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Fear Nothing

by Dean Koontz
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Overview

If you’re different enough, the night is not your enemy, the darkness is not intimidating, the shadows are not terrifying. You fear nothing.
 
Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you’ve ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else can—its mystery, its beauty, its terrors, and the eerie silken rhythms that seduce one into believing anything—even freedom—is possible.
 
Until the night Christopher Snow witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered secrets of Moonlight Bay and its strange inhabitants. A place, like all places, that looks a lot different after dark.

This gorgeously illustrated, autographed limited edition is a must-have for all Koontz fans. Koontz's tale about a young man forced to live in a night world due to a rare disease is frightening and unlike anything he's ever written. Interior illustrations by Phil Parks only add to the pleasure. The limited edition of this bestseller, with two sequels in the works, is going to quickly become one of the hottest collectibles on the market.

About the Author, Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.

Biography

He is one of the most recognized, read, and loved suspense writers of the 20th century. His imagination is a veritable factory of nightmares, conjuring twisted tales of psychological complexity. He even has a fan in Stephen King. For decades, Dean Koontz's name has been synonymous with terror, and his novels never fail to quicken the pulse and set hearts pounding.

Koontz has a lifelong love of writing that led him to spend much of his free time as an adult furiously cultivating his style and voice. However, it was only after his wife Gerda made him an offer he couldn't refuse while he was teaching English at a high school outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that he had a real opportunity to make a living with his avocation. Gerda agreed to support Dean for five years, during which time he could try to get his writing career off the ground. Little did she know that by the end of that five years she would be leaving her own job to handle the financial end of her husband's massively successful writing career.

Koontz first burst into the literary world with 1970's Beastchild, a science fiction novel that appealed to genre fans with its descriptions of aliens and otherworldly wars but also mined deeper themes of friendship and the breakdown of communication. Although it is not usually ranked among his classics, Beastchild provided the first inkling of Koontz's talent for populating even the most fantastical tale with fully human characters. Even at his goriest or most terrifying, he always allows room for redemption.

This complexity is what makes Koontz's work so popular with readers. He has a true gift for tempering horror with humanity, grotesqueries with lyricism. He also has a knack for genre-hopping, inventing Hitchcockian romantic mysteries, crime dramas, supernatural thrillers, science fiction, and psychological suspense with equal deftness and imagination. Perhaps The Times (London) puts it best: "Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler."

Good To Know

Shortly after graduating from college, Koontz took a job with the Appalachian Poverty Program where he would tutor and counsel underprivileged kids. However, after finding out that the last person who held his job had been beaten up and hospitalized by some of these kids, Koontz was more motivated than ever to get his writing career going.

When Koontz was a senior in college, he won the Atlantic Monthly fiction competition.

Koontz and Kevin Anderson's novel Frankenstein: The Prodigal Son was slotted to become a television series produced by Martin Scorsese. However, when the pilot failed to sell, the USA Network aired it as a TV movie in 2004. By that time Koontz had removed his name from the project.

Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Koontz:

"My wife, Gerda, and I took seven years of private ballroom dancing lessons, twice a week, ninety minutes each time. After we had gotten good at everything from swing to the foxtrot, we not only stopped taking lessons, but also stopped going dancing. Learning had been great fun; but for both of us, going out for an evening of dancing proved far less exhilarating than the learning. We both have a low boredom threshold. Now we dance at a wedding or other celebration perhaps once a year, and we're creaky."

"On my desk is a photograph given to me by my mother after Gerda and I were engaged to be married. It shows 23 children at a birthday party. It is neither my party nor Gerda's. I am three years old, going on four. Gerda is three. In that crowd of kids, we are sitting directly across a table from each other. I'm grinning, as if I already know she's my destiny, and Gerda has a serious expression, as if she's worried that I might be her destiny. We never met again until I was a senior in high school and she was a junior. We've been trying to make up for that lost time ever since.

"Gerda and I worked so much for the first two decades of our marriage that we never took a real vacation until our twentieth wedding anniversary. Then we went on a cruise, booking a first-class suite, sparing no expense. For more than half the cruise, the ship was caught in a hurricane. The open decks were closed because waves would have washed passengers overboard. About 90% of the passengers spent day after day in their cabins, projectile vomiting. We discovered that neither of us gets seasick. We had the showrooms, the casino, and the buffets virtually to ourselves. Because the crew had no one to serve, our service was exemplary. The ship dared not try to put into the scheduled ports; it was safer on the open sea. The big windows of the main bar presented a spectacular view of massive waves and lightning strikes that stabbed the sea by the score. Very romantic. We had a grand time.

Reviews

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

This is a killer of a book, period. Probably the best of Koontz's career to date.

Because Chris Snow has xeroderma pimentosum -- a rare, and usually fatal, genetic disorder -- even a brief exposure to sunlight can cause irreparable damage leading to blindness and fatal skin cancers. So Snow only comes at night. The novel opens with the death of Snow's father, a tragic, but seemingly innocent incident that tears open the fabric of Snow's life. He soon becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that seems to involve everyone in the small town of Moonlight Bay, where Snow has spent his entire life.

The whole book, except for the last few pages, takes place during one night, making for a riveting, fast-paced read that still has time for thoughtful speculations and wonderful characters. If you've never tried Koontz before, this is the place to start, while for longtime readers, I need say no more than that this is Koontz writing at the peak of his form.

—Charles de Lint

Maggie Garb

. . . even though practically nothing in its plot is what it appears to be, 'Fear Nothing is surprisingly flat. . . . Koontz's penchant for surfer lingo and literary pretension has drained most of the suspense from this overwrought narrative. -- New York Times

VOYA

"Monkeys. The end of the world by monkeys." These words from Koontz's new book describe, to a limited extent, its plot. There are monkeys, certainly, and the world as we know it does come to an end, certainly, but little else is for certain in the town of Moonlight Bay, California. This is the little seacoast town where Christopher Snow lives. The town's name is an apt one, for Chris lives by necessity in a world of moonlight and darkness. He suffers from an extremely rare genetic disorder that makes him dangerously vulnerable to light. He must live out his life when most people are asleep. Nearly the entire plot takes place over the course of one particularly eventful night. During this extraordinary night Chris uncovers a government conspiracy, witnesses several murders, and commits one. He has to run for his life from scary, unseen pursuers and is forced to defend himself; his girlfriend, Sasha; his best friend, Bobby; and his dog, Orson, from a crazed pack of genetically altered Rhesus monkeys. He will watch his father die and will learn that his dead mother was much more than she seemed to be. Chris will discover during his long night's journey into day that there is much to fear in sleepy little Moonlight Bay. People and animals are not always what they seem. Even the night, which has until now served as Chris's shield against the daylight, will come to be seen as a potentially lethal enemy. Chris must uncover his town's undeniably deadly secret if he is to save his friends, his dog, and his world. This book is highly recommended. Koontz thinks this is his best work to date, and he may just be right. The action is nonstop, and the characters, both good and bad, are entirely believable. So lock all the doors, turn on all the lights, and get ready to spend a wild night in Moonlight Bay. VOYA Codes: 5Q 5P S (Hard to imagine it being better written, Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal

Koontz (Sole Survivor, LJ 2/15/97) presents a masterly tale of one night in the California coastal town of Moonlight Bay as experienced by Chris Snow. Saddled with a genetic defect that makes direct sunlight toxic to him, Snow is a nocturnal creature whose father has just died. When he discovers that his father's corpse has been stolen, he begins pursuit. Koontz expertly illuminates Snow's nocturnal world and friends, and incrementally, cleverly, the crises erupting in Moonlight Bay take shape. The plot is wonderfully unpredictable, and though the surfer slang wears thin after a while, the narrative remains taut. Although the ending leaves some questions unanswered, this is still good entertainment.-- Robert C. Moore, DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals, Framingham, Mass.

School Library Journal

Christopher Snow understands the night. He, like the owl, is nocturnal, living on the mysterious darker edge of society. Snow is afflicted with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare and often-fatal genetic disease that makes ultraviolet rays-even those from lamps and televisions-deadly. His condition makes him a pariah in the isolated small town of Moonlight Bay where the ignorant and insensitive fear what they do not know. As the action begins, Snow's father dies, leaving him with only a handful of offbeat but fiercely loyal friends to turn to for understanding. At the morgue, Snow accidentally witnesses his father's body being replaced with the mutilated corpse of a vagrant. Before he can find out what is behind this scandal, he receives a frantic summons from a friend who is brutally murdered before she can finish explaining a strange story about monkeys and a secret project at the government compound at the edge of town. What begins as a disturbing puzzle quickly becomes a sinister conspiracy as Snow uncovers evidence of uncanny intelligence in many of the local animals and inhumanely vicious tendencies in some of the human residents of the Bay. They are "becoming" he learns, but becoming what? Chilling chase scenes steadily increase the breakneck pace as Snow, assisted by his remarkable dog, is pursued through the night by unseen forces. Despite some clunky and unnecessary surfer slang, fans will go wild for this well-plotted thriller.- Robin Deffendall, Prince William Public Library System, VA

Book Details

Published
July 31, 2012
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Pages
448
Format
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN
9780345533302

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