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kim256's review against another edition
4.0
I found this book to be a little slow but I still enjoyed the story, charcters, and that ending! This was a pretty good series over all.
kesseki's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the series a fair bit, but I thought it devolved into a mess of poorly structured characters as it went on. The returning characters were fine, for the most part, but all of the townspeople just happen to be amazing paragons of virtue. No one pees themselves in terror over the Builders, really, until they are pages away from being killed. I just found the way they were portrayed to be a little hard to swallow. Victor spends the entire thing holed up in his underground base, meditating on how perfect he is with his thumbs up his ass. The final confrontation between Deucalion and his creator was a let-down. I enjoyed the first few novels, and I would welcome more stories about Frankenstein's son if they were a return to previous form, or at least if it felt like there was more thought going into what is meant to be a huge showdown.
colls's review against another edition
3.0
An semi-enjoyable read, and quick to get through. Carson and Michael were rather disappointing. I did like Mr. Lyss & Nummy & found Jocko adorable and disgusting at the same time -- but mostly adorable.
Other than that, I didn't think this series really needed the 4th & 5th books.
Other than that, I didn't think this series really needed the 4th & 5th books.
pat32's review
4.0
Good end to the series, it felt to me that this Frankenstein series would be better off as a tv show.
pglt1177's review against another edition
3.0
I think this was my least favorite of the Frankenstein series. The ending was anti-climatic and (I felt) a bit rushed, like Koontz just was slapping words and sentences on a page. I did like seeing a bit softer side of Deucolion (sp). I wish we had seen more of it throughout the books.
janiedean's review against another edition
2.0
REVIEW FOR THE WHOLE SERIES in this one because I can't be arsed to review separately and I apparently need to talk about this:
Right, so. This series was honestly a minefield to read for a whole lot of reasons and the thing is that I'd have quit if it wasn't for the one absolutely good thing about it, but it also had great potential that according to me went completely wasted, so, without further ado... (this is going to have spoilers, so).
First, one of the glaring issues is that it was obviously split in five books to monetize, but book two/three could have absolutely have been a long one (or maybe the entire first trilogy could have been) and same for four and five... which meant that every other moment even within the same book you'd run into a summary of the situation or a recap of it for people who might have picked the series midway, which made for a lot of unnecessary repetition that could have been avoided just by making it less than five books and honestly meant that I spent books four and five skimming more than I usually do, especially because at that point in the narration you shouldn't need recaps.
Now, that could have been more of a problem if the books weren't technically well-written, in the sense that one of the reasons I managed to finish eventually was that the narration isn't bad at all and it's obvious that Koontz knows his canon, and actually my problem with the wasted potential is that the background groundwork is really good, because the premise is very intriguing, the worldbuilding is very well-done and the characters are actually pretty good all things considered (not counting another glaring issue we'll discuss in a moment), and admittedly especially book four and five were pretty good in drawing in a cast of more characters and giving all of them a personality even if they were minor. And - chief reason I started reading this - I really did like the premise that the former Frankenstein's monster (Decaulion in this version) was unapologetically on the good side and Victor was not and he wasn't presented as a tragic romantic hero. Actually, I stuck to the end because Decaulion was incredibly well-written/fleshed/conceived and he was miles over every other character in these books regardless of other shortcomings...
... Which was, er, the fact that while I usually do not begrudge authors for making their religious affiliation clear in their novels, the blatant in-your-face catholicism that became obvious from book three onwards really was a problem as far as I was concerned, because while I wouldn't write off a book on the basis of 'atheist villain religious hero' or I'd scrap a lot of good literature, in this case the continuous hammering on how Victor was there for the empty atheist materialism that has no respect for God and it went along with a complete lack of morals got old long before book three was done, and then it bled over in the plot and honestly, having a pseudo Holy Spirit being the deus ex machina of the book three ending (where because of that two out of three main characters felt sidelined in retrospective) was already too much, but then the rest of the continuous implications that our heroes would win because God was on their side/that Frankenstein would be punished because God had made Deucalion able to/that Deucalion's end consisted in [spoiler for the ending] never mind that at some point he predicted the future and performed miracles and was the subject of a prophetic dream and basically renamed Jesus... honestly kind of really took my enjoyment out of the ride because it was really too much in-your-face, never mind that at the ending of book three one of the miracles in question consisting in curing a character's autism reaaaally had... let's say extremely unfortunate implications and honestly that kind of was a good part of why I wasn't as engaged with the last two books as I was with the first two and a half.
At the end of it, the entire thing has an extremely interesting premise, some characters that are very well developed (as stated, specifically Deucalion not counting the whole turn-towards-Jesus-stand-in at the end) and it's not badly written at all, and at the end of it plot-wise it doesn't leave you dissatisfied (heck, at least and a couple of the book five subplots were definitely interesting), but in between the fact that it's too drawn out/bloated/made too long on purpose, the proselytism and the lack of sensitivity when concerning the whole 'character with autism gets cured of it and it's presented as a miracle' it was pretty much a letdown on most accounts, which I'm sad to say because I was really ready to like it and the premise sounded like exactly what I wanted to read in a Frankenstein re-imagination but alas it wasn't too be. Too bad because as stated there are some good things in it and it really had potential, but... eventually it didn't live up to it. :(
Right, so. This series was honestly a minefield to read for a whole lot of reasons and the thing is that I'd have quit if it wasn't for the one absolutely good thing about it, but it also had great potential that according to me went completely wasted, so, without further ado... (this is going to have spoilers, so).
First, one of the glaring issues is that it was obviously split in five books to monetize, but book two/three could have absolutely have been a long one (or maybe the entire first trilogy could have been) and same for four and five... which meant that every other moment even within the same book you'd run into a summary of the situation or a recap of it for people who might have picked the series midway, which made for a lot of unnecessary repetition that could have been avoided just by making it less than five books and honestly meant that I spent books four and five skimming more than I usually do, especially because at that point in the narration you shouldn't need recaps.
Now, that could have been more of a problem if the books weren't technically well-written, in the sense that one of the reasons I managed to finish eventually was that the narration isn't bad at all and it's obvious that Koontz knows his canon, and actually my problem with the wasted potential is that the background groundwork is really good, because the premise is very intriguing, the worldbuilding is very well-done and the characters are actually pretty good all things considered (not counting another glaring issue we'll discuss in a moment), and admittedly especially book four and five were pretty good in drawing in a cast of more characters and giving all of them a personality even if they were minor. And - chief reason I started reading this - I really did like the premise that the former Frankenstein's monster (Decaulion in this version) was unapologetically on the good side and Victor was not and he wasn't presented as a tragic romantic hero. Actually, I stuck to the end because Decaulion was incredibly well-written/fleshed/conceived and he was miles over every other character in these books regardless of other shortcomings...
... Which was, er, the fact that while I usually do not begrudge authors for making their religious affiliation clear in their novels, the blatant in-your-face catholicism that became obvious from book three onwards really was a problem as far as I was concerned, because while I wouldn't write off a book on the basis of 'atheist villain religious hero' or I'd scrap a lot of good literature, in this case the continuous hammering on how Victor was there for the empty atheist materialism that has no respect for God and it went along with a complete lack of morals got old long before book three was done, and then it bled over in the plot and honestly, having a pseudo Holy Spirit being the deus ex machina of the book three ending (where because of that two out of three main characters felt sidelined in retrospective) was already too much, but then the rest of the continuous implications that our heroes would win because God was on their side/that Frankenstein would be punished because God had made Deucalion able to/that Deucalion's end consisted in [spoiler for the ending]
Spoiler
basically an assumption in Heaven (!!)At the end of it, the entire thing has an extremely interesting premise, some characters that are very well developed (as stated, specifically Deucalion not counting the whole turn-towards-Jesus-stand-in at the end) and it's not badly written at all, and at the end of it plot-wise it doesn't leave you dissatisfied (heck, at least
Spoiler
everyone is happy at the end and the death toll is pretty much only bad guyssmiley7245's review against another edition
3.0
This was a good conclusion to the series, but it also felt anti-climactic because of how easily the new Victor was killed. I was very happy that Carson and Michael survived and how the Erika-Jocko storyline was handled, but I was not impressed with some of the new characters; they were just unnecessary. Still, overall it was very interesting and I'm glad I read it. But I do not think I will be reading anymore Koontz for a long while; his mind is a creepy place!