Book Review: THE TAKING by Dean Koontz. *** and a 1\2 out of *****

From the late 1990s onwards, the work of Dean Koontz took on a somewhat jarring tone. Novels like Sole Survivor (1997), One Door Away from Heaven (2001), Odd Thomas (2003), and Innocence (2013), were all repetitive thrillers about lost characters in search of redemption, or innocent characters hunted down by irredeemably evil figures, with most of the stories having a religious undercurrent that could be pretty off-putting. Some of these books worked. Many of them didn’t.

Since The Taking, originally published in 2004, seemed more of the same, I dove into it with low expectations, giving it a go mainly because, in an interview with Koontz that I came across recently, he mentioned that he considered The Taking one of his all-time favorite books.

The Taking revolves around Molly and Niel Sloan, who wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of pouring rain, a cataclysmic downpour that threatens to drown their small California town. Quickly, the young couple senses that something tremendous is going on, maybe even the end of the world as they know it. So they venture out of the safety of their home, and seek their neighbors, feeling the need to band together against this otherworldly threat. But they soon come to realize that their neighbors are not what they seem, and that what’s going on surpasses their worst nightmares.

The Taking is Koontz going full-throttle, for better or worse. The book is immensely readable, a true page-turner, and the main character, Molly, is a likable, vulnerable, but innately strong character. But Koontz’s penchant for heavy-handed prose and preachiness also shine through, and he seems more interested in atmosphere and creating a sense of cosmic dread, than in structuring a satisfying plot.

And that’s the thing about The Taking: it’s virtually plotless. The whole story revolves around a concept, not a plot, of seemingly omnipotent and malevolent beings taking over the world, and how Molly and her husband deal with that. There are some interesting sidetracks, and the dialogue is crisp throughout, but the book feels like a short story or a novella expanded into a novel.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And The Taking isn’t a bad book. In fact, it’s a very good one, and, surprisingly, turns out to be one of Koontz’s best, mainly because of Koontz’s ability to hone in on his obsession and fascination with the concept of pure evil, and how good people confront it.

The Taking is a truly disturbing descent into a hellish situation, into a world subverted by evil and paranoia. And even if the scale of the story isn’t as epic as it pretends to be, the imagery, the philosophical implications, and the final revelation make this a haunting metaphysical thriller that leaves a lasting impression and plenty of food for thought.

Recommended for fans of the author and for newcomers alike.

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Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2023.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

Book Review: DRACULA UNBOUND By Brian Aldiss *** out of *****

Following on his hugely successful and tremendously entertaining novel Frankenstein Unbound, which combined time-travel with a post-modernist revision of Mary Shelley's life and her most famous novel, Brian Aldiss dips into the same well with Dracula Unbound, his attempt to do something similar with Bram Stoker's Gothic masterpiece.

Alas, the second time is not the charm. Where Frankenstein Unbound was fast-paced, coherent, and thought-provoking, Dracula Unbound is slow, meandering, and intellectually lukewarm.

The plot (from the publisher's blurb): In the barren dust of the far future, the sun leaks energy in a darkening sky and the only remaining humans are imprisoned by spectral, bloodthirsty beings. Back in the brilliant Utah sunlight of 1999, two ancient graves yield evidence that a species of human coexisted with the dinosaurs . . . Linking these scenarios is impetuous inventor Joe Bodenland (the protagonist of Frankenstein Unbound), who has just created a machine that manipulates time to dispose of hazardous waste . . .

Where's Dracula, you ask? Well, without revealing too much, let's just say that Bodenland manages to go back in time, meet Bram Stoker, and together they hunt down the vampiric creature that will later inspire Stoker to revise his masterpiece.

As is obvious from the synopsis, the plot is confusing and confused, and Aldiss, never a writer to dwell on characters' motivations and psychology, is at his worst here, with characters that are mere sketches, and dialogue that is woefully artificial.

And unlike in Frankenstein Unbound, where he treated the source material and its author with reverence, here, Aldiss foregoes the tone and mood of the original novel, and seems intent on ridiculing Stoker, portraying him as a staunchly conservative, syphilitic hypocrite, who is always eager to do battle for "God and Country" at the drop of a pin. Aldiss, who has a penchant for psycho-sexualizing his stories at the expense of quality, misses the mark here, and his portrayal of Stoker is nothing less than offensive, especially since in his afterword he mentions relying for his research on two highly-contested biographies: A Biography of Dracula: The Life Story of Bram Stoker by Harry Ludlum, and The Man Who Wrote Dracula: A Biography of Bram Stoker by Daniel Farson *.

But all could have been forgiven if the story had been compelling. But it isn't, and fans of Stoker and his novel will be disappointed by what Aldiss does with and to them.

Still, the novel is high on imagination, even if it is low on craft, and it is an interesting misfire by a singular author.

* For a more balanced analysis of the novel Dracula, and the life of Bram Stoker, check out Elizabeth Miller's brilliant essay, Coitus Interruptus: Sex, Bram Stoker, and Dracula, available here.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @DFantasticPodcast

Book Review: Space On My Hands. By Frederic Brown

Back in the 1950's and 60's, Frederic Brown was considered a master of suspense and dark fantasy, mainly because many of his stories were made into episodes of Hitchcock Presents, and other popular anthology shows. I've always found him to be a master of the short story, with most of his tales having a nasty bent to them, a brooding atmosphere, as he had a knack for nihilistic, dark endings that made his stories linger in the memory. That's not to say Brown is another H. P. Lovecraft. Not at all. Many of his stories, especially his most well-known ones, are light, snappily-plotted ones, but as many are dark and complex.

The collection Space On My Hands a collection of mainly Sci-Fi tales, is a mixture of both. You have the lighter ones (Pi In The Sky, a brilliantly sarcastic tale about advertising; All Good Bems; Nothing Sirius; Crisis, 1999, a clever sci-fi/detective tale involving hypnosis; and Star Mouse), and the darker-toned ones (Knock; Something Green; and the closing tale, Come And Go Mad, a masterpiece of psychological horror).

So if you are looking for some vintage mystery/Sci-Fi from the Golden Age (this collection was first published in 1951), Space On My Hands is a good choice.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2013.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer