Dean Koontz’s The Taking is a tale of the end of civilization. not as you may imagine, the end of everything in fire and glory and asteroid collisions, or aliens, or anything superb or systematic. Rather, Koontz’s novel is all about the end of the conservative Christian world. In The Taking, an ideal, perceptive, and loving couple is encircled by an “alien” infestation, a long silver rain that blankets the world in beastly seed that breeds fungus, plants that are half animal, and demon-creatures who purloin souls and replace them with shells.

For Molly and Neil Sloan, the couple, their goal is to survive, have belief in their own capability, and help those around them who have a need to be saved from the menacenamely the youngsters, a clumsy simile for the future generation. Therefore if you can stand a tense thriller that eventually is simply too strange, too moralistic, and too easy, it is a fast decently exciting read, but significantly below the level we might call “masterwork.”.