You can read this review and others at my book blog site, joshsbookcorner.blogspot.comTo start this off, this is a really hard book to summarize the plot without giving away half of the plot. My description will be very vague, I apologize but I don’t want to give away most of the plot. Colin just moved to Santa Leona about two months before the story takes place. He becomes best friends with Roy. When Roy starts asking and about death and rape, he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to believe the stories but if they are true, what can he do about them?That’s all good but is the book good? You came to the right place to find out. This is my review of a standalone novel, The Voice of the Night by Dean Koontz.The plot of the story is actually really slow. It takes the book about 170 pages to actually pick up pace. While it was slow, I surprisingly actually enjoyed the slow part. The character of Colin must have hit a soft spot for me or something. Once the story picks up, it really picks up. You are on the edge of your seat all the way through until the very last page. The story abruptly ends so you don’t know what happens to the characters after the story is over but that’s alright for. It left it up to my imagination to guess what happened to the characters right after the story. The ending is a very satisfying ending though. The characters of Colin and Roy are great. They are fourteen. They have really awesome chemistry together. The only other character the plays a big part of the story is the character of Heather, a fourteen year old girl. She is another great character. These three characters get really fleshed out from beginning to end. There are several minor characters but they don’t play much of a role to the story and they for the most part are two dimensional. I really enjoyed this book a lot. I recommend this book to fans of thrillers that don’t mind slow stories cause it does pick up. I would also recommend it to first time Koontz readers and R.L. Stine fans since this one reads like a book you would find in his Fear Street series.
I have been handed my Mother's collection of King and Koontz, so this book is not new, but I am only reading this now. This book starts off at a decent pace, filling the reader in on the background of the important twists in the plot and connecting the reader with the main characters. The empathy for Colin is ok, but I feel it lacked some type of emotional connection to me as a reader. I am not sure whether the author wanted me to feel empathy toward Roy, but Roy felt a little bit empty to me. I would have liked to have felt Roy at a bit more depth than what was in the book. I am not sure if this is aimed more at the teenage reader but all in all the characters were certainly believable. Another minor Character Wheezy (Colin's Mum) also felt rather empty. I was left with little understanding of why she was such a crap mother. However Koontz did portray the irrational, self-centredness very well. However, the Voice of the Night really picks up pace from chapter 21 (p. 165). I love suspense and this book certainly gives you doses of suspense in good heart stopping sharp bursts. The chase/fight scenes were written incredibly well and Colin as a character really was brought out by the Author, through his development of how he was growing as a person and who he was becoming. The ending was a little mediocre after such an exciting fight scene.Two interesting points in the book. It was a very expensive tape recorder and I didn't realise that Eucalyptus trees were in USA!
hey, check out that cover!from the dean koontz companion: "this was the fifth of five novels published under the coffey pseudonym, and the best of the five."goes on to say this is the 1st where koontz portrays young people w/the depth and power long evident in his adult characters. i agree.the first koontz story i read was mr. murder, and the stillwater children in that story are even better-drawn. still....first sentence:"you ever killed anything?" roy asked.colin frowned. "like what?"the two boys were on a high hill at the north end of town. the ocean lay beyond.while it is a great opener, having read "newer" koontz stories prior to this one, and many of the other "previously published under" stories, i know that his writing improved.the best way i can describe his early stuff, is cheesecloth. like the description above. these two boys, looking out at the ocean. there's a ship out there. they're on a high hill. the north end of town. all that is well and good, but if and when you read his later stuff, you'll see that the above is cheesecloth. there's fabric there, sure, but his more recent stories are so much better.that opening scene goes on for a ways, lots of nice dialogue. the story is a great story, don't get me wrong, but i sense something missing, and that something is found in some of what he was writing at this time, but it is abundant in the stuff he began putting out later.kind of discouraging, for those who have ambition...now all we need is a decade or two of practice and all will be well, all manner of things will be well...that or cue the song, they're coming to take me away, a ha a ho, to the funny farm! where life is beautiful all the time...i wonder if anyone reads that far? dunno bud...go w/the flow.
—wally
Having read several of Dean Koontz's novels, I was surprised to see I had never heard of this book. It is writen under pseudonym, and it was released in the early 1980's, and that may be the reason why. On the other had, the element that really captured my attention was the captivating premise which, to my amusement, was supported by a great story. Colin and Roy are two totally different 14 year old boys. One is an extroverted kid, and the other is a shy adolescent yet, against all odds, both share a solid friendship. The narrative had a very fast pace which kept me interested throughout the entire time I was reading the novel. The characters were realistic, and the prose was very good.I highly recommend it to every Dean Koontz fan
—Daniel Gonçalves
This one was kind of disappointing, because it felt like it could've tried something new and different from every other book DK writes, but in the end he stuck with more familiar territory.The two main characters are 14-year old boys, the first obvious change from Koontz's usual formula. Colin, the "good" kid, is of the nerdy, geeky sort, who has difficulty making friends (and has a complete dickhole of a father, a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere), while Roy, the "bad" kid, is, on the ou
—Y
