"Twilight Eyes" by Dean Koontz

I just recently started this book, so I may as well jump back in with it.  "Twilight Eyes" was written back in 1985 when Koontz was unfairly labeled as a horror author after "Phantoms" and others.  It falls under a little of horror, but mostly suspense, right up my alley. 

This isn't the original cover, but I think it's the best.  The amusement park silhouette and bloodred sky are beautifully ominous and hark back to a time when book covers actually reflected what the book was about, not what the marketing department wants you to think it's about. Most of the reprint covers, of which there are many, seem more emotional and artsy, but don't convey the suspense you are about to encounter at all. Compare to the most recent reprint cover:

See?  Artsy fartsy.  No suspense at all.  Not even the hint of some danger, or any danger that might befall our hero.  They even use the same font from the Twilight series (patooie!) on the title!!  As if to trick the parents of angsty teenagers into thinking they've bought their daughter the best christmas present ever!  Thhhbbbbbb....

Here's Amazon's synopsis:

Slim MacKenzie is no ordinary man. With eyes the color of twilight, he's been blessed with a psychic gift: premonitions. He's also been cursed, for Slim can see the monsters hiding among us, feeding on our suffering.
And when Slim joins a traveling carnival seeking sanctuary, what he'll find is a hunting ground-with humanity as the prey.

 Seems like fairly standard Koontz fair of a outsider who has an extrodinary gift that he uses to save some innocent lives.  I seem to keep stumbling on "new" Koontz books with a regular pace, but fortunately, most of them stand up to the test of time due to their lack of science and current events, yet timeless and gripping writing.  "Phantoms" is the only one so far that does not, with a now laughable 10 gigabyte supercomputer.  I would go down the wikipedia list of his novels and read each one in sequence, but it's such a dauntingly large list that I prefer to just discover them and think they are new without knowing the date of publication until later.

.......hrrmm

Well then....
You may have noticed a large gap in the last months.  Maybe you haven't.  Life got in the way and the little blog I wanted to start quickly fell by the wayside as did my time to read.  My actual job tends to send me around the world and one of my hobbies kept me insanely busy for the last couple months (see SubstandardRacing.blogspot.com). 
I am back though and I want to give this another try!  I did read "Under the Dome", but I don't want to comment on it now since it's been months since I did and my impressions are muddled.  I will read it again to finish what I started, but that will be in the future and I'll need some time, considering it's a loooooong book. 
So, in a quick closing and band-aid style pain relief, I'm sorry.
On with the show!

Under the Dome by Stephen King

First up?  An author who needs no introduction in a genre he defined.  I'm jumping in head first.  Stephen King's Under the Dome, published in November 2009. 

Here's the publisher's synopsis:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mills, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

Gorgeous coverwork.  It was evidently an ambitious design that turned out beautifully.  Click here to see the whole thing.

King is one of those authors I always meant to read but never did, and as I read the synopsis of Under the Dome, it didn't seem like a horror novel, more like a psychological thriller, though if you think about it, that's what good horror is.  I'm looking forward to this being a good book.  He wouldn't have sold bazillions of other books if he wasn't at least an adequate author, right?  Right??

Welcome!

Hello there! Welcome to Novel Adventures. I am avid reader, someone who lusts after new releases from my favorite authors and devours them when they are available. I collect books and treat them as a log of my adventures in literature; each one is a memory and each one is a friend. I have a problem though; I don’t frequently try new authors. I get so stuck in my favorites that I’d rather reread old ones than venture off into territories unknown for fear of being disappointed. A book is an extreme investment of time and to read an unsatisfying one is disheartening. My displeasure stems from simplistic phrase work to unresearched facts, but no matter the reason I stay away.

 

But no longer! I have vowed to beat this irrational fear of the literary darkness and venture into contents unknown. This blog is my outlet, my thought page, my brain drain for all of the analysis and perspective I have on each book I read. Some may call these writings “reviews” and to that I say…ehh probably. I can’t help it. I know some I’ll like and some I won’t, but I’ll detail all the reasons why for either scenario.

 

The meaning of the blog’s title is twofold:

1. Novel means new and I’m embarking on new adventures in reading. Joy!
2. Most novels I read fall into the broad category of “adventure”

Adventure, suspense, action, thriller; these are the genres of books I enjoy and these will be recorded here. No Oprah book club (she’s never endorsed Clive Cussler), no chick-flick-o-the-month movie (I’m looking at you Nicholas Sparks). Cussler, Preston, Child, Morrell, Rollins, Koontz, Crichton. These are my heroes in no particular order. If you haven’t read some, or all, or these authors, I encourage you too. If you’re fans like myself, you know what I’m talking about.

 

As I branch out and chronicle my new frondescence, I will also be enjoying my aforementioned favorites, since they haven’t put down their own pens yet (save Michael Crichton, God rest his soul). I will still snap them up and tear through them with the same veracity I usually do as well as express my thoughts here on each one. I also frequently return to my old favorites, to be “reviewed” here as well, along with classics that I may or may not have read. I hate that word, “reviewed.” Sounds like something Jeremy Irons would say as a bad guy. As a consequence, I hope these reviews examinations encourage and assist budding writers, helping you enhance your new skills.

 

As I choose books I’ll let you know which books I’ll be reading so you can play along at home and see if we come to the same conclusions. Feel free to comment and engage in discussion with myself or each other, but “yeah huh” and “nuh uh” aren’t logical responses to intelligent chatter. Suggestions for future readings are more than welcome, but if you say “Twilight” I’ll swing the banhammer down faster than you can say Herman Melville.

 

Welcome, and enjoy!