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#1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz delivers a mesmerizing new thriller that explores the razor-thin line between the best and worst of human nature—and the anarchy simmering just beneath society’s surface—as a likeable, successful family man is drawn into a... read more

Summary edit see section history

The bizarre story that only Koontz could deliver of an author, his children's author/artist wife, their genius six year old son and inexplicably different dog. This has a little something for everyone. Suspense, thrills, murder, cruelty, science fiction, chills, mystery, monstrosities,... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

The bizarre story that only Koontz could deliver of an author, his children's author/artist wife, their genius six year old son and inexplicably different dog. This has a little something for everyone. Suspense, thrills, murder, cruelty, science fiction, chills, mystery, monstrosities, fantasy and more! The family is the target of a critic who writes a scathing if syntax poor review of the father's latest book sending them on a mad dash for their lives while they struggle to unravel the mystery before they are met by their own Doom . Rich, fullsome and sometimes quirky characters thrive in this work. Often surprisingly humours and always clever. Tick-Tock fans will enjoy this work most. Not entirely like or unlike Koontz' usual books.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “"Don't you ever try to teleport yourself anywhere," Penny said adamently, "Don't you ever."”
  • “Trifles make the sum of life”
    Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
  • “The issue is clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.”
    G.K. Chesterton
  • “All men are tragic.... All men are comic.... Every man is important if he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat.”
    G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens
  • “I'm no more a wonder than anyone. And that's what makes the world magical. Every baby's a seed of wonder - that gets watered or it doesn't.”
  • “As we passed his table, I saw that the device that imprisoned the book was clever but wicked-looking, as though the critic were holding the work - and it's author - in bondage.”
  • “Dear, the man can't be eviscerated because he has no viscera. He's a walking colon. If you cut him open, you only end up covered in crap.”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor,
    Highlighted by 94 Kindle customers
  • “‘A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke. Each has discovered that the other is not only a fool, but a great fool.’”
    Highlighted by 56 Kindle customers
  • No matter how much you care for another person, however, you can’t guarantee him a happy life, not with love or money, not with sacrifice. You can only do your best—and pray for him.
    Highlighted by 54 Kindle customers
  • “‘Nothing,’” she quoted, “‘can do a man harm unless he fears it.’
    Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers
  • In 1933, G. K. Chesterton wrote, “The disintegration of rational society started in the drift from hearth and family; the solution must be a drift back.”
    Highlighted by 49 Kindle customers
  • The Internet is more a force for evil than for good. It offers the worst of humankind absolute license and anonymity—and numerous addictive pursuits over which to become obsessive. Kids are having innocence and willpower—if not free will itself—stolen from them.
    Highlighted by 46 Kindle customers
  • Evil itself may be relentless, I will grant you that, but love is relentless, too. Friendship is a relentless force. Family is a relentless force. Faith is a relentless force. The human spirit is relentless, and the human heart outlasts—and can defeat—even the most relentless force of all, which is time.
    Highlighted by 42 Kindle customers
  • Among other things, my past had taught me that the very fact of my existence is a cause for amazement and wonder, that we must seize life because we never know how much of it remains for us, that faith is the antidote to despair and that laughter is the music of faith.
    Highlighted by 42 Kindle customers
  • Fire, ice, asteroids, and pole shifts are bogeymen with which we distract ourselves from the real threat of our time. In an age when everyone invents his own truth, there is no community, only factions. Without community, there can be no consensus to resist the greedy, the envious, the power-mad narcissists who seize control and turn the institutions of civilization into a series of doom machines.
    Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers
  • Always, the eye sees more than the mind can comprehend, and we go through life self-blinded to much that lies before us. We want a simple world, but we live in a magnificently complex one, and rather than open ourselves to it, we perceive the world through filters that make it less daunting. Complexity implies meaning. We are afraid of meaning.
    Highlighted by 32 Kindle customers
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First Sentence edit see section history

This is a thing I've learned: Even with a gun to my head, I am capable of being convulsive with laughter. I am not sure what this extreme capacity for mirth says about me. You'll have to decide for yourself.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Dean Koontz (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Bantam
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 0553807145
Page Count: 368

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PS3561.O55
  • Dewey: 813.54

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Lost Souls
  • Breathless
  • Dead and Alive
  • Watchers
  • Lightning
  • Under the Dome
  • Odd Thomas

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