This was one of those books where the number of stars kept growing, the further I got into it. In my mind, it also kind of defies genre description. There is no mistaking that it is horror, horror at its most horrible. But what kind of horror is it?
In many ways, it is a haunted house story. The Pendleton is most definitely “haunted,” but by what? It’s not ghosts. Not exactly. It’s a monster story, as well. There are definitely monsters, but are they machine or organic? Or are they both? It is also a time-travel/inter-dimensional travel story, as the people in the story, along with the dwelling place, a large building that had been converted into luxury condominiums, are transported into a bleak, desolate future where only the aforementioned “monsters” survive.
As this tale unfolds, Dean Koontz spends a great deal of time introducing us to the characters and developing their personalities. It may seem to move somewhat slowly because of this, but once we get into the second part of the book, things begin moving at a much more rapid pace.
The descriptions in the story almost defy imagination. There were times when I found that I was completely unable to even picture what was being described, and when I could, it was most horrible. In fact, I believe the book even describes itself, as one of the characters was struggling to describe what it was that he was seeing.
“It was like the weirdest movie ever, with the biggest special-effects budget in history, directed by James Cameron on methamphetamines and Red Bull.”
I found that to be an amazingly accurate description of what I was reading.
Oh, I almost forgot. This was also a tale of genetic engineering gone horribly wrong. Interspersed between the other chapters, there was a sort of first person narrative from a character known only as “The One.” God-like in nature, eventually we discover that it was not, in fact, God, or even a lesser god, but the result of experimentation inspired by one of the other characters in the story. And the eventual existence of The One was completely dependent on whether that character survived this ordeal. I will leave it at that.
But there was one thing that was said of this particular character, late in the story. A thing that we would all do well to heed.
” . . . you approved by not disapproving.”
TTFN, y’all!
The Constant Reader 