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rkking 's review for:
Night Chills
by Dean Koontz, Dean Koontz
The good:
I went into this book blind, not reading the synopsis and instead just acquiring a Dean Koontz book I knew I'd never read before. What I fell into was a neat premise, a small town of characters that I was invested in, and a somewhat plausible thing that would be terrifying if implemented in real life.
The Great:
I've always been fascinated with the history of MK-Ultra and the absolutely horrible experiments the government did on its own people. It's one of those few conspiracies that turned out to be absolutely, undeniably true. This book is an extension of that, creating a villain (group of villains, really. But the one guy is the worst) that is scary as hell when wielding that kind of power over others.
The Not So Great:
Koontz wrote this book in the 70s, and it unfortunately becomes jarring with the often mentions of advancing technology. Allusions to being in the age of the machine, and advancement of computers, while true, seems kind of silly when read today with our EXTREMELY MORE advanced technology since then. If this were adapted into a movie set in today's time then I think it would work very well, but not in the 70s.
Also, some of the bad guys meet their ends in some very abrupt and almost meh ways.
Koontz is often known for being a little formulaic and even 'preachy' in some of his books. Perhaps it was because this is a much earlier one, but I actually found Night Chills to be surprisingly brutal in some scenes. You can just imagine what dark paths that mind control can be used to travel down, and there are a few scenes that Koontz wrote which definitely do not hold back. He pushed the envelope here, not at all fitting into that 'safe' or 'formulaic' state he's otherwise often compared to.
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I went into this book blind, not reading the synopsis and instead just acquiring a Dean Koontz book I knew I'd never read before. What I fell into was a neat premise, a small town of characters that I was invested in, and a somewhat plausible thing that would be terrifying if implemented in real life.
The Great:
I've always been fascinated with the history of MK-Ultra and the absolutely horrible experiments the government did on its own people. It's one of those few conspiracies that turned out to be absolutely, undeniably true. This book is an extension of that, creating a villain (group of villains, really. But the one guy is the worst) that is scary as hell when wielding that kind of power over others.
The Not So Great:
Koontz wrote this book in the 70s, and it unfortunately becomes jarring with the often mentions of advancing technology. Allusions to being in the age of the machine, and advancement of computers, while true, seems kind of silly when read today with our EXTREMELY MORE advanced technology since then. If this were adapted into a movie set in today's time then I think it would work very well, but not in the 70s.
Also, some of the bad guys meet their ends in some very abrupt and almost meh ways.
Koontz is often known for being a little formulaic and even 'preachy' in some of his books. Perhaps it was because this is a much earlier one, but I actually found Night Chills to be surprisingly brutal in some scenes. You can just imagine what dark paths that mind control can be used to travel down, and there are a few scenes that Koontz wrote which definitely do not hold back. He pushed the envelope here, not at all fitting into that 'safe' or 'formulaic' state he's otherwise often compared to.
Join the RK King Readers' Tribe for an exclusive FREE short story, plus inside info, musings, promos and more: RK King Writes