Darkfall

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This book starts off creepy...and doesn't stop until the end! I'm not going to give you the entire plot like some reviewers do (God Knows Why) but I will tell you that it will keep you glued until you reach the end! I loved the way Koontz keeps you in suspense, although there are a few parts that are boring. But there aren't many, so just stick with them cause you never know when it's gonna start to get good again!

Rating:
Summary: oooooooscary!
Review: I thought "Darkfall" was good and very fast-paced. It starts when mutilated bodies are showing up in Manhattan. They all are members of, or know, the Carramazza family, a "Godfather" type family, mafia, etc., etc., etc. The police have suspicions of a man named Baba Lavelle. Meanwhile, while Jack Dawson and Rebecca Chandler are investigating the murders, Penny, Jack's daughter, is being terrorized. First, something stalks her in her bedroom. Then her locker is vandalized. Finally, in the basement of her school, thousands of eyes appear and the lights go out. Baba Lavelle is apparently using voodoo to open the Gates Of Hell a crack, to let out demonic creatures that bite and slash. Soon after, Jack, Penny, Rebecca, and Davey, Penny's brother, discover the creatures in Jack's sister-in-law's apartment. The four are pursued until finally, it ends up as Jack trying to close the Gate, his friend Carver just about to be killed by a creature, and Penny, Davey, Rebecca, and a priest are surrounded by hundreds of creatures in a cathedral. Will any of them make it?............Suspenseful and mildly scary, this is a pretty good 1st Dean Koontz novel.

Rating:
Summary: OH BOY, THIS WILL SCARE THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU!!!!!!
Review: This is the creepiest, possibly the scariest book I have ever read. I read this book three years ago and still think about it once in awhile. Remember, there are things under your bed, ready to grab you in the night, thats just the beginning. This book has Demons chasing and murdering people throughout the city! Ugh!! If you want goosebumps and chills, this is the book for you!!

Rating:
Summary: Another winner
Review: Firstly I should state that this is a rehash of a book called Darkness Comes (or vice versa) so if you have read that then there is no point in buying this. If however you haven't read either book then I would advise anyone to buy this book. The plot races along dragging the reader from page to page. As always with Koontz novels you meet some of the warmest, most believable characters in modern day literature. The attention to detail and research that he puts into his books are always time well spent as it lends an air of believability to even the most far fetched scenarios.

Rating:
Summary: Darkfall
Review: This is one of Dean Koontz fast paced thrillers. A must read! I find myself going back and reading this book every year. It gives me chills...still.

Rating:
Summary: Not his best work
Review: Mr.Koontz has done better, but the book isn't really that bad. Basically what you have is a man who is killing people through the practice of voodoo. Those sounds in the ventilation shaft, his little minions. The story was decent but the novel was short, very short. It's almost like the man had a deadline to reach and so he typed out what he could as quickly as possible. If you buy it, don't expect it to be able to hold it's own against some of his other works like Midnight, Watchers, or the servants of twilight.

Rating:
Summary: Childish, Trifling
Review: I've only really gotten into fiction recently, and began with many of Koontz' books. His work dimishes increasingly with each work I read by the Leonards, Mailers, and Steinbacks of the world. However, I wanted some casual reading recently and borrowed Darkfall from a friend. Even by Koontz standards, this was cotton candy. I seriously suspect Koontz mind was elsewhere as he wrote this book - it seems he just whipped something off for a paycheck here.

I had the impression I was reading a second grader's submission to the Scary Story Halloween Contest from the local newspaper. It was like, "there were some scary monsters with shining eyes, and they were bad. And there was a mean man who had some powers, and he was mean to another man. He was a policeman who was nice, and just wanted to be with his family. But the bad man wouldn't let him alone, and so the good man had to fight the bad man because he wasn't so nice. And it was scary..."

Koontz' curdled effort painstakingly bloodlets the hours, minutes, seconds away. The unholy vacuum that is Darkfall is like a black hole that tortously milks the light, one ray at a time, from the soul. The reader's lifeforce dims incrementally with each heart-corroding line. Darkfall's ineptness moves only the waters of bitterness higher, drop by tormenting drop. All expectation bleeds away miserably, yet a tiny pebble of inexplicable hope pricks one's finger to flip another wasted page, and the mind's only thought: "Can there be no God?"

I don't know anything about the man personally, but it would not surprise me to find out that Koontz experimented with painkillers at this time, maybe he strained his back or gave up caffeine, or the playoffs were on the T.V. as he pecked away at the computer. It's really not for me to say. Personally I think he was into the occult at this time of his life, for only a child of darkness could visit this un-hallowed desecration on the sons of men. The "characters" that are excreted onto the pages are inane beyond words. The reader feels only a vehement, increasingly frustrated, indifference for either the protaganist or the "bad man." I was relieved that the book was only 371 pages because I as I came to the end I found myself in my basement, perched on a chair, an extension cord knotted to a ceiling girder, wrapped taut around my neck. I could barely read the pointless words because my eyes wept in frustration. If Koontz had written page 372 I would have leapt.

By then I guess I was just glad to be exhausted, utterly drained. I was drinking a casual glass of wine when I cracked open this fetid pile of pages. As the days wore on, the futility of the work cruelly seeped a despair and rage into my mind. I cried tears of rage. I flung the book across the room at several points, by now having been driven to whiskey I was drunk, I screamed, "YOU SONOFABITCH KOONTZ! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU TO HELL!" I fell sobbing to my knees, and cried into my hands, "God, why have you forsaken me?" But it is a rule I have to always finish a book, no matter what. So I would choked down the last inch of booze, smashed it against the wall, focused every ounce of courage and determination, just scraped up everything that I had, stomped over and fisted the worthless primer, now sprawled meekly on my dirty laundry pile.

I strove valiantly on, it seemed each sentence took a full tortous hour to complete. I found ways to cope. I'd slap my face full force, "Okay, okay, I can do this, I can DO THIS!" I COMPELLED myself to focus all of my awareness on reading the utterly fetid cess of words. This seemed to dull the throbbing in my fist, which I broke punching a hole in the drywall around page 250. And always I sensed Koontz' evil visage staring at me. It took the form of the black and white picture on the back of the book. That deceptive boyish face! The misleading warm oxford and casual open tweed jacket! He laughed at me, and I knew his hands fingered rolls of cash in those Dockers pockets. He smiled derisively at me, at all of the fools who'd paid for this book. He mocks us. HE MOCKS US!

Rating:
Summary: a fall into the dark!
Review: Everybody who knows Dean Konntz knows he can do a lot better. I have read nearly every novel he wrote, and some were real masterpieces. But this one is not: the characters are not really credible, their behavior is unmotivated and the love affair described altogether unrealistic in its motivation and execution. The horror displayed is that of cheap movies and lacks the refined ideas of Koontz other stories. The plot sometimes makes the impression as if the author was asked to fill in some more words. The ending is not an organic one that reflects the main plot, but one that suggests that the author had run out of fantasy when he wrote it. The idea could have been good, but the performance is really bad. I grant two stars, because I know that Dean is much better. everybody is allowed to fail once in a while.

Rating:
Summary: Darkfall Shines Bright!
Review: If I were only allowed to use one word to describe Darkfall ... well it simply could not be done. This has to be one of the best books I've read in a very long time. Dean Koontz not only keeps you captive while reading but he also writes a great chase scene at the end that has you going wild. The setting is just right, as the story takes place in the almost DEAD of winter. Four corpses found scattered around the town. The way Dean writes the murders is so realistic; you could almost feel when the victim breathes his final breath. The two cops in the story (a male and female just like in every other Dean Koontz book) can't figure it out. They have no idea who (or exactly what) is behind the murders. One thing I really enjoy about Dean Koontz' writing is the way he tells a few stories that all come together in the end. Another interesting twist I greatly enjoyed is how the male cop's daughter gets involved. Does she become a victim? I really can't tell you. To tell you the truth, I can not make the book as suspenseful as Dean Koontz writes it, so I'll leave it up to you to read and enjoy. If you like voodoo-related, psychopathic, weird and twisted novels, this one is your calling.

Rating:
Summary: Dude, this is cool stuff man. Dean rules King drools! HAHA!
Review: Let me just say this, I have read a 9 King books...The best one of them all was The Stand...but EVERY King book suffers from bad endings. And the fact that he babbles on about the stupidest non-useful stuff...plus all the sex scenes. I mean, God, what a pervert. So this is why I prefer Koontz over King...any day. I just thing Koontz is a better writer with better ideas. Just because his books arent 1000+ pages long doesnt make them bad. I mean, come on, almost 500 pages was added onto the unctu edition of the Stand and it was ALL USELESS! Anyway, on to the book...I loved this! It's so cool. The story is good, pretty good characters, and I must disagree with some people on here that the dialogue was bad...it wasn't. And you gotta remember, this is an early Koontz book...(well, KIND of early considering he started his writing career in 1969). I really liked this book. The reason I gave it 4 stars was because the ending was a little strange, but its better than any King I've read lately. And secondly, because it never said why LaVelle (the bad guy) chose the children he chose to "go after" with his little mini-me demons. hehe. Good book though.