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  • Intensity

  • A Novel
  • Written by: Dean Koontz
  • Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
  • Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (167 ratings)

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Intensity

Written by: Dean Koontz
Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
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Publisher's Summary

#1 New York Times Bestseller

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. 

Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive - until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess’s next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl...as moment by moment, the terrifying threat of Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.

©1995 Dean Koontz (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

What the critics say

“Chills the reader to the core and establishes Koontz as a master.”—Associated Press

“Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose . . . The story does not move so much as rocket up the . . . gloomy highway with the reader in violent pursuit.”—The New York Times 

“The most viscerally exciting thriller of the year.”—Publishers Weekly 

What listeners say about Intensity

Average Customer Ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Intense

I’ve read this book a couple times over the years and wanted to give the audio version a try. So darn good! Almost gave me a little anxiety.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Most boring thriller / not a typical Koontz book

To be honest this story might have been good but I could only get through 6 hours. The voice actor is horrible. She’s got a monotone voice with absolutely no inflections. She might as well be reading a recipe.
Not much happens in 6 hours because every leaf is described. The heroine makes the most unbelievable decisions that remind me of old horrors where the dumb victim tries running in high heals. It’s not a smart book.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Problematic pronunciations - stopped listening

Really struggling to finish this story. It started with a bang, but the narrator's pronunciation of common words is a bit jarring. If it were random and occasional, it wouldn't be an issue, but when it's the word 'certain' and used five times in a paragraph, it pulls you out of the story.
I bought this book because I enjoy dipping into DK's world (especially the first few books of the Odd Thomas series) and it was on sale. Had I listened to the sample, I probably would have skipped it. Recommend you listen first to see if this narrator is right for you.

*edit: gave up on this book. It's terrible. Not sure which is worse, the narration or the story. Definitely not one of DK's best.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Enunciation sucks

I don't normally write reviews, but here goes.
The story was good but the performance was terrible. Frankie Corzo needs to attend diction classes. She has almost entirely removed the letter t from the middle of most words. Buttons turns into bah-ens, certain becomes sur-en, mountains....well you get the gist. It happens so often that it takes away from the the actual story.
The next issue is that she mispronounces words all the time, the composer Mozart becomes mossart, andirons, also wrong and more.
I don't know where this girl grew up but they seem to have quite the way of speaking, and, it seems to me that if you are going to be an actress/narrator, you need to be able to speak the English language properly.
The story itself was good (Koontz never disappoints) but it was overshadowed by the constant reminders of this performer's speech impediments. I almost didn't finish it several times throughout the book, the only reason I did was because of the author and the story itself.
The old adage "you get what you pay for" is very true for this as I bought it through the Daily Deal.
Thanks for listening to my rant.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

I normally love Dean Koontz books ...

If you really like overly descriptive books then you will love this one. Interesting story line but could have been told in half the words — way too drawn out.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Not my best experience but then I am not an expert

Bought this book because it was cheap and I wanted something for a long trip. I am sure that Dean Koontz fans will love it and admire the authors use of language but it is not for me. After chapter four I jumped to the end I found the amount of detail in each scene way too much and since much of it is in the third person it’s a boring audio.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Please Ununciate!

Great book, read it when first published. The only book I have ever sneaked a peek at the end before finishing.
It was that Intense!

The only issue I had was with the narrator. She did an okay job, but her lack of clear diction when it came to certain letter pronunciaTion annoyed the heck out of me.
Any words like curtain, smitten, where T,s were used, she dropped them, sliding the word into more like, cur-in, cer-in instead of curtain or certain, like the letter T was either silent or a mere suggestion.
Overall a good enough performance, but annoying ununciTion

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Kept me til the End

Story
Good start and first act. but the "intensity" slows as the story goes on. A little predictable but entertaining to say the least. Anyone can be a killer and random chance could mean, you locked in a basement of a killer

Performance
Needed a little more excitement. Very one toned. but still melancholy enough for the character Chyna

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Boring

The author is very wordy and there is really no “Intensity” to this book. Put me to sleep a couple of times.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Middling Koontz Offering

This book starts with a tension-filled (harrowing, really) scenario where a young woman hides from a psychopathic killer as he goes room to room slaughtering a family. She ends up secreted in his corpse-filled motorhome when he escapes the scene, witnesses more murders, and discovers that he is holding a teenaged abductee in a basement dungeon somewhere. The book is written with Koontz's signature mastery of creepiness, gut-punch visceral description, and guy-at-the-end-of-the-bar realistic dialogue. I was captivated and eagerly wondering where the author was taking this story.
Unfortunately, when 'Chyna Shepard' eventually escapes, instead of calling Law Enforcement (as any semi-intelligent real-world person would do in a similar situation), the heroine obtains a gun, steals a car, and stalks the killer up & down the State of California. The book becomes so ludicrous that setting aside logic sufficiently to enjoy the tale became nearly impossible. Attempts to rationalize Chyna's decisions by fashioning a jawdroppingly dysfunctional upbringing fall flat. Her mom was awful. So What?
(Don't even get me started on the Magical Elk plot resolution).

Brilliance Audio contributes to deficiencies by casting Frankie Corzo to read the book, too. Corzo is undoubtedly professional (exhibiting creditable diction, timbre, and voice-acting, for example) - but displays something of a monotone and a fairly disinterested mien. There was some improvement with setting playback speed at 1.25X, but another reader could have done more with this project than the distinctly "average" Corzo.

I rate this recording of 'Intensity' 7.5 stars out of 10. As a 'Plus' selection, it's a serviceable Suspense-Thriller.. but it isn't one of Koontz's better efforts. Spend your Credit on something else should they ask for one.

[NOTE: The climactic escape while fighting a pack of trained Dobermans is choreographed brilliantly]

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  • VGold
  • 2019-08-22

Narration painfully bad

Between the ‘valley girl’ accent ... “Ki-enn” for kitten and the non-pronunciation of T’s in general, to the astounding number of mispronounced words; I am at a loss as to how this person is employed as a narrator. Only my love and loyalty to Dean Koontz kept me hanging in there

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56 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Tamara Nielson
  • 2018-08-04

Maybe not the best narrator

The narrator has some speech quirks that are distracting. One example is that she doesn’t pronounce the letter “t” if it is in the second syllable of a word. So the word “mittens” becomes “mi-ens”. It doesn’t ruin the experience but it is quite noticeable throughout the book.

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33 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Shelly Farber
  • 2018-10-17

Great story poorly narrated

I read this book several years ago and couldn't put it down. The writing moved the story along in such a way that atmosphere it created was intense and I literally felt exhausted after I finished. This was in no way shape or form the way it was narrated, thereby making an exceptional read a disappointing listen.

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28 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Brandy Rea
  • 2019-02-05

book is awesome... reader lacked excitement

loved the book, reader lacked excitement and animation... male reader was way better when I listened to this years ago

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19 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • AmazonAddict-Joe
  • 2018-10-24

Way TOO Wordy!!!

Holy cow... the story may be half way good but the ‘over description’ of EVERYTHING made the story sooo much longer than it needed to be. It dragged and dragged because of the over dramatic excessive verbiage! Usually really like his books... disappointed!!

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19 people found this helpful

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  • Sharon Lovegrove
  • 2018-07-17

My favorite Dean Koontz book!

There was an earlier audible version with a male narrator that was a bit better. Otherwise well done!

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15 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Mimz
  • 2019-09-28

Great book...ok narration

Dean Koontz is one of my all time favorite authors. The story line of Intensity is very good and a typical Koontz nail biter. My biggest complaint about this audiobook version is that the narrator seems to keep a very monotone feel to the reading. Many other narrators make you feel like you are part of the book with their crescendo and diminuendos in the timber of their voice as they read the books but Frankie Corzo, at least in this book is very flat and I don’t feel like I’m seeing a movie in my mind.

Anyone that likes Koontz will enjoy this book, but I wouldn’t suggest this audio book.

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14 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • DiK
  • 2019-01-06

Just Ok

Story isn't bad, but the narration is poor. The reader sounds just like that; a reader rather than the main character of the story. I quit after five chapters due to boredom.

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11 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Stacey Dietter
  • 2018-11-30

Performance

The story was good and keeps you listening. I did not like the performance of the story. The reader was kind of flat and breathy. I would have expected a story named Intensity to have some intensity in the voice and feel, and it did not. There was no distinction between characters and no matter what was happening, the same flat breathy read. Also, there were several words the reader was unfamiliar with and she pronounced them incorrectly. You know what the words should be based upon the sentence, but it was a bit distracting. I will likely stay away from books with this reader in the future.

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11 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • David Chall
  • 2018-07-16

gave up after 3 hours, hated it

trying to listen to this book was like nails on a chalkboard. it was just hoorible and i could not listen any longer.

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10 people found this helpful