Friday, September 6, 2013

The Dead Town

The last novel in Dean Koontz' Frankenstein series is entitled The Dead Town. This work picks up just where Lost Souls left off. The spawn of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a clone of the original madman, has used the latest technology to create what he believes is a new race of super beings. His megalomaniacal scheme is to use these efficient machines to wipe every man, woman, child, and thinking, feeling creature off the face of the Earth. At the end of Lost Souls, Victor's plan is already underway at the epicenter of it all, the isolated town of Rainbow Falls, Montana. Working to stop his schemes are ex-New Orleans homicide detectors Michael Maddison and Carson O'Connor, Victor's first creation Deucalion with his other-worldly powers, and a host of small groups of townsfolks.

The story is essentially plot driven. Even though there are several dozen characters introduced in the story, none really takes on a leading role. As such nobody really stands out or is developed to the point that they are more than two-dimensional devices. We never really get to witness any cleverness or cunning or bravery. The dialog is often at the level of trite quips or banter. The chapters jump back and forth from one group of the resistance to another, but the peeks into their actions, their emotions, or their plans are so quick that we never get a chance to develop any sort of relationship with them. The antagonist is not well developed and the story never really builds up to that edge-of-your-seat crescendo of suspense and action that is necessary to push this one over the threshold. Of course, this is certainly a criticism, and I feel a weakness of the entire series. However, in the last two books it was more glaring. Yet, I still enjoyed my time with these books and will continue to read through the Koontz library.