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Title: Hell’s Gate
Series: ———-
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 190
Words: 68K
Synopsis: |
Victor Salsburys awakes with almost no memories and a voice in his head telling him what to do. Without emotion and almost no control, Victor obeys and kills a man, who looks just like him. Wondering what is going on, Victor follows the instructions of the voice and finds a cave and falls asleep.
Waking up 2 weeks later, Victor moves into a house in a small town. He seems to have shaken off whatever control the unseen voices had over him but he is filled with knowledge that he doesn’t know how he owns. He IS Victor Salsbury but he appears to also be something else, something stronger, faster and smarter. Victor is attacked one night by an automaton that uses weaponry Victor instinctively understands. However, Victor is wounded and is nursed back to health by the young woman who sold him the house. Victor also saw a glowing portal through the attacker came and behind that portal were beings of demonic visage.
One of Victor’s pieces of luggage turns out to be a super computer and tells him that he is an experiment from the far future where Earth and all alternate Earth’s have been conquered by the beings Victor saw. Victor is humanity’s last chance at destroying the machinery that allows the creatures to travel across the multiverse. Victor must cross the portal, make his way to Earth Prime and destroy the starship base where the demons live.
He succeed with the help of other alternate Earth humans and returns to the girl and lives happily ever after.
My Thoughts: |
Funny thing about Koontz. Even though he re-uses the same ideas over and over, he re-uses them in different combinations so that no story is the same. We have the name Victor, proto-flesh that doesn’t bleed, inimical beings that want to destroy our world, etc. And it is a completely new story.
I had to wonder if James Cameron read this before he made the Terminator movie. While I was reading this I had to look up the published date (it was 1970 by the way) because so many of the things reminded me of the Terminator. A soldier returned to the past, portals that could only pass certain materials through, unstoppable killing machines that were vaguely humanoid. It wasn’t a play by play but the similarities were enough that it raised questions in my mind. The ending is as rushed as ever, or maybe I should say Koontz rushes the ending and has never stopped that practice even in his books today?
And yet, while I complain about stuff and only give this 3 stars, I have no intention (as of yet anyway) of stopping my reading of books by Koontz. I still enjoy them even while acknowledging their inherent weaknesses. I guess that makes him a good author? Facepalm
Oh, and that cover? It really does look like that. It is the weirdest thing ever.
★★★☆☆
70s covers are weird. Really weird.
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That is quite the cover. O.o
Pity that Koontz rushes his endings. It always annoys me when authors do that.
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First time I’m seeing that R. in his name, on that book cover too.
If all these posts are scheduled, I’m super impressed hahah How many posts do you schedule IN ADVANCE? You seem to be WAY ahead in your reviewing. Are there even books that don’t get reviews from you?
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I review every book I read. I’m just picky that way 😀
I’m usually about 2-3 weeks out. This time out is going to push me up to the limit that I’m comfortable with, ie, 1 week…
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Aw man, hope a technician or someone can give you a hand with your issue… before your blogging schedule gets screwed.
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Never read any Koontz. no-angel downloaded a (free, thankfully) Koontz book to my Kindle but I went ahead and deleted it. Not opposed but way too much on my TBR as it is.
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I’m not a huge fan. I liked about three which I still own, Lightning being my favourite, but I DNFed quite a few as I wasn’t really connecting. Not a bad writer but just not working for me personally y’know?
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Ok, I might try Lightning for my next Koontz read. I’ve got something like 40 of his books to choose from, so any input is good 🙂
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The Terminator vibes are indeed strong in this story!! 😳
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I wouldn’t believe that James Cameron didn’t read this book before coming up with the Terminator movie. Not unless he told me so himself, to my face, and I still probably wouldn’t believe him 😀
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Or maybe his future self came back in time to tell him of the very successful series of movies he would create in later years… 😛
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That cover is super weird!
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It is! I had to go check several sources to make sure it wasn’t a bad picture, because it looks like a photo that has been chopped to me.
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