Reviewed by: Slappy

Sometimes, you are surprised at just how enjoyable some authors are. Dean R. Koontz, one of my earliest favorite authors from back when I was only a teenage monkey (no offense to the current ruling Teen Monkey) has maintained
a place in my bookcases despite my changing tastes in fiction. Koontz writes plainly yet vividly and completely enthralling. I have never started a Koontz novel and not finished, which says quite a bit for old Dean ’cause I have this thing where if a book doesn’t grab me by at least the first hundred pages, it gets set aside for me to return to later, which of course most times I never do.

Dean R. Koontz has written numerous novels spanning the better part of two decades and still remains one of the most under appreciated authors. Granted, his style of writing and subject matter is more “easy read” than most horror or sci-fi authors, but just pick up one of his books. You’ll see. He is entertaining and interesting and intelligent and insightful (ooohhh … phonetic alliteration! gotta love that!) and his books generally end with the good guys stomping the crap out of the bad guys. Most Koontz novels are horror/sci-fi, yet there are a few in his portfolio of prose (hee hee … I’m on drugs right now) which center around psychological threats to the main characters as well as just plain old mean bad guys trying to make things horrible for the good guys.

My favorite Koontz novel … Strangers. Probably his most epic, the story involves several people from across the country who are inexplicably drawn to a particular town where they all find they are not strangers, no, they know each other, yet HOW they know each other is only marginally revealed. That is, until the novel’s climax. I was totally engrossed in reading this
book. A priest, a doctor, a professional thief, an author and several other individuals try and uncover the particulars of their shared pasts, though they know not what that past entails. And let me just tell you this … you will not expect the answers Koontz gives.

Read Dean R. Koontz. You will not be disappointed in his work, just don’t go expecting Ayn Rand.

Koontz is much more enjoyable.!!!!

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Other Koontz novels Slappy recommends…

The Bad Place
Midnight
Night Chills
Phantoms
Twilight Eyes**
Watchers
Whispers

**Twilight Eyes is my second favorite Koontz novel. A story about a circus, a psychically ` gifted young man and demonic activity from ages ago planning to conquer the human race.

Mass Market Paperback - 688 pages Reprint edition (May 1996) Berkley Pub Group; ISBN: 0425119920; Dimensions (in inches): 1.50 x 6.84 x 4.17