Dean Koontz is a New York Times best selling author and he decided to write his own version of Frankenstein in 5 separate books. I read them all ravenously. The first 3 were especially good. At the time, I was so engrained in the old black and while movie versions that I didn’t really think I would be able to transition to a new science fiction aspect, but I did.
Book 1: Prodigal Son (2005)
Before the first chapter, he starts out with FIRST… he wrote a 60 minute TV series pilot but during the planning of this endeavor things changed and Dean backed out. They were changing his vision. In addition, the first 2 books were co-written and Dean says he saw “another character flaw in himself: I’m not able to collaborate. I have sat alone at the keyboard for so many years that alone is the only way I know how to do this.” So now, here we go:
Chapter 1: ” Deucalion seldom slept, but when he did, he dreamed. Every dream was a nightmare. None frightened him. He was the spawn of nightmares, after all; and he had been toughened by a life of terror.” Here is our monster and finally, he has a name!! Deucalion! I’ve been waiting for a name in all of my Frankie blogging. Thanks Dean!
This is a powerful reworking of the original by Mary Shelley filled with mystery, the myth, the terror and the magic. The two characters who will throughout the series track him are detective Carson and her partner Michael.
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Book 2: City of Night (2005)
Author’s Note: “As a kid in school, I never got a positive mark in the plays -well- with -others column.”
Chapter 1: “Having come to life in a thunderstorm, touched by some strange lightning that animated rather than incinerated, Deucalion had been born on a night of violence.” Victor Helios (once Frankenstein) had engineered a new race of “humans” to take over the world. Carson and Michael are still on the heels of Helios. What will they do about this new “group of Helios humans?”
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Book 3: Dead and Alive (2009)
Chapter 1: “Little traffic moved on the streets of New Orleans. Many restaurants closed early. For lack of customers, some of the clubs went dark and quiet. A hurricane was transiting the Gulf…” Helios’ benighted creations were spinning out of control. “An ultimate confrontation between damned creature and his mad creator is approaching. Helios has no idea that his original creation has such powers. It was beyond his imagining.”
It was in Book 3 that I started to notice the clever little hints of referrals to lines and such from the original black and white movies. Only those who know those movies would recognize those little lines.
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Book 4: Lost Souls (2010)
“Men do not differ much about what
things they will call evils;
they differ enormously about what evils
they will call excusable.”
~~G. K. Chesterton
Chapter 1: From time to time, Deucalion heard sounds from unknown origins but he felt no anxiety. “He carried no weapon because he feared nothing in the forest, nothing in the night, nothing on Earth.” The war of humanity had begun. Intruders were invading homes and assuming identities. Deucalion saw his maker die in New Orleans two years before yet intuition told him differently. Detective Carson and Michael are working with Deucalion, and Victor’s engineered wife, Erika 5, to overthrow Victor’s army of intruders.
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Book 5: The Dead Town (2011)
“Men can always be blind to anything so long
as it is big enough. It is so difficult to see the
world in which we live.”
~~G. K. Chesterton
Chapter 1: “Owl-eyed and terrified. Warren Snyder occupied an armchair in his living room. He sat stiff, erect, his hands upturned in his lap. On his left temple a silvery bead gleamed. It was packed with electronics…and had been fired into his brain…he said nothing…as he stared his wife Judy with a similar silver bead and his other wife Judy.” The war against humanity is now raging in Rainbow, Montana. The creatures have been set loose.
This is the last book in the series. How do you think Deucalion, Carson, and Michael will end the war. Or will they?
Koontz is scary, stylish, inspiring, sharp, and comical. He is a mastermind of suspense. If this interests your reading desires, check it out. I must say that the first 3 were fantastic and I couldn’t s top reading, but I had to read the last 2 to find out what happened!!
Dean Koontz
You’ve gotta wonder about minds like his……
Frankenweenie
Book and Movie Therapy 