Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment.
Review: This book disappointed me. I am a die-hard Koontz fan, but this book actually bored me. It was hard to sympathize with the characters, the plot was thin, and the book lacked the magic usually present in a Koontz novel. The dog had potential as one of those magical Koontz animals, but even he turned out to be a real nothing in the book. I'm glad I didn't spend any money on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A haiku for Mr. Koontz
Review: book lacks focus, life reads as though quickly written hair weave too tight Dean I should have known when I was able to buy _False Memory_ in a thrift store for $1. How did this best seller hit the skids so quickly? The copy I had was obviously rushed to press. The text had words hypenated as line endings but appearing in the middle of the sentence, which was distracting to the extreme. (It's like try-ing to fig-ure out what the in-tent was. Hurts reading that, doesn't it?) Picture this: A publisher's heart-to-heart with his best-selling author. "Dean, they're just not buying the surfer lingo of your cooler-than-frost genetic reject Chris Snow. Can't you produce some of that psychic chill you're famous for?" Factor in a late night with a double feature of _The Matrix_ and _The Manchurian Candidate_, some dodgy sushi, and you've got _False Memory_. Hey Dean, better luck next time with the sushi. For all our sakes.
Rating:
Summary: False Memory
Review: After reading Watchers I was hooked on Koontz and made him my number one author. I have read everything published under the name Dean Koontz and I found this to be the worse book to date. I felt is if Koontz was filling in space with a lot of unnessary babbage. The book was very hard to read and not at all interesting. This book could have been written in less than 100 hundred pages. Since I buy all of his (Koontz) books in hardcover (those that are published in hardcover) as I did this one, I am truly disappointed and feel as if I've been jipped. I only rated it a 1 star because a 0 rating was unacceptable.
Rating:
Summary: "Disappointing Missfire"
Review: Dean Koontz has a knack for developing great story ideas, excellent initial character studies, and engrossing initial chapters, then letting them devolve into hackneyed and poorly resolved novels. "False Memory" is no exception. I began reading "False Memory" with great eagerness. The opening is strong- several characters, plagued by phobias and psychoses, gradually become aware that they are menaced by an outside force. At the onset, the characters are engaging. Martie's first visit with her friend Susan to Dr. Ahriman's office is well realized. I found myself fascinated by the outline of Susan's symptoms, and moved by her frustration. Dusty's attempt to talk his brother out of jumping from a roofop is gripping, and the account of Martie's first attack of autophobia is both compelling and horrifying! Unfortunately, the novel spirals downhill from there. The action puts a stop to any further character development, beginning with the too- early exposition of the story's antagonist, and his destruction of Susan. Unmasking Ahriman this early in the novel eliminates some elements suspense- which might have worked, had the character been stronger. But Ahriman is just not interesting enough to carry the novel- his character has all the dimension and subtlety of a Marvel comics villain- you can picture him leering like the Green Goblin- and he's just as full of operatic self-congratulation and gloating! The expansion of his character through exposure of his troubled past is more funny than tragic. Similarly the development of Martie and Dusty- what little of it there is- falls along the same lines. Mr. Koontz seems to subscribe to the idea that a troubled past and dysfunctional family make for interesting characters. It doesn't work here. I don't find Martie any more interesting because her father died when she was young- nor Dusty because his family is imbalanced and abusive. The author's asides and references to Richard Condon's fine novel "The Manchurian Candidate" and last year's film "The Matrix" are entertaining initially, but ultimately annoying. Koontz's reliance on them as a plot device is regrettable and unrewarding. By the end of the novel I found myself skimming alot, and thinking "Enough already!" One scene set in Dusty's family home, a sort of crisis-induced family reunion, was so ludicrous that I felt embarrassed for Mr. Koontz that people would read it! All in all, despite its strong start, "False Memory" is a disappointing missfire.
Rating: 
Summary: A Troubling Psychological Thriller
Review: One of the more absorbing psychological thrillers I've read in a while. Koontz is the master at fast pace storytelling and this book is no exception. The descriptive passages about the various phobias troubling the story's characters left my palms sweating and pulse racing. The only downside was the introduction of the character that resulted in the villian's ultimate downfall. It seemed this character was added as a convenient vehicle to bring the book to a close.
Rating: 
Summary: A great plot idea, though it does suffer somewhat.
Review: Dean Koontz has a hell of an imagination, there's no getting around that. False Memory is a foray into mind-control that will leave you worrying about whether it could really happen. Martie and Dusty Rhodes are a nice young couple living in Southern California. Martie's best friend, Susan, suffers from agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) and Martie helps her by literally forcing Susan out of her apartment and taking her for her therapy sessions. Suddenly Susan reveals that she is being raped at night by her ex-husband, however, even though she locks all doors and windows and even wedges a chair under the door knob he still manages to get in. The clincher is, she has no memory of the attacks and none of the doors or windows have been tampered with. In fact, the chair is still wedged under the door knob. She only knows he's been there from the semen stains he's left behind. From this point strange things begin to happen to Dusty and Martie too. As I said in my title, I think the plot idea is great. Mr. Koontz once did a short story (whose name escapes me) using the same premise and I remember the story being taut and suspenseful. I was hoping we were headed in the same direction with this story too, but it was not to be. For one thing, the book suffers from bloat. It's really too long. It could stand some editing, but what seems to be happening today is major authors no longer get edited. That's too bad. Compared to Koontz's previous "Watchers" or "Lightning" the book is lethargic. Another thing, the villian, though interesting, is almost too over the top. Whenever we're seeing things from the villians point of view it becomes semi-comic which destroys any tension built up from previous scenes. So you never really do get that "This tension is killing me, I can't wait to see what happens" feeling. This book never becomes an "I can't put it down" thriller. Actually, it's quite easy to put down and resume later. Authorial asides. He's doing this more and more. Those little comments about today's culture he keeps throwing into the book. Most are right on target, some are funny, but none of them belong here. Fiction is a suspension of disbelief, an entrance into the author's created world. And every time he throws us one of these tidbits he reminds us we're really reading a book and he's the author. Each time I read one of these I always have the mental image of Mr. Koontz standing there with a smug, "aren't I just too clever" smile on his face. This is jarring and it drains any tension that has been built up. It's also the kind of thing a beginning writer would not be allowed to get away with. The ending. ... Would I recommend this book? I guess so. As I said, the plot idea really is good. Though I did find myself skimming there are some very good scenes in here. The scene where Martie and Dusty are kidnapped by two goons in Santa Fe is really suspenseful and you keep wondering how they're going to get out of this jam. So, there is some good stuff, however, you might want to wait until the paperback comes out so it will cost you less.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy this tape!
Review: I don't care if you're a Koontz lover or a Koontz hater, do not buy this tape. Check it out, if your libray has it, then you can return it immediately. Probably the perfect reader for a writer in love with his own verbiage; Lang is desperatey in love with his own voice. From the affected, not-quite-English accent, to the infuriatingly irritating renditions of women's voices--every single one sounds like a helpless, spineless,whiney, cloying female impersonator, to the inexcusable mis-pronounciations: if Koontz's god-awful writing doesn't drive you round the bend, Lang's voice will. But then again, I obviously dislike Koontz. If you think he's just swell, maybe Lang's just what the Doctor ordered...
Rating:
Summary: Glorified Claptrap
Review: If you're a turnip who's just fallen off your Turnip Truck, and need something to read until it whips round again, this is just the book for you, nay dear reader, everything Koontz has ever written is just for you. If your idea of a good writer is a man who takes a harmless middle class couple, sics a maniac on their tail, bumps off their friends and neighbors, and then has an ultra-violent who's-gonna -survive? shoot out in a ruined building- over and over again, then Koontz is your man. If you think screaming at the protagonists to start using what little brains Koontz allows them, starting around chapter 3 until they start to listen until, oh say , chapter 53, this is your kind of fiction. If you think a good writer sits with a Thesaurus surgically attatched to his fingers so that he can ruffle through it looking for deliberate, alliterative similes, then Koontz is The Man. Koontz obviously regected the very wise admonition: When in doubt throw it out! His philosophy : When in doubt go for verbal gout! Where one contrived simile is plenty, Koontz piles on two more, sometimes adding a fourth just in case, you dear, dumb reader don't get it. And if you think being condescended to by a windbag whose seems to savor his salient senarios rather than truly despise the despicable degenerates he delineates (this is really how he writes folks!) , then step right up. He thinks he's brilliant, he thinks you're stupid, and he writes the way a blowhard practices overwrought speeches in front of a mirror, basking in the overrated mellefluence of his own sonorous voice.
Rating:
Summary: Which Pill Would You Like?
Review: This is a story about brainwashing and mind control. Ahriman, no less, plays a dominant role in the storyline. Well, Dr. Ahriman, a prominent therapist who treats phobias in unconventional ways, not the Ahriman of the Rudolph Steiner and Rosicrucian Schools who holds mankind in bondage by manipulating thoughts and perceptions. Then again, that's the crux of the matter. What is real and what is imaginary? The book pays homage to The Manchurian Candidate and The Matrix -- totally appropriate given the situation the protagonists find themselves in. My only beef is that Koontz' fertile imagination has been shoved way too far into overdrive lately. His stories have begun to go places they don't need to go. The family altercation near the end of the book is totally unnecessary, as is the fruitless trip out of state to find the source of Ahriman's power. These things detract from what could have been a tight, insightful little tale. And his villains are sometimes so deranged, so one-dimensionally evil, that they seem like a parody of Satan himself. Such is the case here. Still, though, like Satan, there's one good thing that can be said about Koontz' incredible imagination -- it's always on the job.
Rating: 
Summary: Scared... Simply scared the hell out of me.
Review: Koontz hooked me with Demon Seed and Tick Tock. Lightning I fell inlove with almost instantly..but this book.. really got me thinking, even more so than Seize the Night or Fear Nothing did. The character, Dr. Ahirman, could not have been done better. This was by far the best vilian I've come across and the one that scared me the most. Stephen King's Pennywise the clown scared me for years. That novel I thought could not be surpassed, but Koontz did so with False Memory, easily. The thought of someone being able to utter a name and recite a simple three line poem.. and being able to make them do whatever they pleased.. was simply horrifying. I can't say the book didn't have any humor. The description of the Lizard Lampton never failed to get a smirk across my features. The simple little peculiarities that define Koontz's novels were present in this one. The doctor's obsession with games, Claudette's evoked eroticism due to a great mind that she saw power in, Skeet's drug dependancy. Koontz's novels make you think, and this one kept me up a few nights in silent ponder. More than a few times I was reluctant to pick up my phone after finishing this book.. And anyone who wasn't.. I salute you.
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