Dean Koontz - Strange Highways

Synopsis:
Like most collections of short stories, Dean Koontz's Strange Highways contains both good & bad 
tales.

Bad: The Black Pumpkin reads like a bad episode of Tales from the Crypt. Bruno, while attempting 
to be funny, is merely ridiculous. The plot of The Night of the Storm was similarly ridiculous & 
seemed to have no point. Hardshell had a stupid plot. Ditto for We Three.

Really bad: Twilight of the Dawn stereotypes atheists. Admittedly, the stereotyping in this story 
is less egregious than that done in other Koontz stories (see the evil atheist characters in his novels 
One Door Away from Heaven & From the Corner of his Eye). The protagonist is merely cold & extremist 
about his atheism. The presumption in the story is that atheists will become believers once they 
realize three things: 1) meaning must be eternal, or it can't exist at all; 2) meaning can only come 
from a supreme being, and 3) since the idea of people being gone forever following death is disturbing, 
it can't be true. This story, while it has its good points, paints atheists according to religious biases. 

Kittens was a good story, complete with a shocking ending, but I would have appreciated some foreshadowing 
of what the little girl was going to do. 

The best: I enjoyed the uplifting theme of redemption in Trapped, Miss Attila the Hun, & Strange Highways. 
I like how the Snatcher was punished (and the description of that monster was terrifying!). Down in the 
Darkness was a great story about absolute power & resisting the temptation to use it. Chase was a wonderful 
psychological thriller. Ollie's Hands, the best story of all, is a heartbreaking tale of how a man's 
magical powers make him different from everyone else, which separates him forever from the woman 
he loves.