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The Door to December
The #1 New York Times bestselling author delivers a truly suspenseful novel of a mother who must save her daughter from a threat she can hardly understand. What happened to nine-year-old Melanie during the six years she was subjected to terrifying experiments? And what is the unstoppable power that she can unleash from behind the "Door to December"?
518 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 4, 1985
730 people are currently reading
12121 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 966 reviews
November 6, 2023
Really enjoyed this one back in the day. But on reread, it does not hold up.
Bizarre premise with empty, unlikable characters.
With a couple of exceptions, on balance, his more humanistic books work better.
When DK gets deep into supernatural content, things fall flat.
After everything Melanie and her mother have been through, the resolution is way too neat and “everything’s OK now, sorry for the disturbance, folks” for the discerning reader.
The scene in the movie theatre is too over the top, even for Koontz.
Bizarre premise with empty, unlikable characters.
With a couple of exceptions, on balance, his more humanistic books work better.
When DK gets deep into supernatural content, things fall flat.
After everything Melanie and her mother have been through, the resolution is way too neat and “everything’s OK now, sorry for the disturbance, folks” for the discerning reader.
The scene in the movie theatre is too over the top, even for Koontz.
May 7, 2012
Simply awful. I will go no further than to say that Mr. Koontz hasn't the least bit of an idea of what autism really is. The idea that autism is created by neglect or abuse on a parents part ie: the "refrigerator mother" theory developed by Bruno Bettelheim was discredited many years ago. It is a neurological disorder and the cause is yet unknown, it may be genetic, it may be environmental, it may have to do with vaccinations, but most likely it has a variety of causes making it difficult to find the source. Do not confuse catatonic with autism. It is offensive to take a child of abuse and neglect and intersperse autism in with her state of being, I don't care that you are writing a horror or occult novel or whatever you would like to categorize this as. Please know that if hard work, love, prayer and and making deals with God could cure a child from this disorder, my child would be attending college today and not a special education school. Some children find their way through the maze of autism, others don't. It's a puzzle. One of the many reasons puzzle pieces are used as symbol to represent the disorder.
Highly unlikely I will ever read another Koontz novel. Needs to do a little basic research. Wish they would take this book off the shelves.
Highly unlikely I will ever read another Koontz novel. Needs to do a little basic research. Wish they would take this book off the shelves.
April 4, 2021
I remember that I read this book way back in college but it seemed I forgot to finish it. Hopefully, I can return to this and get it done.
April 1, 2014
My absolute favourite read of all time! I don't really like the whole para normal stuff but by far this book is a hit! Unfortunate I read a lot of the reviews. Nobody was dissing autistic kids, remember folks he's a writer and a dam good one, he's not out there to put people down, I am a mother with two autistic children plus myself I carry the gene, people say to me all the time your full of shit when it's a known fact DNA approved that its what we were granted, being autistic myself I didn't feel the least bit offended at all and I think people are all too sensitive to this so called autism! I don't have a disability nor do my two boys, we simply think of it as a gift, to teach ignorant people we are just as good if not better then most! But to say that this author is ignorant to autism! Do u even know him???
April 16, 2020
We'll plunge into darkness,
into the hands of harm,
when Science and the Devil
go walking arm in arm.
-as quoted in The Door to December
The Door to December was featured as The Koontzland - Dean Koontz Group Read December 2019, I finally caught up months later. The sensory deprivation tank and "window to yesterday" remind me of my favorite television show FRINGE, which sadly only ran for five seasons - gonna have to revisit my friends who live in that reality again soon.
Having recently re-read The Eyes of Darkness, I noticed similarities. Both novels feature messages coming via unusual methods, sudden drops in temperature and Las Vegas settings.
As a previous Group Read, The Door to December was featured as Group Read with Mr. Murder. At that time, I liked Mr. Murder better, but this one is quite intriguing. In 2020, I increased my rating to 5 stars.
Dean Koontz has penned tales of a similar theme in Cold Fire and Brother Odd, both of which I enjoyed immensely. I loved Dan Haldane, a character of witty humor. The Door to December was originally published under a pen name in 1985.
Favorite Passages:
"There's something else I want you to see, something I hope you might be able to explain to me."
"What's that?"
"Something weird," he said. "Something damned weird."
_____
"Well, I don't exactly disapprove," she said. "But if you've got a psychologically disturbed individual who already feels adrift, only half in control of himself . . . the disorientation of a deprivation chamber is almost certain to have negative effects. Some patients need every grip on the physical world, every external stimulus, they can get." She shrugged. "But the again, maybe I'm too cautious, old-fashioned. After all, they've been selling these things for use in private homes, must've sold a few thousand over the past few years, and surely a few of those were used by unstable people, yet I haven't heard of anyone going all the way 'round the bend because of it."
"Must be expensive."
"A tank? Sure is. Most units in private homes are . . . new toys for the rich, I guess."
"Why would anyone buy one for his home?"
"Aside from the hallucinatory period and the eventual clarity of the mental processes, everyone reports being tremendously relaxed and revitalized by a session in a tank. After you spend an hour floating, your brain waves match those of a Zen monk in deep meditation."
_____
"You sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why're you acting like a homicide dick with me?"
"I am a homicide dick."
"You're a dick, that's for sure," Luther said, grinning. "All the people you work with say so. Some of 'em use different words, but hey all mean 'dick'."
"Dick, dick, dick . . . are you fixated on that word or something? What's wrong with you, Luther? Are you lonely, maybe need a new boyfriend?"
The pathologist laughed. He had a hearty laugh and a smile that made you want to smile back at him. Dan couldn't figure why such a good-natured, vital, optimistic, energetic man as Luther Williams had chosen to spend his working life with corpses.
____
Again, Laura felt as if the floor were tilting under her, as if the real world that she'd always taken for granted were an illusion. It almost seemed as though true reality might be the paranoid's nightmare world of unseen enemies and complex conspiracies.
____
Madness.
She was caught in a whirlpool that was carrying her down into a nightmare world of suspicion, deception, and violence, into an alien landscape where nothing was what it appeared to be.
____
One entire wall of bookshelves was built around a television and VCR. Half the shelves were used for books; the other half were filled with videotapes.
He looked at the tapes first and saw some familiar motion-picture titles: Silver Streak, Arthur, all the Abbott-and-Costello pictures, Tootsie, The Goodbye Girl, Groundhog Day, Foul Play, Mrs. Doubtfire, several Charlie Chaplin film, two Marx Brothers pictures. All the legit movies were comedies, and it figured a professional hit man might need to laugh a little when he came home from a hard day of blowing people's brains out. But most of the movies weren't legit. Most of them were pornographic, with titles like Debbie Does Dallas and The Sperminator. There must have been two to three hundred porno titles.
____
"I nearly tore his ear off."
"Why'd you do that?"
"For one thing, because he was trying to bash my brains in," Dan said impatiently. "Besides, I'm sort of like a matador. I always try to take a trophy home with me, and this guy didn't have a tail."
____
"You've always been a loner. A wiseass. No matter what you think of them, I have people who'll rally around me."
"With a lynching rope."
"Power makes people loyal, Haldane, even if they'd rather not be. Nobody'll believe any crap you care to throw at me. Not a rotten wiseass like you. Not a chance."
____
A new world, a science-fiction society, was growing up around him with disconcerting speed and vigor. It was both exhilarating and frightening to be alive in these times. Mankind had acquired the ability to reach the stars, to take a giant leap off this world and spread out through the universe, but the species had also acquired the ability to destroy itself before the inevitable emigration could begin. New technology - like the computer - freed men and women from all kinds of drudgery, saved them vast amounts of time. And yet . . . And yet the time saved did not seem to mean additional leisure or greater opportunities for meditation and reflection. Instead, with each new wave of technology, the pace of life increased; there was more to do, more choices to make, more things to experience, and people eagerly seized upon those experiences and filled the hours that had only moments ago become empty. Each year life seemed to be flitting past with far greater speed than the year before, as if God had cranked up the control knob on the flow of time. But that wasn't right, either, because to many people, even the concept of God seemed dated in an age in which the universe was being forced to let go of its mysteries on a daily basis. Science, technology, and change were the only gods now, the new Trinity; and while they were not consciously cruel and judgmental, as some of the old gods have been, they were too coldly indifferent to offer any comfort to the sick, the lonely, and the lost.
____
"What's that you've got there?"
"Books."
"Books?"
"Assembled sheets of paper with words on them, for the purpose of conveying information or providing entertainment. . . "
"You taking those books with you?"
"That's right."
"Don't know if you can do that."
"Don't worry. I can manage. They aren't that heavy."
"That's not what I mean."
____
Pedrakis followed him. "Hey, about those books - "
"Do you read, George?"
"They're the property of the deceased - "
"Nothing like curling up with a good book, though they're not nearly so entertaining when you're deceased."
"And this isn't like a crime scene where we can just cart away anything that might be evidence."
Dan balanced the box on the bumper of his car, unlocked the trunk, put the box inside, and said, "'The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.' Mark Twain said that, George."
"Listen, until a member of his family has been located and gives approval, I really don't think you should - "
Slamming the lid of the trunk, Dan said, "'There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island.' Walt Disney. He was right, George. You should read more."
"But - "
"'Books are not merely lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.' Gilbert Highet." He clapped George Padrakis on the shoulder. "Expand your narrow existence, George. Bring color to this drab life as a detective. Read, George, read!"
____
Melanie sat at the table, silent, unmoving, staring down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Her eyes were closed. She might have been asleep. Or perhaps she was just withdrawn further than usual into her secret, private world.
____
Some of the bookshelves were splintered, and all the volumes were on the floor in mangled heaps of rumpled dust jackets and bend covers and torn pages. But books hadn't been the only merchandise offered by the Sign of the Pentagram, and the floor was also littered with candles of all shapes and sizes and colors, Tarot decks, broken Ouija boards, a couple of stuffed owls, totems, tikis, and hundreds of exotic powders and oils. The place smelled of attar of roses, strawberry incense, and death.
____
"Powdered bat shit," Manuello said, "snake eyes, tongues of salamanders, necklaces of garlic, vials of bull blood, magic charms, hexes, and all sorts of other weird crap. What kind of people come in here and buy this stuff, Leiutenant?"
"Witches," Wexlersh said before Dan could speak.
"People who think they're witches," Manuello said.
"Warlocks," Wexlersh said.
"People who think they're warlocks."
"Weird people," Wexlersh said.
"Maniacs," Manuello said.
"But this place, it accepts Visa and Mastercard," said Wexlersh.
____
"What happened to your head?"
"I've been taking karate lessons."
"What?"
"Tried to break a board with my head."
"Like hell."
"Okay, then what happened was George Padrakis told me you wanted to see me here, and at the mention of your name, I dropped right to my knees and bowed down so fast I scraped my head on the sidewalk."
____
He was being relentless now because there was no way to stop until it had all been said. He wished he had never begun, wished he'd left it buried, but now that he had started, he had to finish. Because he was like the Ancient Mariner in that old poem. Because he had to purge himself of an unrelenting nightmare. Because he was driven to follow it to the end. Because if he stopped in the middle, the unsaid part would be as bitter as a big wad of vomit on his throat, unheaved, wedged there, and he'd choke on it. Because - and here it was, here was the truth of it, no easy euphemisms this time - after all these years, his own soul was still shackled to a ball of guilt that had been weighing him down
____
"Will you hit me?" she asked.
He was confronted not by a woman any longer but by a sick, lost, miserable creature. Not a frightened creature, however. The prospect of being struck did not fill her with terror. Quite the opposite. She was sick, lost, miserable - and hungry. Hungry for the thrill of being hit, starving for the pleasure of pain.
____
Something was wrong. Just a hunch. He couldn't explain the intensity of his sudden dread, couldn't give concrete reasons for it, but over the years he had learned to trust his hunches, and now he was scared.
In the booth, he hastily and anxiously fumbled in his pockets for coins, found them. He punched the number for California Paladin into the keypad.
His breath steamed the inner surface of the glass walls, while rain streamed down the exterior. The service station's silvery lights shimmered in the rippling film of water and were diffused through the opalescent condensation.
That curious lambent luminescence, combined with the unsettling harmonics of the storm, gave him the extraordinary sensation of being encapsulated and set adrift outside the flow of time and space. As he punched in the last digit of Paladin's number, he had the weird feeling that the booth door had closed permanently behind him, that he would not be able to force his way out of it, that he would never see or hear or touch another human being again, but would forever remain adrift in that rectangular prison in the Twilight Zone, unable to warn or to help Laura and Melanie, unable to alert Earl to the danger, unable to save even himself. Sometimes he had nightmares of being utterly helpless, powerless, paralyzed, while right before his eyes a vaguely defined but monstrous creature tortured and murdered people whom he loved; however, this was the first time that such a nightmare had attempted to seize him while he was awake.
He finished entering the number. After a few electronic beeps and clicks, a ringing came across the line.
At first even the ringing did not dispel the miasma of fear so thick it inhibited breathing. He half expected it to go on and on, without response, for everyone knew that there were no telephone lines between reality and the Twilight Zone. But after the third ring, Lonnie Beamer said, "California Paladin."
____
"By the way, what the hell happened to you?"
"What?" Dan asked.
"Your forehead."
"Oh." Dan glanced at Laura, and she could tell by his expression that he'd come by this injury while working on the case, and she could also tell that he didn't want to say as much and make her feel at all responsible. He said, "There was this little old lady . . . she hit me with her cane."
"Oh?" Earl said.
"I helped her across the street."
"Then why would she hit you?"
"She didn't want to cross the street," Dan said.
____
The motel room had two queen-size beds with purple-and-green spreads that clashed with the garish orange-and-blue drapes that, in turn, clashed with the loud yellow-and-brown wallpaper. There was a certain kind of eye-searing decor to be found in about one-fourth of the hotels and motels in every state of the union, from Alaska to Florida, an unmistakable bizarre decor of such particular nature that it seemed, to Dan, that the same grossly incompetent interior decorator must be traveling frantically from one end of the country to the other, papering walls and upholstering furniture and draping windows with factory-rejected patterns and materials.
____
"Ghosts. It's just . . . crazy."
"Madness."
"Insanity."
____
If memories could be vampiric, these were exactly that, sucking the blood and vitality from her.
____
"It's like . . . the cat . . . the hungry cats that ate itself all up. It's starving. There's no food for it. So . . . then it eats its own hindquarters, and then its middle. It keeps on eating and eating, gobbling itself up . . . until it's eaten every last bit of itself . . . until it's even eaten its own teeth . . . and then it just . . . vanishes. Did you see it vanish? How could it vanish? How could the teeth eat themselves? Wouldn't at least one tooth be left? But it isn't. Not one tooth."
____
Occasionally casting a glance at Melanie, Dan sat at the small table and paged through books written by Albert Uhlander, which he'd obtained at Rink's house the previous day. All seven volumes dealt with the occult: The Modern Ghost; Poltergeists; Twelve Startling Cases; Voodoo Today; The Lives of the Psychics; The Nostradamus Pipeline; OOBE: The Case for Astral Projection; and Strange Powers Within Us.
____
"I'm beginning to think you're an asshole, Haldane."
"Well, at least it's comforting to hear that you're beginning to think."
into the hands of harm,
when Science and the Devil
go walking arm in arm.
-as quoted in The Door to December
The Door to December was featured as The Koontzland - Dean Koontz Group Read December 2019, I finally caught up months later. The sensory deprivation tank and "window to yesterday" remind me of my favorite television show FRINGE, which sadly only ran for five seasons - gonna have to revisit my friends who live in that reality again soon.
Having recently re-read The Eyes of Darkness, I noticed similarities. Both novels feature messages coming via unusual methods, sudden drops in temperature and Las Vegas settings.
As a previous Group Read, The Door to December was featured as Group Read with Mr. Murder. At that time, I liked Mr. Murder better, but this one is quite intriguing. In 2020, I increased my rating to 5 stars.
Dean Koontz has penned tales of a similar theme in Cold Fire and Brother Odd, both of which I enjoyed immensely. I loved Dan Haldane, a character of witty humor. The Door to December was originally published under a pen name in 1985.
Favorite Passages:
"There's something else I want you to see, something I hope you might be able to explain to me."
"What's that?"
"Something weird," he said. "Something damned weird."
_____
"Well, I don't exactly disapprove," she said. "But if you've got a psychologically disturbed individual who already feels adrift, only half in control of himself . . . the disorientation of a deprivation chamber is almost certain to have negative effects. Some patients need every grip on the physical world, every external stimulus, they can get." She shrugged. "But the again, maybe I'm too cautious, old-fashioned. After all, they've been selling these things for use in private homes, must've sold a few thousand over the past few years, and surely a few of those were used by unstable people, yet I haven't heard of anyone going all the way 'round the bend because of it."
"Must be expensive."
"A tank? Sure is. Most units in private homes are . . . new toys for the rich, I guess."
"Why would anyone buy one for his home?"
"Aside from the hallucinatory period and the eventual clarity of the mental processes, everyone reports being tremendously relaxed and revitalized by a session in a tank. After you spend an hour floating, your brain waves match those of a Zen monk in deep meditation."
_____
"You sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why're you acting like a homicide dick with me?"
"I am a homicide dick."
"You're a dick, that's for sure," Luther said, grinning. "All the people you work with say so. Some of 'em use different words, but hey all mean 'dick'."
"Dick, dick, dick . . . are you fixated on that word or something? What's wrong with you, Luther? Are you lonely, maybe need a new boyfriend?"
The pathologist laughed. He had a hearty laugh and a smile that made you want to smile back at him. Dan couldn't figure why such a good-natured, vital, optimistic, energetic man as Luther Williams had chosen to spend his working life with corpses.
____
Again, Laura felt as if the floor were tilting under her, as if the real world that she'd always taken for granted were an illusion. It almost seemed as though true reality might be the paranoid's nightmare world of unseen enemies and complex conspiracies.
____
Madness.
She was caught in a whirlpool that was carrying her down into a nightmare world of suspicion, deception, and violence, into an alien landscape where nothing was what it appeared to be.
____
One entire wall of bookshelves was built around a television and VCR. Half the shelves were used for books; the other half were filled with videotapes.
He looked at the tapes first and saw some familiar motion-picture titles: Silver Streak, Arthur, all the Abbott-and-Costello pictures, Tootsie, The Goodbye Girl, Groundhog Day, Foul Play, Mrs. Doubtfire, several Charlie Chaplin film, two Marx Brothers pictures. All the legit movies were comedies, and it figured a professional hit man might need to laugh a little when he came home from a hard day of blowing people's brains out. But most of the movies weren't legit. Most of them were pornographic, with titles like Debbie Does Dallas and The Sperminator. There must have been two to three hundred porno titles.
____
"I nearly tore his ear off."
"Why'd you do that?"
"For one thing, because he was trying to bash my brains in," Dan said impatiently. "Besides, I'm sort of like a matador. I always try to take a trophy home with me, and this guy didn't have a tail."
____
"You've always been a loner. A wiseass. No matter what you think of them, I have people who'll rally around me."
"With a lynching rope."
"Power makes people loyal, Haldane, even if they'd rather not be. Nobody'll believe any crap you care to throw at me. Not a rotten wiseass like you. Not a chance."
____
A new world, a science-fiction society, was growing up around him with disconcerting speed and vigor. It was both exhilarating and frightening to be alive in these times. Mankind had acquired the ability to reach the stars, to take a giant leap off this world and spread out through the universe, but the species had also acquired the ability to destroy itself before the inevitable emigration could begin. New technology - like the computer - freed men and women from all kinds of drudgery, saved them vast amounts of time. And yet . . . And yet the time saved did not seem to mean additional leisure or greater opportunities for meditation and reflection. Instead, with each new wave of technology, the pace of life increased; there was more to do, more choices to make, more things to experience, and people eagerly seized upon those experiences and filled the hours that had only moments ago become empty. Each year life seemed to be flitting past with far greater speed than the year before, as if God had cranked up the control knob on the flow of time. But that wasn't right, either, because to many people, even the concept of God seemed dated in an age in which the universe was being forced to let go of its mysteries on a daily basis. Science, technology, and change were the only gods now, the new Trinity; and while they were not consciously cruel and judgmental, as some of the old gods have been, they were too coldly indifferent to offer any comfort to the sick, the lonely, and the lost.
____
"What's that you've got there?"
"Books."
"Books?"
"Assembled sheets of paper with words on them, for the purpose of conveying information or providing entertainment. . . "
"You taking those books with you?"
"That's right."
"Don't know if you can do that."
"Don't worry. I can manage. They aren't that heavy."
"That's not what I mean."
____
Pedrakis followed him. "Hey, about those books - "
"Do you read, George?"
"They're the property of the deceased - "
"Nothing like curling up with a good book, though they're not nearly so entertaining when you're deceased."
"And this isn't like a crime scene where we can just cart away anything that might be evidence."
Dan balanced the box on the bumper of his car, unlocked the trunk, put the box inside, and said, "'The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.' Mark Twain said that, George."
"Listen, until a member of his family has been located and gives approval, I really don't think you should - "
Slamming the lid of the trunk, Dan said, "'There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island.' Walt Disney. He was right, George. You should read more."
"But - "
"'Books are not merely lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.' Gilbert Highet." He clapped George Padrakis on the shoulder. "Expand your narrow existence, George. Bring color to this drab life as a detective. Read, George, read!"
____
Melanie sat at the table, silent, unmoving, staring down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Her eyes were closed. She might have been asleep. Or perhaps she was just withdrawn further than usual into her secret, private world.
____
Some of the bookshelves were splintered, and all the volumes were on the floor in mangled heaps of rumpled dust jackets and bend covers and torn pages. But books hadn't been the only merchandise offered by the Sign of the Pentagram, and the floor was also littered with candles of all shapes and sizes and colors, Tarot decks, broken Ouija boards, a couple of stuffed owls, totems, tikis, and hundreds of exotic powders and oils. The place smelled of attar of roses, strawberry incense, and death.
____
"Powdered bat shit," Manuello said, "snake eyes, tongues of salamanders, necklaces of garlic, vials of bull blood, magic charms, hexes, and all sorts of other weird crap. What kind of people come in here and buy this stuff, Leiutenant?"
"Witches," Wexlersh said before Dan could speak.
"People who think they're witches," Manuello said.
"Warlocks," Wexlersh said.
"People who think they're warlocks."
"Weird people," Wexlersh said.
"Maniacs," Manuello said.
"But this place, it accepts Visa and Mastercard," said Wexlersh.
____
"What happened to your head?"
"I've been taking karate lessons."
"What?"
"Tried to break a board with my head."
"Like hell."
"Okay, then what happened was George Padrakis told me you wanted to see me here, and at the mention of your name, I dropped right to my knees and bowed down so fast I scraped my head on the sidewalk."
____
He was being relentless now because there was no way to stop until it had all been said. He wished he had never begun, wished he'd left it buried, but now that he had started, he had to finish. Because he was like the Ancient Mariner in that old poem. Because he had to purge himself of an unrelenting nightmare. Because he was driven to follow it to the end. Because if he stopped in the middle, the unsaid part would be as bitter as a big wad of vomit on his throat, unheaved, wedged there, and he'd choke on it. Because - and here it was, here was the truth of it, no easy euphemisms this time - after all these years, his own soul was still shackled to a ball of guilt that had been weighing him down
____
"Will you hit me?" she asked.
He was confronted not by a woman any longer but by a sick, lost, miserable creature. Not a frightened creature, however. The prospect of being struck did not fill her with terror. Quite the opposite. She was sick, lost, miserable - and hungry. Hungry for the thrill of being hit, starving for the pleasure of pain.
____
Something was wrong. Just a hunch. He couldn't explain the intensity of his sudden dread, couldn't give concrete reasons for it, but over the years he had learned to trust his hunches, and now he was scared.
In the booth, he hastily and anxiously fumbled in his pockets for coins, found them. He punched the number for California Paladin into the keypad.
His breath steamed the inner surface of the glass walls, while rain streamed down the exterior. The service station's silvery lights shimmered in the rippling film of water and were diffused through the opalescent condensation.
That curious lambent luminescence, combined with the unsettling harmonics of the storm, gave him the extraordinary sensation of being encapsulated and set adrift outside the flow of time and space. As he punched in the last digit of Paladin's number, he had the weird feeling that the booth door had closed permanently behind him, that he would not be able to force his way out of it, that he would never see or hear or touch another human being again, but would forever remain adrift in that rectangular prison in the Twilight Zone, unable to warn or to help Laura and Melanie, unable to alert Earl to the danger, unable to save even himself. Sometimes he had nightmares of being utterly helpless, powerless, paralyzed, while right before his eyes a vaguely defined but monstrous creature tortured and murdered people whom he loved; however, this was the first time that such a nightmare had attempted to seize him while he was awake.
He finished entering the number. After a few electronic beeps and clicks, a ringing came across the line.
At first even the ringing did not dispel the miasma of fear so thick it inhibited breathing. He half expected it to go on and on, without response, for everyone knew that there were no telephone lines between reality and the Twilight Zone. But after the third ring, Lonnie Beamer said, "California Paladin."
____
"By the way, what the hell happened to you?"
"What?" Dan asked.
"Your forehead."
"Oh." Dan glanced at Laura, and she could tell by his expression that he'd come by this injury while working on the case, and she could also tell that he didn't want to say as much and make her feel at all responsible. He said, "There was this little old lady . . . she hit me with her cane."
"Oh?" Earl said.
"I helped her across the street."
"Then why would she hit you?"
"She didn't want to cross the street," Dan said.
____
The motel room had two queen-size beds with purple-and-green spreads that clashed with the garish orange-and-blue drapes that, in turn, clashed with the loud yellow-and-brown wallpaper. There was a certain kind of eye-searing decor to be found in about one-fourth of the hotels and motels in every state of the union, from Alaska to Florida, an unmistakable bizarre decor of such particular nature that it seemed, to Dan, that the same grossly incompetent interior decorator must be traveling frantically from one end of the country to the other, papering walls and upholstering furniture and draping windows with factory-rejected patterns and materials.
____
"Ghosts. It's just . . . crazy."
"Madness."
"Insanity."
____
If memories could be vampiric, these were exactly that, sucking the blood and vitality from her.
____
"It's like . . . the cat . . . the hungry cats that ate itself all up. It's starving. There's no food for it. So . . . then it eats its own hindquarters, and then its middle. It keeps on eating and eating, gobbling itself up . . . until it's eaten every last bit of itself . . . until it's even eaten its own teeth . . . and then it just . . . vanishes. Did you see it vanish? How could it vanish? How could the teeth eat themselves? Wouldn't at least one tooth be left? But it isn't. Not one tooth."
____
Occasionally casting a glance at Melanie, Dan sat at the small table and paged through books written by Albert Uhlander, which he'd obtained at Rink's house the previous day. All seven volumes dealt with the occult: The Modern Ghost; Poltergeists; Twelve Startling Cases; Voodoo Today; The Lives of the Psychics; The Nostradamus Pipeline; OOBE: The Case for Astral Projection; and Strange Powers Within Us.
____
"I'm beginning to think you're an asshole, Haldane."
"Well, at least it's comforting to hear that you're beginning to think."
January 5, 2020
Koontz re-reads buddy-read with Edward the Great!
July 16, 2020
Better than the vast majority of his new books. With all the attention focused on a traumatized little girl and little (if any ) focused on Koontz whining about how much he hates modern society or Hollywood, makes this book a winner.
Characters: Here they are alright, but still somewhat cookie-cutter. I read the book only a month or two ago and I've already forgotten the psychiatrist's name (she was one of the main characters, so that's really not good). I just checked and her name is Laura (same as the Lightning protagonist, which I didn't like). She is shy and withdrawn due to a bad childhood. Very common for a Koontz character.
Lt. Dan Haldane is far more interesting. He's serious with people that he likes, such as the psychiatrist, and generally jokes with the people that he does not, like his rival Cpt. Ross Mondale. Of course, being a Koontz character, he's tough and capable. No complaints here on that subject. He preaches about the state of the world a little bit, but this is 1980s Koontz and he doesn't get on his soapbox for too long.
Plot: The plot centers around the psychiatrist's daughter, Melanie. Melanie is deeply traumatized and catatonic after seven years in a deprivation chamber, and Laura must get her out of that catatonia, and find out what is the "Door to December" that her daughter keeps whispering about. However, Laura also realizes she's being hunted by the authors of Melanie's misery along with some unseen entity that is dispatching people with superhuman force. It is up to Lt. Dan Haldane to solve the case. It's a great plot, in my opinion, with mystery, a good smattering of action, and hints of sci-fi, just like Lightning.
Climax: Actually pretty bad, which was a surprise but not a big surprise with Koontz. The gap between the revelation and the final resolution is far too small, probably not more than five or six pages. And the revelation isn't good either. You're going to see it coming from a mile away in slow motion.
Prose: Somewhat mechanical. This really comes across in the way characters, like Laura, overthink to themselves. Like with Lightning, there are cases where Koontz could've used a 5 cent word in place of a 20 cent word. Still...bizarre, obscure words that nobody knows are extremely rare in here. As are long-winded metaphors and descriptions. You won't get a sense that he was writing with a thesaurus next to him (something that New Koontz more or less admitted in an interview), and trying really hard to impress people whom just want a good thriller with no bullshit.
The metaphors and similes here seem to be in a balanced amount.
"Hard spikes of cold rain nailed the night to the city."
This is the second paragraph. It does a good job illustrating the power of the rain and night sky without being verbose. Likewise the imagery used in Door to December all seems to be just enough explanation without over doing it, as he does in recent efforts.
I don't know where exactly to put this but it's worth noting. Early on, Laura is thinking about her parents that she was estranged from. This was because they were "religious zealots." Koontz, in this day and age, will never put those two words together like that ever again, at least not in the context of Christianity. In New Koontzland, there are no Christian extremists but bad atheists, bad professors, and bad scientists.
It's perfectly readable, and I honestly wish Koontz would come back to this old style of writing.
Highly recommended.
Characters: Here they are alright, but still somewhat cookie-cutter. I read the book only a month or two ago and I've already forgotten the psychiatrist's name (she was one of the main characters, so that's really not good). I just checked and her name is Laura (same as the Lightning protagonist, which I didn't like). She is shy and withdrawn due to a bad childhood. Very common for a Koontz character.
Lt. Dan Haldane is far more interesting. He's serious with people that he likes, such as the psychiatrist, and generally jokes with the people that he does not, like his rival Cpt. Ross Mondale. Of course, being a Koontz character, he's tough and capable. No complaints here on that subject. He preaches about the state of the world a little bit, but this is 1980s Koontz and he doesn't get on his soapbox for too long.
Plot: The plot centers around the psychiatrist's daughter, Melanie. Melanie is deeply traumatized and catatonic after seven years in a deprivation chamber, and Laura must get her out of that catatonia, and find out what is the "Door to December" that her daughter keeps whispering about. However, Laura also realizes she's being hunted by the authors of Melanie's misery along with some unseen entity that is dispatching people with superhuman force. It is up to Lt. Dan Haldane to solve the case. It's a great plot, in my opinion, with mystery, a good smattering of action, and hints of sci-fi, just like Lightning.
Climax: Actually pretty bad, which was a surprise but not a big surprise with Koontz. The gap between the revelation and the final resolution is far too small, probably not more than five or six pages. And the revelation isn't good either. You're going to see it coming from a mile away in slow motion.
Prose: Somewhat mechanical. This really comes across in the way characters, like Laura, overthink to themselves. Like with Lightning, there are cases where Koontz could've used a 5 cent word in place of a 20 cent word. Still...bizarre, obscure words that nobody knows are extremely rare in here. As are long-winded metaphors and descriptions. You won't get a sense that he was writing with a thesaurus next to him (something that New Koontz more or less admitted in an interview), and trying really hard to impress people whom just want a good thriller with no bullshit.
The metaphors and similes here seem to be in a balanced amount.
"Hard spikes of cold rain nailed the night to the city."
This is the second paragraph. It does a good job illustrating the power of the rain and night sky without being verbose. Likewise the imagery used in Door to December all seems to be just enough explanation without over doing it, as he does in recent efforts.
I don't know where exactly to put this but it's worth noting. Early on, Laura is thinking about her parents that she was estranged from. This was because they were "religious zealots." Koontz, in this day and age, will never put those two words together like that ever again, at least not in the context of Christianity. In New Koontzland, there are no Christian extremists but bad atheists, bad professors, and bad scientists.
It's perfectly readable, and I honestly wish Koontz would come back to this old style of writing.
Highly recommended.
December 14, 2009
Oh my, this has to be my favorite book from Dean Koontz. There is something about the Author, that he can delve into the thriller realm and just suck you in, and freak you out with every turn of the page.
I loved how descriptive he was when writing this book. I had many a sleepless night when reading this, but I couldn't seem to put it down, no matter how hard I tried.
This will always remain at the top of my list forever; Unless he comes out with something even better!
Move over Stephen King, you have been dethroned!
I loved how descriptive he was when writing this book. I had many a sleepless night when reading this, but I couldn't seem to put it down, no matter how hard I tried.
This will always remain at the top of my list forever; Unless he comes out with something even better!
Move over Stephen King, you have been dethroned!
July 5, 2008
Another worthless Dean Koontz novel full of the usual Koontz crimes against writing: awful dialogue, characters with no complexity, and a "surprise" ending that I knew was coming on page 30 of this over 500 page novel.
This is supposedly a mystery/suspense story focusing on the efforts of police officer Dan Haldane to unravel a weird case that revolves around forced sensory deprivation of a nine year old girl. As usual in the Koontz formula, Haldane falls in love with the girl's mother and there is a ridiculous romantic subplot in addition to the asinine regular plot. Also extremely amusing was Haldane's interaction with his police superior. Supposedly Haldane is some kind of no-nonsense crime solver while his boss is a ladder-climbing, politically minded person that care more about his reputation than solving crimes. But when you read their conversations, it's really hard to tell which character to dislike more, though the boss does seem more willing to compromise and try to work together. Detective Haldane is a real jerk that does not deserve to be on the force, that much is clear.
Also, it was written under a pseudonym in the mid-eighties then re-released later under Koontz's name, always another bad sign when dealing with this author. There's really nothing to redeem this book, and it should be avoided at all costs.
This is supposedly a mystery/suspense story focusing on the efforts of police officer Dan Haldane to unravel a weird case that revolves around forced sensory deprivation of a nine year old girl. As usual in the Koontz formula, Haldane falls in love with the girl's mother and there is a ridiculous romantic subplot in addition to the asinine regular plot. Also extremely amusing was Haldane's interaction with his police superior. Supposedly Haldane is some kind of no-nonsense crime solver while his boss is a ladder-climbing, politically minded person that care more about his reputation than solving crimes. But when you read their conversations, it's really hard to tell which character to dislike more, though the boss does seem more willing to compromise and try to work together. Detective Haldane is a real jerk that does not deserve to be on the force, that much is clear.
Also, it was written under a pseudonym in the mid-eighties then re-released later under Koontz's name, always another bad sign when dealing with this author. There's really nothing to redeem this book, and it should be avoided at all costs.
June 9, 2022
The Door to December was a pseudonymous novel that Koontz wrote as Richard Paige which was published in 1985. He revised the book almost a decade later, adding about another hundred pages, and it was then published under his own name. It's not a bad read but is so similar in theme and structure to some of his other novels that nothing about it really stands out. A woman is reunited with her lost daughter who was kidnapped by her ex-husband; he had been using the girl in a series of experiments combining evil scientific techniques and the occult. It's a typical Koontz page-turner, but not especially memorable.
November 16, 2016
Please note that I gave this book 3.5 stars, but rounded it up to 4 stars on Goodreads.
So I read this as my final book for Halloween Bingo 2016! This one was for the "It was a dark and stormy night" square. Lucky me for picking this to just read for the month of October and realizing as I read that most of the book takes place during thunderstorms/rain and the opening scene the main character (Laura) who arrives at a crime scene in the middle of the night during a torrential downpour. I also just realized that Koontz always seems to have his characters going to and fro while it is raining outside.
I read this book years ago in my 20s. I thought it was okay at the time, but something about it stuck in my craw and I couldn't figure it out until I re-read this. I did not like the character of Lieutenant Dan Haldane. We find out that he hid how bad a fellow officer was years ago due to some sort of messed up loyalty, and only then though he is initially indifferent to the character of Dr. Laura McCaffrey, he finds himself attracted to her after he sees her vulnerability. At one point he even notes he loves it when a woman is in trouble and he can save her.
The story starts off with Dr. Laura McCaffrey who is taken away by police car to a crime scene (don't get me started on this). She is only informed the police have found her husband who she was on the verge of divorcing 6 years ago. Her husband, Dylan, kidnapper their daughter and Laura has lost any hope of finding her missing daughter Melanie. Then Laura is told that her husband is dead and so are some others, and he was only living a few blocks from her this entire time (don't get me started on this). We find out that Laura is brought to the crime scene because Lt. Dan Haldane wants her to see the scene because he thinks that Laura's estranged husband was doing experiments on their daughter. From there, "Door to December" has Laura doing what she can to find out what happened to her daughter (she is eventually found wandering) and figure out what her husband and his friends were doing.
Laura is a child psychologist and plans on taking off in order to work with Melanie to help her. I actually liked the character of Laura, though I didn't really get any idea how she supposedly did hypnosis to her daughter and didn't get that her giving her daughter commands to tell her what was done to her was probably dancing around the crap her husband Dylan was doing to Melanie. I also don't know if Dean Koontz gets how hypnosis works, but that's a long topic for another day. I don't like how Koontz portrays Laura as a beautiful woman who someone doesn't get that she is beautiful and he has her as being awkward until she meets her husband. We also have Dan interjecting that she is attractive and he can't see how she can view herself that way. Blech. I thought Laura had more chemistry with her personal bodyguard Earl then she did with Dan. At least Melanie seemed to like him more too.
The character of Dan had a lot of backstory and I didn't think that any of it was necessary or needed. We know that Dan wants to save women who are in danger and he notes a lot of the time that he is attracted to Laura and wants to kiss her. Whatever dude.
We have Melanie in this story and I wish we had focused on her a little bit more. Instead Koontz has her as autistic except some of the time and it didn't even make sense.
There were a lot of secondary characters in this one (this book is over 500 pages) and besides Earl there were not a lot of them that I was too impressed with. We have Dan going around interviewing a lot of people and some of them are good and some are terrible people.
I think if the plot didn't include the FBI, LAPD, some international organization that is trying to take over the world, etc. the book would have worked better. The story only really shines when you start to realize what is happening to all of the bad people in this book.
The writing was okay, but sometimes Koontz is just way too melodramatic when describing something. Who knew there were so many ways to write about the rain. I also don't even know if the things he writes in the book about hypnosis, behavioral modification, etc. are even true. The hypnosis thing didn't even sound right to me.
The ending just kind of happens and we have everyone realizing who has been killing all of the people in the book. I feel like the story was also showing that Dan planned on being in Laura and Melanie's lives (shaking my head) and was probably already thinking of ways to romance her.
So I read this as my final book for Halloween Bingo 2016! This one was for the "It was a dark and stormy night" square. Lucky me for picking this to just read for the month of October and realizing as I read that most of the book takes place during thunderstorms/rain and the opening scene the main character (Laura) who arrives at a crime scene in the middle of the night during a torrential downpour. I also just realized that Koontz always seems to have his characters going to and fro while it is raining outside.
I read this book years ago in my 20s. I thought it was okay at the time, but something about it stuck in my craw and I couldn't figure it out until I re-read this. I did not like the character of Lieutenant Dan Haldane. We find out that he hid how bad a fellow officer was years ago due to some sort of messed up loyalty, and only then though he is initially indifferent to the character of Dr. Laura McCaffrey, he finds himself attracted to her after he sees her vulnerability. At one point he even notes he loves it when a woman is in trouble and he can save her.
The story starts off with Dr. Laura McCaffrey who is taken away by police car to a crime scene (don't get me started on this). She is only informed the police have found her husband who she was on the verge of divorcing 6 years ago. Her husband, Dylan, kidnapper their daughter and Laura has lost any hope of finding her missing daughter Melanie. Then Laura is told that her husband is dead and so are some others, and he was only living a few blocks from her this entire time (don't get me started on this). We find out that Laura is brought to the crime scene because Lt. Dan Haldane wants her to see the scene because he thinks that Laura's estranged husband was doing experiments on their daughter. From there, "Door to December" has Laura doing what she can to find out what happened to her daughter (she is eventually found wandering) and figure out what her husband and his friends were doing.
Laura is a child psychologist and plans on taking off in order to work with Melanie to help her. I actually liked the character of Laura, though I didn't really get any idea how she supposedly did hypnosis to her daughter and didn't get that her giving her daughter commands to tell her what was done to her was probably dancing around the crap her husband Dylan was doing to Melanie. I also don't know if Dean Koontz gets how hypnosis works, but that's a long topic for another day. I don't like how Koontz portrays Laura as a beautiful woman who someone doesn't get that she is beautiful and he has her as being awkward until she meets her husband. We also have Dan interjecting that she is attractive and he can't see how she can view herself that way. Blech. I thought Laura had more chemistry with her personal bodyguard Earl then she did with Dan. At least Melanie seemed to like him more too.
The character of Dan had a lot of backstory and I didn't think that any of it was necessary or needed. We know that Dan wants to save women who are in danger and he notes a lot of the time that he is attracted to Laura and wants to kiss her. Whatever dude.
We have Melanie in this story and I wish we had focused on her a little bit more. Instead Koontz has her as autistic except some of the time and it didn't even make sense.
There were a lot of secondary characters in this one (this book is over 500 pages) and besides Earl there were not a lot of them that I was too impressed with. We have Dan going around interviewing a lot of people and some of them are good and some are terrible people.
I think if the plot didn't include the FBI, LAPD, some international organization that is trying to take over the world, etc. the book would have worked better. The story only really shines when you start to realize what is happening to all of the bad people in this book.
The writing was okay, but sometimes Koontz is just way too melodramatic when describing something. Who knew there were so many ways to write about the rain. I also don't even know if the things he writes in the book about hypnosis, behavioral modification, etc. are even true. The hypnosis thing didn't even sound right to me.
The ending just kind of happens and we have everyone realizing who has been killing all of the people in the book. I feel like the story was also showing that Dan planned on being in Laura and Melanie's lives (shaking my head) and was probably already thinking of ways to romance her.
March 20, 2011
This is an old and rather obscure Koontz novel, originally published in 1985 under a pseudonym.
It's a pretty basic feature: Laura McCaffrey is reconciled with her daughter, whom her father kidnapped six years earlier. The police found the child in his laboratory - along with his mangled remains. Melanie, because that's the name of the girl, is overpowered by terror - and she can only say the cryptic phrase the door to december...strange things start happening, as Melanie's fathers colaborators start dying in gruesome ways. Police officer Dan Haldane rushes to help Laura and Melanie, hoping it is not too late...
The premise is intriguing enough to pull the whole thing off, though the novel suffers from predictability. Still, it's over 500 pages long and allows for enough suspense and twists to develop. It also comes from the 80's Koontz, a time when he didn't denounce the "horror" label, meaning it's far grislier and more violent than his newer works. His style is very descriptive and easy to read, the plot good enough to follow, which makes The Door to December an extended Twilight Zone episode. It borrows too much from Koontz's previous works to be truly notable, but it's not bad; good reading for your morning commute.
It's a pretty basic feature: Laura McCaffrey is reconciled with her daughter, whom her father kidnapped six years earlier. The police found the child in his laboratory - along with his mangled remains. Melanie, because that's the name of the girl, is overpowered by terror - and she can only say the cryptic phrase the door to december...strange things start happening, as Melanie's fathers colaborators start dying in gruesome ways. Police officer Dan Haldane rushes to help Laura and Melanie, hoping it is not too late...
The premise is intriguing enough to pull the whole thing off, though the novel suffers from predictability. Still, it's over 500 pages long and allows for enough suspense and twists to develop. It also comes from the 80's Koontz, a time when he didn't denounce the "horror" label, meaning it's far grislier and more violent than his newer works. His style is very descriptive and easy to read, the plot good enough to follow, which makes The Door to December an extended Twilight Zone episode. It borrows too much from Koontz's previous works to be truly notable, but it's not bad; good reading for your morning commute.
August 22, 2021
DNF Lost interest
September 7, 2012
This book was filled with clichés and insults to autism. The clichés were enough to insult everybody's intelligence already so the interchangeable use of the terms "cationic" and "autistic" tipped this over the edge enough to earn negative stars if it were possible. Yes, I get how at the time this book was written there wasn't a lot of study on autism but that doesn't mean it's fair game to make stuff up about a very real condition.
This book was very predictable and easy to figure out within the first few chapters. The storyline had a lot of half baked dead ends. If that was to try to throw us in for a loop it didn't work. They were pointless at best. I would definitely recommend this book to my recycling bin.
This book was very predictable and easy to figure out within the first few chapters. The storyline had a lot of half baked dead ends. If that was to try to throw us in for a loop it didn't work. They were pointless at best. I would definitely recommend this book to my recycling bin.
October 7, 2018
I didn't know until I read the afterword that this was originally written under another name. I don't know Dean Koontz's writing style well enough to tell if this was written differently. It was set up as a detective story solving a paranormal crime, so while the detective angle seemed a bit new, the paranormal and possible conspiracies seemed to be in line with what I had read by Koontz previously.
Dan Haldane is called to a crime scene where three bodies are so brutally beaten that no one can determine what kind of weapon was used against them. There is also a missing nine-year-old girl, Melanie, that has been used a human experiment for the three dead men, including one that used to be her father. The detective brings in the ex-wife, Dr. Laura McCaffrey, to help who has been looking for her missing daughter ever since her husband took off with her six years earlier. Between the two of them, along with a private investigator they figure out what's been happening to Melanie and why people keep dying that are somehow related to this secret experiment.
There were some very odd things that really took me out of the story while reading it:
- The book has a very dated view on autism. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it was written in 1985. I will not claim to be an expert on autism, but when describing a girl who has spent a good portion of her life in a sensory deprivation tank as autistic seemed odd. She seemed a bit stuck in her mind, but I would relate that to being traumatized for a long period of time. The first time autism is mentioned, it immediately made me look to see when the book was written since it was so out of place.
- Haldane is obsessed with Laura's beauty right away. There are multiple paragraphs about how he has the hots for her, but knows he can't act on it. It was incredibly icky to read. Later on in the story, I came to like his character, but that was how he was introduced. Why? He could have been working this case with her and come to admire her over the course of the story without pondering if he should start a relationship with her. So weird.
- Koontz throws in really odd words that don't seem to fit with the level of writing that the rest of book. Throughout the book, he references some entity that has been destroying people. Then in one instance, he references it as a psychogeist. What is that?? He explains it later on in the book, but it seems he forgot that he didn't explain it before he used it the first time. It was much like he did some research and wanted to use the correct term, but you can't just slip in uncommon words without explanation.
Even with those odd parts, I did enjoy the rest of the book. The revelation of what was going on was really easy to guess so I thought it must have been wrong. Nope! It was pretty obvious but I still enjoyed the rest of the story.
I'd rate this 3.5 stars.
Dan Haldane is called to a crime scene where three bodies are so brutally beaten that no one can determine what kind of weapon was used against them. There is also a missing nine-year-old girl, Melanie, that has been used a human experiment for the three dead men, including one that used to be her father. The detective brings in the ex-wife, Dr. Laura McCaffrey, to help who has been looking for her missing daughter ever since her husband took off with her six years earlier. Between the two of them, along with a private investigator they figure out what's been happening to Melanie and why people keep dying that are somehow related to this secret experiment.
There were some very odd things that really took me out of the story while reading it:
- The book has a very dated view on autism. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it was written in 1985. I will not claim to be an expert on autism, but when describing a girl who has spent a good portion of her life in a sensory deprivation tank as autistic seemed odd. She seemed a bit stuck in her mind, but I would relate that to being traumatized for a long period of time. The first time autism is mentioned, it immediately made me look to see when the book was written since it was so out of place.
- Haldane is obsessed with Laura's beauty right away. There are multiple paragraphs about how he has the hots for her, but knows he can't act on it. It was incredibly icky to read. Later on in the story, I came to like his character, but that was how he was introduced. Why? He could have been working this case with her and come to admire her over the course of the story without pondering if he should start a relationship with her. So weird.
- Koontz throws in really odd words that don't seem to fit with the level of writing that the rest of book. Throughout the book, he references some entity that has been destroying people. Then in one instance, he references it as a psychogeist. What is that?? He explains it later on in the book, but it seems he forgot that he didn't explain it before he used it the first time. It was much like he did some research and wanted to use the correct term, but you can't just slip in uncommon words without explanation.
Even with those odd parts, I did enjoy the rest of the book. The revelation of what was going on was really easy to guess so I thought it must have been wrong. Nope! It was pretty obvious but I still enjoyed the rest of the story.
I'd rate this 3.5 stars.
March 27, 2015
During my Army days I snapped up Koontz, King and Herbert as soon as titles became available. I still treasure the signed book from Koontz (hard to get when living in Europe).
May 10, 2015
No no no!
I knew how this was going to end less than 100 pages in. Still, I tried to forgive it that because I was enjoying the story.
I was disturbed and annoyed by the "autism" stuff. See also: Koontz asserts that autism is caused by child abuse. Not only that but autism is basically a fancy name for catatonia, I guess. I cringed every time he even used the word autism. Even still, I could overlook that due to the book's age.
Then the ending to Door to December is basically like, "THEN WE GAVE HER A HUG AND EVERYBODY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER."
Ummmmm NO. NO. That is NOT how you end a book. Whatever. This one is going in the incinerator.
Anyway, before all that garbage I was actually enjoying this story and its writing. So it gets a very generous two stars and a warning to never return.
I knew how this was going to end less than 100 pages in. Still, I tried to forgive it that because I was enjoying the story.
I was disturbed and annoyed by the "autism" stuff. See also: Koontz asserts that autism is caused by child abuse. Not only that but autism is basically a fancy name for catatonia, I guess. I cringed every time he even used the word autism. Even still, I could overlook that due to the book's age.
Then the ending to Door to December is basically like, "THEN WE GAVE HER A HUG AND EVERYBODY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER."
Ummmmm NO. NO. That is NOT how you end a book. Whatever. This one is going in the incinerator.
Anyway, before all that garbage I was actually enjoying this story and its writing. So it gets a very generous two stars and a warning to never return.
May 9, 2012
i did not like this book at all.
this was my first Dean Koontz novel, and i must say after this book i don't think that i will be reading his work again. his writing style comes off as cheesy and long winded. and this particular story i found to be... silly.
i suppose it just wasn't my type of book...
this was my first Dean Koontz novel, and i must say after this book i don't think that i will be reading his work again. his writing style comes off as cheesy and long winded. and this particular story i found to be... silly.
i suppose it just wasn't my type of book...
July 10, 2017
Another supernatural thriller from Koontz that kept me interested from start to finish. Very well done. An excellent read.
December 16, 2025
Was a little confused by this book. Realizing it’s a reprint of a much older book make it make more sense.
I didn’t really enjoy the story line, the odd insta-attraction, and the odd sexual content.
Really can’t say I enjoyed it or would recommend it personally.
My rating: 2.5*
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
I didn’t really enjoy the story line, the odd insta-attraction, and the odd sexual content.
Really can’t say I enjoyed it or would recommend it personally.
My rating: 2.5*
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
December 5, 2019
The Door to December has similar themes to Disembodied by Robert W. Walker with a form of astral projection, poltergeist activity, and murder at its deadly core. While at times reading like a police procedural with a suspicion of supernatural activity, The Door to December is definitely horror, particularly in the mid to later stages of the book. That said the scares are more PG than nightmare inducing.
September 25, 2018
Another great Koontz book, especially the characters. They really shine throughout, although the middle dragged out a bit longer than I was hoping for. Still, the ending is great and it's another world created I wish he'd explore again in the future.
March 15, 2024
3.75★
I was inspired by a booktuber (booksandlala) to read a book published in each of the years I've been alive. Her goal is to find a five star read from each year but mine is much simpler- I just want to have read at least one book from each year beginning in 1985 with this book- The Door to December. Maybe once I have completed this challenge I'll up the ante and start searching for five stars but for now I'm happy to work on accomplishing this more simple goal. My sister is reading these books along with me for some added fun so I'll also share her very brief thoughts here as well.
I feel like I've read quite a few Dean Koontz books over the years- I've read several of his Odd Thomas books which are amazing plus a few standalone's. I've never been disappointed by his books and they're always pretty fast-paced. This book is my least favorite of the ones I've read but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. It had good pacing and an interesting and sinister mystery at its heart. I did feel like it got repetitive a little bit and the romantic feelings that developed between the cop, Haldane, and the mother, Laura, were quite unbelievable. The entirety of this story took place over a 48 period in which the cop was rarely in the presence of Laura and her daughter- he spent the majority of his time racing around trying to solve the mystery before more people got hurt. Even if he had been with them for the entire 48 hours it would still make little sense- it felt completely unnecessary to add this element to the story. I was worried about how Koontz was going to wrap this story up but it ended up being a decent ending so that was okay but I will say that I wasn't really comfortable with the way the author used autism in the story. It wasn't anything he did inherently wrong and it could just be that there was little understanding of autism 38 years ago but it just didn't sit well for some reason. There is a supernatural element to the book which is okay with me- fantasy is my favorite genre so if it's done well I'm happy with it and it was decently done here.
My sister really enjoyed the beginning of the book and was satisfied with the ending but felt the middle of the story dragged a bit- I could definitely understand this mostly due to the repetitiveness that I mentioned above. Overall we had a fun time reading this one even if it wasn't our favorite book by this author. If you plan to read this I'd keep in mind that the story touches on mind control/manipulation and consequent rape and abuse. It also includes abuse of a child.
I was inspired by a booktuber (booksandlala) to read a book published in each of the years I've been alive. Her goal is to find a five star read from each year but mine is much simpler- I just want to have read at least one book from each year beginning in 1985 with this book- The Door to December. Maybe once I have completed this challenge I'll up the ante and start searching for five stars but for now I'm happy to work on accomplishing this more simple goal. My sister is reading these books along with me for some added fun so I'll also share her very brief thoughts here as well.
I feel like I've read quite a few Dean Koontz books over the years- I've read several of his Odd Thomas books which are amazing plus a few standalone's. I've never been disappointed by his books and they're always pretty fast-paced. This book is my least favorite of the ones I've read but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. It had good pacing and an interesting and sinister mystery at its heart. I did feel like it got repetitive a little bit and the romantic feelings that developed between the cop, Haldane, and the mother, Laura, were quite unbelievable. The entirety of this story took place over a 48 period in which the cop was rarely in the presence of Laura and her daughter- he spent the majority of his time racing around trying to solve the mystery before more people got hurt. Even if he had been with them for the entire 48 hours it would still make little sense- it felt completely unnecessary to add this element to the story. I was worried about how Koontz was going to wrap this story up but it ended up being a decent ending so that was okay but I will say that I wasn't really comfortable with the way the author used autism in the story. It wasn't anything he did inherently wrong and it could just be that there was little understanding of autism 38 years ago but it just didn't sit well for some reason. There is a supernatural element to the book which is okay with me- fantasy is my favorite genre so if it's done well I'm happy with it and it was decently done here.
My sister really enjoyed the beginning of the book and was satisfied with the ending but felt the middle of the story dragged a bit- I could definitely understand this mostly due to the repetitiveness that I mentioned above. Overall we had a fun time reading this one even if it wasn't our favorite book by this author. If you plan to read this I'd keep in mind that the story touches on mind control/manipulation and consequent rape and abuse. It also includes abuse of a child.
March 14, 2016
Dean Koontz writing as Richard Paige. This is one of Koontz' earlier novels and it is full of the same fire and excitement as those early books. Melanie is a nine-year-old girl who was abducted by her own father when she was three. She had been used by her father and his associates for psychological research particularly into the realm of the unconscious. The men with her father have been brutally killed and her mother Janet, a detective, Dan Haldane and Earl, from a security agency are doing their best to keep the girl from encountering the same fate. She is autistic-like because of what was done to her and her mother, a child psychiatrist is working with her to try to reverse the damage. What is this mysterious force that is killing Melanie's abusers and from whom she might also be in danger? How are these brutal murders happening as it appears as if the bodies are being smashed to pieces?
No weapon is present at the murder sites and no clues are being identified. Dan is committed to keeping the mother and daughter safe, no matter what. I couldn't put this book down. Suspense continually mounts as in most Koontz novels and the answers seem to be something the reader can't imagine.
No weapon is present at the murder sites and no clues are being identified. Dan is committed to keeping the mother and daughter safe, no matter what. I couldn't put this book down. Suspense continually mounts as in most Koontz novels and the answers seem to be something the reader can't imagine.
March 31, 2016
I read The Door to December by Richard Paige (Dean Koontz) in order to see how Koontz's writing style has changed over the years (and also to see if he varied his plot-lines more 'back in the day.' Thankfully he did.). Written in 1985, this tells the story of Laura McCaffrey, a woman whose child was abducted six years earlier, by her ex-partner.
When the ex is found murdered, Laura is called by the police, and shortly after that a girl is found wandering naked in the street. This is a story of terrible acts inflicted on a child in the name of scientific research, and of a vengeful paranormal force hunting down anyone involved with those experiments. I sorta guessed the twist and that costs the book a star, but overall this was a pretty good read and it's easy to see why Dean Koontz was so popular back then.
When the ex is found murdered, Laura is called by the police, and shortly after that a girl is found wandering naked in the street. This is a story of terrible acts inflicted on a child in the name of scientific research, and of a vengeful paranormal force hunting down anyone involved with those experiments. I sorta guessed the twist and that costs the book a star, but overall this was a pretty good read and it's easy to see why Dean Koontz was so popular back then.
August 6, 2018
It's not bad Koontz, It's not good Koontz.
It's not well written, it's not badly written
It's not fun, it's not boring
It isn't that long, It isn't too short
Male cop hero? Check. Strong female lead? Check. Abused child? Check. Experiments gone awry? Check. Wacky character names? Check (Ned Rink? Really?)
This is the Koontz checklist and he hits them all. Like I said, this isn't modern-day bad Koontz but it isn't classic era Koontz either (Twilight Eyes, The Voice of the Night, etc..)
Take a grape. Now roll it across the floor. That action has the same amount of impact on me as this novel. 1.6/5
It's not well written, it's not badly written
It's not fun, it's not boring
It isn't that long, It isn't too short
Male cop hero? Check. Strong female lead? Check. Abused child? Check. Experiments gone awry? Check. Wacky character names? Check (Ned Rink? Really?)
This is the Koontz checklist and he hits them all. Like I said, this isn't modern-day bad Koontz but it isn't classic era Koontz either (Twilight Eyes, The Voice of the Night, etc..)
Take a grape. Now roll it across the floor. That action has the same amount of impact on me as this novel. 1.6/5
September 5, 2021
Occultismo, spiritismo, psicologia comportamentale distorta, scienziati abominevoli e tentazioni assolutistiche. Mischiamo il tutto e otteniamo questo bel libro di Koontz. Una bambina viene rapita e sacrificata dal proprio padre sull'altare di una malata sete di sapere para-scientifico, le conseguenze che ne deriveranno saranno catastrofiche e assai sanguinolente. Come sempre nei libri di Koontz il ritmo e' incalzante, la lettura scorre assai veloce (si finisce il libro in un volo), e anche se il meccanismo principale della trama e' intuibile fin da subito, la copertina da criminali non agevola di sicuro la sorpresa, la tensione viene abilmente alimentata da qualche colpo di scena.
November 17, 2025
I read once that Dean Koontz is considered America’s best suspense novelist. This book was originally released back in the mid-80s. It’s up for a re-release and even has new narrators. Koontz is absolutely still one of the best suspense novelist. I know this book was originally under the pseudonym Richard Paige, but I’m glad it now gets the Dean Koontz attention it deserves.
Although paranormal is not something I like, the writing of this book was still phenomenal. There really weren’t glaring holes or odd excuses to explain away the paranormal aspects of the book. And even though this book was written in the 80’s, it absolutely has stood the test of time.
The narrators were listed as Moniqua Plante and Troy Duran. I don’t remember if I’ve ever heard Moniqua Plante, but she did excellent as the main female and child. Lots of emotion and it was awesome. As far as Troy Duran…I would listen to him read a dictionary. He can read anything and it’s perfect.
Thank you NetGalley for the listen!
Although paranormal is not something I like, the writing of this book was still phenomenal. There really weren’t glaring holes or odd excuses to explain away the paranormal aspects of the book. And even though this book was written in the 80’s, it absolutely has stood the test of time.
The narrators were listed as Moniqua Plante and Troy Duran. I don’t remember if I’ve ever heard Moniqua Plante, but she did excellent as the main female and child. Lots of emotion and it was awesome. As far as Troy Duran…I would listen to him read a dictionary. He can read anything and it’s perfect.
Thank you NetGalley for the listen!
January 12, 2025
Fundamentally quite offensive. Awful dialogue. Although I couldn't put it down, so fair play to Mr Koontz
January 10, 2024
The Door to December, was a thrilling read. I was not disappointed! Another book that I had a hard time putting down once I started. I felt it was quite similar to other works that I have read by Dean Koontz ( Darkfall, and Phantoms) I throughly enjoyed those also. ( I also got some “Stranger Things from Netflix” vibes from this story, you will know what I mean once you read it. Melanie had a lot of similarities to eleven. ) Some parts were slightly hard to read, because a major part of the story line was centered around forms of child abuse. This book may not be for everyone, but if you can get around those difficult parts and situations, this read is definitely worth your time.
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