Winter Moon Summary

Winter Moon

Published: 1975 (as Invasion) - 1994 (as Winter Moon)

Author: Dean Koontz (Written as Aaron Wolfe)

Genre: Alien Invasion, Crime, Family Life, Fiction, Ghost, Horror, Literature, Paranormal, Rural, Small Town, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller, Zombie

Check out the review of this book here:

Winter Moon

Summary

The narrative opens with Jack McGarvey, a 32-year-old Los Angeles police officer. Jack is caught in the middle of a firefight at a petrol station. He kills the gunman but is severely injured and spends months in the hospital recuperating. 

When Jack comes home, the McGarveys receive word that he has inherited the Quartermass Ranch in Eagles Roost, Montana, from his late partner's father, Eduardo Fernandez.

Eduardo was having unusual happenings in Montana as Jack was healing from his injuries. He notices blazing lights in the trees and weird noises. He discovers a large black circle one night and assumes it is a doorway established by an extraterrestrial. 

Soon later, he finds wild raccoons spying on him and in his home. Eduardo visits the local veterinarian, Travis Potter when all of the raccoons mysteriously die. The veterinarian conducts an autopsy, which yields no definitive information on the cause of death. 

Squirrels and birds are now watching him. Despite his fear, Eduardo ultimately dares the visitor to come to him in its actual form rather than using animals. He hears a shambling on his doorstep one night. He opens the door, shotgun in hand, and discovers the traveler piggybacking on his late wife's corpse, taken from the family cemetery on the ranch. Travis Potter discovers Eduardo's body, and an examination reveals that he died of a heart attack.

With his wife, Heather, and kid, Toby, Jack moves onto Eduardo's property. They are looking forward to a calm life in Montana, away from big-city violence, and a secure school for Toby. Falstaff, the family's golden retriever, is smitten with Toby.

Strange things begin to happen to the McGarveys. Travis Potter and attorney Paul Youngblood both suggest that something peculiar happened soon before Eduardo died. 

All three McGarveys have repeated nightmares about an entity promising bliss if they let it into their thoughts, but each recognizes the promises are fake and violently rejects the offer. Heather refers to it as the Giver. 

The Giver uses technological equipment to mesmerize Toby and seeks to speak with Jack through Toby. 

The family gradually admits to each other the resemblance of their dreams and several perplexing happenings.

The Giver grows impatient and bolder, having never encountered opposition from any species before. It tries to trap the family during a blizzard by cutting off their cars and phone lines. 

Jack walks out of the house to urge a neighbor to take his wife and son away, while Heather and Toby stay armed with gasoline cans and pistols. 

Despite the fact that they have locked the home, the Giver is able to enter. It manifests itself in two distinct forms, each riding a body from the ranch's family plot. 

Heather realizes that gunshots do not harm the Giver riding Eduardo's body, so she sets fire to the home in the hopes that the fire would kill the thing. She fires at the second body, injuring it, and learns the Givers are unable to move without their hosts. 

The first Giver has walked its corpse through the flames, and as it continues to follow them, Heather notices that half of it has been devoured by the fire, giving her hope. 

Toby captures the Giver in his thoughts by convincing it that he accepts its offer, so immobilizing the Giver and allowing him, his mother, and Falstaff to flee the home. 

Harlan Moffit, a snowplow driver, picks up Jack and sees the home on fire as they come into the driveway. Heather and Toby are lugging gas cans up the back stairs when Harlan arrives and informs them of an extraterrestrial invasion. 

Toby claims that he can't keep the Giver hostage for much longer and that the Giver is actually at the caretaker's house. When they get to the caretaker's house, they witness a third creature riding another body, trapped immobile by Toby's mind. 

The Giver's primary body is located further back in the home and is a huge creature that spawned three lesser extensions of itself. Toby maintains the being's will as the grownups pour gasoline on the structure and set it on fire.

After the authorities had gathered everyone's statements, Toby informs his father that, towards the very end, the Giver produced a few little worms that tried to escape by digging into the wood. He's not sure if any of them survived, and Jack says they'll leave it up to the experts and authorities. A few weeks later, the family returns to Los Angeles.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Good Read, Half Of The Book, Jack McGarvey, Keeps You Turning, Koontz Books, Los Angeles, Page Turner, Police Officer, Years Ago

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.

Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/namsu

Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu

Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Phantoms Summary

Phantoms

Published: March 1983

Author: Dean Koontz

Genre: American, Contemporary, Crime, Drama, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Rural, Science Fiction, Small Town, Suspense, Thriller

Check out the review of this book here:

Phantoms

Summary

Jenny and Lisa Paige, two sisters, return to Jenny's homeland of Snowfield, California, a tiny ski resort community hidden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor, only to discover that no one is alive. 

The few bodies they discover have been mangled or reflect some unusual way of death. Jenny eventually calls authorities from a neighboring town for assistance after becoming increasingly concerned about the community's unusual and scary predicament.

The girls and the authorities, commanded by Sheriff Bryce Hammond, might request assistance from the military Biological Investigations Unit. 

Only one clue as to what was causing the town's disappearances and fatalities was discovered by the police. 

A victim of whatever was attempting to murder him managed to write Timothy Flyte's name on a mirror just before he was slain. Flyte is a British professor who wrote The Ancient Enemy. His book records and describes the mass disappearances of individuals throughout history in various places of the world.

It is revealed that the settlement was constructed over the hibernation grounds of one such Enemy, an amoeboid shapeshifter. This Ancient Enemy feeds seldom, but when it does, the consequences are disastrous. 

The Enemy was said to have caused or facilitated the extinction of the dinosaurs, as well as many of the big enigmatic mass vanishings: Mayan civilization, Roanoke, ghost ships, and so on.

The monster absorbs other living forms to gain bulk and can perfectly imitate other animals. It can develop microscopic "probes" or "phantoms" that imitate eaten living forms and follow the commands of its "hive mind" to go out and hunt new victims; also, the monster absorbs the mental capacity of those it eats.

The nucleus, which is positioned in the core of its main body, is its single living organ. The cells of the monster have a chemical structure comparable to that of fossil fuels; when this is discovered, the scientists utilize oil-eating bacteria to destroy the Enemy's core or brain. Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty created the genetically modified bacteria in real life.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Ancient Enemy, Ben Affleck, Bob Weinstein, Edge Of Your Seat, Ever Read, Harvey Weinstein, Highly Recommend, Jenny And Lisa, Joanna Going, Joe Chappelle, Koontz Books, Liev Schreiber, Mass Disappearances, Miramax, Page Turner, Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Years Ago

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.

Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/namsu

Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu

Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Fear Nothing Summary

Fear Nothing

Published: 1998

Author: Dean Koontz

Genre: Conspiracy, Contemporary, Espionage, Fiction, Genetic Engineering, Ghost, Horror, Literature, Medical, Occult, Psychological, Rural, Science Fiction, Small Town, Suspense, Technothrillers, Thriller

Book 1 of 2: Moonlight Bay

Check out the review of this book here:

Fear Nothing

Summary

Fear Nothing follows Christopher Snow for 24 hours as he finds and seeks to uncover a strange and apparently eternal conspiracy centered on a military outpost dubbed Fort Wyvern. 

The story begins with Christopher Snow visiting his dying father in the hospital. The lights are deliberately muted as Snow walks across the hospital to his father's room to protect him in his state. His father's final words of wisdom were, "Chris, don't be afraid. Have no fear "…

As he walks out of the hospital, Christopher Snow unintentionally and serendipitously witnesses his father's body being swapped with that of a drifter. 

Following the persons transporting the body to the funeral home, Christopher is almost apprehended, and a manhunt is launched. Christopher is pursued to the outskirts of town, and only his mastery of the night terrain allows him to stay ahead of his pursuers.

When Christopher returns home, he discovers his father's revolver on his bed, as well as an urgent message on his answering machine to contact Angela Ferryman, a nurse, and longstanding family friend. 

Orson, the family dog, is digging holes in the garden, which is unusual for him. Christopher halts the pet and takes Orson with him to meet Angela, who tells a weird narrative about a night some years ago when she discovered a strange rhesus monkey in her house, a scary beast rescued by secretive military officials. Before anything further is disclosed, Angela is slain in another room, and Christopher barely escapes when unknown perpetrators set fire to the residence.

Christopher rides his bike (with Orson) to the home of his closest buddy Bobby Halloway, a surfer who lives in a cottage on the outskirts of town near the sea. 

Bobby advises Christopher to leave the mystery alone and go about his daily life after hearing Chris' narrative. 

The guys enjoy some meals and a few beverages together (including the dog). Sasha, Christopher's girlfriend, interrupts their lunch with a message from another of Christopher's friends. 

The message drives him and Orson racing into the darkness, where they are pursued by a swarm of mutant rhesus monkeys headed by a mysterious creature like a half-man, half-beast.

As Christopher meets with Roosevelt Frost, an ex-football star who now concentrates on a knack for communicating with animals, he has cautioned off his inquiry once more, but now feels determined to solve this riddle. 

Frost alluded to unusual, abnormally intelligent animals escaping from the military base, such as cats and dogs. 

Later, he suggests to Christopher that his dog, Orson, is most likely from the military base laboratories. He makes a cryptic remark about Christopher being shielded by his mother's inheritance.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Christopher Snow, Keith Szarabajka, Koontz Books, Moonlight Bay, Page Turner, Stephen King, Takes Place

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.

Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/namsu

Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu

Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From a Buick 8 Summary

From a Buick 8

Published: 24, September 2002

Author: Stephen King

Genre: American, Fiction, Horror, Literary, Occult, Rural, Science Fiction, Small Town, Suspense, Thriller

Check out the review of this book here:

From a Buick 8

Summary

The story is told through the eyes of men of Troop D, a Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. 

After the death of Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, his son Ned began to visit the barracks. He immediately gains the respect of the officers, dispatcher, and custodian. 

Ned is informed about the "Buick 8" by the troopers. The Buick 8, which looks like a vintage blue 1953 Buick Roadmaster, has been in storage in a shed near the barracks since 1979 when a mysterious driver abandoned it at a petrol station and then vanished. 

They learn that the automobile isn't really a car at all. The steering wheel is immovable, the dashboard instruments are worthless props, the engine has no moving components, the ignition wires are useless, there are four portholes on the passenger side and only three on the driver's side, the automobile heals itself when injured, and it repels all dirt and debris.

Sandy Dearborn, now Sergeant Commanding of Troop D, is the book's major narrator, and he recounts Ned the narrative, recounting numerous events involving the automobile and his father's love for it. 

The automobile will regularly emit "lightquakes," which are enormous flashes of purple light that last for a long time. 

These lights will "give birth" to bizarre flora and creatures that are unlike anything we've ever seen. 

Curtis Wilcox's previous accomplice Ennis Rafferty, as well as an escaped lowlife called Brian Lippy, had both vanished near the automobile. 

Later on, it was theorized that the Buick may have been a doorway between our world and another.

Ned becomes persuaded that the Buick was somehow connected to his father's death in a seemingly random road accident after hearing the story of the Buick and how it was kept hidden by Troop D for so long. 

After all, the gas station employee who originally reported the Buick parked in front of the business was the same guy who would kill his own father years later. 

Sandy tells him not to become too attached to the Buick ("Buicks are everywhere," he later warns), but after leaving Ned at the Troop D base to eat at a diner, he recalls that Ned never inquired if anybody had considered burning it. 

He deduces that Ned is hell-bent on destroying the Buick and that the Buick intends to take advantage of that desire to transport Ned to another universe.

Sandy goes to the shed to discover Ned seated in it, brandishing a gun and a match, having poured gasoline beneath the car. 

The Buick changes into a vortex as Sandy drags Ned out, attempting to suck both Ned and Sandy within. 

The remainder of the crew arrives on the suspicion that something horrible is about to happen, and together they recollect the narrative of the Buick's genesis at their station, freeing Ned and Sandy, but not before Sandy gets a sight of the world outside the Buick. Lippy's swastika necklace and cowboy boots, as well as Ennis' Stetson hat and Ruger revolver, are all visible.

The last anecdote is recounted, suggesting that the idea of destroying the Buick was explored. 

They eventually reach the conclusion that the Buick serves as a type of world-to-world regulator valve, and that eliminating it would do more harm than good. 

They determine that keeping an eye on the Buick is the safest option, in the hopes that whatever mystical force qualities it carries will soon go away.

Eddie J commits suicide, and Ned goes on to become a State Trooper. Ned shows Sandy the Buick one day; the windshield has a break in it that has not been mended.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Curtis Wilcox, Dark Tower, Gas Station, Hearts In Atlantis, Looks Like, Ned Wilcox, Pennsylvania State, Sandy Dearborn, Short Story, State Police, Tower Series

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.

Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/namsu

Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu

Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Needful Things Summary

Needful Things

Published: October 1991

Author: Stephen King

Genre: American, Classic, Contemporary, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Media Tie-In, Rural, Small Town, Supernatural, Thriller

Check out the review of this book here:

Needful Things

Summary

In the little town of Castle Rock, Maine, a new shop called "Needful Things" opens, piquing the residents' interest. 

Leland Gaunt, the proprietor, is a nice older man from Akron, Ohio, who always appears to have something in the store that is ideally suited to each client that walks through his door. 

Considering the items – which includes a rare Sandy Koufax baseball card, a carnival glass lampshade, and a shard of petrified wood said to be from Noah's Ark - the prices are fairly modest, but he wants each buyer to perform a small trick on someone else in town. 

When striking a bargain with Gaunt, each consumer enters a trance and becomes extremely convenient to control, later forgetting anything unusual about the experience. 

Gaunt has comprehensive awareness of the individual townspeople's long-standing secret histories and disputes, and the pranks are his way of causing them to intensify.

Soon after opening his business, Gaunt characterizes local Sheriff Alan Pangborn and Polly Chalmers, Alan's lover and the owner of a nearby sewing shop, as "difficult clients" who are likely to question and meddle with him. 

Gaunt avoids Alan and instead provides Polly with an alleged old charm that both cures her arthritic pain and gives Gaunt power over her. 

Tensions in Castle Rock quickly rise after Polly's servant Nettie Cobb and her adversary Wilma Jerzyck kill each other with knives in a conflict prompted by local youngster Brian Rusk vandalizing Wilma's home and drunk Hugh Priest killing Nettie's dog. 

Many more rivalries emerge, fueled by the persons involved's personal agendas and secrets. 

Gaunt ultimately employs petty criminal John "Ace" Merrill as his assistant, presenting him with high-quality cocaine and implying the existence of buried wealth that may help him pay off a couple of drug traffickers. 

Ace's first mission is to acquire boxes of handguns, ammo, and blasting caps from a Boston garage; Gaunt quickly starts selling the weapons to his clients as a means of protecting their purchases.

Gaunt has deceived innocent people for millennia, tricking them into buying useless trash that mysteriously looks to be anything they cherish or desire most. 

They grow so concerned about their belongings being stolen that they readily buy the weapons he invariably offers and bargains away their souls until the entire town is engulfed in chaos and carnage. 

Ace begins to mistrust his new boss's magical heritage, but Gaunt uses intimidation and threats of vengeance against Alan and the community to keep him in line. 

Soon after, other incidents of violence occur at the same time, such as when gym teacher Lester Pratt fights Deputy John LaPointe, his fiancée's ex-boyfriend, and is ultimately killed in self-defense. 

Hugh Priest and Henry Beaufort, the proprietor of a tavern, murder each other in a gunfight. 

Brian commits suicide as a result of his guilt over his role in Wilma and Nettie's deaths, and town selectman Danforth "Buster" Keeton, who has been secretly embezzling thousands of dollars from public funds to fund his gambling addiction, attacks Deputy Norris Ridgewick before fleeing to his home and murdering his wife Myrtle with a hammer. 

Ace eventually recruits Buster to help him in his efforts for Gaunt.

With the violence in Castle Rock intensifying, Ace and Buster use the caps Ace brought back to lay dynamite all across town. 

Alan sets out to murder Ace after being convinced by Gaunt that he is to blame for the vehicle tragedy that killed his wife and kid. 

Polly recognizes the wickedness in the charm she purchased and destroys it. Norris contemplates suicide after discovering that his prank on Priest resulted in the tragic gunfight, but instead decides to go to the police station for assistance. 

As the explosives detonate, Norris injures Buster and Ace puts him out of his agony. Ace kidnaps Polly and insists that Alan hand up a stash of hidden cash that he purportedly stole. Norris murders Ace, leaving Alan to confront Gaunt.

Alan pulls Gaunt back and steals his valise, which holds the souls of his clients, using sleight of hand and magical novelties that come to life. 

Gaunt exits the scene, his automobile transforming into a horse-drawn cart, leaving the survivors to contemplate an uncertain future. 

The story concludes in the same way it began, with a first-person direct address announcing that a new and mysterious shop named "Answered Prayers" is set to open in a small Iowa town — an alarming indication that Gaunt is ready to restart his business cycle.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Alan Pangborn, Amanda Plummer, Bonnie Bedelia, Castle Rock, Dark Half, Dead Zone, Ed Harris, Great Read, Human Nature, J.T. Walsh, Jack Cummins, King At His Best, Leland Gaunt, Max Von Sydow, New Store, Peter Yates, Salems Lot, Small Town, Town Of Castle

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.

Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/namsu

Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu

Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Roadwork Summary

Roadwork

Published: March 1981

Author: Stephen King

Genre: American, Crime, Fiction, Literature, Psychological, Rural, Small Town, Teen, Thriller, Young Adult

Check out the review of this book here:

Roadwork

Summary

An unknown guy (later identified as Barton George Dawes) expresses his displeasure with a proposed highway expansion project during a man-on-the-street news interview in August 1972. 

The story then skips forward to November 1973, when Dawes visits a gun shop and buys two high-powered firearms: a .44 Magnum revolver and a hunting rifle chambered for .460 Weatherby Magnum ammo. 

The novel eventually discloses that Dawes' son Charlie died three years earlier of brain cancer and that Dawes stubbornly refuses or is unable to cut his emotional links to both the industrial laundry where he works and the house where Charlie grew up. 

As part of the proposal, the laundry and his entire neighborhood will be bulldozed. Dawes resigns from his middle management position at the laundry after undermining the acquisition of its new facility, and his wife Mary leaves him after learning of both of these activities, as well as his failure to find the pair a new home. 

In an effort to procure explosives, Dawes visits Salvatore "Sal" Magliore, the proprietor of a local used-car business with links to organized crime. 

Dawes assembles a cargo of Molotov cocktails and uses them to harm the highway construction equipment after Magliore rejects him as a madman. 

He is not apprehended, but his activities cause just a little hiccup in the project. Dawes first refuses to accept the city's eminent domain offer for the property but changes his mind after the city's attorney threatens to broadcast his short tryst with Olivia Brenner, a young hitchhiker who had previously taken refuge inside the house. 

Magliore inspects Dawes' home for listening devices put by the city and subsequently offers to sell him a cargo of explosives. 

Dawes donates half of the proceeds from the house sale to Mary, $5,000 to a homeless guy in a coffee shop, and has Magliore invest the majority of the remaining funds on Olivia's behalf after paying for the explosives.

Dawes wires the entire home with explosives and barricades himself inside in January 1974, with just hours before he is compelled to vacate the premises. 

When the cops approach to forcefully evict him, he fires at them, killing no one but causing them to seek shelter and garnering the media's attention. 

Dawes coerces the cops into allowing a reporter - the same one who interviewed him in 1972, though neither knows who the other is - to enter and talk with him. 

When the reporter leaves, Dawes throws his firearms out the window and detonates his explosives, destroying the home and killing himself.

A brief epilogue explains that the reporter and his colleagues were eventually awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the tragedy, which revealed the truth about the expansion project: there was no legitimate purpose for it. 

If the city did not build a particular number of miles of road every year, it would be ineligible for federal funds for interstate building projects. 

The city discreetly prepared to sue Mary for her portion of the eminent domain settlement but withdrew the claim after public outrage.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Bachman Books, Bart Dawes, Barton George, Eminent Domain, George Dawes, Good Read, King Book, King Writing, Long Walk, Main Character, Well Written

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.

Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/namsu

Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu

Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -