Howard Kao Kao itibaren Starikovo, Vladimirskaya oblast', Russia, 601395 itibaren Starikovo, Vladimirskaya oblast', Russia, 601395

This book is so powerful. I could not put it down. I have re-read and listened to the book on tape too.

While the ending itself is slightly disappointing, at least it never flails around, like many authors tend to do when trying to tie together a story with so many characters and sub-plots. There is always a clear direction throughout the book and though I disagree with some of the choices Koontz took in his conclusion, I can't fault his style. As a third book of a trilogy, I found that it to be missing some sort of revelation or twist that made things take an unexpected turn. Aside from the story of how the detectives met the dog, everything was rather straightforward and flowed nicely into the conclusion, with minimal effort required from the reader. Personally, I like to be challenged more than that when nearing the end. That said, the trilogy as a whole is superb and draws up an extremely interesting, though bleak, picture of what it might be if both Frankenstein and his monster had both survived until the modern day. Interesting characters and narratives abound and Koontz has a unique gift of describing the most complex, fantastical things in short, succinct language that always keeps it's feet on the ground. They say a story is only as interesting as it's villain and that's really the biggest shortcoming of the trilogy. As a whole I found Victor Frankenstein to be an extremely uninteresting and one-dimensional character. Driven by a bloody-minded mad ambition that was never explained to be other than for it's own sake, his only characteristics were that, hubris and sadism. He seemed to be merely a plot vehicle to demonstrate all the evil things one could do if one possessed his knowledge. Fortunately, every other character that appears is unique and interesting, even the janitor that lives through about 10 pages in total, which more than makes up for it.