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Summary: One of Koontz's most profound and shocking novels EVER!
Review: Sole Survior begins with a man, Joe Carpenter, living a dead man's life after losing his family to a catastrophic plane crash (everyone on board dies). A year later he finds that somebody did survive, and from there the tale rockets off. At times you wonder if 'Sole Survivor' will leave you buried in dust: it's so fast-paced, so crisp, so intense, so emotionally profound that you wonder if this is really Koontz writing after all (he usually develops his stories a bit slower). This is by no means a bad thing. Throughout Joe's odyssey to find the truth, you get this uneasiness that you are going into dark waters that maybe you shouldn't enter. You think, am I really ready for the last hundred pages? The reader will ask himself this because there is so much you don't know (who are the people chasing him? How did somebody survive? Why are people dying so strangely? Why is the survivor in hiding?).The last hundred pages are by far the work of a master who has truly hit his optimum peak of story-telling prowess. The revelations are shocking, the prose lucid, the pace unstoppable. You are left both uneasy of the world we live in, yet uplifted because there is something more if we can simply open our hearts, open our minds...
Rating: 
Summary: Annoying male lead,
Review: Sole survivor is the story of Joe Carpenter (an 'average joe' as implied by the name), whose life is shattered when his beloved wife and two children are killed in a plane crash. Joe longs for death and has plans to die until he becomes involved in a conspiracy of life shattering proportions.I listened to the audio version of this book, and found the narrator to be excellent. Koontz starts this novel off brilliantly but I soon grew tired of the character of Joe who I thought was a whiny self-absorbed twit. Sure, I can understand feeling awful after your family dies. But the first two tapes were filled with so much maudlin self pity I grew bored and annoyed with the character instead of sympathetic. I much prefer main characters who do something about their problems, rather than wallow and whine. Joe whines more than any character ever created by Anne Rice. I also felt a bit sermonized to by the 'surprise' revelation at the end, and instead of being surprised, inspired, or lifted up: I thought: "So that's it? So THIS is what the fuss is all about?" Koontz left a few loose ends which makes me think this might not be the last we see of Joe Carpenter. (Unfortunately!). I give this book 3 stars. It wasn't awful, but the whiny male lead needs to be dumped in favor of a character with an actual spine.
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Summary: Engaging, Sneakily Creationist Melodrama
Review: Perhaps those familiar with Koontz know his page-turner suspense novels are intended to slowly sneak up on his readers with creationist polemics, miracles, neo-Jesus characters, and portrayals of scientists as evil. I, ignorant, had to get to page 341 before he came out of the closet as a rather fundamentalist Christian writer, though apparently tolerant and ecumenical. He does throw a few bones to scientific discoveries. After all, even fundamentalists ride in airplanes. But he does so while describing scientists as heartless, spiritually lost, or as villains, who are finding that genetics can't explain genetics. Joe, representing the targets of Koontz's evangelism, is the relucutant, agnostic hero. As readers in Joe's shoes, we are subject to the worst of evangelist wish fulfillment. We are those not quite willing to be infused with Holy Spirit, but they get to infuse us anyway, without our consent, a sort of spiritual rape. Nor will the covers of Sole Survivor give an honest clue that sandwiched between is Miracle Whip, unless you can read this in the too-sincere, good-boy face of Koontz's photograph. It is a sad, too common, betrayal of a religion when its self-portrayal is sneaky, for then one wonders at the real character of what is presented so gloriously. Great, disgusting fun, even if it does shoot itself in the foot. As Lincoln said, paraphrased, when also speaking of a religious polemic, "Them what likes this sort of thing might like this sort of thing."
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Summary: A Good Read but Nothing Deep
Review: SOLE SURVIVOR by Dean Koontz (or Dean R. Koontz if you are a traditionalist) is a book that only those who buy Koontz reflexively or those who have read/heard reviews would buy. The book itself offers no clue as to what might be found inside. But hidden between the covers is a rather entertaining tale. On the anniversary of his family's death in a plane crash a man discovers that he is being watched by some sort of police or government agents. At the family's grave site he meets a strange woman taking pictures of the site and is then interrupted by the watchers. He discovers that they are from a pharmaceutical company and that they have planted a tracer on his car. Slowly he becomes convinced that there was a survivor of the plane crash. He finds evidence that she has visited with the families of other crash victims. But for some strange reason these families wind up committing suicide shortly after her visits. Her visits make them happy and convince them that their loved ones are o-kay. He digs more deeply and finds that a lot of shady things have happened in connection with the crash and its investigation. He is eventually led to the woman who did survive the crash. But unlike the title suggests, there were two survivors. The other was a young girl. He then learns the truth behind their identities. She had worked at a secret genetics lab and the girl was one of the results. The project was trying to code for psychic abilities. They had some success. One was a boy who could take over a person's body. He was the cause of the strange suicides. The other was the girl. This girl was unique. She had an ability to tap into the other side. She was proof of life after death and she could deliver that message in an instant. But there are forces that are out to stop her from spreading the message. The story climaxes with the man protecting the girl and hiding her so that she can grow to full power. This is a good conspiracy story. The evidence builds at a good rate. Unfortunately, as with most stories of this type, there is no real resolution at the end. Instead we know of things that are in motion and what could happen. But since this is supposed to be the real world very little can be done to really alter things. But it is still a good book and one that is hard to find out about.
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Summary: Dean Koontz--Sole Survivor (1997)
Review: Time and time again, Dean Koontz has the uncanny ability to re-invent himself with courageous, outlandish stories that captivate his readers with every riveting page. After brief hiccups with "Winter Moon" and "Icebound", Koontz delivers the strangely gleaming piece "Sole Survivor". Using the incredibly common fear of flight, he reels the audience in with a tale of despair, curiosity, corruption, and hope. The protagonist of "Sole Survivor" is Joe Carpenter, who is still trying to relieve himself from his grief-stricken world a year after the tragic plane accident that took the lives of everyone on board--including his wife and two daughters. He feels he has no reason to live, no purpose to continue, and shows no effort to communicate with others. While paying his respects to his beloved, deceased family at the cemetary, Joe encounters a strange woman named Rose, who claims to have been the sole survivor of the crash. Joe is exasperated by such a claim, but before he can get further answers, Rose vanishes without a trace. The events following his unusual encounter with Rose lead Joe to investigate numerous possibilities--perhaps Rose was not the only survivor on the plane, perhaps his wife and daughter could be alive somewhere, and if they are not alive, why was he spared? As Joe gets closer and closer to the answers, an awful truth becomes more and more clear. "Sole Survivor" is a tense, thought-provoking masterpiece that undoubtedly will be a supreme favorite for fans of not only Koontz, but the genre. Joe's emotions and actions are marvelously rendered in a brilliant web of dialogue, terror, and humor. With yet another tour de force work, Koontz again solidifies himself as a genius of suspense, creating one of his most moving and poignant efforts to date.
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Summary: One of the most suspenseful of Koontz's
Review: Sole Survivor was one of the most suspenseful Koontz books I've read, and I've read them all. Joe Carpenter's wife and two daughters were killed 1 year ago in an airplane crash. He's quit his job, moved and not given any friends his forwarding address...he's in a deep depression trying to cope with his families demise. That's when something strange starts to happen: people appear to be following him, a bizarre lady is at the graves of his family taking a picture and friends of his are committing suicide for no apparent reason. He's in a race against time to figure out why he's being hunted, what this lady has to tell him and how this relates to the fatal plane crash a year prior. One reviewer commented that they did not like the character of Joe, that he was whiny and annoying- for me, Joe was a likeable character and well-developed. I think his feelings of loss were realistic- what do you expect after he just lost his entire family- to have moved on in 1 year's time? I thoroughtly enjoyed Joe's ponderings and the deep-thought that was put into this character and his feelings put into words. There were many sentences and paragraphs that I wanted to take a highlighter too, they seemed so profound. I can't say the same for every Koontz book... I'd recommend this book for Koontz fans. I enjoyed every last bit of this book, up until the ending, which was not as exciting as I expected...but still worthwhile.
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Summary: Not quite what I'm used to from Koontz...
Review: "Sole Survivor" follows the standard Koontz formula throughout the story, but seems to get slightly lost at the end. The ending with its'explanation that explains the story's action seems almost anti-climatic and rushed somehow, as if he came up with it as an afterthought. The story wraps up too quickly and I'm left with unanswered questions, which irks me to no end when I know that no more information toward a resolution is forthcoming. Another disappointment for me was the main character Joe Carpenter, who is one of the weakest I've seen in a Koontz novel in awhile. I found it difficult to symphathize with him, his incessant whining grated on my nerves and made it difficult for me to care what happened to him as the story progresses. All in all, a need to find out exactly what was going on did make "Sole Survivior" difficult to put down, but when it was over it was kind of like Chinese food; not really a bad repast, but disappointingly un(ful)filling.
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Summary: Suspenseful and gripping yes, but
Review: This was a suspenseful and gripping book. It keeps you interested and turning the pages right up until the last 100 or so pages but then it turns strange and sort of fizzles out. Its worth borrowing to read, but I am glad I didn't buy it.
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Summary: One Heck of a Masterful Thriller
Review: Ex-reporter Joe Carpenter has lead a dark and gloomy life since his wife and daughters were killed in a plane crash. A year later he sees a woman taking a picture near his family's grave. She says she's not ready to talk to him, flees and is pursued by two guys with guns. Joe goes to her rescue and finds out she was on that flight. He's shocked to find out not everybody perished and sets out to discover how anyone could have escaped the deadly crash, but there are forces that don't want him to know, forces that are hiding terrifying secrets and will kill anyone who gets in their way. "Sole Survivor" is a five star, thrilling ride that you won't be able to put down. I know, because I couldn't. It's just one heck of a masterful thriller. Reviewed by Stephanie Sane
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Summary: First 4/5 of book AWESOME; then.......?
Review: I have to tell you, this book will not allow you to get up from your chair. It is gripping, thrilling, and leaves your mouth watering for the 'secrets' that we are yearning to find just as much as the protagonist Joe. That is, however, the case for the first 325 out of 400 pages. The last 75 or so pages turn very unbelievable... and leave the reader quite unsatisfied. It's almost anticlimactic. Keep that in mind. You may not mind this if you enjoy science fiction... and it may be worth it simply to read the awesome beginning and middle of the novel. But if you like your endings realistic, exciting, climactic, and at least somewhat believable, I probably would advise you to pass on this one.
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