Strange Highways - Dean Koontz

...took a route unknown, a strange highway, again for reasons unknown. The route he should have taken has now been torn down; it now belongs to a super highway that replaced it. So how, on his way home, is he sitting opposite this road that doesn’t exist? And why does he have a strong feeling that if he now takes this route his life could be put right, put back on the road to happiness?

This story is all about putting things right, and ...
...you imagine how you would feel if one day you are catapulted back twenty years and you are having a conversation with someone you knew back then? The word I came up with is ‘huh?’ You would be so confused, especially if you had chosen to forget certain issues, which is exactly what has happened to the main character Shannon. Time and willpower has allowed him to forget, or bury, some things which should have haunted him.

The writing ... more

This book came as a surprise to me, not only the thought-provoking stories but also the fact that it had sat on my shelf for the better part of five years without me realising I hadn’t read it! I went through a phase of reading the slightly ‘out there’ novels of Dean Koontz until a time when I moved onto new authors, this one must have slipped through the net as one of the many I had read and enjoyed. You can imagine my surprise during the obligatory cleaning session when I perused the cover and realised it had escaped my attention.

The book I thought was a novel is in fact a collection of short and not so short stories, which let my imagination run riot in such a way that only Koontz and select few can. I am not a fan of short stories, much preferring to take my time with a novel that can let my mind explore all avenues rather than a quick taster. However, ‘Strange Highways’ has finally changed all that due to its brilliance and also the fact it found me at a time when my free time is limited.

There are thirteen stories within this collection ranging from as little as 3 pages to 150, the latter being a small novel and the books name-sake. I will not review each and every one as that would make for a long review; instead I’m going to pick my favourites.

*STRANGE HIGHWAYS*

Joey Shannon is estranged from his family for reasons unknown. His life has taken one wrong turn after another since he was twenty years old, and he now has no career, no money and a serious drink problem. Shannon has not visited his hometown of Asherville for twenty years, now forty he has returned to attend his father’s funeral and intends to leave as quickly as possible.

The night he last left Asherville for college two decades before, Shannon took a route unknown, a strange highway, again for reasons unknown. The route he should have taken has now been torn down; it now belongs to a super highway that replaced it. So how, on his way home, is he sitting opposite this road that doesn’t exist? And why does he have a strong feeling that if he now takes this route his life could be put right, put back on the road to happiness?

This story is all about putting things right, and what events would occur if given a second chance. Can you imagine how you would feel if one day you are catapulted back twenty years and you are having a conversation with someone you knew back then? The word I came up with is ‘huh?’ You would be so confused, especially if you had chosen to forget certain issues, which is exactly what has happened to the main character Shannon. Time and willpower has allowed him to forget, or bury, some things which should have haunted him.

The writing gently leads you into one revelation after another, slowly letting small facts out, just enough to make you wonder. While Shannon is driving he hears the radio announce a new song which to Shannon is twenty years old, this could be a mistake you tell yourself, but after several small instances you begin to think, no, no mistake.

The atmospheric description is very subtle but powerful. A storm is in full swing and the writer adds small details and splashes of colour to bring out the evilness of the situation.
“Deepening twilight”
“Colourful leaves that glowed strangely in the gloom”

The majority of the atmosphere is brought into the story by the underground inferno that is slowly burning away in the old mines under the town. Descriptions of the heat and far away rumbles bring the excitement ever closer to the characters. I was reminded of a phrase I have heard on numerous occasions; ‘The pits of hell’, this is the only way I can describe the river of glowing lava under the town.

The story has been cleverly written, I would sum it up as a sci-fi/ crime/ thriller. It’s action-packed with so much going on, I found myself eager to turn the page. The lack of characters make the understanding of the situation a lot easier to digest; the feeling and emotion from the main character draws you into the action, although I did find myself thinking ‘why do I want this drunken bum to succeed?’
******************************************************

*DOWN IN THE DARKNESS*

Jess has discovered a cellar in his house; there shouldn’t be one and no-one else can see it, literally. Thinking he’s having a hallucination Jess goes down to explore. It’s dark, very dark, and the blackness around him seems to be a cold, calculating, living thing. Jess realises the thing is real, it’s evil and it wants more evil brought to it.

This is a very bizarre story to follow as characters from Jess’s past play a big part in it. If I had to sum up this story it would be, who are your enemies? And would you hurt them, given the chance? I thought the writing was well done when it had to bring in these characters; instead of them just being mentioned, the writer uses the smell of the cellar to bring memories to Jess, which in turn lets the writer describe the background of each character. This use of introduction lets the writing flow quite effortlessly and is not hard to follow. I find some authors bring in characters in a very blunt way, with no necessary reason for them being mentioned, so this was new to me.

I believe each reader will have a different reaction to this story, the thoughts of what you would do to get ahead in life being a major part in most peoples’ lives. The whole story is a moral dilemma, but it all depends on how far a person has been pushed.

The writer creates the worst place imaginable to most, a dark, airless place where you are sure something lives but cannot see. Yet, this place could be someone’s saviour, is it a bad thing?

I loved this story; it had me thinking quite hard about my choices in life, although I’m not sure that was a good thing!
*****************************************************

*WE THREE*

Jonathan, Jessica and Jerry are triplets, they have powers beyond anything you can imagine, and they can do nearly anything just by thinking it. Unfortunately the only way they could test their powers was to try, and they just thought what would happen if everyone in the world were dead?

This is the shortest of the collection of stories and is by far my favourite. From the opening paragraph I was hooked.

“Jonathan, Jessica and I rolled our father through the dining room. . . We had some trouble getting father through the back door, because he was rather rigid”

The triplets reminded me of Enid Blighton’s ‘The Famous Five’, where all the children have good manners and talk properly. Although these three are cold blooded killers, they have no conscience about it at all. They believe they are Gods and should not have to suffer fools gladly, this makes for a chilling story and Koontz has written it just so to get your imagination going.

It’s written in the first person through Jerry, and a couple of pages into the story you begin to understand that the triplets don’t talk to each other, they can communicate without speaking. They are children which is apparent in the way they are eager to play games like ‘burning people up’, where they make dead bodies self-combust.

They seem to have a motto as it is repeated several times:
“We’re a new race with new emotions and new attitudes”
This is said when one of them has any slight conscience about what has happened.

Above all the question of this story seems to be, are they the best? And it falls to the last paragraph to dampen their spirits. It’s an excellent read but it was definitely too short!
*****************************************************

*THE NIGHT OF THE STORM*
Human beings do not rule the earth, robots do, and there is no evidence that we ever existed. Curanov is a robot, and he is bored with his adventures. He was bored with exploring the Atlantic Ocean underwater; he was bored when he descended to the earths’ core; and he was bored when chasing floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.

Suggested by his councillor, Curanov is about to go hunting in a remote forest with his super abilities modified so he cannot hear so well and can only see in the daylight. (Only!) Along with three fellow robots, the group set out for the experience of a lifetime, only to find footprints in the snow that don’t belong to another robot.

I love this kind of thought-provoking story that is along the lines of ‘what if?’ It makes you wonder how we would be regarded in the future. There are several points in the writing where there is a faint humour written in a serious tone. For example, one of the robots’ databases has this as its file on humans (if they exist):

~He sleeps by night, like an animal.
~He spawns his young in a terrifying unmechanical way.
~He dismantles robots, though none but other men know what he does with the parts.
~He is the antithesis of the robot. If the robot represents the proper way of life, man is the improper.
~He can be permanently killed only with a wooden stake through the heart.
~If killed in any other way, the man will only appear dead. In reality he at once springs to life in a new body.

Koontz has confused the information to include vampire myth, which I found hilarious, yet fairly understandable when these robots do not even think we ever existed. Future generations could misinterpret lost information and believe their own findings to be the truth, even if they might sound bizarre. There would be no-one to correct them.

There are small snippets of conversation throughout the story that ponder the creation of the robot, always brought to the conclusion that robots have always been here, even though some evidence to the contrary exists.

The beginning of the story compounds of mechanical writing, describing everything in the proper manner, with no feeling, which almost draws you in to the life of a robot and how they operate. Toward the end more feeling and description unknown to a robot creeps into the text as if the realisations control the writing, I have to admit I was quite impressed by this.

This is my second favourite of the collection and is once again a very thought-provoking piece.
*****************************************************

The other stories that make up this fabulous collection include many other bizarre and fantastic elements that get the juices going. An alien species; healing hands; bio-chemical rats; and a talking bear from a parallel world to name a few. Some may sound a bit ‘out there’ but the diversity from one to the next lets you read the collection at your own pace, without having to remind yourself of the previous events. As I mentioned before, this caught me at a time when I only have short periods of free time so reading these stories was comfortable and fun.
This would appeal to many readers on so many different levels. There is a story for everyone in this collection, even if you found just one to be appealing it would be worth it. I admit I did not like every story, ‘Miss Attila the Hun’ was my least favourite, and this was due to what I believe to be bad use of writing. There was too much background description and not enough creative writing on the alien thing called ‘seed’. I found it to be very corny in an American way, the reason being that the moral behind the story was that love can save anyone. It was far too cheesy for my liking. But apart from that one I found the others to be exciting and very readable.

I have this book in hard-back and have no idea what I paid for it, although you can find them in Amazon for as little as £1.70 brand new!

I hope you enjoyed reading this. Thanks. Louise. x

 

...less