Lightning (novel)

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Title Lightning

Cover of Lightning
Author	Dean Koontz
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Publisher	Berkley Publishing
Released	1988
Media type	Paperback
Pages	384
ISBN	ISBN 0-425-19203-2

Lightning is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 1988.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Characters 2.1 Laura Shane 2.2 The Ackerson twins (Ruth and Thelma) 2.3 Bob Shane 2.4 Chris Packard 2.5 Danny Packard 2.6 Stefan Krieger ("The Guardian Angel") 2.7 Willy Sheener 2.8 Kokoschka 3 External links

[edit] Synopsis

When Laura Shane was born on January 12, 1955 there was a storm of the century in her hometown in Denver. Dr. Paul Markwell, an alcoholic still grieving for his son who died four years previously, was the doctor on call. He was summoned to the hospital to deliver a baby, and as he was leaving his house, a tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes entered his house and held him at gunpoint. The man tied Markwell to a chair, then called the hospital and told the nurse that Markwell was too drunk to deliver the baby, claiming to be Markwell's neighbour.

Bob Shane was in the hospital, waiting for news of his wife Janet. When the doctor who had delivered the baby came out and told Bob that his wife had died in childbirth he was devastated, but when he learned that his daughter had survived, he was a little happier.

The stranger in Markwell’s house stayed for a while and when he was leaving he went to Markwell’s bar and poured all his liquor down the drain. The he wrote on a piece of paper:

        “IF YOU DON’T STOP DRINKING. IF YOU DON’T LEARN TO ACCEPT
         LENNY’S DEATH, YOU WILL PUT A GUN IN YOUR MOUTH AND
         BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT WITHIN A YEAR. THIS IS NOT A
         PREDICTION. THIS IS A FACT.”

After his wife's memorial service, Bob went back to the hospital to see his daughter. When he picked her up he saw through the window a tall man with blue eyes and blonde hair staring at the baby. The man waved at him and smiled. Bob named his daughter Laura Shane. Years later. Laura was in her father’s grocery store when a junkie came in, intending a robbery, but the blonde stranger who Bob had seen in the hospital years earlier came in and shot the junkie. Bob knew he had seen the man before but could not recall where. Afterwards, the stranger told Bob and Laura a story he had devised to cover up the shooting and the junkie's attempted robbery.

            “…Okay, what you have to tell them is that there 
            were two gunmen. This one wanted Laura, but the other 
            was sickened by the idea of raping a little girl, 
            and he just wanted to get out. So they argued, it got 
            nasty, the other one shot this bastard and skipped 
            with the money. Can you make that sound right?”

                                              -Lightning- Pg. 22

Kokoschka had seen the stranger named Stefan at the hospital years earlier and now he saw him leaving Bob’s store. He worked for the same people as Stefan, but he believed Stefan to be a traitor and did not know why he had saved Laura a second time in her life.

Back in 1944 Stefan was going to his headquarters with the idea of blowing the place up. He laid plastic explosives over the compound and wired them.

Back in 1967, Bob Shane had died of a heart attack, and Laura was at his funeral. She saw Stefan in the distance and ran after him, but couldn’t catch him. Then he disappeared. She did not know who he was, but when he had used the words "guardian angel" years before in the grocery store she recognized him. Later she went to live in an orphanage, Mcllroy, where she was housed with a set of twins who later became her best friends, but she also met Willy Sheener, a creepy child molester. He was the maintenance man and custodian. The Ackerson twins, Thelma and Ruth, became Laura’s best friends during her time at the orphanage, and Thelma remains her best friend throughout the book.

Laura was sent to a foster family she didn’t like, so she behaved badly and they sent her back to the orphanage. When she got back to there she was told to stay in a room by herself. This was a perfect opportunity for Sheener to rape her, but he didn’t show up until a few days later when he came to work bruised and all beat up. He even looked away from Laura when she came near him in the cafeteria line. When Laura turned thirteen she was moved to another orphanage, Caswell Hall. Only a short time after her arrival there a fire raged at Mcllroy, and Ruth was killed.

In an alternate future which could have existed without Stefan, he saw Willy Sheener molest Laura. To prevent these events, Stefan awaited Sheener at his house and beat him up. Laura was sent to another family later, this time a wonderful couple, the Dockweilers, who bought her over a hundred pocket books as a welcoming gift. Laura loved the Dockweilers dearly, but one day Sheener came to the house and tried to rape Laura when the couple was away. Laura managed to fight him off and cut Sheener’s throat with a shard of glass. When her foster mother came home a few moments later she died of a heart attack caused by the shock, and Laura was sent back to the orphanage.

Years later when Laura went to university, she wrote a book about her favourite childhood character (Mr. Toad, who lived with them on the Queen’s business) which her father had created to amuse her when she was young. A man named Daniel Packard read it at the library, and when a librarian pointed out Laura - studying books on a desk further away - Danny fell in love with her. On Laura’s birthday he sent her a toad, then another one, and another one until Laura tracked him down and confronted him. When she was leaving his house Danny asked her if she would go to dinner with him, she agreed and they went. They eventually married and had a son. Laura continued writing books until one of her books became a bestseller and made millions.

One day when Laura, Danny, and their son Chris were driving to their second house in the mountains, Laura’s guardian came and stopped them abruptly from ending up in a head-on collision. He also made them hide just as Kokoschka and some of his people came and tried to kill them. Stefan managed to kill Kokoschka’s men. Danny was killed, but luckily Laura and Chris survived. Stefan had to leave, but promised to come back and explain what had happened and who he was. He also warned Laura about "them," but he didn’t mention whom he meant. Stefan pressed a button on a special belt and disappeared. On the anniversary of Danny’s death Laura had been practising how to use weapons in case of another incident like the one in the mountains. That was when Stefan came to Laura’s house: He had been shot in his shoulder and came to tell them that Kokoschka’s men were approaching. Chris and Laura got their guns and helped Stefan into the back of their jeep. They hid for a while at an old motel until Stefan recovered from his wounds.

During this time he told them that he was a time traveller from 1944 and had fallen in love with Laura when he came to the United States in 1984, but she was crippled because the doctor who delivered her had been drunk. Stefan did everything in his power to save her from a difficult life, including stopping the junkie and Willy Sheener from molesting her. Stefan needed to get back to 1944 to destroy the compound by detonating the explosives that he had planted the night before. So they needed a computer to do complex calculations, some money, and weapons. Laura went to an illegal arms dealer, Fat Jack, and got two tanks of Vexxon nerve gas and some weapons.

The next few days were spent doing the calculations. After that Stefan returned to the compound to destroy it. When he got there he killed everybody with nerve gas and input the numbers to go to see Winston Churchill, where he gave him the location of the compound and told him to bomb it. The bombing was scheduled and Stefan returned to the compound where he input the numbers to see Hitler, there he told Hitler that what Kokoschka had told Hitler was false and that Stefan wasn’t the traitor, but Kokoschka was. Stefan was actually the traitor, but to clean his slate he did that so if Kokoschka returned to report to Hitler he would be killed.

Then he returned to Laura’s time, but there he saw Laura being killed by Kokoschka and his men. Stefan quickly returned to 1944 and did some calculations to arrive at that place a little earlier. But the time travelling had one paradox among many other: Stefan couldn’t return to the same place earlier than his past self, because the portal would just sling him back to his own time. Stefan eventually figured out a solution, and sent back a written warning inside a test tube to Laura, telling her and Chris to hide in a ravine nearby their current location. The two did so, and when Stefan returned he found that Laura had fought and killed Kokokoschka’s men in the ravine.

Laura and Thelma are at the end of the book talking. Thelma is now married to a rich man and Stefan is very happy with Laura, but not married to her. However, by answering a simple question of Churchill's about the Soviet Union, Stefan affected the whole ending of the war.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Laura Shane

Laura Shane is the story's main protagonist. She learns about death at an early age when she first meets her "guardian angel" (Stefan) who kills the junkie who tries to rape her. When she is twelve her father dies and she goes to an orphanage where she befriends the Ackerson twins. When she grows up she meets Danny Packard, marries him, and has a son named Chris. She becomes a novelist, which allows her both a great deal of affluence and, through her research, the ability to locate the weapons she'll eventually need to fight her would-be assassins.

[edit] The Ackerson twins (Ruth and Thelma)

The Ackerson twins (Ruth and Thelma) are Laura's friends that she meets at the orphanage. While Ruth is the quieter and more sensible, Thelma is an extrovert and, to the adults in the orphanage, labeled as a troublemaker. Ruth dies in a fire, but Thelma survives (much to her own guilt) and later becomes a successful comedian. She later marries a successful director, and their money and many vacation homes provide a base of operations for the fugitive trio.

[edit] Bob Shane

Bob is Laura's father. He creates an imaginary character named Mr. Toad who is at their house on the Queen's business. He dies of a heart attack when Laura is twelve.

[edit] Chris Packard

Chris is the son of Laura Shane and Danny Packard. When Danny dies, Chris helps Laura through a lot and saves Stefan's life. He also develops the theory that Stefan is a time traveller, which turns out to be true.

[edit] Danny Packard

Danny is Laura's husband. He first sees her in a library studying while he is reading one of her books. Then he reads them all and sends her a toad a day, until Laura confronts him and eventually agrees to go out with him. Danny is killed by Kokoschka.

[edit] Stefan Krieger ("The Guardian Angel")

Stefan Krieger is a member of a secret institute created in 1944 Nazi Germany where they develop a time travelling device (known as what translates in English to "Lightning Road") along with remote homing beacons. When he goes through it he sees Laura, crippled. He falls in love with her and does everything in his power to save her from a difficult life, such as preventing the drunken doctor who would have delivered Laura from arriving to the hospital, dissuading a would-be pedophile, and assisting Laura in fighting off assassins.

[edit] Willy Sheener

Willy is the janitor and cleaner at the orphanage Laura arrives at when she's twelve. He's also a child molester referred to as "The Eel" by the Ackerson twins. He wants to rape Laura, but Stefan comes and beats him up, preventing him from raping the girl. Willy Sheener eventually dies when he comes to the house of one of Laura's foster families, the Dockweilers, and tries to get his revenge on her. Laura shoves a broken glass through his throat, and he dies from blood loss.

[edit] Kokoschka

Kokoschka is a member of the same organization as Stefan, but when he finds out that Stefan is a traitor he tries to kill him, but is killed by Stefan. Kokoschka is the main antagonist in the story.

[edit] External links

• Lightning Book Review

Spoilers

On the night of Laura Shane's birth, a stranger appears in a clap of thunder to prevent her from being harmed while being delivered by a drunken doctor. All through Laura's childhood the stranger shows up when she is in danger. Laura marries and has a son. The mysterious stranger shows up on a deserted highway, warning Laura and her family that they are in danger. Laura’s husband is killed; her hero is unable to prevent his death. Warning Laura that she is in danger and that he will return, he vanishes again. Laura begins to learn to protect herself and her son. The stranger appears once again during a thunderstorm, badly injured and in need of her help. Laura, her son, and the stranger spend the remainder of the book trying to escape from the men who killed her husband.