Strange Highways Author:Dean Koontz Strange Highways • collection of 9 novellettes/novellas and 5 short stories, by Dean R. Koontz [as by Dean Koontz]. From the denizens of hell to unlikely heroes, from vengeful children to suspiciously humanlike robots, this new collection of tales from a genius of horror and suspense writing provides a hypnotic view o... more »f the strange highways of human experience: the adventures and terrors and failures and triumphs that we know as we make our way from birth to death, along the routes that we choose for ourselves and along others onto which we are detoured by fate. It is a journey down wrong roads that can lead to unexpectedly and stunningly right destinations…into subterranean depths where the darkness of the human soul breeds in every conceivable form…over unfamiliar terrain populated by the denizens of hell. It is a world of unlikely heroes, haunted thieves, fearsome predators, vengeful children, and suspiciously humanlike robots.
Contents:
Strange Highways (1995) / novella: One rain-swept night when he was 20-years-old, Joey Shannon, a young college boy, took the wrong highway. From that moment nothing ever went right for him again. Exactly 20 years later Joey finds himself at the same crossroads looking down the road never taken, odd since that road no longer exists.
The Black Pumpkin (1986) / shortstory: an adolescent boy who learns the difference between right and wrong.
Miss Attila the Hun (1987) / novelette: a symbiote takes control of a town.
Down in the Darkness (1986) / novelette: the perfect house has a mysterious door and a winding staircase leading down into the darkness, a darkness that is willing to consume anyone.
Ollie's Hands (1972) / shortstory: a panhandler that has exraordinary powers in his hands.
Snatcher (1986) / shortstory: a pursesnatcher is shown the error of his ways.
Trapped (1989) / novelette: a mother and her son and their will to survive the peril that they are in.
Bruno [Jake Ash] (1971) / novelette: about parallel universes.
We Three (1974) / shortstory: a highly advance set of triples show their abilities.
Hardshell (1974) / novelette: a cop is forced to do what he doesn't want to do.
Kittens (1966) / shortstory: a youngster doesn't like what she learns about mortality.
The Night of the Storm [The Night of the Storm • 1] (1974) / novelette: a few robots set off an adventure, in a futuristic world ruled by robots.
Twilight of the Dawn (1987) / novelette: a man is chastised for his unbelief.
Chase (1972) / novella: a Vietnam War hero finds himself the target of a sociopathic killer when he interrupts a murder in progress.
Notes to the Reader (Strange Highways) (1995) • essay by Dean R. Koontz [as by Dean Koontz]