77 Shadow Street (with bonus novella The Moonlit Mind)

One of my favorite writers until this book came out. I'd have to slap my face to keep awake while reading it. I managed to get half-way through and was thoroughly fed up with reading repetitious chapters of every person in the building seeing the same things develope. BORING. I forced myself to continue but gave up about two-thirds the way through. Sorry Dean. One strike does not knock you out but please stay with the old Dean Koontz story lines in the future

Don't know what has happened to Dean Koontz. Maybe someone else is writing his books now and he just publishes them under his name and splits the profits. Idk. His last few books have been mediocre at best. Definitely not like the days when he wrote Watchers. He must be running out of ideas. Even the Odd books aren't as good as they used to be. Disappointing......

Normally, I LOVE anything by one of my favorite authors, Dean Koontz. I cannot seem to get through this book. It jumps around and the characters are not as fully developed as his characters are in his other books. I stopped about halfway through it. No desire to go any further.

this is one of the "nearly apocalyptic" novels. The twists and turns of the story are endless. Characters are kind of shallow, except for the kids in the story. Their characters were pretty close to the children I have known in my teaching career. Almost too scary

This wasn't the typical Koontz book. It reminded me a lot of Lovecraft, not that I don't love him too, but Koontz should stick to writing his own style. He is a great storyteller and I've read all his books so of course I bought this one and was disappointed. It just really wasn't a page turner, not at all like his other books. I can't wait for the next Odd Thomas book at least I know it'll be good..

Not one of his best books, but still entertaining. It was a little too graphic for my liking, a little too "far out there" for me and a little too boring at times. There was no real hero in this book that, in my humble opinion, I could identify with nor were the characters substantial. Dean Koontz is one of my favorite authors of all time, this book fell a little short for me. On another note, the I enjoyed the novella immensely.

The reading was not boring , steady pace, and he gave you in in debt look into each and everyone's character. Then he brings you along and pieces the entire story together, always keeping one step ahead of the reader.
A wonderful read

Not the best of dean koontz'. Too many characters , at times getting incoherent. Not the usual dean koontz style of a free flowing tale which raises a chill,still, if you are an ardent fan like me, you are not going to miss even this one...

Love Koontz, but this is one of the slowest reads I have read from him. Idea and story is good but I keep having to put it down for weeks at a time as for some reason I just don't care for the characters.

I usually love Dean Koontz, have read most of his books, but what the H_____ is this piece of trash.
OMG how awful, I am shocked.... must have had a bad mushroom or a bad something.. .can this be
him really putting his name on this book....?
TOO BAD. . . NO MORE FRUSTRATIONS. .. .

The story is good. The writing gets repetitive, which I find truly annoying. As in many of his more recent books he gets very preachy, which is also very repetitive. After half of the book you just want to scream "OK already, I get it!"

I've read pretty much everything available from Mr. Koontz. Overall I love his writing style and the themes he weaves into his stories, but can't say I love every one of his books. For me, they tend to fall into one of three categories: Brilliant and deserving to be read again ("What The Night Knows," "Odd Thomas," "Watchers," "Intensity," "Dark Rivers of the Heart"); great fun while reading, but somewhat generic and forgettable afterwards ("Velocity," "Shadowfires," "The Face," "Sole Survivor"); and the almost inscrutable that I have to work to get through (thankfully a small category with really only "False Memory" having fallen into it before now).

"77 Shadow Street" is chock full of half-painted characters and long stretches of tedious over-description. It has far too much build-up with not a lot of payoff. At the end, I liked the message he was trying to convey, but felt he was somewhat clumsy in conveying it. I haven't been this disappointed by one of his books since "Frankenstein, Book 3" where he took everything that was great and suspenseful about the first two installments and flushed it in a mishmash of bizarre comedy.

After being unable to get past the first 50 pages of "False Memory" the first time I attempted to read it, I ended up not even bothering with Koontz's books for several years. This was at least more approachable than that book, so I don't see that happening again. But I would really like to see a "return to form" in the upcoming Odd Thomas installment. If that ends up being a huge disappointment as well...well, I may be taking some time off from Dean's writings again.

Before I read this book, I read many poor reviews by readers who didn't like it. I was surprised as Koontz is one of those authors who generally received good reviews. I have read most of not all of his novels, including some that were written before he became famous and wondered whether this was one of those early works.
Shortly after starting Shadow Street, realized what may have been the problem for some of the other readers. There was no one hero in this book. There was no Odd Thomas, or Snow or anyone like that. The story followed victims and what is perhaps the most horrifying future Koontz could imagine, a future brought to reality by today's science. This is a modern Frankenstein, with only victims. At the same time everyone is a hero. How? Quantum theory. Since no one knows what that really is, including those scientists that are involved as a career. Koontz's explanation is as good as any. It is sometimes hard to read, but worth it. It will be remember for a long time as one of his best well into the future. Assuming, of course, there is at least one universe that treasures the stories men and women write.

Having a kindle is both a curse and a convenience as I can now carry a nice selection of books and apps with me. Koontz is a great author and I am 1/2 way thru this story and am always looking for time to get back to reading. It was preceded by Moonlite Mind which is a nice intro.

I kind of stumbled through this book. There were times I was frustrated with all the descriptive text that distracted me from the flow of the story line. Not one of my favorite books written by Dean Koontz, but an interesting read nonetheless.

Dean Koontz does not disappoint. As always, he artfully masters combining characters both evil and innocent, all wrapped up in the supernatural. 77 Shadow Street is a real page turner because you have to keep reading to see what happens next. The past keeps meeting the present, and history repeats itself. Excellent!

I've read everything DK has written and have never been so disappointed as I was in this book. I don't know what's going on in his life, but there really are no memorable characters in this and the premise is so ridiculous and has a lot of paradoxes that are just kind of silly. For instance, if the whole premise is that the scientist's experiments to achieve a greater world for humans started all this, then when did the pogrom come into being and why did the 'One' say it had always been there. Same with the Witness who said he'd always been there. Just was a really stupid book in my opinion and I'm hoping DK goes back to the type of novel he's been writing in the past 20 years or so. Much more enjoyable.

The story line is interesting, but the book , for me, was simply too wordy, too technical. Usually I really like Mr. Koontz writing, but this one failed to hold my attention. I struggled through this one.

Standard Koontz,I did enjoy this book.The connections to explain the happenings were a little too far apart to explain,but hey its Dean Koontz!!!!Glad I can look up the words on Kindle dictionary.Entertaining I read it in three days so it must have caught my attention.

I have been waiting, with baited breath, for my next dose of Dean to get here. I ordered it thru the store as soon as it went on sale and began reading it when I received it.
I kept waiting for it to get better. It didn't.
I hated each character, each scene. I didn't give a damn what happened to them...I just wanted it to end. I did not want to think I would leave a Koontz book unread so I forced myself to finish it and will add it to my collection but it will never be read again. I will tell others not to bother.
I do not know if the problem was because he was not feeling well or was pressured because of the time spent in the hospital but he will always be my favorite author.
Once again I will wait for the next book to come out and I know it will be up to his usual standards. Meanwhile, I will always have "Watchers" and "Frankenstein".
I just could not give him one star, after all, he is Dean Koontz.

The beginning reeled me in right away, then things were sour, then very very interesting, then sour. I couldn't stick with this story because there were way too many main characters to keep up with and I eventually lost interest altogether.

I have loved anything written by Dean Koontz for over 20 years but this book left me shaking my head. He usually inserts unexpected twists and turns to the plots. This book had more than the normal gyrations. I had to work to get to the end of it. I found it just a little too bizarre. Sorry, Dean.

I had been looking forward to this latest Dean Koontz novel, but what a disappointment it was for me. There are too many undeveloped characters with boring, lengthy descriptions where the author seems to wander completely off the story line. I found myself skipping large portions without missing the plot. Maybe next time, we will have the usual Dean Koontz tale.

Dean Koontz does it again. This book was very engrossing. The characters were well written and the story was fast paced enough to keep my interest. I definitely recommend it for a great scary/suspenseful story.

Remember when Tom Clancy spent like 47 pages on the detonation of a nuke in The Sum Of All Fears? Well, here is the Koontz version of a nuke detonation, only this time on the evil thoughts and actions of a child killing, time travelling ghoul, and the warped characters occupying a haunted former mansion now high end condo association. I have loved most of DK's work, but this was over the top out there, without a lot of plot or endearing charaters. A total Blah of a book.

This book, as are the vast majority of Dean Koontz's books, was exceptional from beginning to end. His books evoke such great imagery and are generally so fascinating I find it hard to put them down once I've started.

It's imaginative and suspenseful, but I had hoped for a haunted mansion type of movie. But instead of demons running around the luxury cooperative, there are computer biological hybrids terrorizing everyone. I liked it anyway.

For some reason, the Kindle version of this novel has chosen to keep the floor plan/blueprint of The Pendleton practically indecipherable, which has totally ruined any idea of making/having it ~
AS I WOULD, IF I BOUGHT THE ACTUAL BOOK ~
for creating a little reference guide.
If ^that^ WASN'T the intention of the author,
why was it included, at the very beginning of the book???
I even signed into the Cloud Reader,
but that image is even WORSE!

I actually enjoyed the attached novella The Moonlit Mind much better than the actual novel 77 Shadow Street. It was confusing and after awhile a chore to get through. The ending was particularly confusing. My husband hasn't been able to get through this novel so I haven't been able to ask him what he thinks the ending means. I think he's going to give up on it soon and not even finish it. Too bad.......I probably will be thinking twice before reading another Dean Koontz novel.