Review: The Prodigal Son

Introduction
Prodigal Son is the first book in Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein series. The basic premise is that Victor Frankenstein, now going by the alias Victor Helios, has set up shop in New Orleans, and has begun replacing prominent figures with those his own creations, called The New Race.

Victor loathes the human race and fancies himself as a god and seeks to overthrown the old race with his machines of bone and blood. Forget the Victor of old who was forced to scavenge body parts from graveyards, over the two centuries he’s been alive Victor has moved on from such crude methods.

His creations are grown in tanks and educated with direct to brain downloads so they have an encyclopedic knowledge of the world even though they are only weeks old. They are also programmed to be more durable than the old race, as they have Two hearts and other redundant systems, including a skull that is so thick one the highest caliber ammunition will penetrate it.

Moreover every member of the New Race is programmed so they can’t murder anyone unless they are instructed by Victor, and they can’t kill themselves or Victor for that matter.

Things are going smoothly for Victor until one of his creations begins killing people, drawing the attention of the media and police. Enter detective Carson O’Connor and her partner Michael Madison who in the course of investigating the killings stumble upon Deucalion, Victor’s first creation, who has vowed to destroy him and agrees to help Carson and Michael take on Victor.

The Good
Overall I found the book to be an engrossing good read. I especially liked the characters of Randal Six And Deucalion and also the thought that went into the technology Victor used to create those of the New Race. Loved how Koontz drew you in from the first page and didn’t let up the action a bit.

The Bad
My only complaint would ave to be the short chapters and the head hoping. Often times just a one story line was heating the chapter would switch another plot line. This left my head spinning and pulled me out of the story when it would happen. A lot of times after a decent sized chapter there would be ones of only a few pages that didn’t advance the plot all that much and could have been omitted.

The Verdict

If you like sci-fi and horror then do yourself a favor and pick up this book.