Time Travel discussion

Lightning

In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying.

Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. But just as lightning illuminates, darkness always follows close behind.

Please be courteous and hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

Cool. I've been meaning to read this, as my husband is a big Koontz fan.

Apparently I own this and I read it years ago. I don’t remember it at all. I own quite a few Koontz books. When I Joined GRs I scanned all the barcodes and just gave everything three stars, LOL.

Nancy wrote: "Apparently I own this and I read it years ago. I don’t remember it at all. I own quite a few Koontz books. When I Joined GRs I scanned all the barcodes and just gave everything three stars, LOL."

That's funny Nancy! I did the same.

Jennifer wrote: "That's funny Nancy! I did the same..."

Great minds and all....

One of my favorite Koontz stories..Love the time travel sequences and the romantic flavor behind it..I would give this a high 4 stars..Read it three maybe four times over the years...

This used to be one of my favorite books after I read it a few decades ago, but it didn't hold up well when I did a group read of it a few years ago.

It's had a lot of group reads:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/list_...

One of my complaints in general is that the very classification of the book as a time travel book is a big spoiler, even though that becomes clear after a few chapters...but as a reader, that's something I would rather have discovered during the read and not known when the first event occurred. :(

:sigh:
We have two months to discuss it, starting *next week*... I wish folks wouldn't jump the gun.

What? About time travel?

About the book Lightning, the book we're discussing in March and April. The book that I don't intend to start reading until March 1st earliest. :)

Sorry I mentioned anything--I am guilty of jumping the gun..I'll wait until next month..Jim

:smiles:

I have started to read Lightning for the second time, after reading it many years ago.

The first few pages are fabulous, spotlighting the drunken doctor on call and the snowstorm with lightning! Very vivid!

Steven wrote: "I have started to read Lightning for the second time, after reading it many years ago.

The first few pages are fabulous, spotlighting the drunken doctor on call and the snowstorm with lightning! ..."

I am going to re-read it as well. I don’t even remember reading this one. I had to go dig out the paperback book from the back of the shelves. I have the 1989 mass market PB. If I didn’t own it still, I wouldn’t have thought I had read it.

I really need to schedule more carefully. I'm excited to read this, but I have others piling up, too! Thank you for posting and starting the discussion. ;)

I probably won’t get to it until the beginning of April. I am behind in other reading commitments already.

Randy wrote: "This used to be one of my favorite books after I read it a few decades ago, but it didn't hold up well when I did a group read of it a few years ago.

It's had a lot of group reads:

https://www.go..."

I thought it was pretty clear in the first few pages that the two "visitors" were time travelers, since Stefan knew about Laura's later life and the other man (Kokoschka) was following Stefan.

This is a fabulous book! I am so enjoying reading it again, after all these years.

The writing is beautiful, as Koontz details Laura's life.

More later....

Steven wrote: "This is a fabulous book! I am so enjoying reading it again, after all these years.

The writing is beautiful, as Koontz details Laura's life.

More later...."

I am glad you are enjoying your re-read. Now I am getting excited to re-read it myself.

I just finished this book!

It is still one of my favorite novels--a time-travel, alternative-history thriller!

I don't believe there are any spoilers below.

There are a very few slow sections, but Koontz's great work is mainly a suspenseful, romantic, time-travel, pulse-raising novel, with both personal and world history being altered!

There are wonderful passages that detail the life of Laura Shane and the impact that a stranger named Stefan has on it. I loved the sections about her love for her father, her friend Thelma, and her husband Danny. Very real and moving!

I loved that Laura is a fighter and a survivor, through unimaginable troubles! She is intelligent and resourceful. As is the stranger.

Her son Chris is an endless source of amusement—and he is incredibly courageous, as well.

The book often is divided into short sections that tell what is happening to Laura and to Stefan. Since they usually were brief, I had little problem with following the story and reading on.

I finished the book in five days, and it was the second time I've read it.

Nope, I still don't like thrillers. Especially if they have content that calls for what most would consider the most sensitive trigger warning (don't even click through if you're sensitive!! (view spoiler)[detailed sexual molestation of a vulnerable young child (hide spoiler)]

I did manage to get through the book... for the time-travel element. The way paradox was addressed was pretty clever and I really enjoyed seeing the puzzle get solved.

For a genre story it's a pretty good book. I don't believe any of the dialogue, especially the child's; nobody really talks like that. But it was fine.

The ebook had an afterward in which Koontz complains that publishers think readers are sheep who like formula, who like a successful author to repeat his success by repeating his story. Instead, Koontz says, more of us are wolf-like, hungry for something both fresh and substantial.

I highlighted a couple of passages; I'll come back to report them when I get a chance.

Koontz quoted T.S. Eliot, "Saints and martyrs rule from the tomb."

Some things about Koontz's writing bothered me. For example, about halfway through, (view spoiler)[Laura is neglecting other people while talking to Thelma about Ruthie, "because it was one of those rare times when remembering the dead was more important than tending to the needs of the living." Hello, what she's doing is tending to the needs of Thelma & herself, who are living! (hide spoiler)]

This example is interesting, though. "All the light in the room was unnatural, for the windows were... blacked out...." Most ppl would simply use the word 'artificial' because that's the everyday word for 'light that is not sun or moon light.' But "unnatural" certainly exudes a creepy vibe!

I did like the way they dealt with the Hitler problem. After all, if an assassin did try to kill Hitler before he rose to power, someone else could just go back and kill those people who killed him. Something else needed to be done. Not saying the plot is airtight, but the TT aspect is more thought out than many books we've read in this group.

And I really really appreciate the little bits of humor, not just Thelma's wise-cracking but things like Chris's reaction to learning that they were involved in a TT adventure, for example.

Speaking of Thelma, though, her self-abasement got old. I think that's the only thing that really dated this 1988 story.

I often carry a book with me (if only on my phone) so I can read in my stolen moments. So I had the Hilo Library's copy of LIGHTNING while I stood in line for a Irish band performance, and a woman commented to me that it's one of her favorite books, her favorite Dean Koontz novel.

It's my favorite Dean Koontz novel, too because it's the only one I've read. I do like it but probably not as much as her. I don't read Koontz's novels as a rule because they're thrillers, and although I like some thrillers very much I don't like the genre in general because it's too formulaic. But LIGHTNING isn't as formulaic as many thrillers (unlike RECURSION, which I hated because it hit every thriller cliche).

I enjoyed this book, and I think most other people on this list will too. I did feel it fell short of its potential, but I'll write about that in a later post. I agree with Steven's comments above, though I do believe there are some slow spots. I think the best thing in this book is the character Laura. Thelma is also very good. I also agree with Cheryl's comments. Thanks, Cheryl, for mentioning the afterword. I didn't have the e-book so I didn't get to see it.

I'm reading Koontz's Intensity now, which is not a time-travel novel.

It is very good and, well, intense!

I am struck by how similar Intensity's heroine, Chyna, is to Laura in Lightning. Chyna—like Laura—is also a survivor and a fighter, even in the face of incredible odds.

I really did enjoy this book. Read it in a day. It was my first Dean Koontz. Thank you for the recommendation. I loved how it crossed so many genres. After pushing my way through Eddies in the Time Continuum which I felt was smarter than me, it was nice to have an easy to read thriller.

Now I am reading The Watchers that Dean Koontz mentioned in his afterword. When he talked about a dog being a main character I had to check it out.

Lizz wrote: "I really did enjoy this book. Read it in a day. It was my first Dean Koontz. Thank you for the recommendation. I loved how it crossed so many genres. After pushing my way through Eddies in the Time..."

They did three movie adaptations of it. The first two had different scenes right out of the book, but the third was only vaguely related.

I'm not sure how the story would play out today, with computers so readily accessible. It would have to be quite a bit different.

I am behind. I haven’t had the time or the inclination to read this past week.

I was listening to this one on audiobook in the car, right when Covid stuck. Since I wasn't going to work or driving much, it took me a long time to get through it, but I finished this morning. I found the passages where Laura was in the home with Thelma, Ruthie and The Eel to be the most intense. The time travel portions were fine, but took a backseat to the well-formed characters, and that is a sign of an excellent writer. I haven't read anything else Koontz has done but I'd heard of him before this. It sounds like he has quite a following.

(view spoiler)[One thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the fact that Laura and Stefan got together in the end. It felt like the author took the easy way out to tie up the book, but the relationship never felt romantic on her part. (hide spoiler)]