Tag Archives: Dean Koontz

Fiction, Reviews

The Taking: When the Rain Compounds Your Fear

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His gaze tracked across the ceiling. “It’s not falling toward us anymore.” His voice quieted to a whisper. “It’s moving eastward . . . west to east . . . as big as two mountains, three . . . so huge,” whispered Neil. He made the sign of the cross–forehead to breast, left shoulder to right–which she had not seen him do in years.

Suddenly she felt more than heard a great, deep, slow throbbing masked by the tremulous roar of the rain.

“. . . sift you as wheat . . .”

I picked a good time to read Dean Koontz’s 2004 novel of apocalyptic horror, The Taking. We had a full day of heavy rain when I started reading, which was perfect atmosphere for blurring reality with imagination, if one were into that sort of thing. I don’t read horror novels, so I worried this one might work me over, but I’m fine. Don’t worry. Really, I’m fine.

The story begins with a sudden gullywasher of luminescent rain that scares coyotes onto the heroine’s porch. No thunder or build up. Just a heavy downpour with a slick glow in the water.

Molly Sloan is disturbed by her impression of watchful evil and the nasty feel and smell of the rain. She’s scared when her husband, Neil, cries out in his sleep. Later they turn on the news to discover the oceans have been sucked into the sky and poured out on the entire world. Chaos has broken out in many cities. The world appears to be under attack by aliens with unseen ships. At least, that’s the best theory they have so far.

Neil and Molly leave their house to try to team up with neighbors and find one of them dead in his bathroom. There’s evidence he tried to fight something off, but no evidence that his shotgun harmed anyone but himself. In another minute, this dead man would be in the shadows behind them, saying, “I think we are in rats’ alley.”

That’s a line from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

Eliot gets a lot of attention in The Taking, filling the role of one of Molly’s favorite authors. His words are quoted by a number of characters, which forms one thread of mystery that caused me to wonder if this apocalypse was all in Molly’s head. The most bizarre and disturbing events tie to her personal fears and tastes. I began to wonder if she was having a miscarriage or revisiting the trauma of abortion in the real world while the living dead, animated fungi, and dismembered townsfolk occurred in her mind. That would have made for a lousy book. The resolution Koontz offers is more of a spiritual take on alien invasion. More importantly, it works.

Fiction, Reviews

Keep It Light, the Fat Man Says

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I know you aren’t used to me blogging every day. Coming here and finding I haven’t posted anything is like walking out of a cramped corridor onto an open patio. The emptiness feels fresh, and you need a bit of air after wading through the ever-swirling stream of political social media. Filthy memes, floating GIFs, and faux deep thought that rises to the surface leaves a reader feeling foul. So naturally you come here, hoping I haven’t written anything.

Well, friend, today is not your day.

I recently finished Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas, the first of his Odd novels. It was published in 2003. That’s about how long a book has to sit on the shelf before I read it. Trendsetters are like that.

Odd Thomas is amusing, despite a story the steers into dark territory. Odd, the young man narrating his own story, says he must keeps his tone light, because his editor and literary mentor is a very large man who has promised to sit on him if he doesn’t. But keeping a light tone can be a bit of challenge with what Odd is called to do.

If Odd Thomas is known for anything, he’s known for seeing dead people. And fluffy pancakes hot off the Pico Mundo Grille. And seeing these terror-eating shadow dogs he calls bodachs. He sees a few of these things slinking around a customer at the Grille and is compelled to follow him. This guy is probably planning to commit a terrible evil in Pico Mundo. Plus, his hair looks like it’s growing fungus. Maybe Odd can find a way to stop the Fungus Man.

Then the ghost of Elvis appears and doesn’t help one bit.

The plot and all its twists work well. I can’t say the story is scary. It has some grit that leans into scary, but nothing like many of the Koontz novels Lars has reviewed. More common are lines like this: “Mr. Thomas, you have a rare opportunity for perfect bliss, and you would be ill advised to poison your life with either academia or drug dealing.”

I’ll be reading the next Odd novel sometime, but I’m picking up a different Koontz book next, after the library sterilizes it or finds it in the stacks or something.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Elsewhere,’ by Dean Koontz

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There was a time to take refuge in the arms of those you loved, and there was a time to stand up to great evil and not be bowed. If you didn’t know the difference, then you were doomed to perish about two-thirds of the way through the story, when the narrative needed a jolt of violence and emotion. (As a reader who hoped one day to be a writer, she was always alert to authors’ techniques.)

Dean Koontz is back with a new adventure, entitled Elsewhere – this one is sort of a sci-fi/fantasy cross. It’s very much in the familiar Koontz style, but (also in his style) it’s significantly different from his other books in concept. Also, there’s no mystical dog in this one (there is a pet mouse, but it has no special powers).

Jeffy Coltrane and his daughter Amity are mostly happy in their life in Suavidad Beach, California. He repairs and sells antique Bakelite radios, and she is a smart, well-adjusted kid. Their great sorrow is the disappearance of their wife and mother, Michelle, some years ago. Michelle abandoned them to pursue a career in music, and they have never heard from her since.

One day Jeffy gets a visit from a local eccentric, a homeless but fastidious man they call Spooky Ed. Ed gives Jeffy a box, which he says contains “the key to everything.” He is to hide it somewhere, and if Ed doesn’t return for it, he’s to sink it in the sea in a barrel of concrete.

Then a group of armed men who claim to be official invade their house, searching for the “key.” Jeffy and Amity are suddenly forced to consider the possibility that Creepy Ed knew what he was talking about. They take the “key” out of the box and examine it. It gets activated, and suddenly they’re transported to an alternate universe. This universe appears pretty much the same as the one we know, but it turns out to have a few sinister differences. Soon they’re flitting from universe to universe, trying to not get separated and to escape a dangerous enemy who considers them expendable and understands the multiverse better than they do.

Elsewhere scared me to death, and touched my heart. In other words, it’s pretty much what you pay your money for when you buy the Koontz brand. A couple political points are hinted at, but they were points I liked, so I didn’t mind. It’s a charming and compelling novel. Cautions for language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Devoted,’ by Dean Koontz

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Progress was real progress only when it evolved naturally and thoughtfully from the history of human experience and accumulated wisdom. When it was imposed in contempt for that experience and wisdom, then progress was in fact radical destruction.

Woodrow “Woody” Bookman, an eleven-year-old genius, is the central character of Dean Koontz’s latest novel, Devoted. He is also autistic; he has never spoken a word. His beautiful mother Megan, an artist and a widow, adores him and lives for him. She does not know that her boy has been doing research on the Dark Web, trying to uncover the truth behind the death of his father. Jason Bookman did not die by accident; he was murdered by his employers.

Kipp is a Golden Labrador who possesses the full intelligence of a human being. There are a number of such dogs living around the west coast. They communicate telepathically with one another on what they call “the Wire.” Most of them keep their intelligence a secret from their owners, but Kipp has revealed himself to his elderly owner Dorothy, who has invented a device that allows him to “type” messages to her. But Dorothy is dying, and Kipp isn’t sure what his future will be.

Lee Shackett is an executive for the company that killed Jason Bookman. They’re a multinational high-tech business, doing secret research on life extension and transhumanism. When the facility where he works is destroyed in an accident, Lee manages to escape. He’s not concerned; he has money squirreled away to finance a new life in Costa Rica. But Lee was contaminated in the accident; his body and his brain are beginning to change. He becomes convinced that he has one piece of business he needs to clear up before making his escape. He has to find the one girl who rejected him, the one he never got over, and make her his slave. That girl is now Megan Bookman, mother of Woody.

Dean Koontz knows his business as a thriller writer. He knows exactly how to push the reader’s buttons. He serves up good characters you fall in love with, and then (like Hitchkock) puts them in deadly peril from his evil characters, detailing the horrors the villain plans for them. The tension can be nearly unbearable.

I wouldn’t say Devoted is the best of Koontz’s works. There were a lot of familiar tropes here, and I found the story a little manipulative. But it also made me laugh and cry, so it was effective in its manipulation. There are some genuine great moments here. The conclusion of the story was a little problematic for the theological thinker, but can (I think) be taken as a parable.

Recommended for older teens and up. Cautions for intense scenes and adult themes.

Fiction, Reviews

The ‘Nameless’ series, by Dean Koontz

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“…In this world of computers, satellite tracking, and so many other government surveillance tools, all of them accessible to hackers outside the government, the truth can be found with enough effort. If sometimes local law enforcement doesn’t want to find it or if the courts don’t want to hear it, or if those who expose it might be ruined or killed for their efforts . . . Well, it’s now possible for justice to be delivered nonetheless.” (In the Heart of the Fire)

The man called Nameless characteristically arrives in a community to find preparations made. There’s a vehicle waiting for him, with a suitcase inside. There’s a large amount of money and necessary equipment, plus a gun. If he requires helpers, they’re waiting. He listens to a digital recording explaining his assignment. It’s always a case of some person or persons doing evil beyond the reach of the law – a serial killer, a serial rapist, an entitled psychopath. Nameless takes them down, protecting the innocent, avenging the dead.

Nameless has no memory of his past up to a couple years ago. He suspects this amnesia has been induced, and that he volunteered for it. He comes in like a classic avenging angel, then proceeds to the next assignment. That is his life. He doesn’t know who he works for, whether it’s an individual or a group or some kind of artificial intelligence.

In his previous series of novels, the Jane Hawk books, author Dean Koontz imagined a high tech dystopia, something like Skynet, where surveillance satellites and cameras were linked to super-computers to buttress the greatest tyranny the world ever knew.

In the six novellas of this new Nobody series, he turns that idea on its head. What if unlimited surveillance and data processing power were turned to the purposes of good? That strikes this reader as hubristic on a cosmic scale, but here it’s just a backdrop for the action and the mystery. Our focus is not on the shot-caller, but on the hero, a driven man haunted by premonitions and – perhaps – by inchoate memories. The reader’s questions on that subject will be answered – in a satisfying way – in the final book.

The first novella in the Nobody series is In the Heart of the Fire. I’m not going to link to the rest of the series, because you’ll want to read them in order, but here are the titles: #2: Photographing the Dead; #3: The Praying Mantis Bride; #4: Red Rain; #5: The Mercy of Snakes; and #6: Memories of Tomorrow.

Each volume is cheap, although when you buy them all (and I suspect you will), you’ll end up paying about what you’d pay for a full novel by Koontz. I found the Nobody series extremely satisfying, though the basic concept did bother me. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The NIght Window,’ by Dean Koontz

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Shadows had shrunk into the objects that cast them, waiting to emerge when the day finished transitioning from morning to afternoon.

Five dystopian thrillers and it’s done now. The Jane Hawk pentalogy by Dean Koontz has been a rewarding ride, and he ties it all up pretty neatly in The Night Window.

Jane Hawk is a former decorated FBI agent. Now she’s the FBI’s most wanted fugitive, not to mention the CIA, the NSA, and any other federal agency that has a free minute on its computers. Jane found out about the Arcadians, a stealthy group of self-described human elites who have a plan to enslave the whole world through nanotechnology mind control. The Arcadians, who largely control the government, killed Jane’s beloved husband, and now they want her. But it’s not enough for her to just disappear. She has a young son, Travis, and she knows the Arcadians are hunting him, to use him as a weapon against her. She has him hidden, but you can’t hide from these people forever. They have to be unmasked and stopped.

It’s a big order, but Jane is not without resources, particularly her friend Vikram Rangnekar, a computer genius who adores her. He used to feel guilty about what he did for the government. Now he’s with Jane, working hard to redeem himself.

The cast of characters, as with any Koontz novel, is Dickensian in its variety. There’s the unlikely team of an old Jewish man and an autistic black genius who are protecting Travis. A young filmmaker targeted for murder by the leader of the Arcadians, who turns out to be better at survival than even he ever imagined. There’s an appalling team of Arcadian assassins, united by their obsession with men’s fashion.

I thought the wrap-up of the story slightly contrived, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t weep manly tears as I read. I recommend the whole series, and I don’t think the finale will disappoint you.

And the writing’s darn good.

Cautions for rough language and horrific crimes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Winter Moon,’ by Dean Koontz

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The November sky was low, a uniform shade of lead gray, like an immense plastic panel behind which glowed arrays of dull fluorescent tubes.

Every Dean Koontz book raises the question: What will he try this time? His work spans sub-genres, and even entire genres. In Winter Moon, he switches into Lovecraftian mode, with an eldritch, evil, invertebrate monster – though probably not as ancient as Cthulhu.

In a near-future Los Angeles gradually sliding into entirely predictable chaos, Officer Jack McGarvey is nearly killed in a bloody shoot-out. After a long recovery and rehabilitation period, he works hard to maintain his native optimism – he assures his wife Heather and his son Toby that everything will be fine. But it’s hard to see how.

Then – an unexpected legacy. A man he hardly knows has willed him a ranch in Montana. When they visit, it seems like Paradise – a mountain retreat, far from the dangers and dysfunction of the big city. They happily move in and look forward to an idyllic life there.

But there’s something they don’t know. In the mountain woods, an Entity lurks. It is utterly alien – it has no understanding of people or even of terrestrial biology. And it doesn’t care. Its sole compulsion is to possess and absorb everything not itself.

Winter Moon scared the bejeebers out of me. Because this was Koontz and not Lovecraft, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t end in universal misery and perdition – and I was greatly relieved when the family acquired a Golden Retriever, always a good sign in a Koontz book. But I couldn’t figure out how the family could possibly escape. Which makes for high suspense.

Highly recommended, with cautions for the sort of thing you’d expect in this kind of novel.

I’m reading a Jane Austen book now. I felt like I needed a change.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Hideaway,’ by Dean Koontz

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Pornography is the new mechanics of sex without the emotional context: lust ceaselessly indulged, love eternally unmentioned. That is also how novels of the supernatural read to me when they make much of otherworldly horror but say nothing of otherworldly redemption.

So I wrote a novel that dealt with both sides of the equation, in the belief that the forces of darkness seem more real and scarier when they are one half of a balanced narrative that includes the forces of light—just as making love with a cherished partner is immeasurably better than finding satisfaction in a porn film.

The passage above does not come from the text of Dean Koontz’s novel, Hideaway, but from an afterword to this edition, in which he reminisces about the book’s reception. He tells us how it became the first of his novels to receive a substantial amount of hate mail – because it assumes the existence of God. And he tells how it got made into a film – and how he eventually lost the artistic control he’d been promised but managed to get his name (mostly) removed from the film’s advertising, so great was his disgust with the final product.

When Hatch and Lindsey Harrison go off an icy mountain road in their car, victims of a drunk truck driver, they end up in a freezing river. Hatch dies and Lindsey barely survives. But by good fortune, the world’s foremost center for “re-animation” is only minutes away. A dedicated medical team brings Hatch back to life – after a record time dead, and amazingly without visible injury.

In the flush of a second chance, the couple decides to rebuild their life. Their major decision is to adopt a disabled child, a beautiful, spunky, and smart girl named Regina. Their second chance seems to be both physical and spiritual.

But somewhere in the darkness, in a secret place, there lurks a monster – an evil young man with a supernatural link to Hatch. This man worships Satan, and lives to kill. Through their psychic tie, the two men became aware of each other – Hatch is horrified, but the monster sees in his family the perfect prey he’s been hunting for.

I’d actually read Hideaway before, but I’d forgotten it almost completely, and the suspense was unimpaired on this reading. And suspense there was. I’d call Hideaway a tour de force in the tradition of C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength – a story where good is portrayed in heartbreaking beauty, while evil is exposed in all its banality and repulsiveness. I hardly made it through this book, but it was rewarding. And essentially a Christian story.

Recommended, with cautions for grotesquery and intense suspense.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Forbidden Door,’ by Dean Koontz

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The Forbidden Door

I’ll read pretty much anything Dean Koontz writes these days, and the Jane Hawk series definitely has an intriguing concept. But frankly, I think The Forbidden Door is an unnecessary book.

We continue the saga of Jane Hawk, former FBI agent who is all that stands between civilization and The Arcadians, a high-level conspiracy of elites who are gradually taking the country over through implanting nanomachines in people’s brains, turning them into slaves without free will. The Arcadians have already murdered her husband, and now they’ve turned Jane into the FBI’s most wanted criminal. Legal and extralegal resources are being marshaled to capture her. She hid her son Travis with friends, but now that hiding place has been discovered, and Travis is now staying with the most unlikely protector in the world – a brilliant agoraphobe who lives in a hidden bunker. If the Arcadians capture him, they’ll use him to bring Jane in.

I was interested to read The Forbidden Door, but I found it hard to read. Jane actually doesn’t do much in this story. Most of our time is spent either with her vile enemies, or with their victims or potential victims. The level of unease is high, and it’s not relieved as often as I would have liked.

I have a suspicion (probably wrong) that Koontz sketched this series out as a trilogy, and the publishers persuaded him to pad the story with one extra volume, to increase revenue. This book mostly represents that padding.

So I don’t recommend it highly, except in the sense that if you’re reading the whole series – which is worthwhile – you’ll probably need to read this one.

Cautions for language, violence, and disturbing themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Crooked Staircase,’ by Dean Koontz

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The Crooked Staircase

…In this world of rapid change, there were few things to which you could hold fast. Wisdom acquired through centuries of experience, traditions, and beloved neighborhoods eroded and washed away and with them went the people who found solace and meaning in those things, who once would have been part of your life for most of your life. Now a rootless population, believing in nothing but the style and fashion of the moment, produced a culture of surface conformity under which the reality was a loveless realm in which soon everyone would live as a stranger in a strange land.

Oh man. I thought this one would kill me. Dean Koontz’s Jane Hawk novels are tours de force in the thriller genre, and The Crooked Staircase just ups the stakes and speeds the pace.

This time out, Jane Hawk, former FBI agent and now a wanted fugitive, framed because she knows too much about a horrific conspiracy in high places, is hunting for the remaining top conspirator whose identity she knows. Finding him and “breaking” him are easy, compared to the fresh mysteries his information generates.

Meanwhile, an oddly matched, ruthless team of government agents are hunting for Jane’s son, whom she has hidden away with people who (she hopes) they can’t identify. But the agents have access to an infinite amount of information, and they are patient. And they’re getting closer.

The tension and suspense just never let up in The Crooked Staircase. Koontz’s skill in creating characters you really like and care about just makes it more nail-biting. Sometimes you’ll want to laugh, and sometimes you’ll want to cry. But you won’t be able to put it down.

Highly recommended. Cautions for language, violence, and adult themes, jolting in their effect but fairly mild by the standards of the genre.