This book is a hard one to call. I know I didn’t hate it, but it is definitely not one of my favorites. There was so much left open in this book that it was annoying. The first part of the book was great, very scary and riveting. But as the book progressed, there seemed to be more holes and it became dissonant until at the end of the book I felt dissatisfied. 

I didn’t feel that I got to know the characters well, they seemed very one-sided. We got a small glimpse at their past (more for the wife than the husband), but nothing like the depth we usually get. I normally find my self caring for Koontz’s characters as if they are real people and that was just not so with this novel. 

The first part of this book is so good it’s hard for me to not recommend it. But the book as a whole is not one of Koontz’s best.

This is a fun story surrounding a movie star named Channing Manheim (which has to be one of the coolest names I have ever heard) a.k.a. the Face. The story is not about him so much as the people who surround him; his son Aelfric (Fric) who has to learn to live without his famous mother and father because they are too busy to be bothered with their skinny little nobody son. The Face’s head of security is an ex-cop with an over-sized load of emotional baggage. Then you have the man who wants to ruin The Face’s life to bring chaos to the world, who is fittingly named Corky.

These characters mix with a few other colorful people in the story to make a pretty good tale. This novel boils down to the battle between good and evil (as do most Koontz books), but is not without a few twists and turns that make it interesting to read.

Those of you who are fond of poetry will enjoy this book. It has many descriptions of the landscape and themes that make a lot of the book seem as though it should be in verse. I myself am not a big fan of poetry, so I found myself skimming to get to the story. But for those of you who like to get the layout and feel of everything as described by the author, this is the book for you.

Overall, I liked this book, it is not one of my favorites but is definitely worth reading.

This is a sappy tale that you really have to be in the right mood to read. The last time I read this I was in the perfect mood for the book and it was pleasant to read, but this time- not so much. It’s not a great book, but it is a good one.  

There are three main characters; Dylan, a painter who travels around with his autistic brother. Shepard, Dylan’s brother. And Jillian, a stand-up comic (who has to be one of the least funny characters in any Koontz book). Dylan was okay and so was Shepard, but Jillian was a very unlikable character. She was VERY cynical the entire book, mix that with her stupid and unfunny jokes and you have a very unlikable character. I think that this novel would have been much better without her, it would still be sappy, but that’s good every now and then. 

The story itself was fun, the three main characters are injected with mysterious stuff while staying at a hotel. The man who injects them only rambles about how it’s his life’s work and they had better not tell anyone or they would probably be killed. They have no clue was this stuff is or what it will do to them. They start going through some interesting changes as they strive to escape mystery “thugs” who want them dead simply because they were injected. All they want is to find out what was injected into them and find a safe place. It is an appealing story, but as I stated before- would be much better with a different Jillian.

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