By the Light of the Moon

Rating:
Summary: Desperately seeking plotline...
Review: Well, it has finally happened. Dean Koontz has actually strangled himself on metaphor, adjective, simile, etc etc etc. I paid full price for this turgid paperback and even with the leisure reading time of a cross-country flight, found myself skimming and flipping over pages to find the storyline. You can practically see him typing away, sighing with delight over every flowery, ornate turn of phrase that further obscures the plot. His lumbering try for humor reminds me of a simliar tragic attempt by Robert Ludlum some years back.

I bought this book on the basis of some of Koontz's early works (Watchers, Twilight Eyes) and if this is what he is passing off as literature now, I'm finished.

"By the Light of the Moon" is not even worth a trip to the used bookstore - it went straight into the recycle.

Rating:
Summary: Dean Koontz never ceases to amaze me.
Review: This book was another of his toe curling, stay up all night stories with characters that you really become close to. Dean Koontz is my all time favorite author and this book proved to me again why that is. If you're a fan of mystery, horror, conspiracy, this book and any of Koontz's others are definitley for you.

Rating:
Summary: Metaphorically Speaking, Silly Similes and Raging Rants
Review: Think metaphor - and think LOTS of them - to the point where the writing becomes a rant. And while I mostly agree with some of the social ranting, this just isn't good literature. It becomes tedious and tiresome and absurd - the run on sentences enough to choke a reader. In the past, I found Mr. Koontz' books to have a clever premise, to be thought provoking, and to have an "unable to put down" element. This one I put down quite easily. Actually, Dean Kartoontz seems to be the scary monster that is emerging - too great now for a critical editor that would chop this book in at least half? However ... if you wish to read something that is as tedious as listening in excruciatingly complete detail Grandma's latest surgery and the subsequent ill conceived complications and reverberations and protracted recovery, well, then this might be just the book for you!

Rating:
Summary: Familiar territory
Review: This one will be more enjoyable for new readers of Dean Koontz than longtime fans. While it's suspenseful from the very start, the story never seems to develop into more than a conglomeration of parts from other Koontz novels-one sensitive guy with one autistic brother, one spunky independent woman, dozens of those unstoppable government agents and an evil scientist.

(Of Koontz's last four novels, only "The Face" has been truly memorable. Skip this one and get a copy of "The Face.")

Rating:
Summary: So Bad!
Review: This is the last straw. Koontz has managed to create a work of total rubbish and disappointment that I have come to a decision never to enjoy anything by him again. After feeling a little betrayed by some older works, I read One Door Away From Haven and wondered what had happened to Koontz's style. He seemed to be making an effort to write a way he could not write, trying to impress his readers, trying not to go stale. Well, congratulations. 'By the Light of the Moon' was the worst book yet.

I waited a long time before I read this, but because I had nothing else and it was staring at me from the library shelf, I thought, why not?

I read three chapters and that was enough for me. Dean Koontz needs to take a break from writing for a while and wait to find something he really wants to tell the world about. He has it in him, I know that, but for some reason does not always use it.

This was so bad, that I got the impression Koontz had done it on purpose to see if it would be published. I found myself laughing aloud while reading the book, not because I found it funny, (and does Koontz ever try to make it funny!) but because it was just so terrible. I got the impression Koontz was talking down to his readers.

It started off with a man named Dylan, an artist, buying take out food for he and his mental brother. Koontz litters this section with sly remarks and 'witty' jokes. They simply were not funny. Dylan then is knocked out, tied to a chair, and given some foreign liquid (STUFF!) with a needle. Koontz spends 16 pages on this one scene, detailing with some paragraph long sentences every fleeting thought Dylan has. It was so bad, I read one extraordinarily long sentence out loud (13 lined paragraph, all one sentence,) and had to take 4 breaths to finish it. It rambled on, and on, and on...

The scene is meant to be a little scary. Dylan is being drugged, he's tied up, for God's sake. Koontz himself fails to recognise this and continues with his uselessly unfunny remarks, referring to the mark the needle left behind on Dylan's arm, 'a booboo.' He seems to make light of the situation as if it does not matter much to the story, as if Dylan is not that afraid and is more concerned about what article of laundry is being used as a his gag.

Koontz manages to go into tangents on unrelated subject matter during this scene, completely inappropriate for what is happening. This is a serious situation that is happening to our hero, but Koontz treats it like a joke!

I decided I could not read 431 pages of this, and took my bookmark out.

Terrible, terrible, terrible!!

And by the way, who carries a plant with them across America? I could not have stood that character for another page more. What an annoyance 'Jillian' was.

Koontz either has lost his mind, or is pulling our leg. Well, that was the last straw; goodbye Koontz. If I had to find one highlight about this atrocity of a 'novel' it would be that no character had a remarkable canine friend that we are suppose to care about. The story is not fit for publication. I've read post it notes better than this.

Rating:
Summary: STILL THE KING OF IMAGINATION!
Review: I have read every published novel by Dean Koontz and continue to marvel at the depth of his imagination. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON is no exception, although, initially, it was burdened by labored and esoteric prose--so much so that, for a while, I thought I had ventured into a Toni Morrison novel. As usual, however, this author's wit and remarkable imagination prevailed, and allowed me to connect with the characters, and wonder at their amazing, albeit involuntarily induced, capabilities. The concept of "folding" will never mean the same to me again, and I am "much improved" by this wild experience.

(Read and reviewed March 21, 2003)

Rating:
Summary: Interesting comic book without pictures
Review: This is a page-turner. And that's worth something. By the end it gathers some comic-book traits reminiscent of the legion of superheroes.

A book is all too often a product of its time and culture. This book is so annoyingly "politically correct". When our pc heroes get the upper hand and defeat an evil villain, they are so careful not to harm the evil one. We're taking an opposition to capital punishment to a foolish level when our conscience cries out to us not to harm Hitler, to make sure he doesn't stub his toe while under our supervision. The red-blooded and more natural reaction would be "kick his butt". This bloodless, goody-goody quality is very annoying to me.

Oh no, don't leave the poor bad guy out in the cold. He might freeze his tootsies. Oh gee, that would be too bad wouldn't it. He just killed your mother and father, stupid! That's the sort of namby pamby attitude that annoys me. It is annoying because it is purposely put in there to appeal to the bloodless ones among us who would pedicure Hitler before leading him to his golf prison.

Shifting back to the positive, and this book does deserve a positive review, we get some interesting plot lines. The characters aren't very well developed. They are set pieces. The friendly bear, the wisecracking chick, and a rather cardboard autistic boy.

It's easier to quibble than to praise. So here's another quibble. The entire book can be summed up by its most repeated phrase, with Jilly patiently and lovingly saying to Shep "Come on, sweetie, fold us out of here" while the bullets whiz by and the boy is saying "ice, ice, ice" or "cake".

It reminds me of a He-Man cartoon I once saw. Someone was in deep trouble, the villain was on the doorstep, and He-Man was slowly walking to the rescue. One of my kids had this episode on tape, so I saw it over and over and over. I always yelled out at the screen "Take your time, He-Man!"

Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: Build, build, build. Koontz again demonstrates his uncanny ability to spin a quality yarn. The suspense built at a breakneck speed (literally at 100 mph+ in one scene). My heart raced along with Dylan as he flew down the interstate. Koontz is a master at keeping the reader just outside the margin of understanding without isolating him from the forward movement of the story. This combination makes for a truly exciting read! The ending was rather abrupt for me. While the wrap-up was satisfying, it seemed to move quickly from a black and gray suspense novel to a red, white, and blue comic book ending. It was an unexpected finish with a couple of clever twists, but left me wondering "Why did he end in such a way?"
Of course, what can we expect from the master of suspense?
Keep 'em comin', Mr. Koontz!

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This book is one of Dean Koontz's best. Great characters. Moving and interesting story with a very fast pace. Add in some humor to lighten it up a bit and you've got a fantastic book. A+!!

Rating:
Summary: Buying into the hard to believe
Review: Again, as with many of Koontz books, I started out not buying it and ended up immersed in it. Koontz argues, like Shakespeare, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the common man's philosophy. And he touches on enough mathematical and quantum mechanics aspects so that you are thinking physics not Harry Potter. God's world is indeed complex and wonderful and I am so glad when an author "folds" me out of the everyday.

Those who did not like this book apparently gave up on it too soon, as one is tempted to do during the talks between Jilly and her potted plant, Fred (who mercifully disappeared early in the book). But hanging in is well worth it. I rank this with "From the Corner of His Eye" as one of recent Koontz's best. Here too, there is a lot of love and compassion countering the action and violence.

Also, it takes a writer of Koontz caliber to gracefully use autism as a (believe it or not) fascinating, and even amusing, story vehicle (Nanobots meet Autistic Brother).

Now. On to "The Face".