately disappears, he is understandably riled up. In the course of trying to track this woman down, Joe finds himself entangled in a web of shadowy conspiracy and perilous secrets.
In this latest book, Koontz pumps up the volume and gives his readers what they've come to expect from him: an expert mix of cover ups, cults, bizarre suicides, and a shocking twist at the end that keeps Sole Survivor racing along from one improbable but undeniably thrilling event to the next.
Seize The Night
Chris Snow, the light-phobic, oddball hero of Dean Koontz's Fear Nothing, is once again caught in the middle of something ugly. The children (and pets) of Moonlight Bay, California, are disappearing. The first to go is Jimmy Wing, the son of Snow's former girlfriend, Lilly. Then Snow's own hyper-intelligent dog goes missing. Snow decides that he will find them, but what he uncovers is more than just a simple kidnapping; before he can turn back, he's up against an age-old vendetta, an active time machine, and a genetic experiment gone awry.
Seize the Night offers up the same eclectic mix of characters that appeared in Fear Nothing: boardhead Bobby, disc jockey Sasha, Snow, and all of their friends band together to find the missing kids and figure out why the people of Moonlight Bay are morphing into demonic versions of their former selves. They outsmart corrupt cops, outrun genetically enhanced monkeys, and outlive a time warp with a vengeance--all between nightfall and sunrise, the only time that Snow can be outside.
Though the premise is a little bit hard to believe, and the surf lingo occasionally irritating, Seize the Night is ultimately fun to read. Koontz successfully draws you in and keeps you entertained through an unexpected climax and an enlightening resolution.
Lightning
Laura Shane leads a troubled life: she is orphaned, nearly molested twice and loses one of her closest friends in a tragic accident, all before her 13th birthday. Even worse events would have befallen Laura if not for the mysterious guardian angel who periodically appears with a bolt of lightning to miraculously rescue her. The "angel," Stefan, is in fact a time traveler who rides the "lightning road" through time to follow Laura throughout her adult life; unfortunately, Stefan himself is being chased through time by a pack of equally mysterious villains, and their pursuit of Stefan and Laura spans the second half of the novel. The secret of the lightning road provides an intriguing mystery early on, but once it is revealed midway through the book as a complicated hybrid of borrowed science-fiction and political-thriller conceits, the narrative runs out of ideas. In the lightning road, Koontz has created the kind of sci-fi puzzle whose convoluted logic must be explained at every turn, and the momentum of the central, fairly standard chase suffers thereby. The drama of an innocent bystander forced by events to run for his or her life is familiar to Koontz readers, but this time he leaves out a vital ingredient; while his evil predators are often his most interesting characters (as in this year's Watchers, or the earlier Whispers), the villains of Lightning tend toward cliches. The reader senses that the author got too caught up in the trick of the lightning, and inadvertently stole the thunder from the rest of this potentially intriguing tale.
Phantoms
The lights are on in Snowfield, California, a cozy ski village nestled in the Sierra Madres, but nobody seems to be home. When Dr. Jenny Paige returns to the small town, she finds tables set for dinner, meals being prepared, and music playing in living rooms, but there's no trace of the people who put the water on to boil or set an extra place for company at the dinner table. As she explores the town, Paige finds friends and neighbors felled by a mysterious force--the bodies show no visible signs of violence or disease, and no known plague kills victims before the ice in their dinner drinks has time to melt. But the deep quiet that surrounds her offers few clues about the fate of the town's inhabitants. Dean Koontz's Phantoms strikes fear in readers from the very beginning. The mystery deepens, paving the way for a chilling journey toward the truth. If you plan to catch the film version, starring Ben Affleck and Peter O'Toole, remember that you'll be experiencing this terrifying story in a dark theater. So bring an arm to grab!
Tick Tock
Narrator B.D. Wong takes on the character of Tommy Phan, a Vietnamese immigrant trying to escape a home-brewed spell run amok. The story races through a terror-filled night as Tommy and his new friend, Deliverance Payne, try to outsmart a demon bent on murder. The many and varied facets of the tale, including suspense, family power struggles and New-Age spiritism, all come to life under Wong's expert narration. With subtle variations in tempo, tone and even volume, he keeps the listener riveted as the astonishing plot unfolds. Koontz's multicultural characters shine with distinct personalities, delivered with skilled inflection. Wong offers both popular American slang and foreigners' pronunciation of English with equal skill. Even the dog has a life of it's own.
One Door Away From Heaven
Dean Koontz virtually invented the cross-genre novel, and in One Door Away from Heaven he mixes an action thriller with post-X-Files alien paranoia to remarkable effect. Micky Bellsong is a young woman at a crisis point in her life, using a stay at her Aunt Geneva's to sort things out. Then the precocious and deformed Leilani Klonk walks into her life, telling stories of her stepfather and drugged-up mother, who believe aliens will beam the girl into their mothership and heal her deformities before her 10th birthday. But tales of the stepfather's vicious past, including his hand in several murders, leave Micky believing that a far more terrible fate awaits her friend. So when the parents take off with Leilani, Micky pursues.
As is typical with a Koontz novel, nothing turns out to be what it seems, and the meticulously crafted plot tightens like a noose with every turn of the page. His characters are exceptionally drawn, driving the novel forward with realism and warmth. Micky is one of his more attractive young heroines, but the real star is Leilani, a mature young girl whose plucky nature and sparkling dialogue instantly make her Koontz's most memorable creation. She embodies his belief that despite violence, pain, and suffering, there is always goodness to be found in every person and situation. Koontz has once again proven why he is one of the premier novelists of his generation.
Of course these are only a few from many, taken from Amazon.com...
And, and, and... Dragon Tears, and The Door to December, and Winter Moon, and Midnight, and Cold Fire, and Mr. Murder. How the hell did you remember Odd Thomas but not these old ones?
I'm out!
By the way, Gaboman, I'm not railing ya'll! Just giving ya a hard time. Hey, have you read Odd Thomas yet? I read a few pages that had been thrown into Dec. Maxim... seems like a pretty cool story!?
I'm out!
I haven't read Odd Thomas yet, since his books don't get released here. But I'll pick it up next time I'm out of the country. I've loved his most recent books... not as scary as his older ones, but they're funny and thrilling, and that's all I ask for
And yeah, The Bad Place is probably my favorite too hehehe it's got a kind've gross subject matter, but damned if it isn't scary as hell!
I know TearUUp, I haven't put half his books here. Didn't think you were Riling me I'll put more when I feel I have the time to spare
What's so weird about a hermaphrodite mom impregnating herself and having four imbred children where she is the mother and the father? Um, pardon me while I go vomit! Okay, I'm back! And what's so bad about one of her sons being born with four testicles but no way to release all that testosterone? Um, have to hit the sink again!
I do have to say though, that the powers given to the children through the imbredding kick a$s! I thought the two twin daughters were pretty lame, but the brothers are bad a$s!
hehehe we have only the chinese versions of a few of the novels... just not much interest for those books here...
And it's a guy on acid mating with his sister who produces a hermaphrodite mom who impregnates herself and has four imbred children hehehe
the sisters were lame, but cool in their own trippy kind've way... not too important to the story line, but just cool side characters
I liked the chick's brother... Thomas was his name? I can't remember, he had Downs Syndrome, if I remember correctly... he was a great character... poor him
Oh yeah, the older brother freaked out and tried to level the whole hospital when he sensed the boy, right? Aside from his physical deformity, the older brother was the coolest character in the whole novel because of his levels of power! Oh, and thanks for bringing up the whole incest thing again (barf)!
Dragon Tears was good, just don't remember it too well... Read it years back, and haven't re-read it yet. I loved his last 2 books, his sense of humor is getting kookier and kookier, and I'm always set between laughing to death or being shocked to death...
Dragon Tears was cool because that guy could control time and his metabolism and all...how cool would that be? He could eat whatever he wanted to...he kept
a huge cupboard full of salty and sweet snacks...(right next to a huge cupboard full of cash!) And he made himself all buffed out! I weigh about 230, but I have to work my a$s of to stay in good shape!
Well, look at Watchers! That book was pretty cool too and the movie was...so so! It's not so much that he needs to write a script...but I think that they should at least get the authors final approval before butchering a novel into a movie
Dunno if he could direct. All I know is that his writing ability is amazing, and if he could work hard to transfer any story of his to the screen and display it the same way it is in his books it would really be the most amazing thing ever! Just my take on it though...
I guess not...but, you are right in the sense that if he could write the screenplay, then it would be just like the book!!! All he needs is final approval before some dweeb of a director decides to change things around!!! Gaboman, I can't believe that you were one of the first people I have ever dialogued with on this forum and I am JUST now getting around to voting for you!!! You are always pretty clear and concise with your writings!!! So, I gave ya'll a five stat!
Hehehe right, I just noticed I never voted for ya... there ya go
And thanks I usually get either 1 or 5 stars, depending on whether I piss the person off or am nice - I'm good at both hehehe
I think Koontz has given up on movies though... Which is fair enough, I like his books the way they are.
I saw an episode of the Family Guy the other day where they had a guy run over someone on the road, and the guy runs up to him and says "Oh no, are you Stephen King?" and the guy says "No, I'm Dean Koontz" the guy says "oh" and gets back into his car, backs over Koontz like one or two more times...
That was a funny episode!!! I think that the movies could be good...but he just needs to help with it. I don't want to NOT see Koontz movies, even though I complain about it!!!
that's the truth, you've gotta see his stuff, even if you know it's not going to be as good. The only one I've really liked so far is Intensity. Pretty darn good, though it would've been better if it wasn't a tele movie.
With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry, and storytelling magic, Dean Koontz returns with an emotional roller coaster of a tale filled with enough twists, turns, shocks, and surprises for ten ordinary novels. Here is the story of five days in the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy--a story that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death, and everything in between.
Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the frist and last time since his stroke.
What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson--five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twent-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth.
Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly--the unexplained anomal of fused digits--on his left foot. Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance.
What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days when his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous--a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive, only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.
I didn't notice either of you Dean Koontz fans mention his
"the Taking". Personally I thought it was one of the worst books ever written........by anybody. Am I the only one who
thinks it was horrible? I'd be interested to know what two real fans think.
Well, like I said, I haven't read his past 2 books (I'm reading Odd Thomas now though). The Taking came after that, and Life Expectancy is his newest. I don't know what I'll think of The Taking, but I haven't heard good things.
I still haven't grabbed Frankenstein yet... hopefully soon. I finished "The Taking" recently, and didn't like it that much. It did get moving at the end, but that didn't make up for the rest of the story being so tedious
I didn't comment on Odd Thomas yet... that wasn't terrible. The story itself was good, but it also leads you to suspect a big surprise by the end, and that part of it was really a let-down.
Didn't comment on Frankenstein when I finished reading it....
Well, I really enjoyed it. At least it was a lot more interesting than the books he's written over the past year or so. The Taking and Odd Thomas were both sort of a let-down (I couldn't stand "The Taking")... Frankenstein, though, pretty interesting twist on the story, and great character development. Not to mention a basically, all-round interesting plot. So, well, is the second book out in the States yet?
Fuscia, did you read the second Frankenstein book? I just got it and finished it earlier this week; it was pretty good. Makes you really want to grab the next book though, but I hear its still a year off.
I'm just starting Life Expectancy now. Hope its good. After this I may try and grab velocity, but we'll see.
I don't know how these human-spider mutations are going to be stopped though. They seem pretty intense and almost unstoppable. And there probably going to be hundreds of them... and with no way of shutting them down (so it seems)
And what's that weird albino dwarf?
The last book is the last right? I think I read it was going to be a trilogy...
What would you say is the absolute best Koontz book?
I see him at Walmart all the time, but I don't really like horror novels, though I read KING, but he is more a supernatural thriller novelist, with horror thrown in for spice.
But so many like Koontz, I'm ready to give one a try here soon.
Koontz is a bit topsy-turby. Sometimes he's thriller, sometimes he's horror sometimes he's full-on sci-fi.
My favorite book of his is still the first one I read, The Bad Place. Good characters, intriguing plot, and some story points that just make your eyes bulge and yell out "good-grief!" It's not as humorous as some of his more recent stuff, but for a good trippy sci-fi/horror mix. It starts off with a guy waking in an ally (or in a motel, I forget) and not knowing who he is or what's going on, but knowing he's in danger (of a blue light that seems to be following him). So he high-tails it, and finds this private-eye husband and wife team to help him out. Telling any more than that gives away the whole coolness of the story though (though I'd guess the plot twists were discussed earlier in this thread).
There's also a pretty good one called "By The Light Of The Moon". Not too heavy, but very amusing and heartwarming. I can't remember the story too well, but it was interesting. There was a guy and girl who get injected with some sort of stuff by this whacko scientist, who tells them to run because they're in danger. Then somebody's chasing them, they try to escape and... there was teleporting in there somewhere. All I can remember is it was good.
Even if you're not that interested by his stories, he makes characters you can either relate to, or just enjoy for their exceptional senses of humour even in times of peril. They're worth reading just for that. Except in The Taking. I wouldn't suggest anyone read that bored me to tears.
Actually, the one I'm reading now, Life Expectancy, is pretty good. The characters are more than likable, though certain aspects of the story are a little predictable. It's about a guy named Jimmy Tock who, when he was born, his dying grandfather made 10 predictions, 5 of which were days in Jimmy's life that would be... terrible. So the first 5 predictions come true, and the Tock family decide to take the premunitions serious... though of course that doesn't stop them from coming true, regardless. I haven't finished yet, but I already recommend it.
Sherry, I caught the movie/TV pilot that the first Frankenstein book is based on (or is based on the first book, either way). The story's basically the same, but some of the characters really look off. Both Carson and Michael look just weird (Carson is that chick from Scream 3, and Michael's the dude who played the crazy roommate in Friends for a while). And Deucalion just looks... basically normal, with a bit of scarring. Doesn't look mysterious, as much as he looks dirty And the whole jumping back and forth through the quantum space physicamajig is missing.
You know, it would've been good as a TV series, as they’d planned, since the end of the movie basically ends at the first book's finale (and that’s all there is to it), but I’m happy enough with the books.
Well, I might switch over to Koontz, if I like the BAD PLACE.
I have read just about every King book and he is semi-retired now. course he has so many, that I re-read them and it don't get stale.
But I need to branch out. I did some Tom Clancy years back, and got into it, but he got super boring after awhile and I read them just to read something.
Yeah, I will check out the Bad Place and let you know what I thinks.
If you haven't grabbed the book yet, you gotta check out second hand shops. Most of the ones I went to had a lot of Koontz. They were charging by the tonne
hehehe it's got a kind've gross subject matter, but damned if it isn't scary as hell!
hehehe
poor him
