Life Expectancy, 2004

edited by moderator a short synopsis: With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry, and storytelling magic, Dean Koontz returns with an emotional roller coaster of a tale filled with enough twists, turns, shocks, and surprises for ten ordinary novels. Here is the story of five days in the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy--a story that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death, and everything in between. Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the frist and last time since his stroke. What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson--five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twent-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth. Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly--the unexplained anomal of fused digits--on his left foot. Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance. What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days when his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous--a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive, only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.

Someone had to break the ice. I am not far enough into to mine to rate it yet, but others have high praise for it. Anyone care to help us out? Please identify your SPOILERS.

Dean Koontz has enchanted the world with numerous books and a Gift of unequalled Wisdom. With each new book comes a plethora of stories demonstrating an unequalled  understanding of the human condition. In his latest offering Life Expectancy Koontz leads us into the mind of a man who is faced with the knowledge of five Terrible Days that he must face in his lifetime. With such a dread of anticipation hanging over his every decision, Koontz leads us through the valley of the shadow of death.

As is Mr. Koontz style he approaches the values of the day and contrasts them with timelessness in a way that reveals the Truth of our Time. From abortion to abolition, no subject is taboo or too difficult that Koontz cannot unwind and explain the details that even a befuddled teenager could grasp it. In telling his stories of dread, he does not loose his ability to find humor in all of Life. Although he is read by many around the globe, I believe him to write to an audience of One. The One who see’s motives the way we see scars on a person’s face, He who abandon’s no small child the way we forget those closest to us.

If Mr. Koontz were born 2000 years ago, I do not believe he could have been more of a disciple than he is today.

Life Expectancy is a must read, and more importantly, believe.