Watchers by Dean Koontz is a story about the consequences of genetic engineering. A little bit. Mostly its a creepy horror story of nice people being stalked by horrible things.
Travis Cornell is hiking when he meets a dog. The dog is quite keen to get him away from the woods and he realises they are being stalked by something large and dangerous. They get away and Travis takes the dog home. Later they meet Nora Devon who's being stalked by a sexual predator. The dog convinces Travis they should go to her house at the moment her stalker attacks her, and they are able to save Nora. A relationship develops and they become a family of sorts.
Vince Nasco is a hitman who has been hired to kill several scientists who were working on projects to genetically engineer a super-intelligent dog and a super-soldier baboon. He gets the idea that if he can find the dog he can get a lot of money in ransom for it. So he starts searching for Travis and his family.
National Security are searching for the baboon creature and the creature is searching for the dog, because it hates the dog.
I liked this quite a lot. It's tense, well-paced and compelling. The section at the start with Nora and her assailant is toe-curling. The mystery of what the scientists have been creating is revealed carefully. Characterisation is good, dialogue is good. This is evidence that best-selling pulp fiction can be really well written. It's the third of Dean Koontz's novels that I've read and easily the best. He's a prolific author and that can sometimes mean that some of his books aren't up to the same standard as others. This one though, is definitely worth reading.
If I had a criticism, it would be that the wholesome, god-fearing, family values American ideal is a little heavy-handed. But that is taken in balance with the way that he portrays the creature. To start with it is the stuff of nightmares, a relentless killing machine driven by irrational hate. But over the course of the book we learn how it was created, what was done to it, and how it became aware of what it was and how it experienced the digust of the people who had created it. It's quite heartbreaking and at the end, I cried for the monster. It's an achievement to create a chilling horror story and make your audience empathise with the monster. Highly recommended.
Vince Nasco is a hitman who has been hired to kill several scientists who were working on projects to genetically engineer a super-intelligent dog and a super-soldier baboon. He gets the idea that if he can find the dog he can get a lot of money in ransom for it. So he starts searching for Travis and his family.
National Security are searching for the baboon creature and the creature is searching for the dog, because it hates the dog.
I liked this quite a lot. It's tense, well-paced and compelling. The section at the start with Nora and her assailant is toe-curling. The mystery of what the scientists have been creating is revealed carefully. Characterisation is good, dialogue is good. This is evidence that best-selling pulp fiction can be really well written. It's the third of Dean Koontz's novels that I've read and easily the best. He's a prolific author and that can sometimes mean that some of his books aren't up to the same standard as others. This one though, is definitely worth reading.
If I had a criticism, it would be that the wholesome, god-fearing, family values American ideal is a little heavy-handed. But that is taken in balance with the way that he portrays the creature. To start with it is the stuff of nightmares, a relentless killing machine driven by irrational hate. But over the course of the book we learn how it was created, what was done to it, and how it became aware of what it was and how it experienced the digust of the people who had created it. It's quite heartbreaking and at the end, I cried for the monster. It's an achievement to create a chilling horror story and make your audience empathise with the monster. Highly recommended.
2 comments:
I really like Dean Koontz, but agree that some of his stories are better than others. This one, I think, is really well written.
Yes, I liked it a lot. It's also one of his older novels and I wonder if that makes a difference.
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