Phantoms

I first read this book back in the days of yore, sometime in the 80s. I have since then read most, if not all, of Mr Koontz's works. This cropped up on kindleunlimited so I stuck not in my library to read later. I try to mix up the genre of novels and it felt like horror story time. I love this book for it's ingenuity and thrill factors. It has a happyish ending, but not for everyone, including the entire town under attack by the devil incarnate. I'd forgotten how intense it was, from start to finish. I recommend this for readers that need a little evil in their lives. I also highly suggest reading the Afterwards written by the author. It gave me a new insight regarding the author and his thoughts on writing this novel over 40 years ago.

When written in 2002, Mr. Koontz was at his older, more supernatural style. He's changed his style somewhat over the past few years. Whether you prefer the old or the new, one thing is certain. Mr. Koontz is one of a select group who can very masterfully weave his tales from his imagination to the reader very successfully. That holds true here. In the very small seasonal hamlet of Snowfield, Dr. Jenny Paige arrives home with her 14 year old sister to find her housekeeper dead; the town utterly silent. Upon further inspection, more bodies show up in unnatural death masks. Jenny gets hold of the local Sheriff's Dept. After their arrival the mystery grows only deeper. We come to find an entity with an ability to change shapes & strike unexpectedly to be at the bottom of the strange goings on. The entity comes to the attention of biochemists & an archeologist later in the story. Where & who will be stricken next is anyone's guess. Has this happened before in other parts of the world through the ages? The characters come to life & become very real to the reader. The reader can easily depict the scenario in the town. The author's descriptions are that good. The antidote for this killer is interesting, as well as a couple of the town's local bad guys. They find a vested interest in the killer. In essence, they have arrived. As much as I liked this novel & the fate awaiting the bad guys, there were two things I was not crazy about. I found too much dialogue spent on the creature's descriptions. At times it seemed to go on ad infinitum. I also found the last few pages did not fit the novel at all. There was a perfect point where Mr. Koontz could have ended this story and ended it very well. Instead he chose to keep going, ending instead with a bit of corn which was more befitting of a romance novel. Quit while you're ahead? Yep. That said, it's still an excellent read which is not to be missed

I couldn't put this book down. A page turner, and very gruesome and terrifying. Definitely a science fiction novel. I agree with other reviews about the writing- there's a ton of grammatical and mechanical errors , not sure why - it made the writing hard to read at times but I still read it because it was a great book

Two sisters are returning to Snowfield California located in a ski area of the mountains. Jenny, the older sister, is a doctor in the small town. When they get there it is strangely quiet. In fact everyone is dead or missing. They have found some mutilated bodies but most of the people and animals are just gone. They are finally able to contact the police from another town to come help them and the government sends in a biological disaster team to assist. The only clue to the murders is the name Timothy Flyte written on a mirror. Timothy is a scholar who wrote a book about The Ancient Enemy who is a mythological creature whose existence is the speculative cause of mass vanishings of life during ancient history. Timothy is summoned to the town and an investigation begins to determine the cause of the deaths and missing people.... This story is one of the creepiest and most spine chilling books I have ever read. Dean Koontz can create some terrifying images in his books and this story is a masterpiece of horror. The Ancient Enemy is a sentient creature of immortal age with supernatural powers of survival and predatory capability. This is one of my favorite books and it is one of the stories that got me addicted to reading Dean Koontz. If you like scary stories then this is the one for you!

The book's premise suggests Dean Koontz wrote it. Then the reader is presented with grammatical, spelling, and technical errors rarely seen from Koontz. Some of the errors might be related to Kindle format conversion. For example: Single quotation marks are used where double quotation marks should be used. Hyphens are placed where no hyphen is needed - a typical sign of AI writing/revision. And words that should begin with ch or cl begin with d. Strangely, many of the words in the book are written in British English which is odd for a story written by a US author and taking place in the US. The technical errors, however, are writer created and not typical of Koontz. Just one example: A revolver is found that has been fired a few times but still has some unspent rounds in the cylinder. The casings from the spent rounds are found in another room, suggesting the revolver was fired in that room because that's where the casings were ejected from the revolver. Koontz is usually on target with firearms but in this case he failed. Revolvers do not automatically eject spent casings. The book is still a fair read, but it reads more like an early work from an unseasoned author.

Dean Koontz is definitely the best author of our time. Perhaps he is not the most famous and not too many books became movies but he is the only writer who can be compared to the greatest classic authors of all the time. Everyone who loves the good literature should read his work.

As a massive fan of reading the horror genre. I was delighted to come across this book by Dean Koontz. His imagination is next to none. Very gripping and gory sci fi. Love it.

This is an amazing book by Dean Koontz. Certainly one of his best by a long way. The majority of his books are good and hugely entertaining. This is one of the best horror stories I have ever read. Jenny Paige, a doctor and her sister Lisa drive back home into the small mountain town of Snowfield in Northern California, to find the entire population has vanished. Vanished, that is, apart from a few mutilated bodies that are lying around, and judging by the expression on their faces, killed before they had time to register what had come to kill them. The build up is so extraordinarily good that I kept expecting it to dwindle out somewhere in the middle. It didn’t. Koontz ability to keep the tension racked up is astonishing; the steadiness of tension and dread never lets up. It’s not just a roller coaster of a read, it’s actually like being on the roller coaster. You know what’s coming next…and yet you don’t….You want to know what’s coming next…and yet you don’t. When midway he introduced more characters, I thought it might just diminish the flow of horror, but even though they are all fundamentally different to the mainstream characters, and have a relatively complex interaction with them, it only served to keep the story alive instead of holding it back. It’s one of his earlier books, written in the days before he had his well know love affair with super intelligent golden dogs - it has mystery, horror, gore, suspense, mythology, quasi religious undertones, science, and also draws on actual mysterious disappearances that have occurred throughout the centuries. It’s definitely up there with my other two favourite Koontz books: the mighty ‘Watchers’ and the soulful ”Odd Thomas’. I have to say I would have liked the ending to be a little different, but that took nothing away from my enjoyment of it. The irony was not lost. If you love a good down to earth horror story and coupled with maybe a few good old down to earth nightmares, then this is for you.

This is the 1st time I have read a book on my tablet, my phone, my computer and my kindle because I had to keep reading to find out what was happening. Excellent read

Spannend. Ich hatte es auf deutsch schon als Jugendlicher mal gelesen und vieles aber wieder vergessen. Jetzt, viele Jahre später, habe ich es auf englisch gelesen und fand es immer noch gut. Entsprechend dem Entstehungsjahr halt etwas technisch überholt was das Setting angeht (kein Handy, kaum Internet etc.) aber es war spannend und kurzweilig. Mir hat es viel Spaß bereitet.