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Summary: By the Light of the Moon
Review: I love Koontz! I have read all of his books but this one was just a huge disappointment. It dragged on and on and I was so glad to reach the end. This is not an example of the Koontz I remember.
Rating: 
Summary: Dean Koontz Triumphs Again
Review: I've just finished reading By The Light of the Moon, and I am convinced it is his best book since The Bad Place. It has all the elements Koontz is known for using; the protagonist thrown into an unknown situation and forced to flee for his life; the sinister pursuers from an unknown source with intent to kill; and the extra little science-fictiony twist that subtly shifts the action from the realm of a simple thriller to the realm of the fantastic. This is Koontz at his best!
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Summary: Well worth it.
Review: After his last book where, if memory serves, dogs ended up being spiritual beings, I had some hesitancy about buying this book expecting maybe more of the same. I'm glad I bought it. It was short and to the point and kept me turning the pages to the very end. I found that the actual cause for the protaganists flight was less important than the continous action and excitement generated by their flight from the "bad guys" and the final outcome. Of course it's obvious that a sequel is in the offing. I'd buy it.Chuck Bollinger
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Summary: Dean Koontz just keeps on rolling
Review: I really think the past few books that Dean Koontz has written have been his best, this one is really good as well. There is no dog in this book but we get all of what we love about Dean Koontz and what makes him one of the best there is today. I have read 38 of his books and not one has been dull, he is really great!!
Rating:
Summary: Major disappointment
Review: In "By the Light of the Moon", Dean Koontz violates Elmore Leonard's rule of writing #10---"Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." There is a lot that can easily be skipped. Once you strip away the redundancies and verboseness, you will find a pretty suspenseful cat and mouse thriller. However, you must abandon 100% of your disbelief. The plot is at its most interesting when the focus is on the nanotechnology computers. Two of the three protagonists are almost interesting, but the autistic brother is truly tedious. The villains are evil and easy to dislike. For true Koontz fans only---and some of them may have a problem with this one.
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Summary: Strangers in the Night
Review: Dean Koontz has a recipe, and has once again applied it for our reading pleasure. Take two strangers, both loners who realize that their lives are far from complete, but who are coping pretty well. One or both of them have some sort of dependent who relies on them completely. Apply some sort of strange person or being who threatens them. Mix them together under conditions that require they flee together from unknown or not understood terrors. Stir in encounters with people who need help, which the couple individually or together can and do provide. In the end, serve up with justice for the bad guys and at least the potential for happy every after for the couple. Using this tried and true recipe, Koontz has cooked up another savory dish for us in By the Light of the Moon.
Dylan O'Connor is an artist, who travels around and sells his landscapes at art shows. He cares for Shep, his autistic brother, who travels with him. They are orphans, whose father was a suicide while they were adolescents and whose mother was murdered by a burglar five years later. Jillian Jackson is a standup comic waiting for her big break while traveling the western club circuit in her vintage Coup de Ville and her sole companion, a potted plant named Fred. They happen to be staying overnight in the same Arizona motel when a stranger knocks Dylan on the head and injects him with some strange serum. He tells Dylan that people are chasing him and will kill him when he is caught. Since he doesn't want his life's work to be lost, he has injected Dylan with the results of his research, and warns Dylan that the people chasing him will also kill Dylan if they figure out he has received the serum. He also tells Dylan that the psychotropic 'stuff' he has given him does something different to everyone, with an effect that is '...interesting, frequently astonishing, and sometimes positive.' With that he leaves Dylan, bumps into Jillian and injects her on the spur of the moment, and then takes off in Jillian's car. As she pursues, Dylan is preparing to run, and then bad guys arrive and Jillian's caddy explodes. Fleeing together, they begin to experience the effects of the 'stuff' (and come to find out Shep was injected as well) and begin their strange journey. And it is an exciting one.
Rating: 
Summary: good
Review: It's newer Koontz and not close to his best but a light and fun read anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Much Light Under This Moon
Review: I had just finished reading "Prey" by Michael Crichton when I pulled this latest work by Dean Koontz off the bookshelf. So, the last thing I expected was another tale of nanotechnology gone awry. Crichton provides some hard science to back up his premise, but that kind of background is sorely lacking here. Don't get me wrong, I like Dean Koontz. Few writers of this genre can write so eloquently about people you can care about. But the characters here are stereotypical of Koontz characters from earlier novels. Dylan, the too-good-to-be-true travelling artist and Jillian Jackson, on the road comedienne, meld together like other characters from Koontz novels gone by. The only thing missing is a dog. But, then again, Dylan's autistic brother, who is a main player by the way, is even named Shep. All three are injected with a serum by a total stranger while staying at a motel in Arizona. The serum will affect their lives one way or another. What it appears to do is causes them to be drawn to situations of great peril and allows Shep to develop the ability to "fold" from one place to another. They are also pursued by what amounts to be, according to Koontz, "former Russian Spetznaz or American Delta Force gone bad". The situations are, at times, cartoonist at best. The bad guys who pursue the three heroes, in SUVs no less, are reminiscent of the Low Men in Yellow Coats and their big cars from "Hearts in Atlantis". The "folding" that is introduced, which helps Dylan, Jilly, and Shep get out of some tight spots, reminded me of Scott Bakula and his sidekick Al in "Quantum Leap". Human volunteers would not subject themselves blindly to nanotechnological injections, even if they were prisoners in Mexico, as the villian depicts here. And, please, no one, no matter what kind of whacko they might be, carries a briefcase with a bomb inside with him, just in case he needs to fake his own death. The dialogue is, at times, even worse. Koontz refers to one bad guy as a "human rodent". After folding into the arctic, he later writes that Shep "...returned sans the scientist". Sans? Still, the way this novel ends, it appears as if the ol' Moonlight Club will be back for a sequel. Maybe they'll bring the real Dean Koontz with them next time as well.
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Summary: The most influential popular fiction writer of our time
Review: With this outing, Dean Koontz proves yet again why he is the most influential popular fiction writer of our time. Koontz has a mind that delves deep into the American psyche, and there he deftly engages our greatest questions and our deepest fears in a way that effects change. There is no more dynamic way to influence culture than through a riveting story with three dimensional characters who walk off the page and into our minds, bearing questions and challenges that resonate with our own. Many writers can spin an interesting yarn, but precious few can thrill and influence - yet Koontz is the master of both. There are times when his expansive imagination may prove burdensome to the dullest of minds (he wields simile and metaphor like a master magician wields a deck of cards) but his colorful description never detracts from the plot's through line. I won't slow you down with yet one more synopsis of this powerful story, suffice it to say that injecting the protagonist's arm with "stuff," and forcing him to run for his life with a witty love interest at his side and savant brother in tow makes for a fascinating premise which Koontz rides brilliantly to the climax. Have I said that Koontz is brilliant? As readers, all we can do is hope this storyteller continues to stomach the pain that surely accompanies the birthing of such wonderful if stretching novels. Please, Mr. Koontz, populate the world with more of your stories. May they be fruitful and multiply.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good...
Review: It was pretty good. He's had much better and I have been disappointed with the last few books and their lackluster endings but nonetheless, a good read. Buy the paperback though.
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