Krishna
Another Dean Koontz and another exaggerated nothing. This one has an author (who thinks way too highly of his own work as it comes across in the book) Cullen Greenwich who is panned by a famous book critic called Shearman Waxx. Though his agent asks him to let it go, the author’s pride is wounded and he wants to take one look at the critic – encouraged by a tip from the waiter of a restaurant that he frequents. He takes his genius son Milo with him and ends up insulting him with his son’s pee narrowly missing Waxx. Waxx says ‘Doom’.
Of course the author has an ideal wife, ideal marriage, all the right values, love enough for the whole world with sweetness dripping from every pore, and a dog – not a standard issue retriever of most of the books by Koontz but a dog so bursting with intelligent that the author (I mean the hero of the tale, not the author of the book) wonders if it is “just a dog”. There is wisecracking, unexplained scientific mumbo jumbo, unbelievable sequences of the omnipotence of the villain, very corny dialogues after traumatic experiences in a James Bond fashion but way less effective.
The story is weak, the twists totally artificial and not believable. We see teleportation of a dog, time travel etc everything attributed to the genius son Milo; there is the tough as nails wife Penny but sweet; there is the defeatist attitude visible in latter books as to how the world has gone totally corrupt and how the good people can only survive by going incognito and living life as people in witness protection programs do. What happened to the innocent optimism in the face of tough odds that permeated the early novels of Koontz that made them so endearing in spite of the tension and horror?
The twists are weak; suddenly the greatest villain is easily captured and meekly surrenders; the goons protecting him are all away ‘looking for this family’. The story looks like a very half hearted attempt by the author to fill pages and perhaps a deadline for a book.
I would not give it more than a 2/10
— Krishna