Fear Nothing: Dean Koontz’s Moonlight Bay Thriller of a Missing Boy and Fort Wyvern’s Secrets
The kidnapping of a five-year-old boy leads Christopher Snow, together with his inseparable friend Bobby, his girlfriend Sasha and his dog Orson, to investigate the abandoned military base of Fort Wyvern, where many genetic experiments were carried out in the past. Christopher suffers from a rare condition, xeroderma pigmentosum, that forces him to avoid daylight, so his world is the night of the small town of Moonlight Bay.
Author: Dean Koontz (born 1945)
Title: Fear Nothing (1998)
Format: English paperback (Headline), 512 pages
Series: First Moonlight Bay novel
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/1472207505 (ASIN 1472207505)
Fort Wyvern
The base is home to abnormally intelligent monkeys and other creatures, the first results of an ambitious project that unleashed disaster and terror on the nearby town. Chris must find the missing boy, and along the way he makes disturbing discoveries that lead to a long adventure full of mystery.
A Dark Past
The respected scientist who conceived the original idea behind the research centre where the events take place hides a dark past, and it is Chris who must find the connection with everything else that is happening.
A Hero Who Lives at Night
Christopher Snow has xeroderma pigmentosum, a real and rare genetic disorder in which the body cannot repair damage caused by ultraviolet light. Even brief exposure to sunlight could give him skin cancer or worse, so he lives by night, wears protective clothing and dark glasses when he must go out by day, and knows his town, Moonlight Bay on the California coast, mostly by moonlight and streetlamp. Koontz turns this limitation into the book’s atmosphere: the whole story unfolds over a few nights, in shadow.
Grief and Discovery
The novel opens with Chris at the hospital where his father is dying of cancer. That same night, he sees the body of his father being taken away by men who are not undertakers, and the discovery pulls him into a conspiracy that reaches back to his late mother, a brilliant geneticist, and to the closed military base on the edge of town. His search is as much about understanding his parents as about the monkeys and the missing child.
Friends and a Dog
Koontz gives Chris an affectionate support group: Bobby Halloway, a laconic surfer and his oldest friend; Sasha Goodall, a radio presenter with a night show; and Orson, a black Labrador mix who seems to understand far more than a dog should. Dogs are a constant in Koontz’s fiction, from Watchers (1987) onwards, and Orson is among the best of them. Chris’s first-person narration, full of wry jokes and digressions, keeps the horror from ever becoming bleak.
The Series
The story continues in Seize the Night (1999). Koontz long promised a third Moonlight Bay novel, but it has not appeared, so the first two books stand together as the complete story for now.
Koontz’s Blend
Koontz is often filed under horror, but Fear Nothing shows how hard he is to classify. It is a conspiracy thriller with a science-fiction premise, a coming-of-age story about grief and a comedy of friendship, all told in a voice that loves wordplay. Some readers find the digressions excessive; others treasure them. Either way, the book’s message is in its title: Chris, who has every reason to be afraid, chooses to live fully anyway.
Who Will Enjoy It
Fans of Stephen King and of character-driven thrillers, and dog lovers. The opening chapters are slow, but the pace accelerates once Chris enters Fort Wyvern.
Why Read It
A terrifying and fantastic novel that will leave more than one reader speechless. Koontz mixes horror, science fiction and a warm story of friendship, and Orson the dog is one of his most memorable characters.
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