Good read by Koontz
Written: Nov 09 '04 (Updated Nov 10 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great plot, thrilling, good characters
Cons: wordy, bad ending
The Bottom Line: It's a good different and interesting book that you can't put down.
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| cobra526's Full Review: Dean R. Koontz - By the Light of the Moon Books |
This is the very first Dean Koontz book I have read. I have mostly stuck to James Patterson. I find Koontz to be more of the supernatural writer compared to others I have read. He reminds me of Stephen King. Very out-there story lines.
The Good Stuff
For the first Koontz book I have read, it was pretty good, not at all what I expected. Having heard what kind of writer Koontz is, I was skeptical. But it was insisted upon me that I read By the Light of the Moon. Koontz is very descriptive, you feel like you have been placed in each scene with his characters. Koontz has a strong writing ability in making the main characters very likable. You truly get to know each character. I like how in some intense parts of the story that he would switch between Jilly, a comedienne, and Dylan, an artist that takes care of his autistic brother Shep. You get what is happening in twisting parts of the story form more than one standpoint.
The Not So Good Stuff
Although I found Koontz to be very descriptive as a good thing, it was also a bad thing. I had to struggle to really follow what he was talking about. He seemed to go off the deep end and start to ramble at points. I think the over wordy sections could have been left out and it still would have made a great book. The ending was lame. After all the exciting things that have happened in the book the ending was not very well thought out at all. It just kind of ended. The end, no more, nothing.
The Characters
You really get to know the characters and like them and hope everything works out for them in the end. You are introduced to Dylan O'Connor, an artist from California. He travels with his younger brother to festivals and what not to sell his art. Shepherd is Dylan's brother. Shep is autistic and comes to find great powers within the story. They are both introduced to Jilly, a comedienne who travels around doing gigs in the Cali/Arizona area. The characters all get along pretty well considering their circumstances. They all react well with Shep too. I can see how it would be hard to write about two people who hardly know each other and they have been shoved together because of a crazy doctor and then have to run away from armed men with an autistic boy who is very set in his ways.
The Plot
Dylan and Shep are traveling and stop at a hotel to rest for the night. Dylan is clubbed in the head and wakes up tied to a chair and he is being injected with some kind of "stuff". Jilly is later injected with the same stuff in the same hotel while she is stopping on her way to a gig. They all meet and run away together after being warned by the crazy doctor that armed men are coming to kill them.
This "stuff", Dylan was told, has a different effect on everyone it is injected to. It can be good or bad. This "stuff", they later find out, is really nanomachines that grow in your brain. Its like have little tiny, can't-been-seen-by-the-naked-eye machines in your head somewhat controlling you. Jilly and Dylan later find out that Shep has been injected too and he has the power to "fold". "Folding" is where Shep can transport them all to another place. However it is hard to get Shep to "fold" sometimes, because he's autistic you have to get him to concentrate long enough.
Jilly has gained the power of seeing the future, sort of. She sees parts of objects that will later begin to make since later in the twisting thrilling parts of the story. She sees objects that are in the place that has something very bad happen in it.
Dylan gains the power of feeling objects and being able to feel the person before him that touched that object. He can then see them and tell things about the person. He later learns how to stop the images from coming, but sometimes he's not that lucky.
At the end they are all folded to a radio hosts house, that Jilly enjoys listening to. They realize he too has been injected. I'll leave out the good part that happens towards the end because I don't want to give anything away. But they all make a plan to wear disguises and change their names so they can't be found and killed because of the injection. And that's about it. Again, the ending could have been a little more well planned.
Conclusion
Overall I think the book was great, wordy at times but the thrilling plot line overcomes that. Koontz's By the Light of the Moon was a great read and I'm anxious to find out what happens at the very end. Hard to read at times, but also very hard to put down. But a big let down when the ending finally approaches. I found myself half-way hoping that Dylan and Jilly hook up, but they don't. No love in this book, just crazy weirdness.
Recommended:
Yes
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cobra526
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Location: Friendswood, TX
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