Anti-Man

by Dean Koontz

Sam was an android.

His flesh was the ultimate miracle of science, artificially created and completely self-sustaining. And he had the unusual power to heal others. In fact, Sam was too good to live.

The world was overpopulated. Medicine had made the decision to stop trying to prolong life. Thus anyone who was not only immune to disease but who healed the dying was dangerous to the now precarious balance of nature.

The order was issued by the Secret Police: "Disassemble Sam and destroy all records of his existence."

But one man couldn't bear to see the work of a lifetime destroyed. He kidnapped Sam and began to run.

Now they were enemies of the State -- hunted like animals, hurtling toward the terrifying secret of existence itself!

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Ebooks, Novels, Thriller

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

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, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirit of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.

Facebook: Facebook.com/DeanKoontzOfficial
Twitter: @DeanKoontz
Website: DeanKoontz.com

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anti-Man is one of Koontz's very early (1970), hastily written science fiction novels. It lacks the character development and polished prose that would later become his hallmark but was quite comparable within its genre in its time. It suffers from some sexist and simplistic attitudes, but so did most of 1970. This one examines some themes he would return to frequently in later years; Frankenstein (and Jekyll/Hyde, to an extent), religious aspects of science, and intense pursuit by governmental authority. Not one of my favorites, but a fast, entertaining read.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

One full star deducted for page 98 alone.

Our main characters completely plot-irrelevant thoughts about a completely plot-irrelevant waitress:

"All in all, it was a delightful meal, and I managed not to think about anything but the taste of the food - and whether or not the young blonde's blouse-bulging attributes were real or silicone-induced. I had no compunction against marrying a girl with chemically-created allurements, so long as they were indistinguishable from the real thing. As far as i could tell, these were. I played a game with myself, trying to decide whether or not I should ask her to marry me. I listed what i could see of her faults and virtues. In the end, I decided to come back in a day or two and look the merchandise over again."

Really necessary, young Koontz, really ?!

[Ralph Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Koontz's fourth novel. Of the four I have enjoyed this one the best. While neither of them have been great reads, they have all been highly entertaining. I believe them to be great starts to his eventual career, and don't distract from a listing of his works.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alright, I think this ends my brief fling with early Koontz. "A Darkness In My Soul" is obviously a fluke. His early science fiction books are scarce and costly and I see now (with the exception of the aforementioned title) simply not worth the trouble and money. L8r, guy.

[Xiamera · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt a sense of disquiet when I first started reading and the android was referred to as simply Him. It was a little too close to paralleling how Christians refer to God when speaking about him. It was actually a bit funny when later down in the story that the android referred to himself as a god. I liked that he made a course correction though and explained that he drew that comparison so that Jacob could better understand what he was trying to say. I also just realised that Jacob is another biblical name. I paid it no mind and continued to read. As I was reading, I wasn't quite drawn into the story and I started and stopped quite frequently. It was such a short read but kind of difficult to get through. The ending felt anti-climactic and the whole thing felt like a waste of time. It pains me to give it one star but I just didn't connect to the story and it wasn't even a fun diversion.

[Tex-49 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tre stelle e mezzo
Si legge velocemente ed all'inizio è interessante, ma la conclusione non mi ha soddisfatto, mi è sembrata più da romanzo fantastico che di fantascienza.

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

ocr:
p33: Of course He was I Look at the power in His hands, the ability to heal the burned in every cell of His body.

p42: His manhood was lost in pouches of muscle that made Him sexless, hung between His legs Me some grotesquerie of Nature.

p117: With the motor oft, I knew for certain that it was my hands that trembled, not the wheel.

I was imagining a sinister ending.

Wolves and elk. The culinary aspect here is a bit barbaric. Survivalistic is a better term, I guess.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

¿Te imaginas que la humanidad alcanzara su potencial físico y mental? Este libro tiene una buena idea de como sería el comienzo.

[Anonymous Pickman · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of old-school science fiction, I was intrigued when I found some of Dean Koontz's older science fiction titles in a thrift store. The first of the bunch that I started with was Anti-Man, and, while it had some interesting ideas, it was ultimately a failure and is most likely not the best place to start when it comes to Koontz's early career.

Anti-Man comes from a time in Koontz's career where he was pumping out five or six books a year, and, if Anti-Man is anything to go by, this output did not let him fully flesh out his novels to the best that they could be. Anti-Man has numerous issues: The majority of the characters are paper-thin, and that includes the protagonist of the novel (the exception to this critique would be the android character, who is actually quite interesting); the worldbuilding, while fresh and creative at times, often trips over its own logic and falls on its face (an example of this would be when the android doesn't use his mindreading powers on someone when he certainly should have); furthermore, the novel is very much a product of its time but in the bad way, meaning that it is predictable, sloppy, and also unnecessarily misogynistic.

I would only recommend this novel to hardcore Koontz fans who are interested in the author's early work, or fans of old-school science fiction who don't know what to read next. For the general reader and casual readers of science fiction, this book is not worth your time.

[Marco Beneventi · Rating 3 out of 5]

In un lontano futuro gli scienziati saranno in grado di produrre automi capaci di guarire e resuscitate gli umani ma anche di riprogrammarsi e autoimplementarsi sino a diventare immortali.
Queste peculiarità non piacciono peró al Governo Mondiale che farà di tutto per eliminare quella che loro vedono come una minaccia ed è proprio a Jacob Kennelmen, uno scienziato, che toccherà salvare l'androide Lui, a cui è affezionato.
In una fuga perenne i due scopriranno che la metamorfosi di Lui potrà avere anche risvolti imprevedibili e pericolosi.
La situazione presto scapperà infatti di mano.

"Nascita dell'anti-uomo", scritto da Koontz nel 1970, è un romanzo fantascientifico piacevole da leggere ma incapace di lasciare il segno, una narrazione non sempre chiara e che lascia molti punti di domanda irrisolti che tolgono qualcosa al romanzo stesso fanno da sottotraccia dall'inizio alla fine di questo lavoro.
I due protagonisti risultano non particolarmente riusciti, poco credibili e mal caratterizzati e sebbene il racconto abbia un ritmo sostenuto sino dalla prima pagina, le ambientazioni limitate, la quasi totale assenza di dialoghi e di personaggi fanno di questo romanzo una lettura minimalista e che non impatta con il lettore.
Un lavoro che a causa di certe scelte narrative decisamente non felici, risulta quasi lasciato a metà.
Un vero peccato.

[Jerri Brissette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little sci-fi story is pretty good for one of Koonts' early stories, and considering the time period in which he wrote it. I was very happy to be able to get my hands on a copy in very good condition.

[Richard Burtenshaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this very old book in a second-hand book shop for only 20p, so had to get it. Can’t imagine it will ever be republished. Pretty poor compared to his much later work, but interesting to see what his writing was like before he became one of the world’s best-selling authors.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dude. A lot of Koontz' older work freaks me out. Not necessarily in a bad way but it's just full of really uncomfortable concepts and descriptions that make me squirm a little. I think it's obvious to see he's always been immensely creative and his writing is constantly improving.

[Josef Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read in an early Koontz novel

For a full review, please go to https://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/... and follow me on Twitter @josenher

[John Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat 1 dimensional
Only protagonists outlook portrayed.
Many of the SCi Fi technologies are a bit cliché but I'm sure that is the case with Sci Fi novels written 50 years ago.
Fast read

[A.C. Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent story until the last few chapters, the it got really heavy with humanistic “we are all gods” gobbledygook.

[Leahna · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as good as Koontz's more current books, but still better than most of what is being written today.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early Koontz.

[Ron]

His fourth novel

[Nigel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review. It was an easy shortish book (140 pages) to read and I did enjoy it as it helped to while away the daily train commute. On the face of it is story about a relationship that develops between the first android created and one of its creators. The world has become seriously overpopulated and as a result heroic measures to save people how become seriously injured or dangerously ill are now frowned upon. The android displays not only a natural talent for healing but refuses to supress this talent and as a result is condemned to be destroyed and all evidence of its creation destroyed. Jacob can simply not stand by and let this happen, so he escapes with the android and has to evade all the law enforcement agencies of the world.
What follows next is what makes the book difficult to review as the android evolves rapidly and changes form almost on an hourly basis. Conversations between Jacob and the android taken on a philosophical /metaphysical nature about the role and responsibilities that a creator /god has for that which he has created. Is the android really ‘God’ come down to earth for some unknown reason or is this simply a delusion of Jacob.
As I say it I enjoyed this although find it difficult to sum up or to characterise.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dean Koontz, Anti-Man (Ace, 1970)
[originally posted 17Sep2001]

Koontz' earlier work is inconsistent, and you're often taking a crapshoot when picking up one of his pre-horror novels. Anti-Man is one of the better ones, from the perspective of writing style—it flows much more smoothly than many of his earlier works, without the repetition and one-sentence paragraphs that mar the early short stories and novels. The plot's a doozy, too—a scientist has kidnapped, and is hiding, an android who's capable of healing the sick and raising the dead, who's supposed to be dismantled on sight by order of the government (when the world's overpopulated, after all, why would you WANT to heal the sick and raise the dead?). While the questions discussed and the answers revealed are very much the stuff of well-tread science-fictive paths, the treading is above average, leading almost to glimpses of Koontz' later brilliance. ***

[Alanseinfeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book. The themes of Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde, as referenced to within the book are brought into the future in a very fluid style. The metamorphosis of Him and his android selves pre-dates Terminator style technology! The idea of Him being God holds the interest for a while. Not brilliant but a good introduction, for me, as I have never read anything by Koontz. Would recommend.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Koontz book-science fiction type with good vs. evil theme. Good descriptions of Alaskan wilderness and futuristic society and NYC. Enjoyed the book but gave it a lower rating than I usually do for Koontz because it was an early book before he wrote as well as now and characters not as strong.

[Tumchenmamentumlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantascienza allo stato puro. L'androide e il suo creatore fuggono dal Governo in modo che "Lui" (l'androide, cosi' chiamato dal medico) possa evolversi rapidamente e salvare vite umane. Nel corso della loro fuga l'anti uomo si muta sempre più velocemente e devono stare in agguato.

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

One small detail. The android is not called Sam, it's called Him. Sam was the name of the humanoid in the previous book Fear That Man. Someone's getting a bit muddled. Jacob considered giving the android a name, but never did, other than Him.

[Takedown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good.

[Brandon Fryman · Rating 3 out of 5]

you can see themes in his early work that he incorporates into his later works.

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent story idea, decent writing. But it could have easily been edited down to about 75% of the length without losing anything. Still, one of the better things I've read from the author.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good for his earlier writing.

[Simon Gelling · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK A bit dated