The Taking
Dean Koontz

On the morning that will mark the end of the world they have known, Molly and Neil Sloan awaken to the drumbeat of rain on their roof. It has haunted their sleep, invaded their dreams, and now they rise to find a luminous silvery downpour drenching their small California mountain town. A strange scent hangs faintly in the air, and the young couple cannot shake the sense of something wrong.
As hours pass and the rain continues to fall, Molly and Neil listen to disturbing news of extreme weather phenomena across the globe. Before evening, their little town loses television and radio reception. Then telephone and the Internet are gone. With the ceaseless rain now comes an obscuring fog that transforms the once friendly village into a ghostly labyrinth. By nightfall the Sloans have gathered with some of their neighbors to deal with community damage, but also because they feel the need to band together against some unknown threat, some enemy they cannot identify or even imagine.
In the night, strange noises arise, and at a distance, in the rain and the mist, mysterious lights are seen drifting among the trees. The rain diminishes with the dawn, but a moody gray-purple twilight prevails. Soon Molly, Neil, and their small band of friends will be forced to draw on the reserves of strength, courage, and humanity they never knew they had. For within the misty gloom they will encounter something that reveals in a terrifying instant what is happening to their world - something that is hunting them with ruthless efficiency.

This is now one of my top five favorite Koontz novels. The only negative for me was the twist at the end. Throughout the novel the evidence points more and more at what is happening and who the enemy is. But at the very end, there is a quick twist to show that it was something else entirely. Had that twist not been at the end, I would have enjoyed the novel more. It did not need that. However, even with the bit of disappointment in the final chapters, this was still an impressive book.

It starts off with a bang as Molly notices the odd glowing rain and a pack of coyotes hiding on her porch. And when she walks among them, they treat her as one of them. Something is wrong and the news is showing that odd things like this are happening all over the planet. Including people claiming to have seen demons and devils and a rather disturbing incident on the space station that began before the transforming rains.

The plot never falters and is high tension from the first page to the last. It also never gets stale as more and more oddities are seen as our world is transformed into a world for something else entirely.

All in all, this is one of Koontz's best novels. The only reason I'm giving it a four and not a five is because the end was unnecessary and somewhat disappointing.

My rating: Four out of five snails.