Frankenstein: Lost Souls-Dean Koontz

The Fourth Time Is Not A Charm

Dean Koontz returns to the Frankenstein story with his fourth book in the series, Lost Souls. The five remaining characters from the third book, Dead and Alive, are back:  Deucalion, Victor Frankenstein’s original creation; Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison, former New Orleans police officer partners and now married private detectives and new parents of a little girl in San Francisco; and Erika Five, Victor’s fifth wife creation, and Jocko, the creature that grew from one of his creations and stays with Erika. Deucalion corrals them all to help him fight Victor again, but this time it’s a Victor replicant the human being created because they killed the real Victor in New Orleans at the end of Book Three. They all gather in Rainbow Falls, Montana, where the new Victor, now called Victor Leben has successfully created a new breed of replicants who are planning to exterminate all of humanity.

I freely admit that I read this series because I like what Koontz does with the character of Deucalion.  I continue to say that he is one of the best characters fiction has to offer today.  That said, this book is not one I enjoyed.  The story is filled with characters far less interesting than Deucalion, and he is in just a small fraction of the story (less than a tenth).  The vast majority of the book is about the townspeople of Rainbow Falls, Montana, and the almost boring descriptions of how they are all being done away with and replaced with replicants.  Koontz would be better off beginning the story with this already having taken place and the five main characters then having to act to end Victor’s reign of terror.  But that would mean only one book instead of three or more.

In addition, the reader finds out little that is mentioned in the blurb on the inside, front cover.  So what I must assume is that this book’s information is actually the information for other books to follow.  That seems like a bait and switch.  Do publishers not have to give information on the actual book I’m reading anymore? I’m only happy I didn’t buy this book but took it out of the library.  I can’t imagine how anyone would be satisfied if they bought this book thinking the write up on the inside flap was the story they would be reading. The story the reader finds in the book is far less interesting because it’s basically just the introduction to a story that will follow in future books.  That’s like reading the beginning of Dracula and only getting to the part when the main character gets to London.

Overall, this book seems like the prologue to the same story he told in the last three books. However, this one doesn’t even do as much as the first book in the series, Prodigal Son, did to set up the other two books after it.  As much as I enjoy the character of Deucalion, I don’t think Koontz does justice to the story he established in the previous three books with Lost Souls.
-Alexandria

Frankenstein: Book Three, Dead and Alive-Dean Koontz

The Conclusion of The Frankenstein Trilogy

Dead and Alive, Book Three of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy, concludes the story of Victor Frankenstein/Helios vs Deucalion, Carson, and Michael. Deucalion is set on his goal: to destroy his creator, Victor Frankenstein, who is now going by the name Victor Helios and lives in New Orleans, where he makes human replicants by the thousands. Helping Deucalion are a number of factors: the two New Orleans police officers, Carson and Michael, are his helpers in taking down Helios, but additionally, a flaw in the replicants which is making them act distinctly unlike Helios has designed them is helping the three. The action takes Deucalion and the cops from the building where Victor creates his “people” in New Orleans to a dump outside of Lake Pontchartrain where mistakes from his laboratory and former replicants who had displeased him are disposed of and to a variety of locales in between. The action is fast in this installment, and the majority of the book reads like the story is careening toward the ending.

This third book is bizarre in some parts, and unnecessarily so.  It’s already quite fantastical that a man has created thousands of creatures that look and act like humans but are as replaceable as worn out shoes.  It’s not necessary to up the weird factor and introduce characters into the third book that are just creepy and don’t further the plot a great deal.  Koontz introduces Jocko, a troll-like creature that grew out of one of the other replicants (one of the bad guys from the first book), and he befriends Erika 5.  Other than giving her a plaything and bringing out maternal instincts she’s not supposed to have because Victor has intentionally made every one of his creatures unable to reproduce, Jocko does very little to further the story and his dialogue ranges from silly to downright misplaced in parts.  Koontz also introduces the Chameleon, some kind of creature he made in his lab, but this character does nothing to further the plot other than reinforce the point that Victor is an evil madman.  Well, if you made it to the third book and didn’t know that, you just didn’t get the idea from page 1 of Prodigal Son, Book One in the trilogy.

The ending of Dead and Alive is contrived and involves the negation of rules the author himself set up.  If you write that if one character does something, all of his creatures will die (excepting Deucalion, who is a much older model that doesn’t follow the same protocol), and that first character does that particular something, then all the damn creatures must die.  You’re the author; you made the rule.  Now you must stick to it.  But no, Koontz does not, and the reader is left thinking, “Why?  This makes no sense.”

Overall, this series ends on a lackluster note for me.  The second book, City of Night, is the best in the trilogy, with the first book unsatisfying in its ending and the third book problematic in parts.  Deucalion, the original Frankenstein’s monster, continues to be a wonderfully written character in this book, but I would argue still gets too little face time compared to a myriad of sometimes bizarre but often just silly minor characters.  Yes, they are needed to show the breakdown of Victor’s whole world, but they shouldn’t take over the book from the character that exhibits some of the finest qualities in a fictional character I’ve read.

Finally, do not read the back cover blurb and think that is what the story is about.  I’m convinced the explanation of the story on the back is meant for a completely different book.  It’s that far removed from what actually happens in Dead and Alive.
-Alexandria

Frankenstein: Book Two, City of Night-Dean Koontz

Frankenstein’s Monsters Are Coming Apart At The Seams

Book Two of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy, City of Night, picks up where the first novel, Prodigal Son (see review of Book One here), leaves off.  Deucalion, the original creation of Victor Frankenstein (now called Helios), knows he must stop his maker from taking over New Orleans with his replicants and creations. But he can’t kill his maker because of his programming–he cannot commit deicide.  Deucalion is helped by two New Orleans police officers, Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison, who in the second book no longer doubt that Victor Helios is a madman and has created a race of people, many of whom are at the highest levels of power in the city, such as the police captain and the district attorney and his wife.  O’Connor and Maddison have to be rogue police officers to stop Helios.  He knows about them and has ordered his hit man and woman to kill them.

Book Two is better, in my opinion, than Book One of the series. It moves faster and the characters are more interesting. Deucalion continues to impress the reader as a thoughtful, almost soulful character, and the police duo are great together.  I find myself hoping they finally get together by the end of the trilogy.  In addition to these main characters, the supporting characters are more interesting also.  Helios’s new wife, Erika 5 (the fifth incarnation of his wife) is new to the world, but Koontz writes her as a woman who is too strong for Helios.  She withstands his painful beatings during sex (which help him get off), but she feels humility (programmed into her for more sexual pleasure for Helios) which leads to her wanting more from life, just as with the first four Erikas.  The ability to feel emotions, which Helios only includes so he can humiliate her, means she will eventually hope and want more.

The other supporting characters are primarily creations of Helios.  Throughout the book, these creatures are suffering from a breakdown in their code.  Whatever has been programmed into them is coming apart, causing them to be uniquely human in their behavior.  They all want to kill, something they have been bred not to do, except for those who Helios created specifically to be murderers. But because of the breakdown in their systems, they have begun to want to kill.  They also have begun to want to end their lives, something else they have been programmed not to do.  It is in this area that the book is particularly successful as Koontz has Deucalion as their savior; he is the one creature who can give them peace by taking their lives.  The parts with him spending time with the creations before he releases them from their hell of living the hollow lives they must are touching.

City of Night is good enough to make me want to continue to the end of Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy. He still constructs the book as if it’s for those who suffer from ADD–again he begins a new chapter each time he changes character perspective.  But his characterization of the three main characters has me wanting to see what happens.  I dread reading to the end of the final book in the series only to find out that Deucalion dies; he has become a profoundly interesting character, who I wish Koontz would spend more time on than the other, more minor characters.  In addition, the police couple of Carson and Michael have become quite good also.

Koontz’s second Frankenstein book is enjoyable as a thriller, but it is also good as an examination of what makes us human.   This is the question the trilogy explores on a deeper level.  Through the breakdown of Helios’s creations from perfect beings to mere beings that behave like humans, the reader is forced to think about what is humanity.
–Alexandria

Frankenstein: Book One, Prodigal Son- Dean Koontz

Modern Day Prometheus Is Up To No Good

Dean Koontz reworks Mary Shelley’s classic, Frankenstein, placing both Victor Frankenstein and his creation in modern day America.  Koontz’s contemporary version has Victor Frankenstein as Victor Helios, a name chosen by the maniacal doctor to reflect his own belief in his power.  Helios was the god of the sun, a powerful deity, and Victor sees himself as just that:  a deity.  His first creation, often mistakenly referred to as Frankenstein (Shelley never meant the creation to be considered a monster; the doctor manipulating the creation of life was her monster) is named Deucalion. Koontz’s naming of this character reflects the subtitle of Shelley’s original tale:  Frankenstein, Prometheus Unbound.  Prometheus was the Greek god who gave mankind fire (and paid dearly when Zeus found out!) and Deucalion was his son.  Interestingly, Deucalion and his wife Pyhrra were the only beings left alive after the flood Zeus inflicted on mankind because of their wickedness.

Frankenstein is set in New Orleans, and in addition to Deucalion and Victor Helios, there is a cast of characters all acting in tandem around a central story of a serial killer terrorizing the Cresent City.  Detectives Carson O’Connor and her partner Michael Maddison are working to catch him before the body count gets any higher.  The serial killer, Roy Pribeaux, doesn’t kill indiscriminately, however.  He’s looking to construct the perfect woman out of the perfect parts he’s collected from women.  However, a new killer arrives on the scene, a killer who takes out internal organs, and not just from women.  The detectives have to determine what the truth of all the killings is if they ever expect to find the killer.  In addition, the story involves Victor Helios, who has moved on from just creating one being 200 years ago and now has a legion of beings he’s created and who have been sent out into the city to live and work among the humans he intends to someday eliminate.  Victor has also improved himself, with countless surgeries to keep him forever young.  But something unexpected has happened to Victor’s creations:  they are beginning to think for themselves.  His wife, Erica 5 (an improvement on the previous four) reads poetry and has found hope in life; another creation Victor intentionally made with autism has become obsessed with finding others like him who he sees have achieved something he hasn’t, happiness; and yet another seems to be opening up humans to find out what it is inside them that makes them happy.

Koontz’s Frankenstein retelling is interesting, and he is particularly successful in making Deucalion an appealing and likable character.  Unlike the sophisticated man Victor Helios, who is really a monster, the scarred and gigantic Deucalion is a thoughtful creature who fights his rage and knows he must do whatever he can to stop his creator.  The story is compelling and engrossing.

The problems with the story stem from the way the book is structured.  Each time the author switches the point of view from one character to another, a new chapter is begun.  He switches often, which results in 97 chapters in a 469 page novel.  Some chapters are only three pages long, and the effect of jumping from character to character and beginning a new chapter each time is distracting.  Often the chapters deal with the same event from a different point of view, but longer chapters would work just as well and be less distracting.  In addition, Koontz doesn’t finish the story with this first book.  In fact, he ends this book before the serial killer is found and nothing is wrapped up at the conclusion of the book.  While I certainly understand the author’s idea to create a series, the end is unfulfilling, to say the least.  Will readers continue on to the second installment of the Frankenstein series?  Probably, but it still seems a poor way to end a novel.

Overall, other than the chapter divisions designed for those with ADD, this story is a good one.  I have never been a Frankenstein fan, but I find that I want to read the second novel because of Deucalion, the character most associate with the name Frankenstein.  Koontz’s monster is anything but, which aligns him with Shelley’s intent in her original story.
-Alexandria