Phantoms

If Peter Straub is the poor man's Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz is the poor man's Peter Straub - and this long, poor novel often reads like a simplified, slowed-down version of Straub's recent Floating Dragon. Dr. Jennifer Paige and her kid sister Lisa arrive in Jennifer's little town of Snowfield and promptly (well, not all that promptly, what with Koontz's inch-by-inch narration) discover that everybody in town is either horribly dead or disappeared; furthermore, though there are some decapitated heads at the bakery, there's no indication of just how all those corpses died in agony. A group of cops soon arrives to prowl around - with further fatalities: The Thing - sort of like a prehistoric bird - is actually seen as it rips out brains and devours. . . "It devoured - do you understand? - devoured pounds and pounds and pounds of tissue. . . ." A Biological Warfare unit arrives - but they're no help, of course. There are the usual screams and hallucinations. But the only man in the world who seems to know what's going on is London's Timothy Flyte, author of The Ancient Enemy: he's not surprised when The Thing (which appears to be unkillable) takes over the researchers' computers, demonstrates virtual omniscience, and seems able to assume any shape whatsoever. It's the Devil, right? Well, yes and no. See, it's a prehistoric creature that sometimes pretends to be the Devil. . . or maybe it really is the Devil. ("Couldn't it be both?" wonders Jenny's new cop-lover.) Anyway, the only way to beat The Thing is to give it a super-microbe disease - a plan which doesn't prevent assorted gory showdowns between The Thing (along with two psycho-evil humans who adore it) and the good guys. Brainless, endless, but harmless. (Kirkus Reviews)