Lost Souls (Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein #4)

I gave book 1 and 2 of Dean Koontz\’ Frankenstein series 4 stars. I found them interesting, new and fast paced. I did have some eye rolls, especially at the goofy police partners and what felt like lazy, juvinile writing, but the good out weighed the bad. The friend who had lent me the first two didn\’t have the last 3 books, because he said he thought they were stupid, especially book 3. I thought, they couldn\’t be that bad, but went to my local used book store rather than pay full price, and man am I glad I did. I kept thinking – Koontz couldn\’t really have written these books. Then, I thought, maybe he wrote them years ago, that they are some of his first and in a drawer somewhere. Then, I read a description of a nurse in a white skirted uniform, and I thought I had my answer. My mom and two of my step sisters are nurses, and they wear scrubs. I remember my mom, when I was VERY young, wearing the white uniform in the seventies, but in the last twenty years for sure, all I\’ve ever seen are scrubs. So, I thought I had my answer, they were written YEARS ago when he was newer to writing, and that\’s why they are no where near his current level. Then, there was a reference to something recent, and belw that theory out of the water. Book 3 was terrible, just terrible. A huge let down of a disappointment after books 1 and 2, and it doesn\’t get any better with books 4 and 5. The juvinile writing takes over the whole mess. The cliched characters, their unrealistic dialogue and uncharacteristic actions, the eye rolling descriptions and events just overwhelm any remaining good qualities the last of the series might have had. The new (old) bad guy is supposed to be new and scarier (I think) but he\’s not. The new (old) race is supposed to be bigger and badder and scarier, but they fall far short. They are weaker, easier to kill, more stupid and make MORE mistakes and fall apart faster than the their predicessors. The dialogue is cliched and fake to the point of disbelief – people just don\’t talk like they talk in this book. Rationalization takes on a whole new turn into absurdity with characters going through mental back flips to justify uncharacteristic moves or stupid decisions all for the sake of moving the completely predictable plot. And, the strong, blatant religious overtones really annoyed me. The new race are apparently without souls all because they were grown in a lab, which makes them miserable, which makes them inherantly evil, which makes them undeserving of life, which makes them want to die. Plenty of people believe in a different god, or gods, or no god at all, and that doesn\’t make them inherently evil, it doesn\’t mean they think they have no purpose, no reason to life, so they want to die. And our new villian doesn\’t for a second think or realize there could be anything wrong with his plan, for a brilliant scientist and control freak, he is so completely oblivious, even when he KNOWS something is wrong, he dismisses it as meaningless because his plan, his people, and he himself, is too perfect to fail. Really? I found this rendition of our villian even less interesting and less scary than the previous one. And our hero, the monster himself, is so awesome as to be invincible, killing bad guys with ease – which he never even hesitates once to think or feel bad about because, hey, they were grown in a lab, they aren\’t human, they don\’t have souls, so killing them isn\’t murder at all, right? Even when we are confronted with those of the new race who exibit human characteristics or feelings, we are told they don\’t matter, they don\’t believe in god, they were lab born, and therefore are worth less than bugs and slautering them is as meaningless as burning grass clippings. Now, don\’t get me wrong, I like a good tale of good vs evil where the good guys kick butt and take out the bad guys, but the whole \”you don\’t believe in god and weren\’t born through natural conception, therefore you are not life at all and do not deserve even an fraction of thought or feeling and deserve only to be extinguished\” rather over the top religious lecturing. The points what was stressed wasn\’t that the bad guys were being killed because they were evil beings bent on total destruction of earth, but because they were souless, that they were evil because they were souless and without god. And, Jocko still has his many silly hats with their bells, and he still tumbles and flips and dances. Being short is described more than once as being a disfigurement as well as linked to deminished mental/emotional capacity, as with Jocko, and apparently have the need to be JESTERS complete with a compulsion to wear funny hats with bells encoded in their DNA. A boy with autism is cured with a laying on of hands sort of healing. There is a connection between Erika and a handsome man, that really doesn\’t go anywhere. There are multiple characters, and the book switches from one to the other, sometimes with only a page and a half to a chapter, for no apparent reason then to stretch out an otherwise short and empty and predictable book. Carson and Michael are just as annoying and silly in their banter as ever. NOT funny. NOT interesting. NOT sympathetic. NOT professional or particularly effective in the least. Books 3 thru 5 were painful to read, just painful. I went from sighs to eye rolls to wincing to snorting in disgust. My review sounds rather snarky and sarcastic, but inside, I am truly just greatly disappointed. I have enjoyed a good number of Koontz\’s books, but not these.

Once again Mr. Koontz has delivered a novel of substance. Lost Souls has everything that makes an entertaining yarn. Horror, rage, madness, & above all the indomitable power & perseverance of the human spirit. If things are truly darkest before the dawn then the town of Rainbow Falls, Montana is in for one hell of a fight in the series finale. I was impressed with both heroes and villains within the novel. Both sets came off the page for me as a reader. I heartily recommend this Frankenstein series for all lovers of Mary Shellys\’ classic.

I haven\’t yet read book 5 in this series, but will be doing so shortly, but I basically felt that Lost Souls was nothing more than a 380 page build up to what will hopefully be the interesting part of the story in book 5. In fact, I don\’t really feel like this book was really building up to much of anything, other than the last 30 pages or so. Several new characters seems to occupy most of the pages in this book, with Carson, Michael and Deucalion being an afterthought for the better part of this novel. I found that to be rather disappointing. As others have pointed out, just lots of witty banter back and forth, which ends up getting old before long and does nothing at all to advance the plot of the book. How many chapters need to be dedicated to Lyss telling Nummy (what kind of name is that?) how stupid he is? I liked the first 3 books in the Frankenstein series so I went ahead and bought the last two, but was sorely disappointed in book 4. Especially since I paid $10 for this book, which is elongated in height just a bit (compared to standard size paperbacks) to apparently justify the higher cover price. But I will read book 5 to see the series through, and sure hope it\’s more interesting. After reading Lost Souls, I would say that it would have been better to end the series after book 3, rather than having a Victor clone recreating his own army. At this point in the series, it feels like we are just recycling the same story we got in books 1-3. The story feels forced and thin at this point.

… I had just finished ranting about a book with a cliffhanger ending when I took delivery of the eagerly awaited fourth novel in Dean Koontz\’s Frankenstein series. The book was great, it brought together all the characters we\’ve come to know and love and threw them straight into another adventure and then….. stopped. Not even a cliffhanger, it just stopped. This wouldn\’t be so bad if the next installment was coming out in the next few weeks, but NO, we have to wait until JANUARY! If it\’s anything like past novels in this series, we\’ll be kept waiting a lot longer than that too. It feels like a cheap trick to keep people buying the books and writers should be above that. Each tale should be complete in itself, even if it is part of a series. I suspect parts 4 & 5 were meant to be one book, and the publishers have done this to keep the cash coming in, this book has the usual number of pages, but REALLY big print to take up some space. It\’s not on, and hence only 3 stars.

Don\’t you just hate it when, after several hundred pages, you find that the story will be continued next year! This is a good introduction (or possibly re-introduction) to the Frankenstein mythos. I thought that the last book (as then) was the weakest of the series, but still pretty good. This one is better but has lots of loose ends which are a bit frustrating (see comment above)so it looks like I\’ll have to keep it around to remind myself what\’s been happening. The best bit about this book is ……………… (to be continued next year!)

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