The Taking

Dean Koontz has been one of my favorite authors since I read NIGHT CHILLS in 1976. Since then, I've loved many of his novels, including WHISPERS, PHANTOMS, WATCHERS, and LIGHTNING. He always seemed to me to be a more spiritual Stephen King - Koontz's stories were as harrowing and exciting as King's, but I felt a greater element of resolution and redemption in Koontz's novels.

That said, I must admit that THE TAKING is a disappointing novel. Somehow I missed it when it was first released 2004, so it wasn't until last week that I had a chance to read it. Its subject matter - alien invasion - is interesting to me, and it is an unusual topic for Koontz, so I was intrigued. The novel focuses on Molly and Neil Sloan, a happily married couple with Koontz-style shadowy pasts (she went through a terrible trauma as a young girl - we learn more about this slowly as the novel progresses - and he faced a loss of faith that is never fully addressed). Molly awakens in the middle of the night to an unnatural and oddly-smelling torrential rain. Coyotes behave strangely, neighbors disappear, and inanimate objects suddenly come to life. Molly and Neil make it into town where they find a group of people hiding out in the local tavern, convinced that some alien race is using the mysterious rain to "seed" our planet with life forms of their own. There, Neil and Molly have to decide which group to ally themselves with - the "peaceniks" who believe the rain has some benevolent purpose, the "boozers" who have given up and just want to get loaded before the aliens take over, the "fence-sitters" who can't make up their minds what to do, and the "fighters" who want to wage war against the aliens, even if it's a fight to the death. It's not hard to guess which of the four groups our intrepid young heroes choose to join!

A lot of strange things happen in THE TAKING - some will remind you of King's "The Mist" or maybe WAR OF THE WORLDS. The story is interesting, and I liked Molly and Neil and wanted them to survive. Unfortunately, what starts as an alien-invasion story ends up as a religious parable about God and demons that would give the "Left Behind" novels a run for their money. Fans of Koontz will recognize his love of dogs in THE TAKING (he has always seen something spiritual in dogs, and here that connection is made definitive). Koontz likes guns, too, and there are plenty of those to go around. He also takes a few digs at those scientific fools who believe in global warming - I mean, all this crazy weather we've had lately can't be the result of global warming, right? It must be aliens . . . or God.

As I said at the start of this, I have been a reader of Koontz's work for a long time. I understand his politics - it's not my politics, but who cares? He writes good stories! But this one just went too far. If you like the "Left Behind" books and enjoy a little apocalyptical symbolism with your horror novels, you will probably like THE TAKING. If, on the other hand, you find the battle between God and the Devil to require more suspension of disbelief than an alien invasion, then you might want to try one of Koontz's other novels. Molly actually reminded me a bit of Chyna Shepherd from INTENSITY (1996) - that one's about a psychopathic killer and a young woman working through demons of her own.

One final note - Koontz seems to have had some fun with a thesaurus in writing THE TAKING. I found some of the language used in the novel to be overblown and pretentious, which is not usually Koontz's style. And there were a few too many T. S. Eliot quotes (I actually find literary allusion quite stimulating, but here it felt contrived).

So, not the best of Koontz's novels. Ultimately, disappointing.

I love that Dean has chosen to share meaning, spirituality, purpose and hope in this writing. He explores the innate knowing that we all share and the deep fear that we don't understand. Dean issues a warning to the sensitive and the senseless. His insight into humanity and adventurous imagination make this one of his best works in recent years.

The book starts great, a luminiscent rain falls on the town where them main characters live. As time passes, news from all over the world show strange weather phenomena and what seems to be an alien attack on earth. Molly and her husband Neil leave their house to try and find out what's happening to the world, and how they'll be able to survive.

Then for about 3/4 of the books, we follow the 2 characters as they drive into town, and then decide to rescue the children of the town, who have been left alone by some of the parents. This part of the book is long, and although we get to see the "horrors" caused by the aliens, I soon got tired of having Neil and Molly walk somewhere, see something terrifying, then walk to some other place, see something terrifying, and so on.

The main problem with the book is that the ending changes everything, attempts to explain all the events in the book in 2 pages.

There should have been hints and indications along the book to ease the readers towards the ending, to show that what seems to be is not what it really is. Instead, the ending feels rushed, and then everything is wrapped up in 3 paragraphs.

I didn't find the book as bad as many people here, but not so good as other Koontz' books I've read (Hideaway, Mr. Murder, Fear Nothing). The characters are not well described, and we get their stories in glimpses along the book, which makes it hard to get to know them and care.

It's an interesting read, but it could have been a lot, lot better.

I thought this was an entertaining read that gives you some things to think about. As far as the bad reviews go, since I've read every Koontz book so far, I must say I don't get that this was a departure for him at all. I speculate that some of these reviews are based more on the spiritual aspects of the story than on the writing quality. To that I say "Get over it already!!" Don't read

Koontz if you want a distopian hopeless horror story. Personally I find that stuff a yawn!

I have loved dean koontz for decades but was really disappointed in this book. There was vastly more philosophizing than story telling, and the language was clumsy, overdrawn, and cliched. I found myself skipping whole paragraphs (sometimes pages) because nothing was going on other than more cliched descriptions. It also purported to describe alien events that were so alien we couldn't begin to understand or anticipate )per the philosophizing), but then ascribed evil motivations that the characters couldn't possibly know. Anthropomorphic, much? Overall, this story could easily have been told in many less pages, and on the whole is a lot more like a very bad short story. Mr. Koontz, I know you could have done so much better!

Dean Koontz has written some excellent thrillers, and has never, until now, disappointed. Some of his novels (Lightning, Wathers, Phantom) are among my favorites and have been read so many times they are literally falling apart and held together with a rubber band.

But this book is so poorly writen on so many levels that it's like he didn't actually write it or even review it. Great potential but never realized.

Plot development, writing style, dialog, character development ... All as if it were written by a novice or just whomped out to get another royalty. I almost could not get through it and finished it solely to getit over with. If it were a paperback, I'd toss it as not worth taking up shelf space.

I gave it one star only because a star rating was required in order to write this review. If i could give it a negative star, I would. Hope there are no more like this one out there.

The plot starts off well enough, but by the middle of the book it gets utterly ridiculous. The main characters are awesome, but the details of the situation become gruesome and horribly described. Is the reader supposed to take these descriptions literally or do they symbolize the point the author wants to make? I've enjoyed reading Dean Koontz for years, but this book was an utter disappointment.

Ok, I have read Dean Koontz since Lightning and every book has been excellent or at least very good. This book was disappointing on SO many levels. The story was pretty boring...you never really care about the main characters...you never get a satisfying explanation for everything that happened...

I'm sure Mr. Koontz will wow us with future novels, but this once can safely be passed on...

Ok, I have read Dean Koontz since Lightning and every book has been excellent or at least very good. This book was disappointing on SO many levels. The story was pretty boring...you never really care about the main characters...you never get a satisfying explanation for everything that happened...

I'm sure Mr. Koontz will wow us with future novels, but this once can safely be passed on...

I bought this book "because" of the poor reviews. I wanted to see what a very poorly written book was all about and to judge for myself if the book was as bad as the reviewers said... Yep--it was that bad and worse.

But I did learn a thing or two by reading it. I learned to listen to the experts when they give advice on how to write a compelling novel. Dean Koontz broke every rule in the book when writing THE TAKING.

Rule -- When you find an adjective -- KILL IT!
Koontz went out of his way to load the adjectives any where he had a noun. I guess he had to get up the word-count.

Rule -- Have a good mix of dialog, description, and narrative.
Koontz had narrative, narrative, narrative -- on and on to nauseatingly infinitime.

Rule -- Show instead of tell.
Koontz told - told - told. Boring!

Rule -- Don't try to impress. Use common everyday words.
Mark Twain said, "I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop."

It is clear that Koontz never read Mark Twain. Koontz on the other hand kept his Thesaurus on his knee the whole time he wrote the novel.

The narrative was syrupy, flowery, and just plain sickening... page after page. Here are a couple examples:

The half-heard, fully felt, deep pulsations of sound stopped throbbing through her.

She gripped his hand, shivering with fear and inexpressibly grateful that fate had combined her and him from the tangle of humanity, and that love had braided them together in marriage.

Give me a break!

Halfway through the book, the plot took an unexpected, sharp right turn. Well, it had to take a turn because up to this point there was no plot... and the plot that followed was no better than the no plot in the beginning. Oh by the way -- the ending was just as lame as the rest of the book.

I shake my head... no one in the publishing food chain stopped to think this book was a stinker. There Koontz was at his keyboard pounding away at the keys... and not for one minute he thought, "This is trash." And there was the agent... who must have seen dollar signs for the 15% he/she gets... not caring about whether it was good writing or not. The editor didn't say, Hey Dean... this is junk. The publisher is also to blame... Uh... let's get this pig to market, it was after all written by the best selling novelist Dean Koontz, the reading public will throw money our way in spite of the tripe.

The only honest ones in the publishing/reading food chain are the readers... hence the number of poor reviews far outweigh the good reviews.