#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz brings his fertile imagination and unparalleled storytelling abilities to one of the most timeless-and terrifying-creations in all of fiction: the legend of Frankenstein. In Lost Souls, Koontz puts a singular twist on this classic tale of ambition and science gone wrong and forges a new legend uniquely suited to our times-a story of revenge, redemption, and the razor-thin line that separates humanity from inhumanity as we consider a new invitation to apocalypse.

The work of creation has begun again. Only now things will be different. Victor Leben, once Frankenstein, has not only seen the future-he’s ready to populate it. Using stem cells, “organic” silicon circuitry, and nanotechnology, he will engender a race of superhumans-the perfect melding of flesh and machine. With a powerful, enigmatic backer eager to see his dream come to fruition and a secret location where the enemies of progress can’t find him, Victor is certain that this time, nothing and no one can stop him.

It is up to five people to prove him wrong. In their hands rests nothing less than the survival of humanity itself.

They are drawn together in different ways, by omens sinister and wondrous, to the same shattering conclusion: Two years after they saw him die, the man they knew as Victor Helios lives on. Detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison; Victor’s engineered wife, Erika 5, and her companion Jocko; and the original Victor’s first creation, the tormented Deucalion, have all arrived at a small Montana town where their old alliance will be renewed-and tested-by forces from within and without, and where the dangers they face will eclipse any they have yet encountered. Yet in the midst of their peril, love will blossom, and joy, and they will discover sources of strength and perseverance they could not have imagined.

They will need all these resources, and more. For a monumental battle is about to commence that will require all their ingenuity and courage, as it defines what we are to be . . . and if we are to be at all.

Review

*Starred Review* Lost Souls continues the saga of the seemingly unkillable Victor Frankenstein, now a megalomaniac bent on-what else?-world domination, via wiping humanity off the globe, from a few years after where the trilogy Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein left it. Since the blowup (literally: Katrina was raging) in New Orleans in which Victor and his replicant New Race went down for good, Erika Five, the last and most independent version of Frankenstein’s “wife,” has settled outside a Montana town, happily laying low. Then, shopping in town, she sees what could only be Victor. It is, and it isn’t, as she later figures out. Meanwhile, a new bunch of replicants starts replacing their human prototypes and launches a mass termination of the rest of the populace. Fortunately, Deucalion, as Frankenstein’s original creation is now known, is on to the plot. He brings the detective couple from New Orleans, who are now married, new parents, and PIs in San Francisco, into the action, which races to a climax that doesn’t quite conclude in this book. Obviously enjoying himself, Koontz does his dance of grisly suspense, wry dialogue, sharp characterization, outlandish but charming (and well-integrated) comic relief, and cultural criticism more adroitly than almost ever before. --Ray Olson, Booklist

Praise for Dean Koontz

'A modern Swift … a master satirist.' Entertainment Weekly

'If Stephen King is the Rolling Stones of novels, Koontz is the Beatles.' Playboy

'Dean Koontz writes page-turners, middle-of-the-night sneak-up-behind-you suspense thrillers. He touches our hearts and tingles our spines.' Washington Post Book World

'Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose. Serious writers might do well to study his technique.' New York Times Book Review

'Fast-paced and dark … Koontz knows we live in a world where evil delights in justifying itself … Classic literature that deserves a place on the bookshelf beside Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.' California Literary Review

'Koontz is writing right where popular culture swells into something larger, just as it did for Homer, Shakespeare, and Dickens. He's got the gift.' Australian

'Koontz is a superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition.' USA Today

'Inspires both chills and serious thought … has the power to scare the daylights out of us.' People

'The poet laureate of paranoid pop fiction.' Denver Post

'Koontz achieves a literary miracle … stunning physical description, unique turns of phrase.' Boston Globe

'Near Dickensian powers of description.' Los Angeles Times