Book Description

While struggling to help an agoraphobic friend cope, Martie Rhodes, a young video game designer, suddenly falls prey to her own traumatic autophobia, a fear of herself.

Amazon.com

Not a continuation of the Moonlight Bay series (Seize the Night and Fear Nothing) as many fans were expecting, False Memory is nonetheless just as powerful and compulsive as anything Koontz has written before.

Martie Rhodes is a successful young computer games designer with a loving husband, Dusty, and a seemingly normal life. Her best friend, Susan, however, suffers from agoraphobia, or a fear of open spaces, and relies on Martie to take her to weekly therapy sessions. Suddenly and inexplicably, Martie herself begins exhibiting worrying signs of a mental disorder, fearing herself capable of inflicting great harm on her loved ones. At the same time, Dusty's brother Skeet also succumbs to irrational mental behavior and tries to throw himself from a roof. It soon becomes clear that these four characters are involved in something much more than a sinister coincidence.

Koontz's great skill, as he demonstrates so well in this novel, is creating believable characters and thrusting them into seemingly impossible but--for the period of the story--completely plausible situations. The plot is as carefully layered as the most intricate orchestral compositions, and Koontz conducts the proceedings with almost unbearable tension. One of his greatest abilities as a writer, however, is tapping into the dark paranoia of society. As we approach the Millennium, and an age in which we are becoming increasingly desensitized to death and violence, Martie's fear of herself, known as autophobia, seems a terrifying warning that soon the only thing we will have left to fear is ourselves.

Deeper meanings aside, this is easily one of his best thrillers. The prose moves at a breakneck speed, and the denouement will leave you with a pounding heart and chills up and down your spine. Koontz delivers exciting, boundary-breaking fiction better than anyone else in the game, and False Memory (though at times shocking and disturbing) is a perfect example of a master author in top form.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 --Jonathan Weir

From Kirkus Reviews

Koontz widens his canvas dramatically while dimming the hard brilliance common to his shorter winners:1995's taut masterpiece, Intensity, and 1998's moon-drenched midsummer nightmare, Seize the Night. This time the author takes up mind control, wiring his tale into the brainwashing epics The Manchurian Candidate and last spring's film The Matrix. The laser-beam brightness of his earlier bestsellers fades, however, as he stuffs each scene with draining chitchat and extra plotting that seldom rings with novelty. Martine ``Martie'' Rhodes, a video-game designer, has developed a rare mental disorder: autophobia, fear of oneself. Meanwhile, her husband Dusty's young half-brother, Skeet Caulfield, has decided to jump off the roof of a building the two men are repairingbecause Skeet has seen the Angel of the next world, who has revealed that things are pretty wonderful there, and he wants to come on over. Martie's best friend, real-estate agent Susan Jagger, is newly coping with agoraphobia, fear of the outdoors. What's more, Susan knows she's being visited and raped at night by her separated husband, Eric, although all her doors and windows are locked. She can't remember these rapes, but her panties are stained with semen. So when she sets up a camcorder to record her sleeping hours, she gets a huge surprise after viewing the tape. How these mental and physical events have come aboutditto the psychiatric background of the Keanuphobe millionairess who shows up (yes! she fears Keanu Reeves)has something to do with the ladies' psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Ahriman, the son of a famous dead movie director whose eyes the doctor keeps in a bottle of formaldehyde and studies, in hopes of siphoning off Dad's inspiration. Although the whole story could have been told to better effect in 300 pages, Koontz deftly sidesteps clichs of expression while nonetheless applying an air pump to the suspense: an MO that keeps his yearly 17-million book sales afloat.

From Library Journal

Koontz's latest novel should please his longtime fans but probably not newcomers. Martie Rhodes takes her best friend, Susan, to therapy sessions twice a week. Susan suffers from agoraphobia, a fear of crowds, which leaves her afraid to leave her apartment. Getting Susan to therapy is hard enough, but on this particular day it gets even harder. Earlier that morning, Martie looked at herself in the mirror and found she was terrified of her reflection. She has developed autophobia, a fear of self. With the vilest villain Koontz has created, the truth behind their phobias will be more horrible than Susan or Martie can imagine. False Memory could have been trimmed by 200 pages and not lost any impact. Still, the characters are rich, and the main story is compelling. Though it is not great Koontz, good Koontz is still better than most and should be added to general fiction collection.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　---Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Book Dimension

length: (cm)17.8 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)10.7