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Chris soon learns that experimentation with animals was not the only tinkering with nature that went on at Fort Wyvern. A separate but related physics experiment now threatens to alter time and space in the way that animal experimentation has threatened the continuing existence of every animal species on Earth (humankind not excepted). Chris must once again call on his friends for help in rescuing four kidnapped children and his dog.
Once again, Koontz has delivered a bang-up read. The plot never stops, yet he manages to tie most of it together neatly at the end. The characters are believable, as is the dialogue, although the surfer slang occasionally slows things down a tad while the author translates for the benefit of his landlocked readers. Fans should be forewarned that one of the good guys dies in Seize the Night, although nothing-death included-is as it seems in Moonlight Bay.
VOYA Codes: 4Q 5P S A/YA (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12 and adults).
Poetry freak Christopher Snow, also the hero of Fear Nothing, suffers from a rare genetic disorder, xeroderma pigmentosum: his skin can't bear light of any sort. Thus he dresses only in black, wears dark shades, inhabits a house lit by bulbs in red lantern glass, sleeps by day, goes out only after sunset, and so on. Chris lives next to Wyvern Army Base, in Moonlight Bay, whose leading citizens know that terrible experiments at Wyvern produced genetically enhanced, intelligent monkeys, birds, snakes, coyotes, and humans, all richly menacing and still infesting the base. Many of the experimental humans were afflicted by a rogue retrovirus causing them to fall into beastly rages signaled by nocturnal eyeshine. That said, Koontz takes on a triple, or perhaps quadruple, oh, hell, quintuple plot, featuring serial murderers; an incredible Egg Room located three floors underground where, apparently the experimental subjects were enhanced; and an invasion of the present by swift alien worms coming from sidetime and likely to take over the planet. Will murder-minded experimental folk now waltz around every continent? They're an unpleasant bunch. When an old girlfriend's son is kidnapped and whisked off to the base, Chris follows with his enhanced dog Orson (as in Welles), a genius on par with intelligent humans. Chris's moonlit adventures in Dead Town, aided by his wisecracking crew of far-out buddies, form a story that bends into the bizarromirror-world of Neverland. Heavy suspense, no sex, and darker than Nancy Drew. With headlong glee, Koontz again unveils encyclopedic intelligence about how things work in the physical world-and how to bolt sentences into the moonlight.
Koontz has a lifelong love of writing that led him to spend much of his free time as an adult furiously cultivating his style and voice. However, it was only after his wife Gerda made him an offer he couldn't refuse while he was teaching English at a high school outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that he had a real opportunity to make a living with his avocation. Gerda agreed to support Dean for five years, during which time he could try to get his writing career off the ground. Little did she know that by the end of that five years she would be leaving her own job to handle the financial end of her husband's massively successful writing career.
Koontz first burst into the literary world with 1970's Beastchild, a science fiction novel that appealed to genre fans with its descriptions of aliens and otherworldly wars but also mined deeper themes of friendship and the breakdown of communication. Although it is not usually ranked among his classics, Beastchild provided the first inkling of Koontz's talent for populating even the most fantastical tale with fully human characters. Even at his goriest or most terrifying, he always allows room for redemption.
This complexity is what makes Koontz's work so popular with readers. He has a true gift for tempering horror with humanity, grotesqueries with lyricism. He also has a knack for genre-hopping, inventing Hitchcockian romantic mysteries, crime dramas, supernatural thrillers, science fiction, and psychological suspense with equal deftness and imagination. Perhaps The Times (London) puts it best: "Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler."
When Koontz was a senior in college, he won the Atlantic Monthly fiction competition.
Koontz and Kevin Anderson's novel Frankenstein: The Prodigal Son was slotted to become a television series produced by Martin Scorsese. However, when the pilot failed to sell, the USA Network aired it as a TV movie in 2004. By that time Koontz had removed his name from the project.
Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Koontz:
"My wife, Gerda, and I took seven years of private ballroom dancing lessons, twice a week, ninety minutes each time. After we had gotten good at everything from swing to the foxtrot, we not only stopped taking lessons, but also stopped going dancing. Learning had been great fun; but for both of us, going out for an evening of dancing proved far less exhilarating than the learning. We both have a low boredom threshold. Now we dance at a wedding or other celebration perhaps once a year, and we're creaky."
"On my desk is a photograph given to me by my mother after Gerda and I were engaged to be married. It shows 23 children at a birthday party. It is neither my party nor Gerda's. I am three years old, going on four. Gerda is three. In that crowd of kids, we are sitting directly across a table from each other. I'm grinning, as if I already know she's my destiny, and Gerda has a serious expression, as if she's worried that I might be her destiny. We never met again until I was a senior in high school and she was a junior. We've been trying to make up for that lost time ever since.
"Gerda and I worked so much for the first two decades of our marriage that we never took a real vacation until our twentieth wedding anniversary. Then we went on a cruise, booking a first-class suite, sparing no expense. For more than half the cruise, the ship was caught in a hurricane. The open decks were closed because waves would have washed passengers overboard. About 90% of the passengers spent day after day in their cabins, projectile vomiting. We discovered that neither of us gets seasick. We had the showrooms, the casino, and the buffets virtually to ourselves. Because the crew had no one to serve, our service was exemplary. The ship dared not try to put into the scheduled ports; it was safer on the open sea. The big windows of the main bar presented a spectacular view of massive waves and lightning strikes that stabbed the sea by the score. Very romantic. We had a grand time.
Dean Koontz: I'm alive, and that's as good as it gets.
Dean Koontz: My job is to make you paranoid. My own madness is more complex than that.
Dean Koontz: Well, I think FEAR NOTHING, and especially SEIZE THE NIGHT, have quite a lot of humor in them. And most of my arguments with former publishers had to do with the humor in such books as LIGHTNING, THE BAD PLACE, MR. MURDER, and DARK RIVERS OF THE HEART. There is a myth that suspense and humor don't mix. If that were true, I would be working as a plumber instead of a writer.
Dean Koontz: Against my wishes, the publisher announced the book. It is not even written yet. And I don't know when it will be. But, like TICKTOCK, it isn't a revised old book; it would be a new book of a shorter length, done as a paperback original.
Dean Koontz: Anything in English.
Dean Koontz: First, yes, please call me Dean. It would be odd if you called me Bob. I stay out of casting fantasies for movies, because I know that when it's finally filmed, the male lead will probably have been transformed into a role that can be played by Anne Heche.
Dean Koontz: Story outlines are too limiting for me. I start the book with a premise, and one or two central characters, then start to write with no idea where I'm going. I never use character profiles, but I do spend time thinking about character before starting page one. If the character comes alive, he presents to me details of his life that I would never have come up with by creating an artificial profile.
Dean Koontz: Do you mean their work, their personal appearance, or their general attitude?
Dean Koontz: If you are an American, you get on a mailing list by writing once and receive every issue. The cost of sending it overseas is so great that we only send it once each time that an overseas fan writes. However, only insane people really want to know so much about me that they need to see every issue.
Dean Koontz: Most of the female leads in my books have a considerable basis in my wife, Gerda. There have been other strong women in my life, my mother principle among them. So I do write out of example.
Dean Koontz: I am amazed that I have become such a fussbudget about research. In high school and college, I was a slacker's slacker. Now I absolutely must get every detail right. A high percentage of what I need to know, I can find from books and other research sources, but I also have lots of cards on my Rolodex of readers who have written me, offering their expertise in a lot of exotic subjects. So, of course, I diligently exploit these fans.
Dean Koontz: I had an overactive imagination in the womb.
Dean Koontz: The inspiration for SEIZE THE NIGHT is really the same one as for FEAR NOTHING. I was fascinated by two things: XP, the condition with which the lead character is afflicted; and surfing culture. The kidnapping plot and everything else in these books of a suspense nature really just serves my obsessive interest in these two subjects.
Dean Koontz: Listen, I know when an early piece of mine stinks. And on a couple of the titles you mentioned, the very thought of them requires me to pinch my nose shut.
Dean Koontz: Oh, my, you are sweet! The only pressure I feel is to push the envelope farther each time. That is not because of other people's expectations, but because of my own. If I weren't pushing harder each time, I would get bored. I bore easily. More easily than a three-year-old.
Dean Koontz: Thanks, Chris. But please don't tell me that Florida is a paradise of sanity.
Dean Koontz: The address to write to me is the same one printed in recent books: P.O. Box 9529, Newport Beach, California 92658
Dean Koontz: The story is coming along nicely, but I'm still choosing between several titles. It won't be called MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO.
Dean Koontz: Chyna Shepherd in INTENSITY. Number two, Laura Shane in LIGHTNING.
Dean Koontz: What intrigues me most is that he has such tremendous limitations because of his XP, but turns his limitations into advantages. Nothing about Chris has been difficult to write. Chris, Sasha, and Bobby have become so real to me that I've been setting three extra places at the dinner table.
Dean Koontz: I just had a lovely two-hour conversation with my golden retriever. Isn't this technology available where you live?
Dean Koontz: 'Cause Neanderthals run too many of the studios. There is also a problem with complexity of story line and theme in a lot of my books. What translates easiest to the screen are simple stories about haunted houses, gangland murders, or alien destruction of the earth. If I could write simpler stories, they would more easily translate to film, because film is essentially a short story. But I do what I do, and I don't wish to change.
Dean Koontz: It's all research, although when I was a kid, teachers often accused me of being in a trance.
Dean Koontz: I thought it was terrific. I had sufficient control to pick the writer, Stephen Tolkin, who is enormously talented. And as executive producer, I saw that all of my notes throughout the production were addressed. The actors were also superb.
Dean Koontz: I used to have a publisher who insisted that all titles be one word after WHISPERS was such a success. I would often put different titles on the book only to see them shortened into one word. That no longer applied. But once in a while, even these days, one word still is best, as with INTENSITY.
Dean Koontz: For a while, Tim Burton was developing this at Warner Bros. But then, like so many things, it all fell apart.
Dean Koontz: I am completely unaware of my tendency to tick.
Dean Koontz: I hope eventually to get out of California for signings, but that isn't going to happen until we make it safely through the millennium, and I can be sure that I won't find myself on the road during Armageddon.
Dean Koontz: I don't like to answer such questions, because I'm sure to inadvertently leave out the name of a friend and wake up in the morning to find all my tires slashed.
Dean Koontz: Currently MR. MURDER is finished as a two-night miniseries for ABC airing in April. It is flat-out terrific. We're working on other miniseries, a one-hour series, and a series of two-hour TV movies, details to be announced later. But no feature film is in the works at this time, largely because I've been made wretchedly ill by most previous feature films. In TV I seem to be able to get more control.
Dean Koontz: Phil Parks and I are working on a very unusual book that would probably be published in the year 2000, unless we're all dead.
Dean Koontz: I used to be a teacher myself, so I have a soft spot in my heart for other teachers. I'm glad I could help.
Dean Koontz: I am an obsessive person. Consequently, I do not go online. I know that if I did, my obsession would ultimately lead to having my keyboard jacked directly into my cerebral cortex.
Dean Koontz: I sit down at the keyboard at 7:30 in the morning, 8:30 if it's my turn to walk the dog, and I stay there until dinner, without taking lunch. I like long work sessions, because the characters become more real to me when I'm with them for long periods of time. I rarely can work on two novels simultaneously, but I can work on a novel and a screenplay at the same time, because they are such totally different forms.
Dean Koontz: LIGHTNING is really three love stories. One is a tragic love story. One is a story of love but with great anguish -- that would be the one between Laura and Stefan. And the third is the love story of two friends, Laura and Thelma. Because the book explores all the variations of loving relationships, I could not conceivably have all three of these turn out happily. But you might like to know that I am tentatively developing this book with a movie producer, and we've come up with a version in which Danny lives.
Dean Koontz: The dark parts of my childhood are key factors that have motivated me to do what I've done. Though there has been darkness in my childhood and adolescence, I've always been happy. I've always believed that happiness is a choice, and that you can choose to be happy even when bad things are happening to you. But it sure has helped that Gerda came along. The hardest thing in life to deal with is not abuse, not death, not illness, but loneliness.
Dean Koontz: I would just warn everybody never to take a vacation in Moonlight Bay.
DeanKoontz-Fan
Posted September 14, 2011
Be sure to read both books in the Christopher Snow series! There was supposed to be a 3rd, but Koontz apparently never got around to writing it! Wish he would!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.One of the most enjoyable books I've read by Dean Koontz, the interaction between characters is quite entertaining.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 18, 2012
Need I say more?
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Posted April 9, 2012
My very first Dean Koontz book. Been reading him ever since!
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Posted December 13, 2011
Love Christopher!
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Posted August 25, 2011
Will there be of this Christopher Snow Series? Loved the story, the character and would love more. I just couldn't put this book and Fear Nothing down. Read both of them in three days. MORE PLEASE.
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Posted July 19, 2011
This primary character is wonderfully likeable and the storyline is such a good read, I found myself wishing it could be a TV series. Would love to return to the characters week after week.
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Posted April 21, 2011
I read this years ago. It is unforgettable...full of intrigue. i love it!
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Posted February 14, 2011
Chris Snow just trying to save the world here, monsters, insanity, deadly government project, and evil monkeys, the perfect concotion that takes the easy out of the end of the world. Grab yer glock and lets go save the world everyone.
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Posted September 11, 2009
Seize the Night is a great discriptive novel. Its about christopher snow searching for moonlight bay's deepest secrets. along the way he brings two of his best friends and they try to find out why strange things have been happening in their town. its a great book and i highly reccommend.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 8, 2005
From the very start, when Christopher Snow is compelled to search for the lost son of a former lover, to the very last page when he and his friends take a well deserved surfing adventure in the sea, this book held my interest. I loved the relationships between Snow and his closest friends. I loved Snow's sense of humor even in the face of adversary, and thought that the plot line was extremely entertaining. Christopher Snow takes the reader along with him to discover the reason behind several mysterious kidnappings along with the dissappearance of his beloved dog. Along the way, he faces several difficulties including a pack of murderous monkeys, a club wielding assasin, and deranged members of law enforcement. Some of the town's members are slowly 'becoming' something so sinister, so vile, that even they cannot stand themselves and eventually commit suicide. What they are changing into eludes Chris at first, but as he slowly unviels the horror, he also discovers something not so honorable in his own past. This book is full of mystery and suspense. The way Koontz describes scenery, objects, and people is phenomenal. He leaves you yearning for more and turning each page as though you were standing right beside Snow and virtually feeling evil breathing on the back of your neck.
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Posted June 10, 2005
This was my least favorite of all the Dean Koontz books I have read. The ending was horrible. It was also a little confusing if you think about the whole Bobby situation, but he is still a good author even though I didnt like this book.
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Posted December 29, 2004
I have been a fan for a number of years. Loved all of Koontz books. Amazing story line, page turner, couldn't put it down. Finished it in one sitting. Recommended it to all my friends.
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Posted July 15, 2004
Not much to say about this patehtic book, but it's far from entertaining. 'Seize the night' is so boring and the character's have much to be desired. Loved 'Fear Nothing', hated this one. Skip it and save yourself the grief.
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Posted April 29, 2004
This book was terrible!! The story went nowhere. It was good at some parts then horrible at others. The way more horrible and boring parts. Save yourself the anguish. Read Dan Brown instead.
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Posted January 8, 2004
When readers think of sequels, whether it¿s in a book, movie, or any other form of media, they may perhaps consider three different genres: comedies, horrors, and suspense/mysteries. In fact, when you¿re thinking of them, you even consider them to either contain more blood, violence, suspense, or yet (dealing with comedies) more facetious jokes and scenes. Well, Seize the Night, chapter two of the Christopher Snow series, has good suspense, yet not enough to surpass chapter one. In this sequel to Fear Nothing, the prior and inaugural bestseller in Dean Koontz¿s first novel series, 28-year-old writer and survivor Christopher Snow, who is afflicted from a rare disorder, again plays a detective in attempting discover the truth to Moonlight Bay¿s darkest secrets. At the beginning of the novel, Christopher Snow sets out on a search to find a missing 5-year-old of a former sweetheart. As the book goes on, Snow and his two best friends later find out that yet more children, and pets including his dog Orson, are missing as well. As more and more children are missing, Christopher Snow¿s suspicion increases over what lies behind the closed doors of Fort Wyvern, the derelict military base where an experiment involving a retrovirus goes deadly wrong. And the incidents involving the missing children compel Snow to find them. Nevertheless, the core of it cleverly has you nonplussed on whether there lies bond between the Fort Wyvern catastrophe and yet whether or not it is a omen for Armageddon. With his advantage of living in the shadows of the night, as well as a refusal to trust the police of Moonlight Bay, Christopher is on a desperate search with unknown adversaries awaiting him. Like Fear Nothing, Seize the Night has great suspenseful scenes and humor. But nevertheless, the book doesn¿t earn enough cigars for it to surpass to prior one. Speaking of that, there are two main problems that make this book unable to become Koontz¿s best in the series. First of all, readers will be annoyed with the excessive surfer lingo by Snow and his best friend Bobby Halloway. Although it is humorous, it is way too sophomoric for the book¿s genre. And last but not least, the ending is indeed extremely disappointing. By having it finished, as well as the mystery filled with one hole after another, the reader can easily discern that either, one, Koontz had written it the way he did in order to keep up with his publication deadlines, or, two, he had perhaps woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And speaking of disappointment, there is one scene, for instance, in where Snow is ambushed by a local minister with one of his hands metamorphosed into a queer, claw like form. What this particular scene actually does is perplex the reader on whether the book¿s genre is still supernatural or sci-fi. In regard to the way it is written, just like in Fear Nothing, Koontz vividly describes the setting, giving the reader a clear image of what and how it looks like. However, just like in the first one, Seize the Night has chapters that are consisted of wordy paragraphs and long and yet tedious narration. Speaking of verbiage, there¿s one chapter at the end of the book that starts out with a paragraphed-lengthen sentence that it will choke readers to death. Even though there are good thrills, chills, and twists and turns, Seize the Night is not one of Dean Koontz¿s best novels. It is good enough for a mere ¿thumbs-up.¿
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Posted November 4, 2003
Excellent! Fear Nothing and Seize The Night left me waiting for the third book. Christopher Snow where are you???
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Posted May 16, 2003
This is a good book if you are looking for a lot of adventure and thrill to keep you awake all night reading. I gave this book 5 starz because I thought it was a very well thought out, futuristic suspense thriller, and I love those kind of books. The characters in Seize the Night reached out to me & pulled me into their world. The whole 'Time Machine' theory in this book was very compelling. A friend dies, then the others go back through the time machine and he's alive again. Get that! Christopher Snow really has a knack for getting into trouble.
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Posted June 30, 2003
I have been a fan of Dean Koontz for a long time and this book was by far the most disappointing. About 20 pages into the book I began to loose interest so I skimmed through the next 150 pages or so. Unfortunately it did not get any better, so I didn't waste any more of my time on it. I just couldn't stand to read any more of that 'surfer lingo'. Don't waste your money.
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Posted June 21, 2003
When I first read Fear Nothing I was disapointed because it left me hanging. I didn't know there was a second book. This is the best book I have ever read. You must read Fear Nothing first. I could not put this book down. Please Dean write a third book.
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Overview
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's Odd Apocalypse.There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night.
At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their ...