The story of a dog and a monster.
WATCHERS by Dean Koontz
Author Dean Koontz is a big time dog lover; so much that he has even written some books from the perspective of his own family pet. He made his passionate appreciation for dogs clear a couple of decades before that, when he wrote the 1987 horror novel Watchers – which is widely considered, possibly even by the author himself, to be the best novel Koontz ever wrote. I haven’t read a lot of his books, but I have read some, and Watchers is definitely my favorite of the bunch that I have leafed through.
At the center of this story is a highly intelligent Golden Retriever named Einstein, who received his enhanced smarts through experiments conducted at a place called Banodyne Laboratories; he was part of “The Francis Project.” When the lab goes up in flames, Einstein manages to escape from the building – but he’s not the only experimental creature to get loose. Banodyne has also created something called The Outsider, a hideous hybrid animal that started out with the base of a baboon but is now something different, larger, and equipped with a large mouth full of sharp teeth. The Outsider’s main goal in life is to destroy the dog, and it will kill anyone who crosses its path along the way.
Einstein ends up in the care of former military man Travis Cornell, who has lost everyone he cared about in life and is dealing with depression – until Einstein comes along and pulls him out of that depression. Travis also gains a love interest when he and Einstein save a woman named Nora Devon from a public assault. Nora was raised by an overbearing aunt who kept her sheltered and ruined her self-esteem, but together Travis and Einstein are able to break her out of her shell, and soon enough they’re living together as a happy family. Problem is, The Outsider is coming for them, as it’s able to track Einstein even when they’re hundreds of miles apart. Agents from the National Security Agency are also searching for the Banodyne escapees, following the trail of blood and dead bodies being left by The Outsider. And somewhere out there is also an insane hitman named Vincent Nasco, who picks off the doctors associated with The Francis Project under orders from the Soviets. Vince believes that he gains the life force of the people he murders, that he’ll eventually be able to achieve immortality. And when he hears about this smart dog, he decides he needs to have that dog for himself.
There’s a lot going on in Watchers, but most of the book’s word count is devoted to the relationship that forms between Travis and Nora and the love they have for their dog Einstein. In the passages dedicated to describing Einstein’s interactions with his people and occasionally people around them, it’s quite obvious that Koontz has spent a lot of time around dogs and is very fond of them... and I can tell this because I have also spent a lot of time around dogs and am very fond of them. Watchers could be described as a love story above all else, but Koontz makes sure we never go too long without something horrific or violent happening in the book, whether those awful things are dealt out by The Outsider or by Vince (or, for a brief period, the guy who tries to assault Nora). So it can hold the attention of genre fans even if they’re not into the lovey dovey stuff.
Watchers has a simple set-up that has fascinated me ever since I first read the story as a child: escaped lab animals, one a smart dog, the other a monstrous beast – and the beast wants to kill the dog. It makes sense that his concept quickly received a film adaptation, which then spawned three follow-ups. Koontz was not a fan of the low budget horror flicks that were loosely based on Watchers, but I’ve had a good time watching them over the years, and I have always enjoyed the source material when I’ve gone back to it.
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