Book · 1983
Phantoms
A 1983 Dean Koontz horror novel built on the debunked legend of a village vanishing near Angikuni Lake.
- Year
- 1983
- Kind of horror
- Small town, Isolation, Psychological
Phantoms takes that old, thoroughly debunked story about a whole village disappearing near Angikuni Lake and turns it into a proper Dean Koontz horror novel. A place where everyone should be, and simply is not, is one of my favourite kinds of dread, because your imagination fills the silence with far worse explanations than any writer needs to spell out.
It sits across horror, mystery and thriller all at once, so alongside the creeping wrongness there is an actual puzzle running underneath, not just atmosphere for its own sake. I am not going to tell you what the silence turns out to mean, because working that out slowly is most of the pleasure here.
This is a curtains shut, lights low, phone face down sort of read, best kept for an evening when you have got a proper stretch of quiet ahead of you. If you like your horror to start with an empty room rather than a scream, Koontz earns his escalation the patient way.
If you like this, try
'Salem's Lot
A writer goes home to Jerusalem's Lot and finds the neighbours have started keeping very strange hours.
Another
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Bag of Bones
A grieving writer retreats to an isolated lake house, where writer’s block and delusions make solitude frightening.
Carrie
A telekinetic teenager's revenge after a cruel prom night prank turns Chamberlain, Maine into a nightmare.