Dead and Alive (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, #3)

Dead and Alive (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein #3)

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92  ·  rating details  ·  10,443 ratings  ·  523 reviews
From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you think you know the legend, you know only half the truth. Now the mesmerizing saga concludes...

As a devastating hurricane approaches, as the benighted creations of Victor Helios begin to spin out of control, as New Orleans descends into chaos and the f...more
Mass Market Paperback, 352 pages
Published July 28th 2009 by Bantam (first published January 1st 2009)
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Stephen
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NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!....Bad Author...Bad Naughty Author...Look what you’ve done on the paper.....you have written a big pile of Photobucket

Uh.....sorry....no pass for you Koontzie on this piece of shit....You are not some struggling writer who needed to get this book published pronto because of cash problems and thus decided you had to cut a few corners with elements like plot, prose, personality and passion. Nope, no excuse for ta...more
Mike
Quite a disappointment after the initial build-up of the first 2 books in the series. The final climax was too short and VERY convenient. The original "monster" became a side character in this one. Characterization became pretty thin and the book was very short compared to the first 2.
Koontz had indicated that the delay in the release of this volume was due to the fact that the action took place in New Orleans and he wanted to incorporate the Hurricane into the story. Guess what, the hurricane h...more
Ken Consaul
Let me preface this with saying I'm not a big Dean Koontz fan. Usually his characters are pretty shallow and the villains all seem to be carbon copies (<-dates the reviewer) of each other. The killer thinks he is smarter and better than everyone else and he is entitled to kill. It gets old quick.

Now, that said, I'm really enjoying this Frankenstein series. The protagonists are interesting. There are many points of view from a wide variety of characters and they are all well developed and comp...more
Howard
a long awaited journey coming to a sense of closure.. i enjoyed reading this suspenseful third book
♥ Marlene♥
We had to wait 3 years for this book. 3 years longer than anticipated. I even re-read the first 2 books because I knew this book was finally on its way to me but I feel a bit how do you say it. fooled? disappointed?

First of all it is only 400 pages. You expect a big fat book cause the first 2 books were at least 550 pages and there were so many little stories in those which I expected to get closure in book 3 so that was the first surprise.

Then while reading I just felt a bit cheated. Still do n...more
Al
N this fast-paced third installment of his Frankenstein series, Koontz continues, without necessarily concluding, his modern-day reimagining of Mary Shelley's horror classic. Leaving his co-authors behind, Koontz makes the most of previous developments, which set the stage for an epic showdown in storm-soaked New Orleans between Victor Helios and the high-tech, artificial beings he created to destroy the human race. Many members of the unhappy, soulless "new race," created by Helios to kill his...more
Brittni Smyers hill
I loved the first two Frankenstein books. They came across as tightly formatted and carefully structured, which made me as a reader feel cared for and tended to. You felt the consideration that was put into a well-crafted story, and you were able to enjoy the books greatly because of that. The first two in the series did not have loose ends; every side story was lovingly rendered and came across with a depth, despite or because of their brevity, that was quite enjoyable.
You can imagine my disap...more
Jen
And then this happened. Well, at least the way I read it (omnibus edition), I didn't have to wait long for it to happen. But happen it did. The conclusion of the first Frankenstein story arc, that is.

So, we're still in New Orleans and it is still sometime between a week and two weeks after the start of the first book where Detective O'Connor busted out some gang street know-how. All told, Carson and Michael have continued to not say they are in love, crack awful jokes, drive recklessly, and subs...more
Rick
Upon finishing this third book you would think this to be the last but there is one to go and I will begin reading it today. I can't say I completely liked the ending because it did leave unanswered questions. I could foresee what was happening at the Mansion while Victor is headed to the second operation. I did like the last chapter but it moved you sometime into the future. The books are all an interesting mix of the classic Frankenstein story mixed with a current mystery/crime/detective story...more
Adriane Devries
Koontz set this third book in his Frankenstein series New Orleans during a hurricane—before Hurricane Katrina hit—and it only this year has been released after sufficient grieving time has passed. Now, finally, he brings to conclusion (or is it?) the two century saga of Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s diabolical plan to remove humanity and replace it with his own army of minions, with the help of fellow like-minded despots along the way. I suppose this is the sort of junk fiction that I’m not supposed...more
William M.
1 AND 1/2 STARS

I'm not sure how to explain the drastic change in quality from the previous two books to this one. Perhaps Koontz's partnership with co-writers Kevin Anderson and Ed Gorman were inspired collaborations and when faced with finishing the series alone with this third book, Koontz simply had no one to bounce ideas off of. Maybe he let Anderson and Gorman write the bulk of the first two and was not very familiar with the chararacters. Whatever unfortunate circumstances occurred, it wa...more
K.V.  Briar
I'm a bit disappointed with book 3 in the Frankenstein series. I loved the first and second books, but the third book fell short. This enstallment was more of the same, but with less characterization.

The plot was quickly paced as all of Koontz books are, but there were plot holes and loose ends and things that just don't quite make sense.

The setting is New Orleans, which is awesome, I LOVE New Orleans. But the book lacked the "feel" of New Orleans that I wanted. Koontz did an okay job in the oth...more
Perry Reed
I'm writing one review for all four (so far) of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein books.

In the Koontz take on the Frankestein story, the old Mary Shelley novel was based on true events. And old Dr. Victor Frankenstein (now called Victor Helios) and his monster (who now goes by the name Deucalion) have survived to the present day. Deucalion is no longer a monster in thought and deed, but has learned a lot about the universe and his place in it, some of that knowledge coming from Tibetian monks with whom...more
Froztwolf
While the ending itself is slightly disappointing, at least it never flails around, like many authors tend to do when trying to tie together a story with so many characters and sub-plots.
There is always a clear direction throughout the book and though I disagree with some of the choices Koontz took in his conclusion, I can't fault his style.

As a third book of a trilogy, I found that it to be missing some sort of revelation or twist that made things take an unexpected turn. Aside from the story...more
Greg McClay
I've read all three of this trilogy (and yes there's a 4th now out though its supposed to be somewhat seperated from this set), and the only way to describe them is very funny and bizarrely weird. But then Koontz is pretty weird.

I read Fear Nothing and its sequel Seize The Night and those were cool weird. I liked the lead charachters, I liked the plot, you wanted to get involved as you read. I read Odd Thomas, just the one, and that was sad weird which is why I only read the one.

The Frankenstein...more
Andrew
To be honest looking back on my thoughts on the previous two books I have had a bit of a turn around, The first book I rated 4 stars,the second only 2 and this one 3.
The narrative is fast and gripping with this one and to be honest I found it far more enjoyable than I was expecting,Prior reviews I read suggested this as a book to far and although it suspended belief much more than the 2nd one(which is where I struggled) I couldn't help but enjoy the rapid fire almost TV movie type feel of this b...more
Scott
If you've read the first two books I won't bore you with more story set up. I was so pumped to start this book because the first two were so well written and incredibly exciting. Maybe I was asking too much for Koontz to get all three books exactly right. Maybe I had an image in my head as to how the third book would go. I don't know what it was but I am for damn sure this book was not written in the same ilk as the first two.

Yes it was still suspenseful, exciting and had me wondering what was g...more
Margo Kelly
Dean Koontz what happened?? Book one and two in the series were great, but then book three fell apart.

I felt like maybe Koontz only wrote it because he was under contract or for some other reason was compelled to finish the trilogy, but his heart wasn't quite in it.

The writing wasn't up to Koontz's usual standard and the story line was SO REPETITIVE! Not only did book three recap everthing that happened in books one and two, but it also recapped what happened in previous chapters of book three....more
Jeff Steward
After a long wait, I discovered that Dean Koontz had finally
delivered on his promise of a third book in the Frankenstein
series. However, I can only report that it was a poorly kept
promise. Though it does more closely match the first book (prodigal son)
in the series than the second book (City of Night)does, it
fails to deliver on the same level as the first. Through the
series Koontz and his collaborators(Ed Gorman & Kevin Anderson) treat us to reflections of creepy but campy horror of th...more
Imautahmansir
Well, it took over 2.5 years for Koontz to get back to finishing his Frankenstein series. These books are nothing like Mary Shelley's original late 1800's stories. The final book see's Dr. Frankenstein having relocated and set up shop in Louisiana, north of New Orleans. We still have Carson and Maddison hot on the trail of Dr. F's freakish exploits.

In this series of tales, Victor Frankenstein is still a mega-utopian of the first order, who originally hoped to perfect God's creation, to reanimate...more
Bob
Worst ending to a series, or the start of an even worse continuation of the series?
After 12 or so Koontz books, I don't know why I still pick up a Koontz novel. My first was Intensity which was excellent. If I wasn't a fan of the original Frankenstein, I wouldn't have give Koontz another try, but I did, and probably thanks to co-writers, they did a great job on the first two books of this series.
I thought his delay in the release of book three was because he found a new twist with hurricane Katr...more
Holmes
On its own, this book is not that bad, just a bit bland. But being the culmination of his three-part Frankenstein epic, it is a major disappointment. The first in the series is electrifying, and it promises a dark and horrible world to be unfolded in subsequent sequels. The second book has a few unnecessarily slow moments, but it is still a gripping read. Now the third - it is nothing more than an embarrassment.

What a waste of intriguing characters such as Deucalion, Carson O'Connor, Michael Mad...more
Lauren
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jennifer
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
K.B. Hallman
This review applies to the initial trilogy.

As a general rule, I'm not a fan of reworking classics. It seems like cheating. So I was prepared to dislike this series. But I have to admit that Koontz and his coauthors did a decent job. This series will never be (I hope) classic, but it is a quick, entertaining read.

I was pleased that Victor Frankenstein, now Helios, the scientist, continues to be a monster, and his creation, Deucalion, is the creature with grace (or at least who is working toward...more
Kelsey Jayy
This. Book. Sucked. So. Hard.

Frankenstein: Dead and Alive was written without a co-author. I’m glad to hear that this is the one of the worst of Dean Koontz’s work because if it was the best I’d never want to read his work again. This book feels like Dean Koontz’s screw you to the fans of the other books.

Honestly, I have almost nothing nice to say about this book. It was a huge let-down. All of the things I loved about the first book (and parts of the second) got shat all over in this book. All...more
Johnny
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Melissa
Wow, what a horrendous ending to a series that started out good. To start, the book had about ten pages worth of Koontz's acclaims before you could get to the story. Its almost as if he was trying to prove something, and in doing so, lost sight of how to write a decent story. He also had no co-authors for this edition of the trilogy and maybe that's why it was so different as the coauthors must have been pulling all the weight before. There are two books that come before this, and they're both p...more
Suzanne
When i first started the Frankenstein series by Dean Koontz, i thought it would just be a thrilling adventure, but i was wrong. It was so much more than that.
This series has made me think hard about both the good and bad of humanity and why we are worth saving despite the evils we commit to each other and the world we live in. I've learned that a race without the capacity to hope and love is no race at all, but merely sad tragedies.
Out of all the characters, Deucalion and Jocko are my favorites....more
Tina W
Dec 08, 2008 Tina W marked it as to-read  ·  review of another edition
Can't wait for this one to hit the shelves!
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Dead and Alive (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, #3)
Dead and Alive (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, #3)
Dead and Alive (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, #3)
Dead and Alive (Frankenstein, #3)
Dead and Alive (Audio CD)

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Acknowledged as "America's most popular suspense novelist" (Rolling Stone) and as one of today's most celebrated and successful writers, Dean Ray Koontz has earned the devotion of millions of readers around the world and the praise of critics everywhere for tales of character, mystery, and adventure that strike to the core of what it means to be human.

Dean R. Koontz has also published under the na...more
More about Dean Koontz...
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