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Fiction. Horror. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Welcome to the Pendleton. Built as a tycoonâ??s dream home in the 1880s and converted to luxury condominiums not quite a century later, the Gilded Age palace at the summit of Shadow Hill is a sanctuary for its fortunate residents. Scant traces remain of the episodes of madness, suicide, mass murderâ??and whispers of things far worseâ??that have scarred its grandeur almost from the beginning. But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendletonâ??s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. And as nightmare visions become real, as a deadly tide begins to engulf them, the people at 77 Shadow Street will find t… (more)
User reviews
If the characters weren't so "straight off the shelf," I would have liked it more. The One was not scary; it's little passages between chapters were more irritating than anything else because I'm sure I've read every sentence in another book. (Was it supposed to be the horror version of Skynet from the Terminator movies?)
The ending was hokey, but this is such a step up from the massively disappointing Frankenstein series, that I have to give Koontz two thumbs up! (The first two are awesome, but book 3 of the Frankenstein series is one of only 3 books on my hated it list, and I refuse to read the rest.)
I loved the story and the story line. It was fantastic right up until the last few chapters and then well lets just say I dont care for stories that are all nice and tidy in 4 pages. it took nearly 200 pages to build up the idea...then another 200 pages to
The additional story was entertaining as well with the same pitiful ending.
And then, unfortunately, it stalled. About midway through the book, things simply slowed down. Too much jumping around with not enough depth made me feel like I'd rather lost touch with both the creepy atmosphere I'd been enjoying and the characters who I'd been most engaged with. In a way, it rather felt like the book lost focus, moving almost from horror into sci-fi territory, but also--really simply--losing focus and sort of wandering. I lost interest, and ended up not even bothering to take it with me on vacation, opting instead to start something else.
In the end, I finished this today, but compared to how I felt in the beginning, it ended up being a somewhat disappointing read. The ending picked up a bit, and I was glad to read through the resolution, but I think Koontz just tried to pack in too many ideas and twists into this one. Oddly, it was both sort of predictable and sort of confusing at different moments, which I have to attribute to a lack of focus, and a really off-kilter pacing.
All told, this likely isn't one that I'd find reason to recommend, I'm afraid.
While this looks great on the summary-level, the story is extremely cumbersome and in need of editing. Koontz overuses terms that are so unique that they
In the end, when the reader finds out exactly what is happening, why it is happening, and when it is happening, it elicits less of an eye-popping and more of an eye-rolling reaction. With so many other quality horror novels out there, this one is...
Not recommended.
Otherwise: I like that it's a house. I like that there are ghosts. I like resentful characters. The book is beautiful. But. I could not concentrate. I didn't really care. One was not scary. The what's his name, Witness, was