Intensity

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Summary: Dean Koontz--Intensity (1995)
Review: One of the simpler stories conceived by horror-suspense great Dean Koontz, "Intensity" is a rip-roaring, overpowering, do-not-read-alone-during-the-night tale that solidified him as one of the best of his time. Chyna Shepherd is ready to move on with her life, forget the past, and begin anew as a strong, dedication woman. While spending the weekend with her best graduate school friend, Chyna can not sleep and feels as if something is just not right. Past midnight, the family is tormented by an evil killer who proceeds to slay everyone but her.

First driven by absolute fear, Chyna hides inside the maniacal sociopath's trailer--realizing that the only way to survive is to fight back. While hiding from the hideous Edgler Foreman Vess (it even sounds scary!), Chyna learns that her friend's family were not the only victims he planned for the near future, for a young girl is trapped inside a realm of darkness and at the brink of being Vess's prey--brutalized and slaughtered. The tough protagonist searches deep down into her soul for the strength to in hopes defeat this unbearable evil, only to eventually find herself in Vess's home and in a hell that she could never foresee. Chyna Shepherd is arguably his most developed character, weaving her in and out of horrors while brilliantly connecting her troubled past with the dedication and resolve to try and sacrifice herself for the life of someone else.

Edgler Foreman Vess is equally as effective as the enemy as Chyna is the heroine. He is a homicidal adventurist who lives only to satisfy his gruesome needs of intensity, sensation, and death. The moments throughout the novel when the readers learn the thoughts and motives of Vess are truly horrific and disturbing, mainly when Koontz uses innocence as the victim. "Intensity" is perhaps his most authoritative novel, pouncing on the audience within the first few pages, increasing the shockingly readable twists and turns with every chapter. It is a work that is hard to read, even harder to comprehend the iniquity that Chyna is up against; but it is a masterful illustration of perseverence, insistence, and strength. A certain all-nighter of a tale, "Intensity" will rock you.

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Summary: Intensity
Review: Chyna having a bad childhood, finally got her life together after leaving her mother and going to college. Just finding a trusting friend. Chyna decides to take a little vacation with Laura Templeton and go to her family's house. Chyna isn't sleeping well that night and sits in the guest room thinking about her disturbing memories. When she hears a scream not thinking much of it she continues to think. After hearing another scream, Chyna slips into reality. To find a nightmare just to begin. Edgler Foreman Vess kills the closest think that Chyna can call family and she wants revenge.

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Summary: Scariest novel I've ever read
Review: If ever there was a spine chiller of thriller, this is it. Hats off to Dean Koontz for this novel. This is the Koontz novel that will be read a hundred years from now. I've never come across anything like it.

I can't say it was just a page turner, because that would be an understatement, and it would be not be true either. It was so intense for me, and so awful (the situation the heroine was in, I mean, not the story) that every so often I had to stop reading and put the thing down and do something else. I had had enough for the time being, and just couldn't take it any more.

Next day, I would not be able to stay away from it, and would pick it up again, and carry on, with trepidation, biting finger nails, and sliding off the edge of my seat. It ought to come with a WARNING LABEL: If you have a bad heart, do NOT read this book.

The first two or three pages give no hint of what's coming, but once Edgler Vess gets into the big house in the Napa Valley, where heroine Chyna Shepard is staying with her friend's family, you will be hooked, and in for the thriller of a lifetime. It's the scariest novel I have ever read.

I suppose, however, that if you just read it with a cold, critical, analytical eye, you will find tiny plot flaws, as some reviewer spoilsports have seemed intent on doing. I can do that kind of thing too with a novel, and tend to when I am bored, but with this one I was too scared for that. I never noticed any flaws.


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Summary: I loved it
Review: I read a lot of these people trashing Koontz and don't know why. Don't really care. I've only read one of his books and it was excellent. Intensity is a quality and entertaining book no matter how you want to break it down. It was intense and damn good.

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Summary: Excellent!
Review: A young woman named Chyna Shepard is staying with her best friend and her family when she hears someone murdering Laura and her family. She quickly hides under the guest bed and watches as a man with a knife dripping blood searches the bedroom for any sign of life. After what seems like forever, he finally switches off the light and leaves. She then sneaks out to his waiting motorhome and discovers that he's keeping a teenage girl in his home basement. She then decides to follow him all the way home, sneak into his house and save the girl. Four vicious dobermans guard his home. Can she rescue the girl from the madman's basement and escape without him knowing? This book is VERY intense, thrilling, and action packed from start ton finish. Never a dull moment and the frightening twist at the end will make you cry out loud. Dean Koontz's best, DON'T MISS IT!

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Summary: Absolutely horrible
Review: This is an inane piece of trash. I'm from Napa, so I thought it would be cool to read a Napan thriller. How wrong I was.

First of all, even the author makes excuses for the extreme implausibility of events as the action unfolds. Example: Wow, what a coincidence the killer didn't hear her snooping around! How lucky! The killer must have really been deep inside his own twisted head to have not heard her!! Wow, thank god she chose to take the second staircase (for no good reason) instead of the first -- otherwise she would have met the killer face to face on the stairs and gotten killed!! Wow, even though it was 1am, thank god she hadn't unpacked any of her bags in the room she was staying in or ruffled the covers on the bed, otherwise the killer would have known someone was staying in the room and looked for her and killed her!! Gee, thank god the killer didn't look to his left instead of right, otherwise he would have seen her standing there and he would have killed her!

It was literally like an episode of The Roadrunner.

Then, the killer seemed to be able to walk half a mile within a few seconds in order to retrieve his mobile home. No excuses offered for that one.

And did you know that anytime there is a rug on the floor, no one can hear you when you walk, even when they're only a few feet a way?? Next time you're near a killer who's looking the other way and you need to snoop around, just make sure there's a rug or a carpet. Never mind that you're in a Victorian house. Wood never creaks in an old house, silly.

And it just got even worse, more boring, and more pointless after that, with NO HOOK, nothing that made me want to keep reading.

I put this down after 80 or so pages. SO HORRIBLE!!

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Summary: The book that got me hooked!
Review: This was my first Dean Koontz book... I've been an avid Koontz reader ever since. An easy-to-read, utterly suspensful and shocking tale with well-developed characters. I couldn't put it down once I got started. MOST of Dean's Koontz's books have this effect, although I have come across one or two that just never hooked me. This one certainly won't disappoint if suspense is your thing.

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Summary: Wow.
Review: Ho-ly crap. That is all I have to say about this book. This is the best book I have read in a really, really, really long time. I read this book in about 2 1/2 days and I never wanted to put it down. The story really pulls you into it and there was never a dull moment. It is very gruesome, so if you don't like that kind of stuff, definitely stay away from it. I loved this book and it is one of Koontz's finest works. The day after I finished reading it, I actually picked it back up and re-read it! Perfect book for those with an appetite for great imagery and suspense!

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Summary: Intensity Is By Far The Best... Intense Thriller...
Review: Dean R. Koontz was high on my favorite author list before Intensity was released during my senior year of High School. When this book came out... I was blown away.

Two young women go to visit family over an extended break from school and through the course of the first night, over-cautious Chyna witnesses the murder of the family she is the guest of. An act of courage causes her to hitch a ride in the murders camper where she realizes her courage was all for nothing. When she gets an oprotunity to escape, she narrowly does so during another moment of bloody violence. Yet, in the aftermath, she finds a picture of a young girl who may or may not be alive and in the killers custody. The courage returns to Chyna full throttle and in the course of 24 hours she sets out to rescue the young girl before she meets the fate of the others he murdered.

What follows is an edge of your seat thriller that is relentless with pace and never lets up on the tension. The entire time you read the story, you feel as if the moment when she will be captured is inevetable... and of course, it is.

The climax is amazing and when the killers identity is revealed, the shock of said revelation is unbelievably clever and unexpected.

Intensity is a true edge-of-the-seat ride of terror, chills, adventure, and perseverance. And with a profoundly filled out Character such as Chyna, it is hard to not care about what happens to her.

This is by far, his best book. He has yet to write anything more frightening... and more rivetting...

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Summary: Intensity
Review: Intensity is my favorite book written by Dean Koontz. He is such a talented wirter and once you pick up a book by Dean Koontz you can't just put it down. It was a constant struggle for me to accomplish my other goals because I could not stop reading this book. Intensity is about a girl who grew up with a hippe mother and no other family. She goes on a trip to Nappa Valley with her friend and a killer kills her friends family without knowing that she is in the house. She tries to follow him to warn his next victim but it doesn't work out as planned. She gets caught and has to fight for her life and a little girl that he has been keeping locked up in his basement. The story has a rather good ending and if I would suggest a book to anyone Intensity would be it.