"By the Light of the Moon" by Dean Koontz

Great premise, same old characters. -- 4-1/2 Stars (Originally written September 6, 2005)

Back when I read books on a regular basis, I was a huge Dean R. Koontz fan. Now that I've returned, I see that Mr. Koontz has dropped the "R," improved his already impressive writing style, and kept the same basic characters types that he's always used. Again, I do consider myself a Koontz fan. When I decided to get back into reading, I made sure to include a couple of Koontz books in my splurge.

"By the Light of the Moon" starts fast and maintains that same pace from start to finish. The fictional science behind the plot is just realistic enough for suspension of disbelief, and the side-effects of the villain's wicked "stuff" are clever and become increasingly inventive as the story moves along. Koontz starts off with your standard, generic, run of the mill "psychic" powers, but then he gets more creative.

The only drawback about this book, and many other Koontz books I've read: The characters. This is NOT to say that they are "two dimensional" or "unbelievable." Taken on their own, they are fine. If this were the ONLY Koontz book you ever read, you would have no idea that this is his short coming, and for those single time readers, I would say this book is actually 5 stars.

BUT, for those of you who have read Koontz before or intend to read him again, you will find that he has once again brought us the same characters: The withdrawn man with a sad background; the hardened, withdrawn woman with a terrible background; and the third party (in this case, a brother), usually related to the man, who is deficient or handicapped in some way (in this case, autistic). And, against all odds, this lonely man and lonely, disgruntled woman somehow manage to find their mutual lights at the end of the tunnel ... you see where I'm going. In some ways, Koontz would have been better off just making all of these books ABOUT the same characters, and turning them into a series of sequels. Character wise, that's what we end up with, anyway.

But again, setting that aside, I really enjoyed this novel. I don't want to give anything away, but this books ends on a PERFECT note to set it up for a sequel. I don't think Koontz does them, but I wish he would in this case. I would LOVE to read it, and after all, in a sequel, the characters are EXPECTED to be the same.