Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein

Let me just start by saying that I am not a Dean Koontz fan, I just really like to read. I have a number of audio books that my dad has given me that I listen to while I am at the gym, on the way to work, and depending on what I am doing…at work. So when I say Frankenstein on his iTunes, I had to have it. I knew it was Dean Koontz, but I figured, maybe this is the trilogy that he did well. Of course I have only listened to 1 & 2, and I will listen to 3…but I would never actually pay for them!

So Dean Koontz takes the old school Frankenstein and makes it modern day (late 90’s really). He sets it in New Orleans. Why did he pick New Orleans, I am not really sure, New Orleans is already known for Vampires thanks to Anne Rice. But, he does. Frankenstein is really Victor Helios, he changed his name after coming to the “New World” with his wife Erica 4 (Erica 4 is killed by Victor and in the book you move to follow Erica 5….obviously she is also a creation of Victors) to start building a synthetic human race known as the new race. Victor believes that the old race (humans) are primitive and weak, so he works to update them.

The original Frankenstein’s monster, named Deucalion has also survived the 200 years that has passed and he is now looking for a way to bring Victor down. However when Deucalion was built from the human remains and brought to life with lightning, Victor had implanted something inside of him that made it impossible for Deucalion to raise his hand against his maker. Deucalion is different from the new race that Victor is creating, he can think for himself and doesn’t have the programming within him that the new race does. Thanks to the lightning, Deucalion has actually become almost immortal, but he knows the truth of what Victor is trying to do and wants to bring Victor down.

Victor has upgraded his creatures since coming to the new world and now breeds his creations in tanks and downloads information & programming directly into their brain. Over the last 20 or so years, Victor and his army of the new race have been slowly killing off humans and replacing them with replicates. Victor has replaced humans on every level of the government, police department and even the corner store and local church pastors. However something is beginning to go wrong with the replicates and they are starting to fail under Victors programming, they are beginning to become more human, with emotions, desires, etc.

While working a serial killer homicide Carson O’Conner and her partner Michael Madison come across a dead new race. Which was in fact one of the failed replicates that was a police officer that Carson and Michael had worked with. With the Help of Deucalion, Carson and Michael realize the truth behind Victor and the new race and help Deucalion in his attempts to stop the apocalypse.

Carson (you follow her life more the Michaels) lives with her brother, Arnie, who is autistic and an assistant, who cares for Arnie when she is at work. Her and Michael have an interesting relationship, both in love with each other, but both fearing what would come if they were to admit it to one another. One of Victors creations, Randal Six, was also created autistic, because Victor thinks this may make him good a single tasks. Randal Six sees a picture of Arnie in a paper and see that Arnie is happy so he begins an adventure/mission to escape Mercy House and find Arnie so that he to can learn the truth of happiness.

During the story, you meet a number of different characters and a number of plots are going on at the same time, and I would say most likely one story to many, which makes it a little hard to follow and the breaks that divided each single story is not always in the best places. Honeslty, I did not enjoy the book as much as I had hoped, but you know how it is, once you start reading one, you feel like you have to continue to read it, just so you can find out how it ends, sadly this is a trilogy and I have one left to suffer through.