However his later books, Relentless being a prime example, simply do not work well and hints of a writer who may now be writing to a formula and for the money. I keep hoping his current novels will return to his earlier high standards. Some of his earlier works like Watchers are quite exciting. I occasionally get the urge to read a Koontz novel. There is a philosophical argument in here somewhere you won’t have to search too hard to find it, but you may get waylaid by the simmering violence.Īll flesh is grass, and withers, and the fields of the mind, too, are burned black by death and do not grow green again. The novel raises a plethora of moral dilemmas. Who wouldn’t? Although, to be honest, he doesn't really feature enough. Of the protagonists in this novel, and there are more than one, I obviously liked him the most. A curious mixture of affability and disdain, vulnerability and invincibility, he strides from the obscurity of the last two hundred years into modern day New Orleans. This is good, if you’re inclined towards Speculative Horror fiction.ĭeucalion is, of course, an enigma. Between the Mad Scientist, the New Race, the Serial Killer and Deucalion there is bound to be a fair amount of mayhem. There are some surprises, notably concerning the nature of the characters and how Koontz set his story up.

The story is paced very well, perhaps at the expense of deeper character development, but it’s a ripping yarn. This kind of thing has a multitude of possibilities, limited only by the author’s imagination, and it’s obvious that DK had quite a bit of fun with Prodigal Son. What if Mary Shelley’s novel was an account of actual events? What if Victor and his creation were still around today? How could that have come about? What would they be doing? Etcetera. He doesn’t do much to alter the original history, but instead focuses on a “what if” scenario.

Koontz does a pretty good job of extrapolating the Frankenstein mythos.

Out of the last of the twilight came Deucalion with a suitcase, in clothes too heavy for the sultry night.

Dean koontz prodigal son series