Monday, February 13, 2012

Lightning by Dean Koontz

Lightning by Dean Koontz

Now this is an older novel you may have missed. Originally published in 1988 its totally worth the read if you missed it the first time around.

From Wikipedia
A storm struck on the night Laura Shane was born, and there was a strangeness about the weather that people would remember for years. Even more mysterious was the blond-haired stranger who appeared out of nowhere again and again to save Laura from tragedy.


 Ok now on to the review. Laura feels like an ordinary girl who lives a life wrought with tragedy. Her mother dies when she is being born. Her father dies when she is eight and she is forced into an orphanage where a child molester takes interest in her. But the truly strange thing is that at each of theses events an amazing lighting storm takes place and a mysterious man appears to try to save her. 


 Koontz always has the ability to really suck you into a story and keep you guessing. Most of the story is written focused around Laura's life but what we don't realize is that all of the important stuff is hiding behind the scenes so to speak. It all comes to a climax when Laura's husband is killed and the mystery man is forced to up his role in Laura's life, eventually appearing to try to save her, and her son, one last time.


 Now I can't get into the most exciting part of the book without dropping a big spoiler, so if you don't like spoilers you should probably stop reading right now. Ok so anyways on to the big details. So it seems our mystery man is actually a scientist from the past. He works at one of Hitlers secret labs and is part of a team working on time travel to help Hitler win the war. Stephan (mystery man) has fallen in love with Laura do to her books, she is a writer, and has felt the need to help save her from a handicap she was to have in her original future due to a malpractice issue. In saving her from this fate it seemed that Stephan had sent Laura's life in a different direction with each incident seeming to be worse than the last. Now Stephan feels the need to save her from each of these horrible events.


 What I really enjoyed about this book, besides the characters, is the science. I love the thought of time travel but unless you believe is simultaneous timelines its hard to believe that you could go back in time and change things. That being said it seems to be more believable that you could go forward in time to change things that have not happened yet. 


 Even if you are not a time travel nut like me I think the characters are compelling and the story line so fast paced at the end that Lightning will hold your interest.


I give Lightning a 4 out of 5 stars

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