I don’t know why I bothered to read this. It was attached to my copy of What The Night Knows, as novella prequel to What The Night Knows but meant to be read afterwards. I didn’t like What The Night Knows. I wasn’t going to like a prequel about its horrifying murdering ghost guy, pre-death. But I’m also unable to NOT complete what I’ve started, so I read the damn thing anyway. So, Darkness Under the Sun tells us about Alton Blackwood’s life before he murders a bunch […]
Dean Koontz, I just can’t quit you
This was not a great book. It wasn’t even very good. But it’s Dean Koontz, and you could definitely do worse for a few hours of reading. “He wondered why it was easier to believe in a malevolent spirit than in a benign one. Sometimes it seemed that the human heart, this side of Eden, feared eternal life more than death, light more than darkness, freedom more than surrender.” Detective John Calvino’s entire family was murdered (along with several others) when he was a child. He ended the serial […]
14 year old me would’ve enjoyed this. Current me? Well….not so much.
Written in 1969, The Andromeda Strain put Michael Crichton on the literary map. Not his first novel, this is his first attempt at trying to incorporate science into the thriller genre, and it received a great deal of acclaim upon publication, and has stood the test of time as one of his better known books. And I found it largely uninteresting and dry. I’m not sure when my tastes changed, but there was a period in middle school when I devoured Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, […]
And it’s over
Anyone who’s read the Odd Thomas books should have an idea what’s going to happen in the last novel of the series. Koontz hints at it for seven books, after all. And due to the mythology of these books and Odd’s personal beliefs, and losses over the years, it’s a happier ending than it should be. “Free will,” she agreed, “our greatest gift, the thing that makes life worth living, in spite of all the anguish it brings.” Saint Odd wraps up all the loose ends […]