Rating: Summary: Great Book!!! Review: Dean Koontz's new novel goes to the heart of what it means to be good in a time beset by malice. The story of two brothers, Dylan and Shepherd O'Conner, and Jillian Jackson, the traveling companion whom evil chance - or divine design - bestows upon them, BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON unfolds over twenty-four hours as these intrepid souls race to puzzle out a vicious violation committed against them. Dylan, an itinerant artist, has devoted his life to caring for Shep, an autistic whose challenges may lead them to disaster as they traverse perilous paths only steps ahead of deadly pursuers. Jilly now sees nightmares before them, and her visions prove prescient as they move together through darkness and light toward a destiny beyond the realm of imagination.This is a really great novel, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a good read. Also good is steven king's dreamcatcher and Paul Omeziri's Descent into Illusions.
Rating: Summary: Dean does it again! Review: Seems like Dean Koontz has done it again. With By the Light of the Moon Koontz adds another title to a genre he seems to be trying to perfect: That of the seemingly unfinished book. Take From the Corner of His Eye, One Door Away from Heaven and add them to By the Light of the Moon and what do you get? Three novels with insanely long titles that just leave the reader hanging after the last page. After I finished reading Moon I honestly expected there to be an author's note at the end telling me how Koontz wants to spend more time with Dylan, Shep and Jilly. I was extremly disappointed. Never mind the fact that his three protagonists are the most undeveloped characters I've ever read about. Why is it that, even though they are being "pursued" by the men in the suburbans, most of the time you can forget the antagonists even exist. Also, is it just me or does it seem like Koontz has a contract with Ford and needs to promote their SUV line at every opportunity. I don't know, maybe I'm just frustrated waiting for a new Dark Tower or Christopher Snow novel or maybe I'm not old enough to fully grasp the "ambitious exploration of the intricacies of human relationships" by the new "thought-provoking" Dean Koontz
Rating: Summary: Beautifully writen piece of art to inspire your heart...... Review: Dylan O'Connor (an artist), his autistic brother (Shepherd), and Jillian Jackson (a strugling comedic) were injected with some "stuff" by a "mad scientist/doctor". The "stuff" has some fascinating effects either positive or negative or even both. They are merely trying to survive by some mysterious group of people trying to murder them, maybe because they have been effected by this so called "stuff". All characters have an interesting pasts.I'm certainly saying that BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON is worthy of your time. Like koontz says "it is an exercise in pace.", the story moves along as smoothly as waves crashing down a beautiful ocean while the sun is setting down and going to sleep into the deep deep darkness. As all of the koonts novels, characters are lovable and believeble just like the story itself. The way dean koontz word his stories and paragraphs are beautiful and gauranteed to send a little tingle down or maybe up your spine. Koontz is improving book-by-book. Besides thriller, horror, action and all the koonts genre this book is simply funny at times. In BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, koonts shows more of his comedic sight of things and his sense of humor to make the book come alive with every genre you can think off. But also besides entertaining this book also has the deep meanings of human beings and life, like other koontz book, which was profoundly felt by me. This book is packed with tons of beautiful metaphorism and similieness, which sometimes are hard to understand but most of the time just amazing. As many fans would say "sometimes the early koontz is the best koontz", which is true because koontz has changed and his early books are classic and the best. But he has improved in many ways and is one of the best. But sneaky koontz has bunch of tricks up his sleaves and he's gonna spit out more classics in the future to come. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON will be a instant classic and might be one of koontz best work to date. If you are a koontz fan, it is a must read for you. If u like interesting thriller/horror/suspense genre with a little bit of humor sprinkling it is a must read for you. If you want a book that moves fast and is extremely hard to put down then cancel all your plans and read this. If you want to be touched emotionally..read it. Basically everyone should read it...it is a satifying read because as always and once again Dean Koontz makes yet another brilliant entry in the anals of classic suspense. :)
Rating: Summary: An engrossing tale, despite its stretched length Review: Dylan O'Connor and his autistic brother, Shepherd, check into a hotel on their way to one of Dylan's art shows. A seemingly mad doctor randomly picks him --- or so it appears to be --- injects him with some "stuff" and warns him about a group of diabolical folks who will hunt him down to destroy the doctor's "life's work". The "stuff" has some fascinating effects, which are "without exception interesting, frequently astonishing and sometimes positive." Another hotel guest, Jillian Jackson, a standup comedian with a bit of a chip on her shoulder, falls victim to the same insane doctor and the trio hooks up out of necessity. Shortly thereafter, the evil doctor dies in a ball of flame by the hand of the very hunters he warned them about. A wild series of chase scenes spans the following 24 hours, with some skin of your teeth escapes, fingernail chewing scenes and a few pages best read with one eye closed. It is a classic good versus evil story, with flashbacks to a time when Dylan and Shepherd were younger, a time when Shepherd's autism was cemented. Dylan makes some astonishing discoveries about his brother and his feelings for him. While the brothers are enmeshed in their revelations, Jillian has her own demons to deal with. Despite the immediate problem of staying ahead of their pursuers, the three aid each other in tackling the weighty issues of their pasts, plus look to their somewhat questionable futures. The psychotropic drug alters their lives forever and they become a weird variation of American superheroes. It had been a while since I read a Koontz book. If I had any criticism about this one, it would be that he seemed to take more care with his earlier writing. That, or my reading palate has matured. I'm certainly not saying BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON isn't worthy of your time. The story is highly intriguing and moves along at a good clip. And, as usual, the author rounds out his characters with rich personal details. He endows them with believable flaws that make them more charming. Nevertheless, I tend to agree with a fellow who commented on one of Koontz's recent novels when he said that the author must be getting paid by the word. He felt that it was a pretty good 250 to 300-page thriller but, unfortunately, it had taken him 600 pages to write it. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON clocks in at a few pages over 400 and I reiterate that he pens an engrossing tale. He just might have done it quicker. However, since the sole purpose of the book is to entertain, why grouse about a few extra pages? As I said, BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON is a worthy read, despite its stretched length. Koontz fans will gobble this one up. Old-time fans, like me, though, may prefer the days when he was struggling to entertain his reader, not to please his publisher. --- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
Rating: Summary: Talk about your page turner! Review: Wow! Loved this one, people. My "MAIN MAN" Koontz has done it YET again with his newest novel, "By the Light of the Moon." More characters to both love and those we "FANS" love hating! Could this offering be an intro to a new SERIES? Ummm, this fan would certainly love to know. I think the ending is a dead giveaway for those of us who suspect that it is (smile.) Well, at least I hope it is. Can't get enough of this man! (His books, I mean, smile...) FABULOUS STORY!
Rating: Summary: Not very original but gripping Review: The plot in the latest Koontz is sadly quite unoriginal. People experiencing visions, ability to teleport, pyschic powers... all done to [much]. However, the book is riveting, a virtual bullet of suspense that keeps you turning the pages. The characters are excellent too. Altogether, not very orginial, but very entertaining and exciting... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone reading this!
Rating: Summary: Brilliant stuff Review: Ever since the Christopher Snow novels (Fear Nothing and Seize the Night), Dean Koontz has been perfecting his own sub-genre, the spiritual thriller. His work has fully come to fruition in his two latest books, One Door Away from Heaven and By the Light of the Moon. It's interesting to compare the latter with Michael Crichton's Prey. Both deal with nanotechnology. Both are in the thriller genre. That's where the similarity ends. Crichton is a Cassandra. Koontz is a prophet of the good news (not really the Christian gospel, but something very close). The thing that most clearly separates Koontz from Crichton is the former's deep concern for people, especially those who would generally be considered the dregs of society-trailer park denizens, kids with terminal illnesses, dead-end divorcees. These are the people through whom salvation comes, not the scientists, not the theologians, not the cultural arbiters. By the Light of the Moon, perhaps Koontz' most accomplished novel to date, concerns three misfits, Dylan O'Conner and his adult autistic brother, Shep, and Jillian Jackson, a third-rate stand-up comic. These three share a common, albeit bizarre, thread of recent personal history: each has been infected with an unknown substance, administered by a benign-looking although ego-maniacally demented mad scientist, that will either destroy them or endow them with remarkable powers-or perhaps both. They find themselves thrown together and on the run, from mysterious forces who want nothing less that their termination, with extreme prejudice. What happens is a series a serio-comic chase scenes, personal revelations, and general Koontz-inspired mayhem and high jinks, all ending in a remarkable turn-around-is-fair-play denouement, featuring the most memorable minor character, apparent UFO-obsessed radio-talk-show-host Parish Lantern (great name, btw), since Kilgore Trout. By perfecting the relational-friendly spiritual thriller, Koontz has done us all a great service: He has figured out how to insinuate deep messages into the most unlikely set of story circumstances, all the while entertaining our socks off. For that, I believe he has become the most important novelist of his generation. On a personal note, I am the father of an autistic son approximately Shep's age, and I must say I was very moved by Koontz' conception and portrayal of an individual suffering from this condition. My son, Christopher (his name means "Christ-bearer"), is about at the same functioning level, and Koontz has exactly caught the mystery and much of the nuance of autism. Except, perhaps, for the depiction of autism by Dustin Hoffman in "The Rain Man" (based on the son of famous autism researcher, Bernard Rimland), Shep O'Conner is the most accurately rendered fictional autistic character I have seen. Thank you, Dean Koontz, for your quirky, idiosyncratic vision. May it ensue in many more such inspired creations.
Rating: Summary: Not my favourite. Not by a long shot. Review: I have been a fan of Dean Koontz for a long time. Ever since I found a copy of "Watchers" in a second hand shop and bought it on a whim. I loved it straight away and couldn’t put it down. But this is not Watchers. Not by a long shot. I found myself struggling to get to the end, and when I got there I was sorely disappointed -it reminded me of X-men, in the not so good way. The story revolves around Dylan O'Connor and his autistic brother, Step. Who are staying at a motel when a crazed doctor injects them with a strange liquid. From there things only get weirder. The pair meet up with Jillian Jackson, a woman who has also been injected. That's when the strange substance kicks in, giving them all special powers. Dylan gets the urge to help people, Jillian gets strange hallucinations and Step becomes able to teleport through space and time. Together the three of them run around trying to escape from the evil government agencies that are, for some reason, trying to kill them...sounds better than it actually is. If this is your first Dean Koontz novel, I suggest you put it down and go find yourself a copy of "Watchers" or "Lightening." Something worth reading.
Rating: Summary: Very plainly.......... Review: In my humble opinion, it is the worst, or should I write least favorite book I've ever read. Shep this, and Shep that. The novel was extremely irritating to the point I just wanted to pull out the pages and sling it across the room. This is my second Koontz book I've read. The first was "From the Corner of His Eye", which was wonderful. It is on my list of top novels. This book, by my opinion, is garbage. Find out for yourself if you like it or not. I would strongly recommend getting and reading "From the Corner of His Eye" though.
Rating: Summary: Bypass This Book Review: This book does indeed open at full throttle, maximum full speed ahead and to its credit, it does maintain one's interest. Even so, I didn't like this book. I could not abide the character of Silly Jilly, who was a certifiable crackpot. I didn't like her antagonistic snipes at Dylan and demeaning comments about his brother. I really could not stand the way she personified a plant she traveled with and developed an inordinate attachment to it, which resulted in some very bizarre behavior on her part. Plain fact is, I truly disliked Silly Jilly and found her a sickening character. She had a geranium in her cranium and she was a few flowers short of a garden. Talk about a grade-A KOOK!
Set in 2002, Dylan O'Conner, 29 and his severely autistic brother, Shepherd, 20 are on the run after they are injected with a questionable substance. They encounter a crackpot named Jillian ("Jilly") Jackson, a survivor of paternal abuse and a similiar fate involving syringe-wielding thugs.
The three team up on a madcap chase across the Southwestern and West Coast United States. Shep, however, is believable as a character with severe autism. Although Dylan mentions that Shep was at one time diagnosed with Asperger's, which is at the higher-functioning end of the spectrum, Shep's bizarre verbalizations; repetition; slavish devotion to routine all point him further down towards the autistic end of the spectrum.
The brothers have known their share of trauma. Their father is killed in 1987 and their mother is killed on February 12, 1992. Shep's bizarre ability to travel through time ("fold into time") and take others with him on this temporal quest make a rather strange story even more so. The substances the trio has been injected with has endowed them with psychic abilities; they arrive at the scenes of crimes prior to the crimes being committed and saving the innocent. All well and good, but a bit overdone.
The madcap chases of thugs vs. the trio sound straight out of a poorly scripted tv movie. Characters with names such as Parish Lantern seem rather ludicrously written and overdone, which is an obvious literary ploy.
To Koontz' credit, he is able to impart deep and meaningful messages into this story. I am a person who has Asperger's and to Koontz' credit, Shep's behavior is believable and I like the way his sensory perceptions, e.g. aversion to certain sounds and light sensitivity are addressed. That was on the plus side of the book. I am sick of the Rain Man stereotypes that make autistic people sound like droning savants with no social savvy. Shep, however, isn't like that. I take issue with the Rain Man character being applied to people with autism and there are days when I wish that movie had never been made.
Skip this book and read "The Speed of Dark" instead. Elizabeth Moon's character, Lou is a very plausible and appealing character who has Asperger's Syndrome. Elizabeth Moon's book is 100% plus better than this one.
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