Product Description

"Koontz is brilliant in the creation of his characters and in building tension."
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
In Los Angeles, a hot Hollywood director, high on PCP, turns a city street into a fiery apocalypse. Heroic LAPD officer Jac McGarvey is badly wounded and will not walk for months. His wife and his child are left to fend for themselves against both criminals that control an increasingly violent city and the dead director's cult of fanatic fans.
In a lonely corner of Montana, Eduardo Fernandez, the father of McGarvey's murdered partner, witnesses a strange nocturnal sight. The stand of pines outside his house suddenly glows with eerie amber light, and Fernandez senses a watcher in the winter woods. As the seasons change, the very creatures of the forest seem in league with a mysterious presence. Fernandez is caught up in a series of chilling incidents that escalate toward a confronation that could rob him of his sanity or his life--or both.
As events careen out of control, the McGarvey family is drawn to Fernandez's Montana ranch. In that isolated place they discover their destiny in a terrifying and fiercely suspenseful encounter with a hostile, utterly ruthless, and enigmatic enemy, from which neither the living nor the dead are safe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5309548 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Library Binding

From Publishers Weekly
A brush with death prompts L.A. policeman Jack McGarvey to move wife Heather and son Toby up to Quartermass Ranch, a Montana estate bequeathed to them by Eduardo Fernandez, the father of Jack's former partner. The McGarveys settle in, dismissing strange noises and smells, as well as weird trances that seem to grip Toby from time to time, as the embodiment of common fears of urbanites confronted by open spaces. It seems Eduardo had had uninvited visitors: the Givers, creatures from another dimension who came for an incomprehensible, apparently evil purpose. Scared out of his wits, Ed succumbed to a heart attack, but not before scrawling his discovery on a legal pad and stashing it in the freezer. These Givers are actually takers, assuming control of bodies and corpses to use them as vehicles in which to create mayhem. And now they want control of Toby. Bestselling author Koontz ( Hideaway ) exploits and occasionally skewers many horror novel and film conventions--including telepathic mind control games and the obligatory "surprise" blizzard during the climatic battle--to great effect while building tension in this gripping parable about the real cost of "getting away from it all."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
It seems these nasty octopi have invaded Montana. At first, you don't see them. Then they go inside raccoons and squirrels and crows and make their brains explode. Then they ride around on corpses { }a la Night of the Living Dead. Shotguns won't stop them. Uzis won't stop them. Fire won't stop them. Only mind control works. The mind of the innocent: young Toby McGarvey, son of that brave policeman Jack McGarvey, who was nearly killed ridding the earth of scum down in L.A. The family comes to Montana because they inherit a ranch from Eduardo Fernandez, whose only son was Jack's slain partner. There's also some stuff about a crazed movie director out on a killing spree, but it's never quite connected to the octopi. Are the octopi symbolic of the evil that slinks and oozes among Angelenos? Probably not. Does Koontz mean to trade upon the contemporary myth of cattle mutilations? Maybe so. Anyhow, this paperback original is the first of 10 that Ballantine intends to publish, and the print run is two million. John Mort

Review
"America's most popular suspense novelist."
-- Rolling Stone

Don't miss the latest thriller by Dean Koontz:
From the Corner of His Eye

"Viscerally exciting ... An extended, tense tour de force ... An expertly crafted, ornate suspenser ... Koontz fans will love it."
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

And his other Bantam bestsellers:

False Memory
Seize the Night
Fear Nothing
Sole Survivor
Intensity
Dark Rivers of the Heart
Icebound
Ticktock -- Review

Customer Reviews

From Los Angeles to Montana, the horror continues...
Jack McGarvey, one of L.A.'s finest, is wounded in a violent and spectacular gunfight. In Montana, Eduardo Fernandez encounters something in the woods...something which means him harm.

When Eduardo dies, and McGarvey inherits the man's cabin, it seems like a dream: a chance to get away from the city and really LIVE. But living may turn to dying, and the McGarvey family is about to find out. There is still something in the woods, and it wasn't satisfied with Eduardo. It want's McGarvey's young son...and is ready to do anything to get him...

This isn't Koontz's best, but as a sci-fi thriller, it's pretty darn good. A "creature feature", yes, but it's more than that, as any Koontz novel is: it's a novel of a man defending his family against an unknown evil, and coming to grips with himself. A reworked version of an earlier Koontz story, this novel is, like most of Koontz's work, a nearly-flawless thrill ride of chills and suspense. Dean Koontz is a masterful writer; "Winter Moon" is an incredible novel. Get the picture?

Not One of Koontz's Best
I've read every novel by Dean Koontz, and I would put WINTER MOON in the bottom third. This is not a terrible novel, but it's very slow paced in the middle and the ending is not particularly satisfying. This is supposed to be an alien invasion story, but the alien is essentially little more than a two-dimensional monster. Little explanation is provided for why the alien behaves as it does, and I found this story made very little sense as a result. Koontz has told this type of monster story much better in other novels, most notably PHANTOMS.

This novel also is very preachy in spots, where Koontz promotes his personal views on gun control, urban crime, the film industry, graffiti artists, heavy metal music, and a variety of other subjects. Although I mostly agree with Koontz's views, I don't read fiction to validate my own political beliefs. In any case, the sermonizing slows down the story.

I'm a big Dean Koontz fan, and my advice is to avoid this novel if you've never read Koontz before. Instead, read some of his stronger novels, such as WATCHERS, ODD THOMAS, PHANTOMS, INTENSITY, LIGHTNING and FEAR NOTHING. Those novels will turn you into a fan.

A SCARY, CREEPY READ...KEEP THE LIGHTS ON!
This is a highly entertaining, quick read, that is sure to provide some chills. Here, a heroic, Los Angeles Police Department cop, Jack McGarvey, is shot and almost killed in a wild shoot out which sees several civilians killed, as well as his partner, the second partner Jack has lost inside of a year. After a four month convalescence, Jack, his wife Heather, and their son Toby receive an unexpected gift, seemingly from the Gods. Eduardo Hernandez, the father of his former partner of eleven years, died and left Jack a six hundred acre ranch in Montana, as well as a substantial sum of cash. Having decided that enough is enough, Jack and Heather agree to relocate to Montana.

Unbeknownst to Jack, before seventy year old Eduardo Hernandez died, he had been experiencing some mighty strange goings on at the ranch. One night, a bizarre, electronic oscillation pulsed through the bone deep quiet of the Montana air, coming in disturbing waves, accompanied by the sense of an alien presence. An amber radiance resonated through the pine woods surrounding the ranch. Lasting only seven minutes, the phenomena disappeared, only to return a month later in an even more disquieting fashion. Louder, with more rhythmic pounding, it caused the house to vibrate. An undulation of sound lured Eduardo out of his home, where a luminescent amber radiance once again emanated from the woods, calling out to him, the sense of an alien presence overwhelming. It then disappeared, as quickly as it began. A month later, the same thing occured, only this time a two dimensional doorway into infinite blackness appeared, a portal into the unknown. Soon after this portal appeared, the surrounding wildlife began to act strangely. Just what was going on?

Read this book and find out. Just remember...leave the lights on!