Customer Reviews

Midnight (Brilliance Audio on Compact Disc)

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Starting in the mid-1980s, Dean Koontz hit his stride with a series of terrific cross-genre novels, starting with "Strangers," which was about alien contact; "Watchers," which was about genetic engineering; and "Lightning," which was about . . . well, you'll have to read that on your own.

"Midnight" continues the trend, though it veers more toward horror than the others. The novel is set in a small town in Northern California, where an experiment has been transforming humans into "something else." An FBI agent and a ragtag group of survivors bands together to respond to the horror.

As with most of Koontz's books, there is a palpable sense of eerieness that pervades the novel. Although the book is not without its violent and occasionally gory moments, it is not stomach-churning; Koontz generates suspense and terror more through implication than explicit description.

Interestingly, Koontz recycled the central plotline here in the recent "Fear Nothing." (The setting changed from Moonlight Bay to Moonlight Cove.) The character in "Fear Nothing" is quite different, however, so you can't entirely predict the outcome from "Midnight." Still, if you like "Midnight," you should like "Fear Nothing," and vice versa. (Personally, I thought "Midnight" was creepier.)

That was one of the first books by Dean Koontz I've read, when I almost didn't know his writing, and I loved it.

This is the kind of book you read in only one blink. The characters and the plot are so huge, so deep and well-written that you feel as if you were there suffering and having fun with them.

Everything starts when a woman is killed by monsters that are something like gorillas. Then, her sister, a FBI officer, a retired policeman and a child who is being threatened by her own parents get together unexpectdly to solve the problems and save their own life.

MIDNIGHT is a book for lovers of the horror genre, the suspense and the thriller. It's a book you'll never forget because of its hugeness, of its power. Nowadays, Dean doesn't write this kind of book anymore, and yes, I miss that. This is the kind of book you could keep reading forever. If you haven't read that one yet, take it! If you haven't read a book by Dean yet and want to try him, that's a wonderful first step. The important is, read it! And never be able to forget this wonderful plot.

Marco Aurelio.

Avoid at all costs buying the audio version of the novel. The narrator over pronounces the words as if he's speaking to a deaf mute trying to read his lips. Ever worse, he has no dramatic qualities to his voice. It's just comple monotone. Awful.

Futurologists led by a weasely mastermind have invaded Moonlight Cove, a sleepy lagoon town in Northern California sort of like Bodega Bay where Hitchcock's THE BIRDS took place. The entire population of the little town has become a race of guinea pigs that New Wave Technologies can play with like a puppeteer a bunch of puppets. What's worse, they don't even know what's happening to them.

Men at the top are covering up a rash of mysterious deaths that have been occurring all over the village, but the FBI is on the case and has sent in their top agent, a man with secrets of his own, to uncover who or what is behind the murders. They suspect a serial killer, but the truth is far worse. This man, Sam Booker, blends in easily with the lackluster villagers, and yet when night falls he finds that he is the prey, and they become predators. It's all part of a scheme to advance human consciousness and to upgrade humanity to a new level, but inevitably there are drawbacks to any utopian scheme. In this case, a certain percent of the lab "rats" become monsters!

Others drawn into helping Sam include the lovely Tess Lackland, whose poor sister died in Moonlight Cove, and little Chrissy, whose parents have changed beyond recognition as a result of New Wave's consciousness altering drugs. An appealing VietNam vet has a handicap but that doesn't stop him for entering the ultimate battle between good and evil. Of course it all begins at . . . midnight! Dean Koontz has written many skillful bestsellers and this is one of his signature titles.

Recommended, especially if you want to lose a good night's sleep!

I love Koontz. I have read a ton of his books, but I have noticed one strange trend. Some of his books are awesome. Others need to be rewritten or thrown in the dumper.

"Midnight" somehow falls in the middle of those two categories. I really like the subject matter - the inability for humankind to find a natural balance between enlightenment and staying true to its roots. The character of Thomas Shaddack is blatantly psychotic, the typical megolamaniac. It really is not a bad story, if the actual writing could be a bit clearer. Sometimes, Koontz gets a little lost in his description of the landscape and exterior events. Maybe it is my rampant impatience, but I always want to get to the meat of the story in as little time as possible.


Maybe, if at all interested, you (the reader of this review) can try one of Mr. Koontz's other books. For instance - I was stunned by the deeply tragic story of the young screenwriter in the novel "Whispers". The terror that was contained in that book is the Koontz that I know and really admire. It is one of his first, so check that out!

I feel like I have been reading a watered down version of this writer for some time now. I did like his recent novel, "Odd Thomas". Try that one too!

Well, to sum up, I like Midnight. I just could do without all the "filler" material in the middle.

I love Koontz's story Midnight. I listend to the audiobook on cassette tape years ago on a trip across the country. It was rivetting.

Over time I lost the tapes and years later I now wanted to hear it again. Excited, I received the Compact Disc version of Midnight as a gift.

The narration is awful! It is like mister roboto is reading a book. I'm not even convinced the narrator isn't just a computer voice. If you've ever listened to the weather report at a rest-stop, that's what this entire reading sounds like. It's like Cher in that "Do you believe" song, with the voice crossing notes like a synthesizer.

I tried it on various quality pieces of audio hardware and it always sounded the same, so it's certainly not a hardware issue, its just simply, as a few other reviewers pointed out, a really poor narrator and/or some very bad post processing.

Midnight was by far DK's masterpiece. The first chapter left me breathless. It was like a movie in my hands, I actually saw the opening sequence and then the credits pass after it ended. Koontz is a master storyteller, and can scare the hell out of you. Midnight was even better than Phantoms, which I thought was his best. Well worth the read...

Midnight is the deadline for something ominous to happen to the denizens of a small and lovely sea-side town In "Midnight". "Moonlight Cove" is far too nice to be terror-free, especially when it exists in a Dean Koontz novel. A detective comes here to investigate the mysterious death of a young woman by forces unknown. He gets little help from the town, as if the inhabitants of the cove were not only protecting something, but had become the something itself.

Unfortunately, Koontz is better at creating the idea than executing it, and he doesn't let his story get far before he just tosses mystery aside and has two of his characters explain exactly what's going on. Without explaining too much (since Koontz saves us all the trouble) the Cove has become a rather freaky laboratory run, with the tacit agreement of the town, by a local genius who's certifiable in equal parts genius and the psychotic. The experiment uses nano-computers to tap into the latent minds of all humans, all centered around a huge computer that both manages it and provides a safety device (for the inventor, that is; he can shut everything down if he wants or feels its necessary. Of course, that will also annihilate the town). Faster than you can say "monsters from the id!", the secret is out, and it's downhill from there. The way the secret is revealed is an enormous cheat - our hero is a detective! Couldn't Koontz work up a plot that has the detective being forced to learn enough about bio-mechanics so that he could at least solve some of the mystery? Instead, as the clock ticks to midnight, our heroes spend much of their time dodging the rapidly revealed menace. Also, the conversation in which the secret is revealed is impossible: with the reclusive genius and the sheriff having a completely gratuitous conversation - it's almost like me overhearing a conversation between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, in English! Even the manner in which the monsters appear is utterly fake. Koontz telegraphs his chills so that they have no edge by the time they climax. His descriptions of the monsters doesn't mount to much either - since they all pretty much have the same menace, it doesn't matter that some look like Frankenstein's monster, while others resemble werewolves. When a monster intended to resemble the creature from the "Alien" movies is described pretty much in those terms, I was ready to toss this book without waiting for midnight.

As a self-proclaimed diehard Koontz fan, I bought into the idea that t his would be a great story without even reading the synopsis. I mean, it's Koontz right? Then I read the synopsis and I was even more excited! Who could resist a story about a small town with a deep secret, a brave little girl and her fight to stay alive, a jaded FBI agent and a perpetually optimistic sister of one of Midnight Cove's first victims? Then to delve even further into the story to find that it's wrapped around a compelling argument for why humans are the makers of their own demise? Hell, I should have been captivated!!!......Spellbound even. But that didn't happen and here's why.....

The plot was excellent. but it was ruined by:

An unimpressive narrator
His voice was so boring that I almost fell asleep and careened off of the road listening to him.

Overly preachy and descriptive
Yes, Koontz is known for being descriptive but in this book he was not only overly descriptive but preachy. Overly descriptive because he described things, situations, thoughts and feelings in a redundant fashion and then later on you'll think back and wonder why he bothered to mention something so unimportant and mundane. I guarrantee that if you read this story you will REALLY know how everyone feels and EVERYTHING YOU DIDN'T NEED TO KNOW because he will tell you at least 50 times this to make sure you get it!

Unappealing characters who lacked chemistry
Koontz usually has a knack for creating interesting and sometimes even lovable characters. You root for them not just because they are the "good guys" but because he developed characters in such a way that we could relate to them or at least know enough about them to care. But in this book it seemed that the only characters that he was successful at getting me emotionally invested in was a dog and maybe the little girl (in that order). Sad, ain't it?

Characters with no chemistry - Also, every once in awhile he'll interject some sort of romance between the two main characters and if he does it's one that seems natural. The attraction is intense and by the end of the story we all feel like the two people involved couldn't be any more made for each other! But in Midnight, even if you're lucky to recognize that he's trying to pair the two together, you'll still be indifferent or be in shocked that he is actually expecting us to believe that they had enough chemistry to be together in the first place!

So the bottom line is that the story line and the whole concept was really good but it was ruined by Koontz taking everything that I admired about his work and "ratcheting" it up until it was overkill!!! So much so that I found that my only motivation for even finishing the book was so that I didn't label myself as a quiter and because of the faint hope that somehow he (Dean Koontz) would save this book and I'd once again be thrilled by great story telling. In the end, I had nothing else to say but,"Man, I should have just read Watchers over again."

The residents of sleepy MoonLight Cove are turning into monsters; reverting to their most primal selves in the grasp of night. A computer company, New Wave, is involved. Can a small handful of survivors stop the coorporation before its awful experiments go beyond this tiny nightmare town?
Koontz at his best here. A little bit of "The Island of Dr. Monreau", Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", this is a intelligent, suspenseful tale that blends hard science with visceral scares and numerous twists. Characters, as with most of Koontz's work, are likeable and well-rounded, and UNlike most of Koontz's novels, the happy ending actually feels justified.
A fine addition to any horror/sci-fi buff's library.