Rating: 
Summary: Lame Ending
Review: The characterization is strong; the story tight and fast paced. Unfortunately, approximately three-forths of the way through, the book begins to unravel. After reading that many pages, I was disappointed that the ending was so lame and trite. As a reader, I felt cheated and experienced a tremendous letdown. I expected better from Koontz.
Rating: 
Summary: Boredom At 30,000 Feet
Review: Some time ago, I read _Sole Survivor_. While not the best thing I've ever read, it was enjoyable as a guily pleasure/vacation kind of book. Hoping that _Heaven_ would be similar, I picked up a copy for a flight. A mistake.
I believe that these reviews should be primarily written to guide potential buyers/readers, as opposed to trying to get cute and prove that 1) you have read the book and/or 2) you are clever. I could go on for days about his ridiculous use of simile, his annoying attribution of human intelligence to dogs, and the fact that he was evidently under contract to write a 700 page book when all he could really muster was the content for 400. But I won't.Instead, I would point out for the potential reader that this is likely to be a disappointment if you are expecting a good novel, a good science fiction/horror, or even just a plot that keep the pages turning because you have some time to burn and don't want to watch TV. While theoretically "about" bioethics, Mr. Kontz spends a total of about 3 pages discussing this. It's almost as if he overheard a conversation at a cocktail party and let his research on the subject stop at that. Even more insulting is his explanation of quantum mechanics, which I think is one and a half pages of half-baked buzzwords. He'd be better off not trying to explain the scifi aspects at all. I can't claim to be an expert on Koontz's work, and after reading this one, I know I never will be.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible...
Review: The first Dean Koontz book I ever read was "Strangers," and thank goodness it was a tremendous pleasure. Since then, I've read most of what Koontz has written. With that in mind, I'd advise you to skip this book. Awful, preachy new-agey stuff (and I've been known to like new-agey stuff, if done well!). I don't know what's happened to Koontz -- even his best books have a "churn 'em out quick" feel, yet also have a magic about them that makes them difficult or impossible to put down. Yet this one was just bad... mushy, incoherent and downright unpleasant reading... like a "B" movie in underdrive. Koontz seems to have found a "formula" -- formula characters, formula stories, formula preaching (this time his rant is against bioethics). Please, if you have to check this one out then do so -- from a public library. Don't waste the money, not even at 25 cents off the clearance racks. A tremendous disappointment... Koontz has lost me as a reader.
Rating:
Summary: For koontz fans
Review: This book is not for everyone, but Koontz is so established that he doesn't have to write for everyone. He writes what he wants and how he wants, and if you are the type of reader who can really stick with a book through the slow parts come hell or high water, you will probably enjoy it.
Koontz has proven once again he has the ability to combine a unique mix of genres and still make them work. Horror-suspense-comedy has been tried many times but often misses the mark, yet in this novel he manages to segue into science fiction from what at first appears to be a crime/mystery/thriller. All the elements are present: a young handicapped girl held in thrall and psychologically terrorized, only alive at the mercy of a dope-addict mother and psychopathic serial killer stepfather, a cast worthy of Hitchcock. Koontz adds a jaded ex-cop turned private eye styled in a manner reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, a lady ex-con with a heart of gold but a background of familial abuse, and last but not least, a 'special' young boy who is pursued by relentless and unusual hunters because he is not what he seems and has a superdog to assist him. Along with the standard plot jinks and jogs, Koontz manages to put forth his case against the inhuman but very real practice of utilitarian bioethics, a shameful ideology that advocates euthanasia for the genetically disadvantaged, handicapped and aged. I always applaud authors who can entertain with a story while proposing that people try to do more good in the world, so I give him top marks on that score. I also enjoyed immensely his too-few supporting character's rants against bureaucracy and the supercilious attitudes of the petty office tyrants that abound within. Koontz makes his points well, often with wry humor and irony that is sophisticated in message, yet simple enough in form so all may relate.
My only criticisms are relatively minor: The book seemed a bit long due to some redundancy in specific examples of just how horrible and evil Preston Maddoc could be, how much Leilani suffered mentally and emotionally and how aberrant her mother was. Once the point was made in each case, one does not need to be repeatedly beaten about the head with it to get it. A rewrite to tighten up the story line in this area would have improved readability, in my opinion. I also would have enjoyed being let in on exactly who the boy, Curtis's pursuers were other than just being described as evil entities. They created great havoc at the beginning of the story but along about the middle seemed to fade away for the most part. I found the beginning chapters up to about page 150 a little slow off the mark, other than the mysterious boy and his unrealistically intelligent dog and continuous narrow escapes in a puzzling parallel plot, and was downright bored to tears with Mickey, Leilani and Aunt Geneva's rambling dialogues at coffee klatches...I found myself checking back to see if I was reading the same chapter over again by mistake. But after that the story became more exciting as we were let in on Curtis's nature a bit more and the women's peril began to tie together with the other facets of the story. Noah, the private dick, started out to bring a more interesting character into play, but somehow dropped off the radar until the very end when he was conveniently needed. Despite these small criticisms, I would reccommend this book to persevering readers who enjoy sci-fi and crime stories written with an underlying message that we all must strive to uplift humanity to nobler ideals and purposes. -Barker Reviews.
Rating:
Summary: The Continuing Downward Spiral of Dean Koontz
Review: Two words: Twilight Eyes. A little known book of his I happened to pick up many moons ago and the book I view as the standard to compare all his other works with. Each new book released becomes more trite and regurgitated Koontz-dog-worship syrupy nonsense. This one adds a convoluted plot filled with both grotesquely over-developed and unfortunately underdeveloped characters. Pollyanna from hell Leilani Klonk is an absurd, unrealistic character. More than once I looked up from this book and thought to myself, "Will this book end?" Whatever happened to the Book of Counted Sorrows, Dean? This descent into tedium began with Dragon Tears (excluding books published previously under a pseudonym) and has gotten steadily worse. Finally he has managed to create a book in which I care about almost none of the characters. I give it one star because because I managed to finish it and because of his creative portrayal of Curtis Hammond. It did, however, take me four months to read compared to 24-48 hours. I think I will wait to buy the new one until it is in paperback and available on the used bookstore shelves.
Rating: 
Summary: Back in Form
Review: This is a much better book than the last few. He's turned away from the treacly sweet characters of From the Corner of His
Eye. Here, even the heroes and heroines of his book are flawed. I really liked the character of Leilani and I thought her best scene was the fight with the snake. However, one thing that did strike a discordant note was her fascination with breast size. She's nine years old. That's third grade. I don't care how precocious she is, she just wouldn't be like that unless she had older sisters or friends who were obsessed with their body image. I could even see it if it was something her mother and father constantly emphasized. Her mother, although evil and guilty of a multitude of sins, is not guilty of that one. Koontz does go a little overboard on his critique of BioEthics. He makes it sound like medical schools are just graduating entire classes of Dr. Kevorkians. This book managed to surprise me and that's probably why I gave it four stars.
Rating:
Summary: last chance
Review: I love dean koontz but his work has been off a little bit but
being such a loyal fan I thought I would give his work another
try but with one step from heaven I must admit this will probably be my last book. This book was a big fat zereo from start to finish.The chacters were boring it has so many plots and so many boring under devloped charters in the book that i had to keep flipping back in the book just to rember who they were. and the end was a just nonsense. This book was just awful
it would have been a whole lot better if Dean would have went more into the mother life when she was young.And cut out a lot of the dog scences
Rating:
Summary: Page turner
Review: The author hooks you, and you stay with him to an ending that does not truly satisfy. Over the course of his career, the philosophy and preaching have increased and intrude on the plot driven books where he is at his best.
Rating:
Summary: Simply dreadful. But some diehards will adore it.
Review: Formula Koontz: take an intelligent dog, a couple of morose people with big problems, an exotic premise, the imminent threat of our times, and what do you have? More or less, about 10 bestsellers. Okay, okay, sometimes a person plays the part of the intelligent dog. Happy? I don't think Mr. Koontz has changed. I think I have changed. What once was fresh and unexpected, even quirky and delightful, is now just Koontzification. It comes with the landscape. The last Koontz I liked was _Sole Survivor_. Possibly because the overtone of loss resonated so deeply with me at the time. Let's just leave it there and not bestir those old bones again. Goodbye, Mr. Koontz.
Rating: 
Summary: A book of the greatest importance
Review: We live in strange times. A man of letters, one who hangs out with the New York literati and who, of all things, claims to be a Christian, writes The Cider House Rules, a thinly disguised apology for abortion. A man known as a horror writer, one who seldom if ever is regarded as an Important Author, who plies his trade writing commercial fiction, a man who (as far as I know) has never made any public professions of faith, writes an absolutely stunning novel blasting the merchants of death who pose as compassionate relievers of suffering. What gives? Why is John Irving, who ought to know better, the defender of the indefensible, while Dean Koontz, journeyman ...(not my opinion of him, but how he's often regarded), gets the whole relativistic ethics thing straight? I don't know. But I'm sure glad for Dean Koontz, even as I am deeply ashamed of John Irving. For me, One Door Away from Heaven stands in relation to the Koontz canon as The Thanatos Syndrome stands in relation to the Walker Percy canon. Neither is the author's best book, but each may be and probably is his most important one. Because the Planned Parenthoods and Peter Singers of this world are our worst enemies. They must be exposed at all costs. And it takes a very special kind of writer to do it. Koontz has the right stuff. May his tribe increase. One Door Away from Heaven is probably too big and sprawling and unruly to ever be considered great literature. But it has an indomitableness, an unstoppability, about it. It just keeps coming, like a righteous juggernaut, right at'cha. It also has almost a kind of holiness about it--not in the least self-aggrandizing, but focused entirely on the good, the beautiful, the true, the eternal. Yes, it must look into the essence of evil, and that means a good deal of material that is dark, but you always know the author intentions are pure and good. The contrast between Leilani Klonk, physically deformed but possessed of a heart and a humanity that can scarcely be contained in her damaged vessel of a body, and her psuedofather, Preston Claudius Maddoc, aka Dr. Doom, physically perfect, uncommonly intelligent, 'ethical' murderer, shows this with absolute clarity. Moreover, there's a wonderful playful quality about the book which comes out most clearly in Curtis Hammond's inability to grasp the nuances of normal human socializing but also, remarkably, in the very nub of its message, which has everything to do with the title, and which is also brilliantly on display in Curtis's unusual plan to save our world. All in all, I am in awe of Dean Koontz and what he is doing in elevating the homely genre of suspense/thriller into a startling and revelatory vehicle of socio-religious observation and commentary.
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