On the Verge of Lunacy

This is a collection of eight of Dean Koontz's early science fiction short stories. Although this was compiled without a theme in mind, readers will notice that most of the stories focus on the emotional and psychological effects of new worlds and new discoveries on man. If the reader is looking for detailed descriptions of a new planet, species or breakthrough technology, this is not a book that I will recommend. The stories here are more than just that. The ff. are the stories included in this volume: Soft Come the Dragons - a man who was forced by circumstances to solve the mystery of the dragons' ability to kill people through eye contact has unravelled an equally mysterious answer. A Third Hand - a mutant and reject tries to help his murdered friend and finds himself face to face with a formidable foe. A Darkness in My Soul - a successful product of an experiment was asked to unlock the secrets of the mind of a super genius (I wrote a review on this. If you...

This 1972 science-fiction novel was one of Dean Koontz's earliest works. This book explores the facets of the human mind, its desires, hopes and and its quest for meaning and purpose. The book is divided into four parts: Divinity Destroyed, Humanity Restored, The Incomplete Creation and Man As God. The protagonist Simeon Kelly is one of the two successful products of Artificial Creation. He has the ability to probe the minds of other people. One day he was asked by AC to explore Child's mind, another creation of AC, to unlock the missing information needed to create the shields that will be used for the pending world crisis. Child, the first supergenius ever created, has been withholding important information from Morsfagen and the rest of AC. Simeon's tour of Child's mind takes him into strange worlds and forced him to think and reshape his view of things. Different though they were, he realized that they were both looking for meaning and purpose in their lives b...