If you think you've got it tough, meet Christopher Snow, the hero of Dean Koontz's novel Fear Nothing. Not only did his parents die under mysterious circumstances, but he's also being stalked by shadowy characters who want Snow to stop trying to find out how they died--or else they'll bump off his remaining loved ones (his supersmart, beer-lapping dog Orson; his best surfing buddy Bobby; and his late-night deejay girlfriend Sasha). And as if being on the lam in his own hometown, Moonlight Bay, California, isn't bad enough, Snow has to outrun his pursuers without leaving town. He has XP--xeroderma pigmentosum--a rare genetic affliction that forces him to avoid light. Cumulative exposure to sun, fluorescent lights, and the like will give him cancer eventually, and he doesn't dare leave the place where he's skillfully "done the mambo with melanoma" for all of his 28 years. Koontz makes the night-town of Moonlight Bay come alive in this sometimes pulse-pounding, sometimes funny, but mostly rather lyrical thriller. Fans of Koontz's legendary 1986 novel Watchers will love this book's similar theme: our hero and a loveable super-dog deal with a genetic engineering laboratory run amok. Horror fans will savor the evil mutant rhesus "millennium monkeys" who hunt Snow, the few scenes of eloquent gore, and the plight of certain mutating townsfolk who are, as they put it, "becoming" something very creepy. Koontz gives Snow and Bobby a lingo that does for surfer talk what Austin Powers did for the Swinging '60s, and his metaphors are almost as madcap as Tom Robbins's: "As the chains of the swinging light fixture torqued, the links twisted against one another with enough friction to cause an eerie ringing, as if lizard-eyed altar boys in blood-soaked cassocks and surplices were ringing the unmelodious bells of a satanic mass." Sometimes Koontz's style goes over the top and wipes out, surfer-style, but for the most part, Fear Nothing will have readers bellowing "Cowabunga!"


From School Library Journal
YA-Christopher Snow understands the night. He, like the owl, is nocturnal, living on the mysterious darker edge of society. Snow is afflicted with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare and often-fatal genetic disease that makes ultraviolet rays-even those from lamps and televisions-deadly. His condition makes him a pariah in the isolated small town of Moonlight Bay where the ignorant and insensitive fear what they do not know. As the action begins, Snow's father dies, leaving him with only a handful of offbeat but fiercely loyal friends to turn to for understanding. At the morgue, Snow accidentally witnesses his father's body being replaced with the mutilated corpse of a vagrant. Before he can find out what is behind this scandal, he receives a frantic summons from a friend who is brutally murdered before she can finish explaining a strange story about monkeys and a secret project at the government compound at the edge of town. What begins as a disturbing puzzle quickly becomes a sinister conspiracy as Snow uncovers evidence of uncanny intelligence in many of the local animals and inhumanely vicious tendencies in some of the human residents of the Bay. They are "becoming" he learns, but becoming what? Chilling chase scenes steadily increase the breakneck pace as Snow, assisted by his remarkable dog, is pursued through the night by unseen forces. Despite some clunky and unnecessary surfer slang, fans will go wild for this well-plotted thriller.Robin Deffendall, Prince William Public Library System, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Bantam brags that it is launching the biggest Koontz campaign ever with this thriller, whose protagonist lives by night (he has a genetic order that makes him highly sensitive to light) until he witnesses a murder.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
From the first few lines, Dean Koontz arouses in listeners a protective feeling for the main character of Fear Nothing. Forced to spend his life in the dark due to a rare genetic disorder that makes him vulnerable to light, Christopher Snow is thrown into an eerie thriller he seems hardly able to handle. Keith Szarabajka's capable performance relays Chris's strong will, although at times it's difficult to believe such a sure voice would belong to a 28-year-old man who has been isolated his whole life. Regardless, Szarabajka's reading, like Koontz's writing, sweeps listeners into the exciting adventure and keeps them rooting for the unlikely hero. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Book Description
Christopher Snow is the best-known resident of 12,000-strong Moonlight Bay, California. This is because 28-year-old Chris has xeroderma pigmentosum (XP)--a light-sensitivity so severe that he cannot leave his house in daylight, cannot enter a normally-lit room, cannot sit at a computer. Chris's natural element is the night, and his parents, both academics, chose to live in Moonlight Bay because in a small town Chris can make the nightscape his own--roaming freely through the town on his bike, surfing in the moonlight, exploring while most people sleep.But Chris's brilliant mother, a scientist, was killed in a car accident 2 years ago, and as the book opens his father, Steven Snow, is dying of cancer; Chris's protected life is about to change forever. We meet Chris as he is carefully preparing himself to go out in the late-afternoon sun to visit the hospital. In his last moments of life his father tells Chris he is "sorry" and that Chris should "fear nothing"--cryptic words that Chris cannot really relate to.Steven Snow's body is removed to the hospital basement for transport to the funeral home/crematorium, and when Chris goes downstairs for a final moment of farewell, he witnesses a frightening and clandestine encounter: the funeral director and another man Chris doesn't recognize are substituting the body of a hitchhiker for Steven Snow's body--which is being taken not to the crematorium but to some secret destination.For Chris, this scene is the first intimation of a conspiracy that he will come to realize envelopes many of his townspeople. His parents knew of it and wanted to protect Chris from it. His best friend has had hints of something wrong because of the frightening nocturnal visitors that have come to his beachhouse. And the first person to try to explain to Chris what's going on--and warn him about the special danger he himself is in--will be hideously murdered.In the 24 hours this book encompasses, Christopher Snow will find out that, sheltered though he's been, he has the soul of a fighter and an adventurer. By the end of the book he will have killed a man, will have discovered the role his own mother played in the birth of the conspiracy, will have come to recognize the extraordinary guardians that, unknown to him, have watched over him for years. He will realize that some people hate him, others revere him, and neither his own life nor those of anyone he knows will ever be the same.


From the Publisher




From the Inside Flap
Christopher Snow is the best-known resident of 12,000-strong Moonlight Bay, California. This is because 28-year-old Chris has xeroderma pigmentosum (XP)--a light-sensitivity so severe that he cannot leave his house in daylight, cannot enter a normally-lit room, cannot sit at a computer. Chris's natural element is the night, and his parents, both academics, chose to live in Moonlight Bay because in a small town Chris can make the nightscape his own--roaming freely through the town on his bike, surfing in the moonlight, exploring while most people sleep.

But Chris's brilliant mother, a scientist, was killed in a car accident 2 years ago, and as the book opens his father, Steven Snow, is dying of cancer; Chris's protected life is about to change forever. We meet Chris as he is carefully preparing himself to go out in the late-afternoon sun to visit the hospital. In his last moments of life his father tells Chris he is "sorry" and that Chris should "fear nothing"--cryptic words that Chris cannot really relate to.

Steven Snow's body is removed to the hospital basement for transport to the funeral home/crematorium, and when Chris goes downstairs for a final moment of farewell, he witnesses a frightening and clandestine encounter: the funeral director and another man Chris doesn't recognize are substituting the body of a hitchhiker for Steven Snow's body--which is being taken not to the crematorium but to some secret destination.

For Chris, this scene is the first intimation of a conspiracy that he will come to realize envelopes many of his townspeople. His parents knew of it and wanted to protect Chris from it. His best friend has had hints of something wrong because of the frightening nocturnal visitors that have come to his beachhouse. And the first person to try to explain to Chris what's going on--and warn him about the special danger he himself is in--will be hideously murdered.

In the 24 hours this book encompasses, Christopher Snow will find out that, sheltered though he's been, he has the soul of a fighter and an adventurer. By the end of the book he will have killed a man, will have discovered the role his own mother played in the birth of the conspiracy, will have come to recognize the extraordinary guardians that, unknown to him, have watched over him for years. He will realize that some people hate him, others revere him, and neither his own life nor those of anyone he knows will ever be the same.


About the Author
Dean Koontz is the author of a dozen #1 New York Times bestsellers, including Sole Survivor and Intensity. He lives in southern California.


From the Hardcover edition.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
On the desk in my candlelit study, the telephone rang, and I knew that a terrible  change was coming.  

I am not psychic. I do not see signs and portents in the sky. To my eye, the  lines in my palm reveal nothing about my future, and I don't have a Gypsy's  ability to discern the patterns of fate in wet tea leaves.  

My father had been dying for days, however, and after spending the previous night  at his bedside, blotting the sweat from his brow and listening to his labored  breathing, I knew that he couldn't hold on much longer. I dreaded losing him and  being, for the first time in my twenty-eight years, alone.  

I am an only son, an only child, and my mother passed away two years ago. Her  death had been shock, but at least she had not been forced to endure a lingering  illness.  

Last night just before dawn, exhausted, I had returned home to sleep. But I had  not slept much or well.  

Now I leaned forward in my chair and willed the phone to fall silent, but it  would not.  

The dog also knew what the ringing meant. He padded out of the shadows into the  candleglow, and stared sorrowfully at me.  

Unlike the others of his kind, he will hold any man's or woman's gaze as long as  he is interested. Animals usually stare directly at us only briefly - then look  away as though unnerved by something they see in the human eyes. Perhaps Orson  sees what other dogs see, and perhaps he, too, is disturbed by it, but he is not  intimidated.  

He is a strange dog. But he is my dog, my steadfast friend, and I love him.  

On the seventh ring, I surrender to the inevitable and answer the phone.  

The caller was a nurse at Mercy Hospital. I spoke to her without looking away  from Orson.  

My father was quickly fading. The nurse suggested I come to his bedside without  delay.  

As I put down the phone, Orson approached my chair and rested his burly black  head in my lap. He whimpered softly and nuzzled my hand. He did not wag his tail.  

For a moment I was numb, unable to think or act. The silence of the house, as  deep as water in an oceanic abyss, was a crushing, immobilizing pressure. Then I  phoned Sasha Goodall to ask her to drive me to the hospital.  

Usually she slept from noon until eight o'clock. She spun music in the dark,  from midnight until six o'clock in the morning, on KBAY, the only radio station  in Moonlight Bay. At a few minutes past five on this March evening, she was most  likely asleep, and I regretted the need to wake her.  

Like sad-eyed Orson, however, Sasha was my friend, to whom I could always turn.  And she was a far better driver than the dog.  

She answered on the second ring, with no trace of sleepiness in her voice. Before  I could tell her what had happened, she said, "Chris, I am so sorry," as though  she had been waiting for this call and as if in the ringing of her phone she had  heard the same ominous note the Orson and I had heard in mine.  

I bit my lip and refused to consider what was coming. As long as Dad was alive,  hope remained that his doctors were wrong. Even at the eleventh hour, the cancer  might go into remission.  

I believe in the possibility of miracles.  

After all, in spite of my condition, I have lived more than twenty-eight years,  which is a miracle of sorts - although some other people, seeing my life from  outside, might think it is a curse.  

I believe in the possibility of miracles, but more to the point, I believe in our  need for them.  

"I'll be there in five minutes," Sasha promised.  

At night I could walk to the hospital, but at this hour I would be too much of a  spectacle and in too great a danger if I tried to make the trip on foot.  

"No," I said. "Drive carefully. I'll probably take ten minutes or more to get  ready."  

"Love you, Snowman."  

"Love you, " I replied.  

I replaced the cap on the pen with which I had been writing when the call came  from the hospital, and I put it aside with the yellow legal-size tablet.  

Using a long-handled brass snuffer, I extinguished the three fat candles. Thin,  sinuous ghosts of smoke writhed in the shadows.  

Now, an hour before twilight, the sun was low in the sky but still dangerous. It  glimmered threateningly at the edges of the pleated shades that covered all the  windows.  

Anticipating my intentions, as usual, Orson was already out of the room, padding  across the upstairs hall.  

He is a ninety-pound Labrador mix, as black as a witch's cat. Through the layered  shadows of our house, he roams all but invisibly, his presence betrayed only by  the thump of his big paws on the area rugs and by the click of his claws on the  hardwood floors.  

In my bedroom, across the hall from the study, I didn't bother to switch on the  dimmer-controlled, frosted-glass ceiling fixture. The indirect, sour-yellow light  of the westering sun, pressing at the edges of the window shades, was sufficient  for me.  

My eyes are better adapted to gloom than are those of most people. Although I am,  figuratively speaking, a brother to the owl, I don't have a special gift for  nocturnal sight, nothing as romantic or as thrilling as a paranormal talent.  Simply this: Lifelong habituation to darkness has sharpened my night vision.  

Orson leaped onto the footstool and then curled on the armchair to watch me as I  girded myself for the sunlit world.  

From a pullman drawer in the adjoining bathroom, I withdrew a squeeze bottle of  lotion that included a sunscreen with a rating of fifty. I applied it generously  to my face, ears, and neck.  

The lotion had a faint coconut scent, an aroma that I associate with palm trees  in sunshine, tropical skies, ocean vistas spangled with noontime light, and other  things that will be forever beyond my experience. This, for me,  is the fragrance  of desire and denial and hopeless yearning, the succulent perfume of the  unattainable.  

Sometimes I dream that I am walking on a Caribbean beach in a rain of sunshine,  and the white sand under my feet seems to be a cushion of pure radiance. The  warmth of the sun on my skin is more erotic than a lover's touch. In the dream, I  am not merely bathed in light but pierced by it. When I wake, I am bereft.  

Now the lotion, although smelling of the tropical sun, was cool on my face and  neck. I also worked it into my hands and wrists.  

The bathroom featured a single window at which the shade was currently raised,  but the space remained meagerly illuminated because the glass was frosted and  because the incoming sunlight was filtered through the graceful limbs of the  metrosideros. The silhouettes of leaves fluttered on the pane.  

In the mirror above the sink, my reflection was little more than a shadow. Even  if I switched on the light, I would not have had a clear look at myself, because  the single bulb in the overhead fixture was of low wattage and had a peach tint.  

Only rarely have I seen my face in full light.  

Sasha says that I remind her of James Dean, more as he was in East of Eden than  in Rebel Without a Cause.  

I myself don't perceive the resemblance. The hair is the same, yes, and the pale  blue eyes. But he looked so wounded, and I do not see myself that way.  

I am not James Dean. I am no one but me, Christopher Snow, and I can live with  that.  

Finished with the lotion, I returned to the bedroom. Orson raised his head from  the armchair to savor the coconut scent.  

I was already wearing athletic socks, Nikes, blue jeans, and a black t-shirt. I  quickly pulled on a black denim shirt with long sleeves and buttoned it at the  neck.  

Orson trailed me downstairs to the foyer. Because the porch was deep with a low  ceiling, and because two massive California live oaks stood in the yard, no  direct sun could reach the sidelights flanking the front door; consequently, they  were not covered with curtains or blinds. The leaded panes - geometric mosaics of  clear, green, red, and amber glass - glowed softly like jewels.  

I took a zippered, black leather jacket from the coat closet. I would be out  after dark, and even following a mild March day, the central coast of California  can turn chilly when the sun goes down.  

From the closet shelf, I snatched a navy blue, billed cap and pulled it on,  tugging it low on my head. Across the front, above the visor, in ruby-red  embroidered letters, were the words Mystery Train.  

One night during the previous autumn, I had found the cap in Fort Wyvern, the  abandoned military base inland from Moonlight Bay. It had been the only object   in a cool, dry, concrete-walled room three stories underground.  

Although I had no idea to what the embroidered words might refer, I had kept the  cap because it intrigued me.  

As I turned toward the front door, Orson whined beseechingly.  

I stooped and petted him. "I'm sure Dad would like to see you one last time,  fella. I know he would. But there's no place for you in a hospital."  

His direct, coal-black eyes glimmered. I could have sworn that his gaze brimmed  with grief and sympathy. Maybe that was because I was looking at him through  repressed tears of my own.  

My friend Bobby Halloway says that I tend to anthropomorphize animals, ascribing  to them human attributes and attitudes which they do not, in fact, possess.  

Perhaps this is because animals, unlike some people, have always accepted me for  what I am. The four-legged citizens of Moonlight Bay seem to possess a more  complex understanding of life - as well as more kindness - than at least some of my  neighbors.  

Bobby tells me that anthropomorphizing animals, regardless of my experiences with  them, is a sign of immaturity. I tell Bobby to go copulate with himself.  

I comforted Orson, stroking his glossy coat and scratching behind his ears. He  was curiously tense. Twice he cocked his head to listen intently to sounds I  could not hear - as if he sensed a threat looming, something even worse than the  loss of my father.  

At that time, I had not yet seen anything suspicious about Dad's impending death.  Cancer was only fate, not murder - unless you wanted to try bringing criminal  charges against God.  

That I had lost both parents within two years, that my mother had died when she  was only fifty-two, that my father was only fifty-six as he lay on his deathbed...well,   all this just seemed to be my poor luck - which had been with me,  literary, since my conception.  

Later, I would have reason to recall Orson's tension - and good reason to wonder if  he had sensed the tidal wave of trouble washing toward us.  

Bobby Halloway would surely sneer at this and say that I am doing worse than  anthropomorphizing the mutt, that now  I am ascribing superhuman attributes to  him. I would have to agree - and then tell Bobby to go copulate vigorously with  himself.  

Anyway, I petted and scratched and generally comforted Orson until a horn sounded  in the street and then, almost at once, sounded again in the driveway.  

Sasha had arrived.  

In spite of the sunscreen of my neck, I turned up the collar of my jacket for  additional protection.  

From the Stickely-style foyer table under a print of Maxfield Parrish's Daybreak,   I grabbed a pair of wraparound sunglasses.  

With my hand on the hammered-copper doorknob, I turned to Orson once more. "We'll  be all right."  

In fact I didn't know quite how we could go on without my father. He was our link  to the world of light and to the people of the day.  

More than that, he loved me as no one left on earth could love me, as only a  parent could love a damaged child. He understood me as perhaps no one would ever  understand me again.  

"We'll be all right," I repeated.  

The dog regarded me solemnly and chuffed once, almost pityingly, as if he knew I  was lying.  

I opened the front door, and as I went outside, I put on the wraparound  sunglasses. The special lenses were totally UV-proof.  

My eyes are my point of greatest vulnerability. I can take no risk whatsoever  with them.  

Sasha's green Ford Explorer was in the driveway, with the engine running, and she  was behind the wheel.  

I closed the house door and locked it. Orson had made no attempt to slip out at  my heels.  

A breeze had sprung up from the west: an onshore flow with the faint, astringent  scent of the sea. The leaves of the oaks whispered as if transmitting secrets  branch to branch.  

My chest grew so tight that my lungs felt constricted, as was always the case  when I was required to venture outside in the daylight.  This symptom was  entirely psychological but nonetheless affecting.  

Going down the porch steps and along the flagstone walk to the driveway, I felt  weighed down. Perhaps this was how a deep-sea diver might feel in a pressure suit  with a kingdom of water overhead.  


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

This is a killer of a book, period. Probably the best of Koontz's career to date.

Because Chris Snow has xeroderma pimentosum -- a rare, and usually fatal, genetic disorder -- even a brief exposure to sunlight can cause irreparable damage leading to blindness and fatal skin cancers. So Snow only comes at night. The novel opens with the death of Snow's father, a tragic, but seemingly innocent incident that tears open the fabric of Snow's life. He soon becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that seems to involve everyone in the small town of Moonlight Bay, where Snow has spent his entire life.

The whole book, except for the last few pages, takes place during one night, making for a riveting, fast-paced read that still has time for thoughtful speculations and wonderful characters. If you've never tried Koontz before, this is the place to start, while for longtime readers, I need say no more than that this is Koontz writing at the peak of his form.

—Charles de Lint

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you've ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder shared by only one thousand other Americans, a disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else ever will, ever can - the mystery, the beauty, the many terrors, and the eerie, silken rhythms of the night - for it is only at night that he is free. Until the night he witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered strangeness of Moonlight Bay and its residents.

FROM THE CRITICS

Maggie Garb

. . . even though practically nothing in its plot is what it appears to be, 'Fear Nothing is surprisingly flat. . . . Koontz's penchant for surfer lingo and literary pretension has drained most of the suspense from this overwrought narrative. -- New York Times

VOYA - Tom Pearson

"Monkeys. The end of the world by monkeys." These words from Koontz's new book describe, to a limited extent, its plot. There are monkeys, certainly, and the world as we know it does come to an end, certainly, but little else is for certain in the town of Moonlight Bay, California. This is the little seacoast town where Christopher Snow lives. The town's name is an apt one, for Chris lives by necessity in a world of moonlight and darkness. He suffers from an extremely rare genetic disorder that makes him dangerously vulnerable to light. He must live out his life when most people are asleep. Nearly the entire plot takes place over the course of one particularly eventful night. During this extraordinary night Chris uncovers a government conspiracy, witnesses several murders, and commits one. He has to run for his life from scary, unseen pursuers and is forced to defend himself; his girlfriend, Sasha; his best friend, Bobby; and his dog, Orson, from a crazed pack of genetically altered Rhesus monkeys. He will watch his father die and will learn that his dead mother was much more than she seemed to be. Chris will discover during his long night's journey into day that there is much to fear in sleepy little Moonlight Bay. People and animals are not always what they seem. Even the night, which has until now served as Chris's shield against the daylight, will come to be seen as a potentially lethal enemy. Chris must uncover his town's undeniably deadly secret if he is to save his friends, his dog, and his world. This book is highly recommended. Koontz thinks this is his best work to date, and he may just be right. The action is nonstop, and the characters, both good and bad, are entirely believable. So lock all the doors, turn on all the lights, and get ready to spend a wild night in Moonlight Bay. VOYA Codes: 5Q 5P S (Hard to imagine it being better written, Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal

Koontz (Sole Survivor, LJ 2/15/97) presents a masterly tale of one night in the California coastal town of Moonlight Bay as experienced by Chris Snow. Saddled with a genetic defect that makes direct sunlight toxic to him, Snow is a nocturnal creature whose father has just died. When he discovers that his father's corpse has been stolen, he begins pursuit. Koontz expertly illuminates Snow's nocturnal world and friends, and incrementally, cleverly, the crises erupting in Moonlight Bay take shape. The plot is wonderfully unpredictable, and though the surfer slang wears thin after a while, the narrative remains taut. Although the ending leaves some questions unanswered, this is still good entertainment.-- Robert C. Moore, DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals, Framingham, Mass.

School Library Journal

Christopher Snow understands the night. He, like the owl, is nocturnal, living on the mysterious darker edge of society. Snow is afflicted with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare and often-fatal genetic disease that makes ultraviolet rays-even those from lamps and televisions-deadly. His condition makes him a pariah in the isolated small town of Moonlight Bay where the ignorant and insensitive fear what they do not know. As the action begins, Snow's father dies, leaving him with only a handful of offbeat but fiercely loyal friends to turn to for understanding. At the morgue, Snow accidentally witnesses his father's body being replaced with the mutilated corpse of a vagrant. Before he can find out what is behind this scandal, he receives a frantic summons from a friend who is brutally murdered before she can finish explaining a strange story about monkeys and a secret project at the government compound at the edge of town. What begins as a disturbing puzzle quickly becomes a sinister conspiracy as Snow uncovers evidence of uncanny intelligence in many of the local animals and inhumanely vicious tendencies in some of the human residents of the Bay. They are "becoming" he learns, but becoming what? Chilling chase scenes steadily increase the breakneck pace as Snow, assisted by his remarkable dog, is pursued through the night by unseen forces. Despite some clunky and unnecessary surfer slang, fans will go wild for this well-plotted thriller.- Robin Deffendall, Prince William Public Library System, VA

AudioFile - Rachel Astarte Piccione