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Summary: My review of Fear Nothing
Review: Fear Nothing was... weirdly cool. I enjoyed it. It had my heart racing in some parts and me laughing out loud in others. I recomend it for a stormy night, or rainy day.
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Summary: Starts as a Page-Burner & Sputters to a Stop
Review: This story begins to unwind as a mysterious who-done-it & what's happening page burner. Christopher Snow seems like an interesting character who packs a huge amount of experiences into one nighttime. We can kind of forgive him for his one-dimensionality. The climax seems to come midway in the book as Chris survives an attempt to burn him up in a fire. After that narrow escape, the rest of the book seems less of a question of whether he will survive but how he will weather the events. Both Chris and his girlfriend Sasha become murderers; and we seem to be expected to forgive this minor flaw easily because of the circumstances and because the people they kill really aren't at all nice. But this comes to the heart of the moral dilemma of the book where we're on their side up to the point that it crosses the line of unbelievability. The final problem is that to assign any believability to the characters, we have to accept the viral infection of the entire planet which would of course include the world of each of us as readers. -- Hey, maybe this explains all the nasty politicians loose in the world! They're really monkey-mutants loosed by Dean Koontz in his Fear Nothing book! -- Okay, this was fun enough. I got it at a garage sale for 15 cents; so I can't complain. Your world will be complete if you don't read this book; although it is somewhat interesting as cheap thrills go.
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Summary: Fear Nothing will make you fear everything
Review: I have been a Dean Koontz fan for a while now and Fear Nothing is probably one of his best. Christoper Snow is a man with a skin disorder that makes him pale and unable to be in the sun. This causes him to go out at night in his peaceful neighborhood. He's so used to the dark and knows every inch of every place so when things start happening, he's very confused. People are getting murdered and he's afraid he or one of his friends could be next. He decides its up to him and his smart dog Orson to find out what's going on. He has many encounters with death and finds himself lucky to be alive. Who is the murderer you ask? Well, just read this wonderful book to find out!
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Summary: FEAR NOTHING
Review: Well, I made the mistake of reading the sequel to this book first. After reading "Seize The Night" I found that it was the second book in a series. I went out and bought "Fear Nothing" in an effort to get a better understanding of the background of the characters. I enjoyed the book but thought it could have had a more climactic ending. Just as soon as the final showdown began, it was over. If there were not a second book, this book would have been a serious let-down. Its only saving grace is that there is a sequel.
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Summary: An interesting read!
Review: Christopher Snow, faced with many problems such as only being able to "live" during the night. During the day, because of his illness, he has to be holed up in shadows and so forth. The plot thickens with his father's death, then his body being stolen, and Snow not being "allowed" any time to grieve... To find out the truth, he has to run from shadow to shadow (also having to avoid street light), follow wicked bad guys to who knows where and in the end stumble upon a mystery/problem greater than his father's bodysnatching... A great read, also very interesting, passes time quickly too! I found myself with the "I've got to finish this chapter... well maybe one more... well...", etc.
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Summary: I COULD'VE USED THE TIME BETTER READING A DIFFERENT BOOK
Review: It had been a while since I'd picked up a Dean Koontz book. The first one I read a long, long time ago was HIDEAWAY. (Don't be fooled by the movie, it was an awesome book.)Here's my bit of advice... If you're a serious book reader and have a long list of novels you're trying to keep pace with, avoid this book like the plague and read one of the others on your list instead. If you're dead-set on keeping a Koontz book on your palette, I would suggest HIDEAWAY. The main character in FEAR NOTHING (Snow) is very two diminsional, the secondary characters, especially his best friend, are really silly and detract from the believability of the book in a very big way. The book begins with the death of Snow's father. I found it odd that there's absolutely no period of grief. In fact, immediately after the death, Snow finds out his dad's body is being stolen and his temper doesn't even raise. He handles the revelation like it's something that happens to him all the time. Later on that same evening, Snow is visiting his best friend and they pass the time drinking bruskies and practicing the most annoying surfer lingo. "Well, my dad's dead, but got any bear, dude?" The emotions presented are COMPLETELY shallow. The bad guys, which are a group of monkeys of all things, come across ridiculous and unthreatening. Additionally, a conversation Snow has with a policechief is one of the most incredibly disgusting (...not scary, as it was intended) scenes I have ever read. (It deals with the fantasized incest and murder of a little girl.) If I were Koontz, I'd have been ashamed including it, as it was neither necessary or good for the book. I'm not knocking Koontz, he's a very good writer. But I've discovered it's hit and miss with him. He just didn't seem to have an enthusiasm while writing this book and in my opinion wrote it in an extremely poor manner.
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Summary: Where's the rest of this book?
Review: It's stunning how boring and unsatisfying this book is. Main character, Chris Snow, has a genetic defect that forces him to avoid light. He rarely goes outside during the day. If he must, it helps to bathe in sunscreen lotion, and then cover-up like an Iraqi housewife. He even avoids artificial light. Exposure increases his chances of getting sick or developing skin cancer. People in the town of Moonlight Bay lower lights and window blinds whenever he is around. Others aren't so nice and call him names like Nightcrawler, Vampire, etc. Sasha, Chris' girlfriend, seems too good for words. She's a radio dee-jay (works the graveyard shift), and is also the station's general manager. In her spare time, she composes symphonies, plays the piano, synthesizer, saxophone, and electric and acoustic guitars. She is also a gourmet cook, beautiful, has a sexy radio voice, loves to make love, loves to exercise, likes beer and pizza, knows how to handle a gun, and lives in a rent-free house (courtesy of the station). Why can't I find a woman like this? The book starts with the cancer death of Chris' father. Later, while sneaking around in the hospital basement, Chris spies people swapping his father's body with someone else's. This starts the mystery that Chris tries to solve via moonlight. He spends the night bicycling around town (he can't drive), breaking into churches, trespassing on military bases, getting trapped in a burning house, hiding in morgues, gunfighting with cops, getting used for batting practice, exploring the city's underground plumbing, and honing his childhood-acquired skills as a peeping tom. He has a very busy night. He also runs across people and animals who may not be as they appear. Koontz keeps teasing us with promises of suspense and revelation but fails to deliver anything. Chapters come and go and nothing much happens. We learn precious little. Instead, Chris rhapsodizes about life, people, and whatever else pops into his head. Actually, some of his reflections are thought provoking and would have been fine had they been accompanied by some genuinely interesting plot developments. Some characters, seem to know what is going on, but only tell Chris what he has already knows. They try to convince him that he doesn't need to know more and insist that whatever happened can't be undone. Chris gets frequent warnings to stop his investigation and just get on with his life. This guarantees he'll keep on investigating. Early in the book, a woman relates to Chris her frightening encounter with a monkey that wasn't a monkey, and mentions an approaching Armageddon. Then she leaves the room to retrieve evidence. I've read enough books to know that Chris shouldn't let this woman out of his sight until she has spilled her guts (figuratively). I guess Chris hasn't (it's difficult to read in the dark). Chris' search for her through the dark house is scary. I thought the rest of the book would be great reading. I was wrong. Plot contrivance and manipulation abound. Sometimes Chris doesn't seem to want the mystery solved. This really annoyed and frustrated me. For example, a priest tries to kill Chris but is stopped. Chris then has an opportunity to squeeze information from him. But instead, Chris leaves, deciding he doesn't want the priest to tell him anything. He'd rather hear the truth from a "good" guy. Huh? More annoyingly, Chris steals a diary from the priest which may provide answers. But we learn nothing because the diary is never mentioned again for the entire book. Maybe Chris forgot he stole the diary. Or maybe he wants to steal a diary from a "good" guy. Who knows. Later, Chris finds more documents that could solve the whole mystery and reveal everything. What does Chris do? Does he read the documents in breathless anticipation? Nope. Does he at least quickly flip through them? Uh-uh. Incredibly, he shoves them in his pocket without even a glance. He has more important things to do. Now I expected him to get pick-pocketed, mugged, or attacked by a demon-possessed paper shredder. Anything to keep us from those documents. Maybe he'll read them when he runs out of places to break into. Recalling that he hasn't even bothered to read the stolen diary, I didn't hold my breath. Chris treats this mystery pretty much like a crossword puzzle. Sure, he could cheat and look at the answers, but that wouldn't be as much fun as running around in the dark, trying to figure it out by himself. In another chapter, Chris breaks into an abandoned military base. Once again, we don't learn much except that abandoned bases tend to be deserted, fairly quiet and allows one to reflect on life and stuff like that. Was this military base really a military base? Or was it something else? Who cares. But Chris does find a really nice picture of his late mother, so obviously the trip was not a waste of his valuable time. Is Koontz saving the book's payoff for the end because it is so earth-shattering? Maybe. But Koontz eventually stops writing and the book ends. The earth doesn't shatter. The only thing that shattered was the glass I knocked off my nightstand when I flung the book. Koontz spends enormous time describing things that don't need describing. I know what fog looks like. It's really hard to see through. I know what darkness looks like. I stubbed my toe in it once. It hurt. This book is the first of a series. I'm not sure I'll bother with the second one, "Seize The Night". Especially since I read that "Fear Nothing" is the best of the lot. I've also heard the second book resolves things and really should have been combined with the first one. Makes sense; this first book seems incomplete. Which means I paid full price for half a book. Thanks a lot, Dean.
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Summary: What? Another guv'mint conspir'cy?
Review: XP. Xeroderma pigmentosum. A genetic disorder characterized by a severe sensitivity to UV radiation, especially sunlight that results in cumulative and irreversible damage to one's DNA. Thus afflicted, Chris Snow in FEAR NOTHING has lived his 28 years in the Central California coastal town of Moonlight Bay. He cannot expose his eyes or skin to the least amount of sunlight lest he risk the certainly fatal onslaught of cancer. He sleeps by day, and wanders the environs of his community by night, financially supported by his writings and a substantial trust fund. At the beginning of the brief, but busy, thirty-six hour period spanned by this novel's plot, Chris attends the death of his father, his last surviving parent. Subsequently, he discovers his father's body has been switched on it's way to the crematorium for that of a dead vagrant by a mysterious stranger, is attacked (several times) by a band of murderous super monkeys, is present at the murder of one of his best friends, kills the town's chief of police, is almost bludgeoned by the local priest, learns his deceased mother was the brains behind a top secret military project involving inter-species gene transfer experiments, and comes to learn that his pet dog, Orson, can understand spoken English as well as you or I. It seems Orson, a gift from his mother, was a product of those same genetic experiments, which have since taken a decidedly sinister and cataclysmic turn. Of course, the wicked government is trying to cover up the whole debacle. It isn't stated whether it's the Republicans or Democrats in power. (Oh, for a return to the more benign peccadilloes of Bill and Monica! The only casualty of that... um, gene transfer experiment ... was the Blue Dress.) This is a standard offering by Dean Koontz, whose brand of scary stories has always seemed a bit more twisted and raw than those of the other Terror Meister, Stephen King. Nevertheless, it's a swell read. Snow is a sympathetic character, and Orson is way cool. Since the world as we and Snow know it is doomed, it's readily apparent from the somewhat anticlimactic ending that Koontz intended this book to be the first in a series about Chris, Orson, Moonlight Bay, and the secret project gone awry. (His next book, SEIZE THE NIGHT, continues the tale.) A good book to take on your next trip up California Highway 1 - but watch out for the Black Helicopters.
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Summary: Dean is BACK, but not all the way...
Review: This book grips ya like a good Koontz novel from page 1, however a lot of steam is spent on sub-plots and dopey side characters. The introduction is awesome - I felt it was a new level of writing for Dean (I have read 20+ of his novels), however it seems to progress into the same kind of action that we have all read about before....overall, a much better koontz book than had been put out over the past 10 years. A Great Read, however don't expect much from the master, as there were no real surprises at the end. Bummer, but, hey, it is good Koontz read nonetheless!
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Summary: Fear Nothing
Review: This was my first Koontz book and it wont be my last. The action starts right away after Snow's father dies and he walks in on his body being taken. Everything snowballs from there as Snow finds one revealing fact after another. The book takes place over the span of two nights and the day inbetween is mentioned briefely before the action heats up again with the final showdown with the monkeys from hell. This is the first of three books in the Moonlight bay series and we get a good intro to the four main charachters here. Orson, the extraordinarially smart and humourous dog, Sasha the deejay, Bobby the surfer dude, and of course Chris Snow, the nighstalking self proclaimed "elephant man". This has the potential to be a great trilogy and I look forward to the next book.
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