Phantoms

I find Dean Koontz is best read at-a-pace. I mean that I find parts of his novels tend to slow to a crawl a lot of the time. This didn't happen much, if at all in this novel, however, it did demonstrate one of my pet hates, namely that the all-powerful 'SCIENCE' takes on and not only beats the ancient evil life-form that professes to be none other than the devil himself in his various guises but then simply dismisses it as little more than a very old creature that somehow managed to survive millions of years due to it's abilities to be all but unstoppable. Unstoppable that is until the great god 'SCIENCE' comes along with it's super-powers and defeats it within hours(days at most).

No. This was a bit of a cop-out in my opinion. It was show more never completely proved that the creature was not actually a demon, but it was stated quite categorically several times and we were clearly meant to think that that was the case. All this does for me is suck all the mystery and potential horror out of the story and relegate it to the realms of the mundane. I like my horror to be a good deal more creepy and unknowable than simply 'SCIENCE has solved the mystery with it's super-powers'.

So this moved at a fair old pace, which was nice, but it seemed to delight in dismissing an ancient evil as nothing more than a creature that was lucky enough to have avoided 'SCIENCE' for the last few million years.

No idea why this is so highly rated amongst his fans. Of the few Dean Koontz I've read so far, this is the one I would have happily skipped over had I met a review like this one first.

I wouldn't bother if I were you, there are much better Dean Koontz novels to be read. show less

Jenny llega de regreso a Snowfield después de ir por su hermana pequeña tras la muerte de su madre, al llegar al pueblo notan que esta completamente vacío, no hay nadie y solo logran encontrar 3 personas muertas.

Jenny pide ayuda a la policía de un pueblo cercano, pensando que pueda tratarse de alguna epidemia, sin embargo, comienzan a pasar cosas extrañas y escalofriantes.

Un libro que si bien es de terror, lo que mas tiene es un suspense prolongado durante toda la historia, simplemente te mantiene al filo todo el tiempo.

El autor nos da pincelazos de terror aquí y allá, pero durante todo el tiempo estamos exactamente igual que los protagonistas, con el miedo constante de que en cualquier momento cualquier cosa puede suceder.

Un show more libro que no da tregua, una historia perfectamente bien manejada y narrada, trepidante, personajes bien definidos, imposible no empatizar con ellos o con la historia, vives con ellos su miedo, sus dudas, su terror, el desenlace nada precipitado, bien argumentado, creíble incluso y además nos entrega a los lectores escépticos una explicación posible, aunque en el fondo sabemos que es maldad pura y dura.

Un excelente libro, muy recomendable para aquellos que aman el genero show less

If there is a person out there that would not find this book eerie, I'd be surprised.

Koontz writes fiercely here, keeping the sentences devoid of overabundant words and pretty phrases. Instead he just delivers the goods, action from page one. His writing style is not overdrawn, but instead is kept minimal to complement the story alone.

The villain is frightening, complex, and powerful. There's enough imagination and depth to it that it stays with you after the last page has been closed. Supporting characters seem real and are easy to care about. They don't chase their tails attempting daring, stupid moves, but instead seem to be genuinely driven. There are slight cliches here and there in terms of characterization, but only obvious show more cliches where they deserve (and are expected) to be, nothing cheap.

This is one of those books where if you're reading through it, it's hard to imagine how on earth the strings can be tied together to make sense at the end, but somehow Koontz accomplishes this. It's all wrapped up in a satisfying way, and the road on which I traveled to get there was exquisite. The plot is as complex as its villain, each character keeping it flowing instead of weighting it down, the heart and soul of the novel always kept alive by a steady supply of imagination and intrigue.

Filled to the top with suspense, horrid imagery, truly bizarre and horrifying deaths, gory details, a pure mystery, science and intelligence, well-drawn out fear and even small glimpses of hope, this is a horror book that EVERY horror reader owes it to themselves to read. Koontz really made a name for himself, and this is one of the works that accomplished that feat. show less

"En este pueblo esta pasando algo condenadamente extraño, algo con lo que nadie se ha encontrado antes"

Conocí este libro gracias a que pedí que alguien me recomendara un libro que fuera aterrador, y vaya que para esa recomendación este libro funcionó, pero vamos ¿Qué tan fácil es lograr que un libro me de miedo? Muy sencillo, dame suficientes argumentos para que crea que puede pasar. No importa sí me estas diciendo que cerdos zombies voladores están atacando Suiza, hazme creer que puede pasar con una ambientación atrapante, con personajes que conecte o (con lo que este libro lo logró) argumentos reales que encajen con lo que esta sucediendo.

Podría hablar de los policias,investigadores y las hermanas, pero son personajes show more antagonistas (sí, se que todos aparecen y son relevantes a la historia, pero eso no los hace protagonistas) el verdadero punto central de la historia es el "villano" (es díficil llamarlo así, aunque no suena adecuado) ese ser hecho maldad pura, reflejo de la naturaleza humana, complejo, atrayente y parece que un tanto bromista. Él crea y lleva la historia, hace que todos los personajes vean su suerte y OMG es aterrador (históricamente aterrador), omnipotente y omnipresente por eso se me hizo muy fácil la manera en que lo derrotaron, pero sus últimas palabras fueron geniales, su naturaleza no cambio sólo se degenero más, las muertes muy buenas y muy adecuadas, las apariciones mostraban la naturaleza de cada persona....en fin, tiene varias cosas bien, pero son alrededor del mal y no de los héroes.

Por momentos es fácil de leer, pero en otros se hace un tanto repetitivo y aburrido, un poco desesperante la reiteración de una misma idea o sinonimos de la misma palabra en un renglos, pero no se sí eso se deba al autor o al traductor, el romance se me hizó fuera de lugar y las últimas páginas se me hicieron meh pero para esto ya están fuera del pueblo, así que puedo hacer como que no estaban ahí.

"Estamos tratando con lo desconocido, y lo desconocido abarca todas nuestras pesadillas" show less

This book shows both what I love and hate about Koontz. Great premises, but crappy endings.

For the first 70 pages or so he had me hooked. A town suddenly empty of people; Marie Celeste like food still hot on the stoves. A woman and her young sister, alone, with "something" creeping around. So far, so creepy, and I was loving it.

I was still with him when the cops turned up... but when the "creature" turned out to be a huge, almost omnipotent amoeba, he lost me. I stuck with it through to the end, but I had ceased to care about what happened to the characters by then.

A missed opportunity. It could have been so much better.

A fast-paced thriller emblematic of 1980s horror fiction. The cast of protagonists are standard fare but the story is carried by its mysterious and creatively-developed villain.

When Jenny, a doctor, arrives in her small town of about 500 people with her much younger sister Lisa, to whom Jenny is now guardian, the place is still like nothing she’s ever experienced. When they arrive at home, they find her housekeeper on the kitchen floor, dead. The phone is not working, so they head next door to use the neighbour’s phone to call the police, but the neighbours are no where to be found. And no working phone. Jenny and Lisa investigate a bit further to find people either missing or dead.

I really liked this one. A bit creepy to be reading by myself after dark, but isn’t that what horror is for!? The author has a note at the end about the writing of the book, which was also interesting.