... Being a massive Koontz fan I bought The Face on this heady claim proudly printed on the back of the book. I have rarely been disappointed in the past so surely would not be this time round.
The Face follows the story of Ethan Truman a former LAPD cop who is now the guardian and protector ... Read review
The Face mixes both elements of psychological and supernatural terror in an unusual and ... more
disturbing way. "The Face" is a Hollywood superstar who's never at home. For his lonely son Fric, that's the keynote of life: a father who gives him everything, inc...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The Facemixes both elements of psychological and supernatural terror in an unusual and ... more
disturbing way. "The Face" is a Hollywood superstar who's never at home. For his lonely son Fric, that's the keynote of life: a father who gives him everything, incl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The Face mixes both elements of psychological and supernatural terror in an unusual and ... more
disturbing way. "The Face" is a Hollywood superstar who's never at home. For his lonely son Fric, that's the keynote of life: a father who gives him everything, inc...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The Facemixes both elements of psychological and supernatural terror in an unusual and ... more
disturbing way. "The Face" is a Hollywood superstar who's never at home. For his lonely son Fric, that's the keynote of life: a father who gives him everything, incl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Supernatural element works well, good use of minor characters Disadvantages: Cliched hero and poorly realised villain
...complex, masterly and satisfying” claims the bloke from the New York Times. Being a massive Koontz fan I bought The Face on this heady claim proudly printed on the back of the book. I have rarely been disappointed in the past so surely would not be this time round.
The Face follows the story of Ethan Truman a former LAPD cop who is now the guardian and protector of the World’s hottest Hollywood property Channing Mannheim. After receiving ... ...save him and what are the strange telephone calls Mannheim’s son Fric has been receiving? Truman is helped along the way by his supposedly dead brother a former gangster turned guardian angel. Is his brother really dead and does he want to help or punish Ethan?
The novel is a complex tale that covers typical crime/thriller while mixing in a large dose of the supernatural. This lifts it above standard fare as the supernatural side allows for ... more
“Psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying” claims the bloke from the New York Times. Being a massive Koontz fan I bought The Face on this heady claim proudly printed on the back of the book. I have rarely been disappointed in the past so surely would not be this time round.
The Face follows the story of Ethan Truman a former LAPD cop who is now the guardian and protector of the World’s hottest Hollywood property Channing Mannheim. After receiving six black boxes each with a strange clue within Truman becomes certain that Mannheim’s life is in danger. Can he save him and what are the strange telephone calls Mannheim’s son Fric has been receiving? Truman is helped along the way by his supposedly dead brother a former gangster turned guardian angel. Is his brother really dead and does he want to help or punish Ethan? The novel is a complex tale that covers typical crime/thriller while mixing in a large dose of the supernatural. This lifts it above standard fare as the supernatural side allows for many unusual plot twists and turns. However, this novel like so many others by established authors suffers for similar reasons. Koontz’s attempts to weave the supernatural into the standard crime/thriller plot although successful leads to a degree of confusion.
The majority of the novel is spent explaining Truman and his brother Dunny Whistler’s history and their connection. Dunny Whistler’s powers as a Guardian Angel are also an intriguing feature in the novel. His frustration at a lack of ability to act directly on events makes you sympathise with his plight. As such his development as a character on the last chance road to redemption is an interesting one. The twist this character provides is what makes the novel worth reading. Unfortunately Ethan Truman the novels hero is for me is the weak link. Koontz draws on every cliché imaginable to bring this character to the fore. The ex-cop who lost his wife and cannot commit to a relationship I mean come on! Surely a writer as imaginative as Koontz could come up with something more unique than that old chestnut.
Koontz’s lack of commitment to the other minor yet for me vital characters is also a letdown. Truman’s former sidekick Hazard Yancy is a fascinating character battle scarred and sarcastic but we are given no insight to explain his flippancy and callousness toward women. Channing Manheim himself gets little description as a character and is simply fobbed off as the typical shallow Hollywood father with no time for his son. Luckily the little space left in the novel is left for the fascinating character of Fric. Mannheim’s ten-year old already world-weary son is described as a highly intelligent, asthma-suffering cynic and as a reader there is a great empathy towards this lonely, neglected child.
However, I became really disappointed when I encountered the novels villain. The supposed anarchist Corky Laputa (aren’t these name just nuts!) is poorly realised by Koontz. Although obviously hugely important to the story he gets little in the way of “airtime”. His actions and nature is explained away by the fact he loves chaos and there is no attempt by Koontz to provide an insight into his motives and history. As such he seems shallow and weak and I found it hard to believe this man was supposed to be the evil Truman would inevitably have to face. His complicated and unorthodox methods just seemed unlikely to work and there are massive flaws in his schemes that just make you want to scream at Truman to stop being so stupid.
Nonetheless I did enjoy this novel. Koontz on the whole succeeds in providing an interesting tale largely as a result of the supernatural element. The novel fails largely as a thriller but succeeds as a horror novel. Once again Koontz falls into the lets make the novel long affliction all established writers seem to suffer from. I remember a younger Koontz writing short, sharp novels that had little in the way of build up but plenty in the way of suspense. Unfortunately the suspense is still there but he draws it out for so long you are just dying to reach the finish for all the wrong reasons. At 608 pages it could have been half of that and still maintained its story and probably would of held my interest. Unfortunately I don’t feel I can recommend this novel as it at times it is simply boring. It isn’t bad but a thriller should not require perseverance as a prerequisite! Certainly a waste of the £17.99 I could have spent elsewhere (damn my weakness for hardbacks!).
So Mr New York Times “Psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying”. More like “Needlessly lengthy, complacent and disappointing” dididave the Ciao Times, 2004.
Advantages: A good read from start to finish, a well respected author Disadvantages: None at all
...who is now working for THE biggest Hollywood actor, Channing Manheim a.k.a. The Face. Ethan lost his wife five years previously and since then has plodded on through his life wanting nothing more than to join her in the double plot he brought when she died. But then weird things start to happen. He 'sees' his own death, actually lives through it so strong is his vision... and this happens not once but twice. Two different deaths in two completely ... ...be enough to send even the sanest and most rational person into a state of panic and terror but Ethan has other things to worry about - loads of things! His estranged best friend (Dunny) was half drowned in a toilet and left comatose and in need of constant medical attention but there was nothing to indicate he was going to die, but die he did. Now as upsetting as this might be, something much stranger happened when his friends corpse got up, dressed ...
Fruity_Tart 29.11.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Face - Dean Koontz
Advantages: Excellently written - great plot - suspenseful & compelling Disadvantages: NONE!
...a long time fan of the horror genre I have read all but a handful of Stephen Kings books and came across Dean Koontz a few years ago.
I've read about a dozen of his early books, but for the past 18 months or so have been experimenting a bit and reading lots of different authors work. I've most recently finished reading 3 of Dan Browns books and let me say...compared to almost any book I have read in the last year, Koontz writing in The Face is startling ... ...and vivid picture of both the characters and their setting, his powers of description really are something else. It makes 'Digital Fortress' the last book I read by Dan Brown utterly laughable - Koontz is a stylish and accomplished writer comparable to no other.
'The Face' refers to Hollywood's most dazzling star. Paid millions to appear in the biggest blockbusters The Face lives in a sprawling Bel Air mansion. Image is everything and schmoozing ...
wellybooty 15.06.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Face - Dean Koontz
Advantages: A big read with lots of action Disadvantages: A few minor niggles.
...If I duplicate any of the thoughts or parts of the story then consider it as flattery as sometimes you just can't improve on what has already been written. I haven't been well lately so it's given me a lot of time for reading and Koontz is my type of escapism. The Plot
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Picture a large mansion in acres of ground set in California, a mansion that was built for a film mogul in the years of the great depression but now home to the ... ...ten years old dubbed with the name of Aelfric by his mother who got out of the marriage as soon as she could leaving "Fric" as he chooses to be called in the hands of servants and a massive security force led by an ex-cop Ethan Truman.
Take a look at Ethan at he inspects the contents of a black box one in a series of others that he takes as a threat to his boss "The Face". Look into Ethan's background and you will find the hard-bitten cop sans wife ...
Elffriend 27.06.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Face - Dean Koontz
Advantages: will keep you interested till the end Disadvantages: long book, confusing at times
'The Face' is the first book I've read by Dean Koontz. Therefore I wasn't too sure what to expect, so by those standards I couldn't be disappointed. Could I?
Having been an avid reader of Point Horrors when I was a young thing, I've always stuck to the genre, anything with supernatural thriller, just plain blood and gore, or generally something that could never pass for fact in a month of Sundays has me interested from the start. So going strictly ... ...in 672 pages, not for the light hearted, but most books this genre arent far off that these days. It's still three times the size of a 'Point Horror' though, which is a daunting prospect. I did manage to get through it though and I'm still here to tell the tale.
The book involves a fair few characters, five of which you get to know well, two of those are the main characters another two arent quite so detailed. (the good guys) You've got an ex cop, ...
haillie-jade 29.04.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Face - Dean Koontz
Advantages: well written, interesting characters Disadvantages: harder than usual to get into
..."The Face". I moiled through the first two or three chapters surprised that it seemed to take a little longer than usual for a Koontz story to grab my attention and for his characters to evoke any emotion - positive or negative - as I read. However, my patience was rewarded with a thoroughly enjoyable tale of suspense, fantasy, and ultimately of redemption.
The main protagonist, a private security officer named Ethan, developed slowly. Ultimately ... ...know than the typical Koontz hero, yet he doesn't have quite the depth of character that I've come to expect from Koontz. Nevertheless, I still felt his emotions on a very real level as he was bounced from one desperate situation to another.
The villain, a sleazy psuedo-intellectual not unlike many of Koontz's evil characters, was extremely well-written and engendered a genuine contempt and loathing that made me want to see a much more gruesome ...
helrush 07.04.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Face - Dean Koontz
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Advantages: Light, fast-paced, twists in the plot... Disadvantages: Slighty too light for my taste - read in a day..
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Advantages: Fast-paced, gripping thriller with light moments of comedy Disadvantages: Some loose uses of poetic license in the wrong years.
We all know that clowns are evil. Almost as evil, in fact, as sheep. But throughout the history of horror movies and from Stephen King's IT to the clown that resides under your five year old's bed, we've all learned that clowns are not the funny, face-painted entertainers we're lead to believe, but cruel, ruthless killers of satanic birth.
But as DeanKoontz weaves the story of Jimmy Tock, he intricately includes a clown like you've never seen one before - without make up, without funny nose or sinister smile, without self-imploding car, but just as murderous as the next slightly insane clown.
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Product Information for "The Face - Dean Koontz" »
Product details
Type
Fiction
Genre
Horror
Title
The Face
Author
Dean Koontz
ISBN
0007130694; 0007130708; 0007130716; 0553840452
Manufacturer's product description
A supernatural thriller from 'America's most popular suspense novelist' (Rolling Stone): his most chilling, gripping and original novel to date. Home for ten-year-old Fric Manheim is a vast Bel Air mansion. Somebody has to live there. His father, who owns it, is Hollywood's biggest star -- The Face -- but he's hardly ever in Hollywood. Fric's mother went her own way long ago, though she still has her own suite in the house, and a phone line -- it gets as few calls as line no.24, which is for receiving phone calls from the dead. Fric is pretty well home alone most of the time, with just the housekeeper Mrs McBee and the security chief Ethan Truman, Ex-LAPD. Fric would like to tell them about the pervert who rings him but he doesn't. He would like to tell his father, but when your father is The Face there is no chance of a private phone call. Anyway, he doesn't really believe that Moloch is coming to get him like the caller says. But he does carefully prepare a hiding place ...Ethan meanwhile is worried on account of the six black boxes addressed to The Face that have been delivered to the mansion, each containing cryptic, maybe sinister objects, snails, the scrabble letters WOE, an Is the weirdo that sent them threatening The Face? Then phone line 24 starts ringing and its voicemail is activated. Only The Face and his spiritual adviser Ming du Lac have a key to the all-white room where the phone is. Ethan doesn't -- and though he will track down the source of the black boxes, he won't understand what they mean without the help of the caller to line no. 24. By the time he realizes this the worst will already have happened ...
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