07/11/2005 9:9 AM
Posted by VeggieSteph

By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz

By the Light of the Moon reminded me a great deal of Dean Koontz’s earlier work, Strangers. Here, like before, strangers meet in a motel off the highway. They are affected by something strange, end up journeying together to find out what has happened to them, and end up being a “family” by the end of it. If it weren’t for a switch of the something “weird,” it’d be pretty darn close. The moon even plays a significant part in the story.

Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like this if I hadn’t read Strangers very recently. Overall, I feel like this was a better book, but the sunny optimism that I was left with at the end was a bit grating, if not expected (this was written in the wake of 9/11). The character of Jilly was my least favorite. She is a stand-up comedian, but with a big chip on her shoulder. For the first half of the book, you can’t identify with her character, and later, when you find out why she is so sticky, it is hard to care. Dylan and Shep aren’t unusual characters, but they are sweet and good to each other. The villain is smarmy and oily, like most Koontz villains, there are “bad guys” who could be military or government, and this time, it’s not supernatural, but science.

In the sense that good should prevail, bad should pay, and everything is as it should be, the book ends up right where it should. This book just served to remind me why I read Koontz books for a quick thrill, rather than for any real substance.