By the Light of the Moon

Rating:
Summary: So-So Koontz
Review: The first couple of chapters are hard to deal with. Unecessary character development and detail almost made me stop reading this book.

But, hold on, it gets good. Dylan and his autistic brother Shep are injected with a mystery substance that unleashes some pretty amazing powers. At the same time, in the same place, comedienne Jillian is attacked and injected with the same substance. The three band together and share their individual experiences caused by the injection. Visions, teleportations and psychic warnings plague the trio throughout a harrowing 24-hour period. Most of the story revolves around them being chased by men-in-black type characters who have one agenda: kill the three of them as quickly as possible.

The end was a bit of a let down, but for the most part, the book was exciting and kept me interested.

Rating:
Summary: No Thanks!
Review: Simple review Not even close to one of Koontz's great,good or even readable novels. Love the author but as usual he didnt tie the ending to the book or even give the ending any time to develop. Also that Jilly charachter not only does she have big issues, she carries around a plant for company that she holds conversation with but i hate her apperance everytime shes in the book i had to skip over her dialouge if she wasnt arguing with Dylan she was saying something that just made me dislike her more. Ive never had a charachter in a book where everytime it was their turn with dialouge i cringed. Koontz what the hell is going on?

Rating:
Summary: Good, with bad pacing.
Review: This book is definately an enjoyable read, but you must be a patient reader who doesn't expect suspense or action in every short chapter. Overall, the plot is well laid out except for the end. However, like many of the new Koontz books, most of the book is dedcated to introducing character's personalities and establishing two of the character's interest in each other. The last 50 pages are where the (short) action and (rushed) conclusion lies.

The characters are relatively static in this book. However introspective Dean projects them to be, they follow a very predicable path of thoughts.

It is easy to see how the plot, characters, and the character's thoughts were heavily influenced by the events of 9/11. This isn't a bad thing, but adds to the static quality of the characters and a trite ending. The ending has more of a Marvel Comics feel than any other Koontz book.

You will be disappointed in this book if you regularly enjoy Koontz's books, and especially if you prefer older Koontz to his newer stories. You might grow tired of his endless metaphors that seem to be inserted just because he is very good and making them. However, it is worth the read, and shouldn't be passed up entirely, but there's no rush :)

Rating:
Summary: Boooring!!!!
Review: I decided to give up after 150 pages of this extremely boring book. If you are looking for fast moving suspense you're out of luck. Characters are engaged in pages upon pages of mindless conversation having nothing to do with the so-called "suspense" theme. On the other hand, if you have trouble sleeping this is better than any sleeping pill. Pure psycho-babble.
Don't be fooled by the "reviews" on the first two pages and don't waste your money on this nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: Very sad
Review: Being a Dean Koontz fan for over 20 years I was very sad to find that I couldn't even get half way though this book!! He has such a great gift for story telling and creating great characters and I liked the characters in this book. There was just too much fluff. The fact that it took Jilly over 5 pages to get her seatbelt on...I could have done it for her!! Very frustrating, very boring and very, very, sad because I doubt I'll ever look forward to reading a Koontz book again.

Rating:
Summary: A good read for a long winter's night
Review: I liked this book all except the ending. It seemed too rushed. Too convienent an ending but the rest of the book was excellent! I'd give it 31/2 only because the stand up comic wasn't as funny as a stand up comic should be, there was no pet besides a plant (which was rather cute), and where the ending lacked the rest of the novel dragged just a bit.

Rating:
Summary: a VERY good story!!
Review: Anyone of Dean Koontz's books are awesome and I recommend anything that he wrote but "By the Light of the Moon" first comes to mind. The story is not only very suspensful but very...deep. It gets better as you read and if you have a night to yourself then please read this book! Get yourself some hot chocolate and a blanket and you're set. :)

Rating:
Summary: Been there, done that far better
Review: While I tend to like Dean Koontz quite a bit, I'm sad to conclude that this book is simply too derivative and too slowly-paced to be considered among his finest efforts. I'd have to rank it among his worst, in fact.

As a tale of scientifically engineered superhumans, _By the Light of the Moon_ is strongly reminiscent of Koontz's earlier (and much superior) novel _Midnight_, with one crippling difference: in _Midnight_, a heroic band of normal humans are on the run from the superhumans, while here, the roles are reversed. As it turns out, pretty much the only way to keep the odds interesting in a battle between human bad guys and superhuman good guys is to make the latter act inexcusably dumb at times. Hundreds if not thousands of sci-fi and fantasy writers before Koontz have been forced to accept this, and Koontz unfortunately fails to find a better solution.

For instance: shouldn't it be a matter of basic intuition that, when on the run from unknown villains who appear to have access to every last piece of information about you that is a matter of public record, the *last* place you want to go in search of refuge (even for a moment) is your primary residence? So, of course, that's precisely what our heroes do. The predictable assault by heavy artillery goes on for 32 pages, which is 32 too many.

Nor do Koontz's fallbacks on cliche end there. Just as Superman has his Kryptonite and Green Lantern has serious issues with the color yellow, the most powerful member of Koontz's heroic trio -- the one who possesses an ability that should be able to get them out of almost any scrape -- suffers from an autistic disorder. Any way you slice it, *far* too many pages of this book are spent on desperate efforts to get poor Shep to snap out of his Rain Man routine and get with the survival program. It's supposed to be suspense, but since we're fairly certain that Koontz isn't about to let Shep's failure to act get any of our heroes killed, it mostly just adds up to tedium as we wait and wait and wait some more, again and again and again, for our autistic hero to step up inevitablely at the last possible moment.

Then, factor in the attempts at humorous dialogue that simply do not work. (Maybe Koontz subconsciously knew this, and that's why he decided to make our heroine an aspiring but so-far unsuccessful comedienne?) Then, factor in the flowery, borderline-pretentious writing style, in which every simile that works is accompanied by a large handful of painful clunkers. Koontz is capable of so much better, and I'd rather he took a five-year sabbatical to rediscover his muse if the alternative is more phoned-in rehashes like this one.

Rating:
Summary: Major disappointment
Review: After having read app. 40 books written by Dean Koontz, I am getting more and more critical and apprehensive of his increasingly flowery style. Just 140 pages into By the Light of the Moon I found myself skipping pages and finally putting it aside with disgust. From now on, Koontz is taken from my buy-on-sight list and I'll never again buy one of his books that involves an intelligent canine or autistic brother, where the action takes place in just 24 hours (and thus begging for the disgusting extended prose and flowerly writing style) or is about a couple of people on the run for unknown persons and unknown reasons. Let alone, novels that include all of the above!!!

Rating:
Summary: Compelled to do Good Deeds Even as the Enemy Closes in
Review: Traveling artist Dylan O'Conner is hit on the head, wakes up bound to a chair in his hotel room as he is being injected with something by a man he cannot see. His autistic brother Shep is working a crossword puzzle, it is dark outside. Standup comedienne Jillian Jackson is grabbed by the Coke machine. She wakes in her motel room right after being injected. She stumbles outside, runs into Dylan and Shep as they are fleeing the scene. She mumbles something about what happened to her and Dylan tells her that he too had been injected.

She is terrified, and he scares her more when he tells her that the evil injector told him that very bad people would soon be after them, that because of what they are carrying in their veins, they will be killed. Jillian's car blows up and several black Suburbans roar into the motel parking lot as the three of ease out the driveway and head for the interstate.

They have been injected with tiny nanobots, minute machines that work miracles in their brains, giving them powers of perception and prediction that make them very dangerous. However it is not so easy for them to get away, because when they perceive a horrible wrong about to be done, they are compelled to right it, no matter the danger, no matter the cost. And every time they help someone, their pursuers seem to find out about it and get ever closer.

As usual, Dean Koontz has written a frightening thriller that not only will keep you reading through the pages, but will educate you about the cutting edge of a science that can have horrible ramifications on our future. A terrific book and a wonderful read.

Reviewed by Stephanie Sane