Twilight Eyes
by Dean Koontz
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In this chilling thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz, the carnival is coming to town—and it's like nothing you've ever seen.Slim MacKenzie is no ordinary man. With eyes the color of twilight, he’s been blessed with a psychic gift: premonitions. He’s also been cursed, for Slim can see the monsters hiding among us, feeding on our suffering...
And when Slim joins a traveling carnival seeking sanctuary, what he’ll find is a hunting ground—with humanity as show more the prey. show less
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Review: Twilight Eyes by Dean Koontz. 4.5* 06/14/2022
Dean Koontz has captured my interest once again, He is a great writer and this time he takes the reader down the path of “goblins”. His characters all overwhelmed me in a great way. It’s a story about a drifter; Slim MacKenzie’s comes across a traveling carnival and joins them as they move on. One thing about Slim is he has psychic gift, a curse he was born with. He can see monsters that are hidden among the human society.
Slim sees them as goblins wearing disguises, looking and acting like human beings and he soon finds out that the goblins are everywhere. Koontz horror elements are very effective and it flows smoothly within the context of the story.
Koontz also has a great show more well developed cast of characters. Some are disgusting, frightening, cunning, and harmful and leaves nothing out describing them. Koontz was also very professional with their personalities. show less
Dean Koontz has captured my interest once again, He is a great writer and this time he takes the reader down the path of “goblins”. His characters all overwhelmed me in a great way. It’s a story about a drifter; Slim MacKenzie’s comes across a traveling carnival and joins them as they move on. One thing about Slim is he has psychic gift, a curse he was born with. He can see monsters that are hidden among the human society.
Slim sees them as goblins wearing disguises, looking and acting like human beings and he soon finds out that the goblins are everywhere. Koontz horror elements are very effective and it flows smoothly within the context of the story.
Koontz also has a great show more well developed cast of characters. Some are disgusting, frightening, cunning, and harmful and leaves nothing out describing them. Koontz was also very professional with their personalities. show less
I decided to re-read Twilight Eyes after nearly 20 years. Needless to say, it did not live up to the memory I had maintained in my mind. The carnival setting of the first half of the book always intrigued me in a Bradbury-esque way. However, once Koontz attempts to explain the origins of the goblins and then our two intrepid heroes infiltrate their underground lair to ultimately find the Pentagon's armageddon bunker for beasties, he loses me completely. The pace is pretty quick by Koontz's standards, but such extreme suspension of disbelief is required to accept the goblins' origin theory that you will be hard-pressed to not chuckle. Throw in the usual clunky Koontz similes and you've got an average book at best.
A re-read as part of a book clearance. When I started this, I couldn’t even recall reading it the first time around. The author rarely writes in first person, and perhaps this is why. The idea of someone with a second sight which allows them to see the ‘goblins’ among us starts off well, and overall is a decent book. Alas, it feels as though it goes on too long within a few pages, possibly to the sometimes enjoyable, sometimes eye-glazing descriptions. There are a lot of subtexts to this story of resistance to the evil among us, a perfect analogy of the evil in humans. Too much, perhaps, another of its faults. There’s meaning here that’s ultimately lost in what feels like an overly long book to get the point across. The book show more works as an allegory to human behaviour, particularly in how we treat each other, but doesn’t especially tell us anything new. The book suffers from excess. Well worth reading once, but not to revisit. show less
Là fuori nel buio è incentrato sulle vicende del giovane Slim. Il protagonista, grazie agli Occhi di Crepuscolo, riesce a vedere i demoni, creature mostruose che si celano sotto le sembianze di normali esseri umani. Benedizione, o piuttosto maledizione, questa facoltà paranormale farà sì che Slim non possa trattenersi dal combattere i demoni con ogni mezzo. Ho trovato questo romanzo piuttosto mediocre e deludente. La trama è straordinariamente banale e scialba, in particolare quando si arriva a scoprire l'origine dei demoni. In qualche modo, sembra tutto trito e ritrito, niente di nuovo o originale. Lo stile è la cosa peggiore. Non so se sia colpa del traduttore (occasionalmente trovo traduttori che riescono a rendermi i romanzi show more insopportabili) o sia lo stile di Koontz (questo è il primo suo libro che leggo), fatto sta che l'ho trovato piatto e noioso, per niente adatto ad un romanzo di (presunta) suspance. Sembra quasi che Koontz voglia ricalcare lo stile misurato e puntuale degli scrittori '800, ma fallisce miseramente e uccide qualunque chanche di appassionare il lettore. Per quanto mi riguarda, questo romanzo è da evitare. show less
It's got carnival carnies, a love story, good friends and goblins trying to wipe out humanity--nice read around halloween. This great book and would have been outstanding if only it were a bit shorter and condensed. There's no sequel that I can find, but it makes a fun read on it's own...Koontz did a great job on it.
This is a well written story but it drags. It is kind of a horror book that takes place mostly at a traveling carnival in 1963, but the horror is minimal and the writing just to add nothing to the story is endless.
This is the first book I have read by this author- what, shocking I know- hew has a ton of books but I hope they aren’t all this slow.
This is the first book I have read by this author- what, shocking I know- hew has a ton of books but I hope they aren’t all this slow.
This is my absolute favorite of all of Dean Koontz' books. I first read this about 20 years ago. The story was so intriguing to me. The hideous monsters that could appear in human form. The way the monsters fed on human misery. Great stuff. The story has stayed with me all this time. I have read this book a couple more times, and it always is great.
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Dean Koontz was born on July 9, 1945 in Everett, Pennsylvania. He received a degree in education from Shippensburg State College in 1967. A former high school English teacher as well as a teacher-counselor with the Appalachian Poverty Program, he began writing as a child to escape an ugly home life caused by his alcoholic father. A prolific writer show more at a young age, he had sold a dozen novels by the age of 25. Early in his career, he wrote under numerous pen names including David Axton, Brian Coffey, K. R. Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Richard Paige, and Owen West. He is best known for the books written under his own name, many of which are bestsellers, including Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, The Husband, Odd Hours, 77 Shadow Street, Innocence, The City, Saint Odd, and The Silent Corner. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Twilight Eyes
- Original title
- Twilight Eyes
- Original publication date
- 1985
- People/Characters
- Slim MacKenzie
- Epigraph
- I had thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and
not made them well, for they imitated humanity so abominably
-Shakespeare
Hope is the pillar
that holds up the world.
Hope is the dream
of a waking man.
-Pliny the Elder
I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirm the worth of
life as an end in itself.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. - Dedication
- This book is dedicated to
Tim and Serena Powers
and
Jim and Viki Blaylock
because they are
fellow toilers
in the vineyards
and because
it seems fitting
that such a strange story
... (show all)should be dedicated to
strange people. - First words
- That was the year they murdered our president in Dallas.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)That was the year the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series from the Yankees, and it was the year that Colonel Sanders sold his restaurant chain but it was not the year that our secret war with the goblins ended.
- Publisher's editor
- Zavisa, Christopher
- Original language
- English US
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.54
- Canonical LCC
- PS3561.O55
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