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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
Phantoms was a great example of Koontz's suspense writing. He is one of my favorite authors and this book kept me guessing until the end. I like that I couldn't figure out what the antagonist really was and how it was defeated.
Koontz has a habit of using too many characters and jumping between too many viewpoints in a single book. I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and I suspect that the only reason I was able to keep track of the characters is because the narrator did different voices for them—and even then it was difficult. Sometimes he would introduce a character and POV only to kill the character later in that scene (and is was always easy to tell when this was going to happen.) Additionally, the story showed strong similarities to the movie The Thing, and though that may have been purely coincidence, I couldn't stop thinking of that movie the whole time I was reading. Those complaints aside, this was an interesting story, and I particularly liked the ending. It got slow in some parts, but overall, it was worth a read (but not a second read.)
Lapsuuden klassikko!
Karmi edelleen pimeällä luettaessa, mutta heikko suomennos söi kyllä näin vanhempana lukiessa karmivuutta.
Karmi edelleen pimeällä luettaessa, mutta heikko suomennos söi kyllä näin vanhempana lukiessa karmivuutta.
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death
Minor: Child death
Disfruté mucho Phantoms. Una clara influencia para lo que sería después mi serie de horror de supervivencia favorito: Silent Hill. Es mi primer libro de Koontz pero dudo que sea el último.
I wished my questions were answered in the end. :/
The story was great! I loved the "phantoms" and the whole mystery behind them/it throughout most of the book. Koontz also made some very frightening scenes. The month definitely pops into my mind!
This is my first Koontz book and I will be reading more of his work and hopefully they aren't all like this one because I did have some problems with it. Especially towards the end. Why Snowfield? Why were some people left dead and others completely gone?
Did any one else really hate Bryce? I couldn't stand him. I didn't like what he did to Kale in the beginning and his thoughts towards his son at the end!!! He was the only character who got on my nerves. I thought Lisa might get on my nerves but she didn't. She was actually one of my favorites.
Overall a really great read. If you are looking for a scary, Winter read then I recommend this book.
The story was great! I loved the "phantoms" and the whole mystery behind them/it throughout most of the book. Koontz also made some very frightening scenes. The month definitely pops into my mind!
This is my first Koontz book and I will be reading more of his work and hopefully they aren't all like this one because I did have some problems with it. Especially towards the end. Why Snowfield? Why were some people left dead and others completely gone?
Did any one else really hate Bryce? I couldn't stand him. I didn't like what he did to Kale in the beginning and his thoughts towards his son at the end!!! He was the only character who got on my nerves. I thought Lisa might get on my nerves but she didn't. She was actually one of my favorites.
Overall a really great read. If you are looking for a scary, Winter read then I recommend this book.
A twisted variation of The Blob: giving it an ego, a voice, and a talent for shape-shifting. I enjoyed this book which was a nice change remembering that it was made into a movie years ago that ended in disappointment for me.
Standard Dean Koontz horror, nice and easy to read, nothing shocking at all really. The idea with this story was good, it just lacks something to make it more memorable. As an author he has got a lot better in recent years.
This was my first experience with Koontz, and I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised. He gets touted as being a bit (well, a lot) of a hack, but this book was really fun (if not exactly high literature). It's scary, the characters are, for the most part, interesting, and it definitely kept me reading.
I think this book's biggest downfall is that there's a lot going on that doesn't really need to be there. Like the UFO guys, they serve literally no purpose at all. I can kind of understand why Copperfield's group in general needed to be there, but the UFO guys are pretty much just there to say "this might be UFOs," a theory that doesn't go any further, and then that's it for them. I also didn't care for the Kale/Gene Terr storyline. Again, it didn't really add anything and it didn't really go anywhere.
I picked this up because I was looking for something a bit like adult R.L. Stine, and I think this fit the bill well! It's scary, but without being excessively gory, and the writing is pretty decent. All in all, I'm definitely not opposed to exploring more of Koontz' novels after this one.
I think this book's biggest downfall is that there's a lot going on that doesn't really need to be there. Like the UFO guys, they serve literally no purpose at all. I can kind of understand why Copperfield's group in general needed to be there, but the UFO guys are pretty much just there to say "this might be UFOs," a theory that doesn't go any further, and then that's it for them. I also didn't care for the Kale/Gene Terr storyline. Again, it didn't really add anything and it didn't really go anywhere.
I picked this up because I was looking for something a bit like adult R.L. Stine, and I think this fit the bill well! It's scary, but without being excessively gory, and the writing is pretty decent. All in all, I'm definitely not opposed to exploring more of Koontz' novels after this one.
I find Dean Koontz is best read at-a-pace. I mean that I find parts of his novels tend to slow to a crawl a lot of the time. This didn't happen much, if at all in this novel, however, it did demonstrate one of my pet hates, namely that the all-powerful 'SCIENCE' takes on and not only beats the ancient evil life-form that professes to be none other than the devil himself in his various guises but then simply dismisses it as little more than a very old creature that somehow managed to survive millions of years due to it's abilities to be all but unstoppable. Unstoppable that is until the great god 'SCIENCE' comes along with it's super-powers and defeats it within hours(days at most).
No. This was a bit of a cop-out in my opinion. It was never completely proved that the creature was not actually a demon, but it was stated quite categorically several times and we were clearly meant to think that that was the case. All this does for me is suck all the mystery and potential horror out of the story and relegate it to the realms of the mundane. I like my horror to be a good deal more creepy and unknowable than simply 'SCIENCE has solved the mystery with it's super-powers'.
So this moved at a fair old pace, which was nice, but it seemed to delight in dismissing an ancient evil as nothing more than a creature that was lucky enough to have avoided 'SCIENCE' for the last few million years.
No idea why this is so highly rated amongst his fans. Of the few Dean Koontz I've read so far, this is the one I would have happily skipped over had I met a review like this one first.
I wouldn't bother if I were you, there are much better Dean Koontz novels to be read.
No. This was a bit of a cop-out in my opinion. It was never completely proved that the creature was not actually a demon, but it was stated quite categorically several times and we were clearly meant to think that that was the case. All this does for me is suck all the mystery and potential horror out of the story and relegate it to the realms of the mundane. I like my horror to be a good deal more creepy and unknowable than simply 'SCIENCE has solved the mystery with it's super-powers'.
So this moved at a fair old pace, which was nice, but it seemed to delight in dismissing an ancient evil as nothing more than a creature that was lucky enough to have avoided 'SCIENCE' for the last few million years.
No idea why this is so highly rated amongst his fans. Of the few Dean Koontz I've read so far, this is the one I would have happily skipped over had I met a review like this one first.
I wouldn't bother if I were you, there are much better Dean Koontz novels to be read.