One of the worse things I've ever read, this apparently is the concluding volume in a five book series. There is little character development of any of the principles, and new point of view characters were being introduced three quarters of the way through. The hero, Frankenstein's 'monster' going by the name of Deucalion, has such spectacular powers that he is not only strong enough to overturn a heavy vehicle with passengers inside, he can teleport both himself and any vehicle he is inside to anywhere he wants, by folding space. So not a lot of tension, as he easily rescues all the children in town when Victor, a clone of the original Frankenstein, lets loose the apocalypse.

Similarly, the villains defeat themselves. Although the nano-monsters, the Builders, can reshape any living thing into their own substance to create more of themselves, and often the furniture and any other inanimate object, in doing so they malfunction and often self destruct. The Replicants created to take the place of the townsfolk and aid the take-over soon start obsessing over cleaning or some other action, such as destroying ornaments because they offend their sensibilities and again defeat themselves. They do manage to kill quite a few citizens but the revolt is derailing even when the hero acts against its leader. Meanwhile, even the dogs and horses are spared although I did wonder whether anyone went back and rescued the horses, trapped in a reinforced stable, from starving.

It was quite difficult to remember who was meant to be who when switching between the pairs of sidekicks who were roaming around town having various encounters with the nano-types. The FBI agents were particularly cardboard and forgettable so it didn't matter which were killed. Similarly, the people at the radio station were barely sketched. One character who did come off the page forcefully, though should have stayed there, was Jocko who apparently was a sentient tumour.....! Whatever it was supposed to be, this personality came across as someone on a particular cocktail of drugs and was very irritating.

The author's prejudices against college professors and the like is periodically referenced and an admiration of gun-toting survivalists is prominently on show. There is also a ludicrous development where the person putting up the money for Victor's plot to destroy all life on the planet is supposedly the US president. Apart from the question of why anyone less crazy than him would want to exterminate themselves and their family as well as everything else, it was a misfire as I thought he was referring to a now ex-president with the initials DT. I read afterwards that it was meant to be Barak Obama and have no idea what the author has against him. But as he was as cardboard as everyone else bar Jocko, it could have been anyone.

The only positive point is that all the women are both kick-ass and beautiful. So at least there are no downtrodden or wilting violets while the apocalypse plays itself out.

Altogether, a right load of nonsense which can only be awarded one star. ( )

See my review to #4.

( )

I think I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could. It wasn't bad but it wrapped up too easily/quickly. ( )

Not a bad series of books, considering it started out as a trilogy. As for the overall storyline, even though it was supposed to end at book number 3, there is enough continuity to keep it going for 5 books. I’m not sure if the original idea of 2 trilogies would have worked. That may have made things just a bit too contrived. I think that the final outcome of the 5 books was just right. Overall recommended reading. ( )

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Title: The Dead Town
Series: Frankenstein #5
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 447
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Everything begins falling apart for Victor Immaculate. His vat grown creations once again transcend their genetic coding and that transcendance is always in the form of breaking. Builders take on non-biological matter and can't reproduce properly, the replacement clones begin to obsess and lose sight of their mission.

Through it all, Michael and Carson begin helping the townsfolk defend themselves while Deucalion hunts Victor down. Deucalion snaps Victor's neck, the creations fall apart upon their creator's death and Deucalion can now walk quantumly through the Light instead of skulking through the Shadows.

My Thoughts:

Even while I was expecting this story to turn out like this, it was still disappointing to have it actually happen. This followed the exact same pattern as the first trilogy but without any finesse or style. Evil simply falls apart and the good guys win by default.

Also, I already wrote this review, forgot to post it online, forgot I hadn't posted it and deleted the hard copy from Open Office. So I'm writing this all over again. That always ruins things.

Basically, I didn't enjoy this book or this series overall. I wouldn't recommend it but I am going to continue dipping my toes into the Koontz universe. I've got 20 of his books available so I'm going to go exploring and see what I find. I hope I find better things than this book.

If anyone has read some of his standalone stuff, feel free to make recommendations in the comments, otherwise I'm just going to start picking stuff randomly.

★★☆☆☆ ( )