Review: Dead Town

Introduction
Dead Town is the last book in Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein Series and picks up right where Lost Souls left off. All throughout Rainbow Falls bands of resistance to Victor’s Communitarians have begun fighting back thanks to KBOW radio getting the word out about Victor’s plan to wipe out the town. In this book several of the story lines converge as the end comes in sight.

Victor Leben alias Victor Immaculate is so self absorbed that his hubris leads to his ultimate end. Honestly his arrogance was even more than the original Victor’s and it was fun seeing his comeuppance at the end.

The Good
Overall I liked this book. It was trilling and held my interest throughout the story and there were several oh shit moments when characters were put in danger by the nearly unstoppable Builders.

At first I wasn’t a fan of the subplots but Koontz tied them together in such a way that it ad you on the edge of your seat waiting to see what would happen next. I was especially surprised with the resolution of Nummy O’Bannon and Mr. Lyss’s story line. Also I liked how you didn’t know until the end who would win.

The Bad
While I liked this book I did have my issues with it. Overall there were too many happy coincidences that led to characters getting out of tough spots with the Builders, by them malfunctioning for unspecified reasons or just plain dumb luck.

I also wasn’t a fan of Victor in this book. He was an almost nonentity and posed zero threat to anyone unlike the original Victor who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when the situation called for it.

Instead of keeping abreast of the goings on of his war Victor was content with walking the corridors of the Hive and this ultimately led to his downfall.

I also wasn’t a fan of the final confrontation between him and Deucalion. It was down right hokey and made zero sense and was rather anticlimactic. Without spoiling the ending lets just say it was too happily ever after for my taste and leave it at that.

The Verdict
Overall this was an enjoyable read though for the reasons stated above it could have been better and I can’t help feeling the series should have ended with book three as every book after that, while enjoyable just didn’t live up to the previous books in terms of plot.

Overall I’d give the series a 3.5/5 and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi thrillers full of action.