False Memory - Dean Koontz
Not a continuation of the "Moonlight Bay" series (Seize the Night and Fear Nothing) as
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many fans were expecting, False Memory is nonetheless just as powerful and compulsive as anything he has written before.Martie Rhodes is a successful young computer games designer with a loving husband, Dusty, and a seemingly normal life. Her best friend, Susan, however, suffers from agoraphobia, (fear of open spaces), and relies on Martie to get to her weekly therapy sessions. Suddenly and inexplicably, Martie herself begins exhibiting worrying signs of a mental disorder, fearing herself capable of inflicting great harm on her loved ones. At the same time, Dusty's brother Skeet also succumbs to irrational mental behaviour and tries to throw himself from a roof. It soon becomes clear that the four are involved in something much more than a sinister coincidence.Koontz's great skill, as he demonstrates so well in this novel, is creating believable characters and thrusting them into seemingly impossible but--for the period of the story--completely plausible situations. The plot is as carefully layered as the most intricate orchestral compositions and Koontz conducts the proceedings with almost unbearable tension. One of his greatest abilities as a writer, however, is tapping into the dark paranoia of society. Living in an age where we are becoming increasingly desensitised to death and violence, Martie's fear of herself, known as autophobia, seems a terrifying warning that soon the only thing we will have left to fear is ourselves.Deeper meanings aside, this is easily one of his best thrillers. The prose moves at a breakneck speed and the denouement will leave you with a pounding heart and chill down your spine. Koontz delivers exciting, boundary breaking fiction better than anyone else in the game and False Memory (though at times shocking and disturbing), is a perfect example of a master author in top form. --Jonathan Weir
Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
Odd Thomas is one of Dean Koontz's more heavily moralised horror thrillers, but is
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nonetheless charming and terrifying. Odd is an adolescent on the brink of adulthood who sees dead people and has a worryingly precise moral sense; the police chief of the small town of Pico Mundo--little world--relies on him heavily. Hardly has the book opened before a dead teenager leads Odd to her killer--and we are given to understand that this is the sort of thing that happens all the time. He does not just see the dead, however; he sees the thrill-seeking dark spirits that hang around unpleasant events, and he notices, on this particular day, that there are a lot more of them about than usual. Odd is haunted by dreams of dead bowling-alley staff and he wonders whether this might just be the day when the bowling-alley massacre takes place. The tone of voice here is almost saccharine, almost sinister--Odd and his friends and his sweetheart are vivid, cute and self-righteous. This is a bizarrely paced thriller because it follows the vagaries of an eccentric with his own ways of investigating things--it is as odd as its hero's name. --Roz Kaveney
never especially likely to do the same thing twice in a row. Here he gives us a suspense novel with a supernatural element--Jimmy's dying grandfather prophesies at his birth that he will have five really bad days in his twenties and we watch these with real concern that he may not survive them. Even on the day of Jimmy's birth things go badly--a mad clown loses his wife in childbirth and massacres hospital staff; a bizarre feud between clowns and aerialists is a significant part of what follows. One of the strengths of Koontz's writing is that he works out in finely-blocked detail precisely how his average characters get themselves out of desperate situations by ingenuity and pluck, and without suddenly becoming super-powerful; even at his most wildly inventive, he remembers to be plausible. And this is one of his best books for a while simply because he has fewer axes to grind--this is pure story-telling of the smoothest kind. --Roz Kaveney.
Advantages: gripping, cant' put the book down Disadvantages: none
...DeanKoontz is one of my favourite authors, and the Mask rates highly as one of my favourite DeanKoontz books.
The Mask is the story of a childless couple, and Jane, a young amnesiac girl. They are thrown together, and they get along great, but in the way of horror stories, strange things start happening....
Koontz manages to combine love, fear and all out terror. You are drawn to the characters; in the relatively short book, Koontz keeps the characters developing, and the plot twisting, so you feel you know the characters, and you experience what they experience.
Koontz does seem to have a habit of leaving the reader hanging; He ties all of the threads together quickly, before ending the story. I am the kind of reader who always wants to know, 'And then what happened?' But with this story, it works...for the characters, the horror...
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...Please, please, do not watch the film, It totally ignored the plots & subplots & turned an excellent story into a "Teen Slasher Flick"!
This is a truly scary read, with heart stopping and pulse racing moments. You will experience every emotion possible including fear, compassion, anger, pity & of course more fear!
More twists & turns than a blackpool rollercoaster!. Do yourself a favour, BUY IT or Borrow it, Just get it!You wont be able to put it down!
It was my first DeanKoontz book. Now 5 years & over 50 DeanKoontz books later (Hardbacks, 1st editions & paperbacks)It is still my favourite!
DeanKoontz is an absolute master at his genre. All his works have been excellent. I guarantee this will deffinately not disapoint you!...
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Advantages: a spine-tingling chiller that keeps you mesmerized, a quite extraordinary book and a must for all fans Disadvantages: Can leave you with a sence of panic
...DeanKoontz does it again with a story that sent chills up and down my spine through every chapter. You feel like you are there with these people and share in the hope and foreboding with them. A wonderful read typical of Koontz yet left me more out of breath that other books of his that i have read. From the strange smelling florescent rain to the wierd and eerie behaviour of the coyotes. The surprise twist at the end was something that i didn't see happening, unlike many novels that i have read. A definite must read for all fans of Koontz and i defy anyone to not become a fan after reading this provocoting book. A must read...
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13.07.2004
11.02.2003
22.01.2006
