The Taking
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Ari Meyers
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Written by:
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Dean Koontz
About this listen
In one of the most dazzling books of his celebrated career, Dean Koontz delivers a masterwork of suspense that surpasses even his own inimitable reputation as a chronicler of our worst fears - and best dreams. In The Taking, he tells the story of a community cut off from a world under siege and the terrifying battle for survival waged by a young couple and their neighbors as familiar streets become fog-shrouded death traps. Gripping, heartbreaking, and triumphant in the face of mankind’s darkest hour, here is a small-town slice-of-doomsday thriller that strikes to the core of each of us to ask: What would you do in the midst of the Taking?
On the morning that will mark the end of the world they have known, Molly and Neil Sloan awaken to the drumbeat of rain on their roof. It has haunted their sleep, invaded their dreams, and now they rise to find a luminous silvery downpour drenching their small California mountain town. A strange scent hangs faintly in the air, and the young couple cannot shake the sense of something wrong.
As hours pass and the rain continues to fall, Molly and Neil listen to disturbing news of extreme weather phenomena across the globe. Before evening, their little town loses television and radio reception. Then telephone and the Internet are gone. With the ceaseless rain now comes an obscuring fog that transforms the once-friendly village into a ghostly labyrinth. By nightfall the Sloans have gathered with some of their neighbors to deal with community damage...but also because they feel the need to band together against some unknown threat, some enemy they cannot identify or even imagine.
In the night, strange noises arise, and at a distance, in the rain and the mist, mysterious lights are seen drifting among the trees. The rain diminishes with the dawn, but a moody gray-purple twilight prevails. Soon Molly, Neil, and their small band of friends will be forced to draw on reserves of strength, courage, and humanity they never knew they had. For within the misty gloom they will encounter something that reveals in a terrifying instant what is happening to their world - something that is hunting them with ruthless efficiency.
Epic in scope, searingly intimate, and immediate in perspective, The Taking is an adventure story like no other, a relentless roller-coaster that brings apocalypse to Main Street and showcases the talents of one of our most original and mesmerizing novelists at the pinnacle of his powers.
©2004 Dean Koontz (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.You may also enjoy...
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the narrator he was horrible
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Great story, cringe worthy female voice talent
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worth the time
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After Death
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The Bad Place
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Performance
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Good imagery
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Overall
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Performance
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A writer in California. A doctor in Boston. A motel owner and his employee in Nevada. A priest in Chicago. A robber in New York. A little girl in Las Vegas. They’re a handful of people from across the country, living through eerie variations of the same nightmare.
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Had to force myself to finish
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The Bad Weather Friend
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Performance
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Benny Catspaw’s perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He’s not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn’t know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he’s never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time.
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Devoted
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Woody Bookman hasn’t spoken a word in his eleven years of life. Not when his father died in a freak accident. Not when his mother, Megan, tells him she loves him. For Megan, keeping her boy safe and happy is what matters. But Woody believes a monstrous evil was behind his father’s death and now threatens him and his mother. And he’s not alone in his thoughts. An ally unknown to him is listening.
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awesome
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The Forest of Lost Souls
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Raised in the wilderness by her late great-uncle, Vida is a young woman with an almost preternatural affinity for nature, especially for the wolves that also call the forested mountains home. Formed by hard experience, by love and loss, and by the prophecies of a fortuneteller, Vida just wants peace. If only nearby Kettleton County didn’t cast such a dark shadow.
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I would love a sequel to this ,,💯
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Dark Rivers of the Heart
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Performance
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Do you dare step through the red door? Spencer Grant had no idea what drew him to the bar with the red door. He thought he would just sit down, have a slow beer or two, and talk to a stranger. He couldn’t know that it would lead to a narrow escape from a bungalow targeted by a SWAT team. Or that it would leave him a wanted man. But now Spencer is on the run from mysterious and ruthless men. He is in love with a woman he knows next to nothing about. And he is hiding from a past he can’t fully remember.
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If you need to sleep
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Quicksilver
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Quinn Quicksilver was born a mystery—abandoned at three days old on a desert highway in Arizona. Raised in an orphanage, never knowing his parents, Quinn had a happy if unexceptional life. Until the day of “strange magnetism.” It compelled him to drive out to the middle of nowhere. It helped him find a coin worth a lot of money. And it practically saved his life when two government agents showed up in the diner in pursuit of him. Now Quinn is on the run from those agents and who knows what else, fleeing for his life.
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Disappointing
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Darkfall
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Winter gripped the city. Terror gripped it, too. They found four corpses in four days, each more hideous than the last. In a city paralyzed by a blizzard, something watches, something stalks.
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Great!
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Written by: Dean Koontz
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Intensity
- A Novel
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.
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Intense
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-01-31
Written by: Dean Koontz
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The Bone Farm
- A Jane Hawk Case File
- Written by: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers, James Anderson Foster
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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An audio original novella featuring bestselling author Dean Koontz’s compelling new heroine, Jane Hawk. From the case files of the former FBI agent before she became the nation’s most wanted fugitive - The Bone Farm details a desperate man-hunt for a serial killer before he murders again.
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not one of his best
- By sheryl ewart on 2020-11-27
Written by: Dean Koontz
What listeners say about The Taking
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- Caron
- 2021-09-12
Great premise for a story
I loved the overall story but found the prose to be extremely verbose sometimes to the point of boring. I fell asleep several times during the telling.
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- Jazmin Matson
- 2023-12-19
Enjoyable
Fun and fast paced. Fairly predictable but enjoyable. Well read by the actress. Excellent alliteration.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Jennefer
- 2019-06-18
Boring
I couldn’t make it past chapter 4. I love description but there’s so much verbiage that it distracts from the story. Koontz used to be one of my favorite authors but not anymore. Far too much drivel now.
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