Fear Nothing

Rating:
Summary: Dean Koontz is a great author
Review: Dean Koontz is one of the best authors I know. If you like books like Steven King or Dean Koontz writes then you will like Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz. The book is about a man named CHristopher Snow that has a condition where he is very vulnerable to light. I gave this book four stars because although it was very good, it took me a little while to get into it because of the way Dean Koontz explains things in complete detail.

Rating:
Summary: Sleeping With The Lights On
Review: Fear Nothing was an explosive fast paced thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the story. This was the first novel that I have read by Dean Koontz but I can defiantly say that it will not be my last. One of the big reasons that I enjoyed reading this novel was because of the way that Dean Koontz describes every scene. Every small detail seems to be written causing you to think twice before you turn off the light and retire for the evening. I am looking forward to reading other novels written by Dean Koontz. I would recomend this book to anyone who enyjoys mystery type thrillers. I gave Fear Nothing a 5 out of 5 stars. ENJOY!

Rating:
Summary: Beware the monkeys!
Review: Fear Nothing is a horror book of the the 'science gone awry' variety. Christopher Snow, has a rare skin condition (XP), which makes him extremely sensitive to light. Because of this condition, Chris is isolated from his community. After Chris' father dies, Chris' visit to the local hospital reveals some unsavory things about his town and leaves Chris wondering just what REALLY happened to his father.

Partnered with his dog Orson, Chris and his four-legged companion struggle to understand the implications of a series of strange deaths and murders. Along the way, they gather some allies, and are thwarted by humans and a pack of evil super-smart monkeys.

I really enjoyed the scenes with the evil monkeys, and Chris's surfer friend who was funny. I thought the relationship between Chris and his girlfriend was a little unbelievable. Please. Just HOW did Chris meet this woman? On the negative side, I could have done without one scene where an evil character was ranting about how he wanted to sexually abuse women and children. I thought this was unnecessarily graphic and quite excessive.

Overall though, I found this to be a great book! Great characters, and wonderful narration by Keith Szarabajka. An easy five stars.

Rating:
Summary: One of his most lovable characters
Review: Christopher Snow is one of Koontz's most lovable & memorable characters. And that's saying alot because Koontz has written many novels & all with great characters!!

Imagine living with XP, not being able to go into the sunlight. That in itself is a scary thought, leaving you feeling trapped. No imagine someone is trying to kill you.

This is one of Koontz's best books. Go out & get it!

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Koontz! (ok, one of them...)
Review: I absolutely loved Fear Nothing. If you are a Dean Koontz fan, this is a must-read. Fear Nothing employs some of Koontz's usual themes, (vast government consperacy/science experiment gone horribly wrong) but adds to them a sense of humor and a good batch of characters. My favorite character is Orson, the unusually intellegent canine who drinks beer!

If you enjoy this book, you might also want to read the second in the Christopher Snow series, Seize the Night. It isnt quite as good as this one, partially because Orson only plays a small role, but it is definately worth reading. I cant wait until the third book!

Rating:
Summary: I was looking for a horror book, not a horrible one
Review: Starts off with promise. There are some chilling moments, mostly those which harken back to "Shadows" (or whatever his earlier book was), and the protagonist's affliction is interesting, but later the plot assumes ho-hum sci-fi lines, and one learns to skip the first superflous 3 or 4 pages of most chapters.

There is some truly horrible writing here - not horror writing, but - as Koontz's character would write - appallingly atrocious writing. Some samples:

"Thus I came through lampless alleys ... came mentally murmuring the words with which I hoped to tell a convincing story ..."

I particularly loathe the next two:

"I expected the cat ... to reappear, pale paws meeting concrete with feather-on-feather silence"

"... for sheer strangeness, nothing equaled the behavior of this small descendant of tigers."

Yechhhh. Barfff. It's difficult for me to convey the distaste I feel for this ... this ... I give up.

There's much worse, but you get the idea. Too much melodrama is attached to too many details. A lot of the dialogue also fails to ring true, and sounds like some characters are reading from a school play. The hero's dialogue/banter with his friend Bobby and his girl Sasha fall flat. Not too far into the book, you stop caring for the main characters with their artificial dialogue. And you just start skimming to see what happens with the plot, which is ... not much.

One reviewer mentioned the problem of the "perfect" girlfriend character. Once it gets into their playful, lovey-dovey banter, get your airsickness bag ready. Koontz has really pushed the envelope on bad writing here.

Rating:
Summary: Tell him, already!
Review: This is one of those books that annoys. There is a secret in Moonlight Bay. It involves Chris Snow's past, present, and future. Conveniently, he doesn't feel compelled to ask many of those who might enlighten him. Or, when he does ask, the other characters talk around the secret or tell him he doesn't want to know (which he seems to accept). This all seems to be the author's device to maintain this story as a novel instead of novella (or short story). I found it frustrating and hoped for more twist and turns. Instead, it is Chris searching for the answer to the secret and being thwarted by his "I'm too cool to ask" or by those who seem motivated not to tell.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing to Fear in this One
Review: It's not often that I get to sit down with a book anymore, so when I do, I have high expectations of that book going in. I have read several Koontz books in the past and enjoyed each of them, some more than others. I recalled reading that "Fear Nothing" was one of the best. Nothing could be farther from the truth, in my humble opinion. There is more going on in the first three chapters of "Midnight" than there is in this entire book. I mention "Midnight" because I think the plots are very similar, most notably that the citizens of a small town are "changing" in a bad way. The books central character, Christopher Snow, suffers from a rare disease that, pun intended, "keeps him in the dark" most of his life. But it turns out it's not just physical, as he seems to be the only one that is unaware of what is happening in his town. Now, it appears that this entire story is set against an entire evening, which is silly in and of itself. But another strange thing is it does not appear that Snow's disease is intregal to the plot of this book. And what about the supporting characters? Bobby has to be one of the most irksome characters in recent memory. He is far too laid back considering the circumstances and rarely serious about anything. There is also a character who is a pet psychic that adds little to the story other than to make us shake our heads in disbelief. With every book, Koontz appears to be injecting more and more humor into his stories, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But while it worked in "Mr. Murder," it is irritating and cumbersome here. It distracts us from how serious the events are which are occuring around him.

The climax of this story seems like just a small cog in conquering the evil forces and I would almost assume that the evil forces prevail. Many questions are left unanswered and the whole affair simply leaves an unsatisfying taste in your mouth. Perhaps the sequel helps to resolve some questions, but I don't want to waste any more time with these characters.

Rating:
Summary: Keeps you turning the pages (to skip the fluff)
Review: This was the first Koontz book I've read, and it was bad enough that I'm reluctant to gamble on another one. The characters are flat, uninteresting wish-fulfillment cut-outs. The hep-cat surfer dialogue and pop culture references try so hard to be cool I was actually uncomfortable reading some of the dialogue. Flossin, dude. Let's go play my Meredith Brooks record... ok...

Nothing really happens, nothing develops, there is no cause and effect--the book is just a series of loosely-related encounters with horrendous metaphors and painful, self-indulgent asides thrown in to pad out the action scenes. I did a lot of skimming and don't feel my life is the poorer because of it. The only movement that passes for plot in this book is the gradual increase of the main character's knowledge about the town's dark secret--and this increase in understanding only seems to happen because that's how things are supposed to go--you learn more as you get nearer the end of the book.

Characters are unnecessarily cryptic. Why does his father tell Chris to "fear nothing," which has nothing to do with anything, instead of just explaining things to him? Why do the minor characters, steadfast in their duty to reveal just a little bit more of the mystery instead of spilling the beans or actually being helpful to Chris, refer to the changes with the nonsense term "becoming" instead of saying simply "infected" or "mutated" or even "changed"? No reason other than bad, lazy writing.

The book's pitiful pseudo-science boils down to using the word "retrovirus" a few times. Koontz should have gone either further down the path toward fantasy or made more of an effort to shore up the science. The only thing this book has going for it is a troop of evil, intelligent monkeys--a potentially fun anchor that appeals to my fondness for evil, intelligent monkeys, but one that is put to little use in Fear Nothing.

Rating:
Summary: Fear Nothing
Review: The book Fear Nothing is an astonishing read. I would recommend this book to anyone with a great imagination and a strong stomach. I think almost everyone can connect to the setting of this great book, because it is in a normal town on the coast of California. I think I preferred this book over others, because I can get an image of each setting in my head, letting me comprehend the book better. I also liked this book a lot, because it was easy to get a picture of the characters in my head. I like the characters, because they are just like you and me, they think and do things like anyone normal would do. Another reason I like this book is, because it is easy to believe that the events in the book actually happen.