Review contains spoilers. This novel by Dean Koontz sports a lot of Koontz's usual tropes. Among them are: the good-hearted protagonist that has experienced a loss, the angelic and unrealistically mature child, the unnecessary romance between main characters in the midst of mayhem, the remorseless mad scientist, the cute dog, and the easily predictable horror/sci-fi premise. Reading Koontz is too often like reading a screenplay for a March release Hollywood film--just very little complexity or surprises.That said, this is far from the worst Koontz book I've read. I give it two stars primarily because of two scenes that I thought employed effective visuals--one is at the opening of the book, the other a curious close-call with one of the book's creatures. But there are way too many gaffes to give Midnight any sort of recommendation. From page 104: "Harry stared at the apelike countenance, thought it was leaner and uglier and more fierce and infinitely stranger than the face of an ape." This sort of writing makes me crazy. Infinitely stranger than the face of an ape? That phrase has exactly zero meaning. Or from page 108, when a cry in the distance is described as "shrill yet guttural." Koontz does this kind of thing all the time--he was tall yet short, the sound was loud yet quiet. A good writer can give a description of the uncanny without resorting to nonsense.I need to add something about a serious plot hole as well. The plot of this book has most of the citizens of a small town being changed to so-called "New People" in an experiment of which they are unwilling members. These New People are animalistic in that they live for essentially food and sexual pleasure only. Some of the New People embrace their wildness and go nuts. Others are worried and perplexed about losing their emotions. But none of those that loses their emotions ever ventures outside the community to seek help. Instead, the whole town gets turned over the course of a couple weeks with no one ever saying anything. If I thought my humanity had been stolen by a local mad scientist, I would hope some equally enterprising scientist elsewhere might be able to give it back to me. But what do I know?Finally, one last thing I must bring up. The maudlin concluding scene of the novel is unbearable. The protagonist Sam is bitter at the beginning of the novel because he has had a near death experience and didn't like what he saw on the other side. What horrible thing comes after death that Sam saw, we wonder. Tessa, his love interest, brings Sam around to the life-affirming viewpoint that all Koontz characters are required to hold by the novel's end. The big reveal is that Sam was upset to see that there is an afterlife of some kind--you see, he hated living so much that he was mad that he would keep living. If that isn't the lamest plot point you've across, then God help you. Anyway, now Sam is on-board again with loving being alive, and he and Tessa return to his home where Sam hopes to make amends with his estranged teenage son. How does he do this? In the "touching" final scene, Sam destroys his son's rock n' roll albums. One of the strangest scenes of unintentional satire I have come across.
I got a bad first impression of this book. Nasty, scary, creepy things attack straight out of the gate before the reader even has a chance to get her feet wet, and as I read Koontz for his plots, characters, and philosophical meanderings rather than his horror I almost decided to put it down. But I was glad I stuck with it in the end because it did contain some interesting insights on the human condition. Plot-wise this is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde updated and writ large, or perhaps more accurately The Island of Dr. Moreau brought forward 100 years. Crazy monomaniacal software tycoon starts messing around with what we'd now call nano-bots and using them to create the "New Man," a creature not only stronger, healthier, and generally cooler than mere men but also free from all emotions save fear, which the inventor considered a necessary survival instinct. Oh, and they can also shape-shift at will - rather more rapidly and effectively than their creator had planned. Things start to go wrong when it turns out that a significant percentage of his victims would rather be animals freed from all responsibility than emotionless "higher order" humans. Said creatures proceed to go on a rampage throughout the little town of Moonlight Cove. Add emotionally scarred secret FBI agent, a perky accidental sidekick, an unreasonably optimistic disabled vet, and a highly literate 11 year old and watch the fun unfold! Along the way we also learn that it is his sense of Responsibility that separates man from the animals. But human nature is always trying to dodge said responsibility, and without a strong set of emotional checks and balances, he will find his situation intolerable and do whatever is necessary to free himself from all responsibility - even if that means "degenerating" into a big-screen monster and terrorizing the countryside. This novel is from '89 and therefore the tech already feels seriously dated. But if you can get past this and the occasional cheesiness, the action and suspense is pretty good, and the main characters quite likable. And the philosophy is surprisingly "chewy" for a little escapist horror novel.
What do You think about Midnight (2004)?
I wish I could give this book three-and-a-half stars since it was better than average, but not something I'd go out of my way to recommend. But it's closer to four stars than three, so four it is.For the most part Midnight is a pretty solid horror story. It was written in 1989, so the technology is almost laughably outdated - at least one of the computers is so high-tech that it can boot up without a floppy disk, other computers are described as being "upper end, hard-disk systems", and several moments of tension revolve around the search for a working payphone - but this is hardly a flaw and is actually only noticeable because the rest of the book remains pretty timeless.The characters are generally compelling, likeable, and all-too-human instead of superficially flawed, but there are a few false notes here. 11-year-old Chrissie is an incredible kid, and her disappointment in herself for not being as brave as the heroines in her favourite adventure books (while showing more cool-headedness than I would expect from most adults) touched some maternal part of me very deeply. She's too 'old' for her age, but I didn't mind this in the scenes that were written from her point of view. She's at an age where most kids are starting to think of themselves as more grown-up than they really are, and it makes sense that her perspective reflect that. It becomes a problem, though, when she opens her mouth. Chrissie talks like a kid in a book rather than like an actual kid. "Hey, if they're vegetables, we may be in luck, because maybe they'll eventually be killed off by aphids or tomato worms, since they won't have developed protection against earth pests, just like a few tiny germs killed off the mighty Martians in War of the Worlds," for example. I'm almost willing to believe that she's bright enough to write something like that in her diary, but I don't buy it as dialogue from a frightened child.I also don't buy the antagonist, at all, which is a huge problem. Shaddack is a caricature of The Evil Villain and his backstory, unfortunately, doesn't do anything to fix that. It's difficult to stay invested in a story when you don't quite believe that the bad guy is real.Story-wise, the premise itself is pretty far-fetched, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief quite a lot when reading horror fiction. The only thing that caught me up was the storyline with Tucker and Chrissie's parents. It seemed out of sync with the rest of story somehow, as if it was either tacked on or pared down for the sake of wordcount. I can't say much more without giving too much away, but I found it extremely dissatisfying.Koontz also missed the mark with the last scene in the book, I think. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to feel sorry for the character I sympathized with when I read it. Other than those things, though, Midnight is still a pretty enjoyable read... although I would recommend buying it used or borrowing it from the library.
—Kestaa
Lavender, that's awful that your teacher accused you of cheating. For shame on her. I have had some lousy teachers that made me wonder why they went into teaching.
— Danielle The Book Huntress (Self-Proclaimed Book Ninja)
You might want to start from the beginning if you're gonna read anything by Dean Koontz, and you need to be into the whole "psycho" thing... He makes you think and panic with every page. I recommend you read "Darkfall", which is the book that go me hooked! If you still don't like him, then stop posting, and move onto something else!
—Kathryn
