ONE STEP FROM DEATH

The Weekly Standard doesn't review much mass-market genre fiction, figuring such books manage to find readers all by themselves. But you may want to check out Dean R. Koontz's latest. Koontz is the bestselling author of such black thrillers and horror stories as "The Servants of Twilight," "Darkfall," and "Phantoms"--to say nothing of "Ticktock," "Icebound," "Dark Rivers of the Heart," "Sole Survivor," and nearly 80 other books.

His new thriller, "One Door Away from Heaven" (Bantam, 608 pp., $26.95), interweaves two plots: one in which a woman tries to save a crippled girl from being euthanized by her wicked stepfather, and another in which an odd boy is hunted across America by both the FBI and a gang of murderers. Along the way, Koontz denounces bad medicine, assisted suicide, and believers in extraterrestrials. But it was the author's note that caught our eye:

"Utilitarian bioethics as portrayed in 'One Door Away from Heaven' is unfortunately not a figment of my imagination, but a real threat to you and to everyone you love. This philosophy embodies the antihuman essence of fascism, expresses the contempt for individuals' freedom and for the disabled and the frail that has in the past marked every form of totalitarianism. One day our great universities will be required to redeem themselves from the shame of having honored and promulgated ethicists who would excuse and facilitate the killing of the disabled, the weak, and the elderly."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves--and Koontz goes on to pay tribute to Wesley J. Smith, a frequent writer for The Weekly Standard:

"As I was finishing this novel, Encounter Books published a nonfiction work offering the best survey of utilitarian bioethics written for a general audience that I have yet seen. If, for your own protection and for the sake of those you love, you want to know more about the subject than I've covered herein, I highly recommend 'Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America' by Wesley J. Smith. You will find it more hair-raising than any novel you've ever read."

We should mention that Wesley Smith is also the author of a new book, cowritten with Eric M. Chevlen, an Ohio physician specializing in pain relief who has written for our pages as well. Called "Power Over Pain: How to Get the Pain Control You Need" (ITFEAS, 235 pp., $12.95), it's mostly a consumer's guide for patients who are seeking effective pain medication from their doctors, with chapters on the origins of pain, the differences between acute and chronic pain, the effectiveness and side effects of morphine and other drugs, and the failure of physicians to treat pain correctly. But Chevlen and Smith also use the occasion to attack the current medical protocols that would rather control pain by helping patients die than by prescribing pain-relief medicine. We don't expect the book to sell quite as well as Koontz's "One Door Away from Heaven," which reached number three on the New York Times bestseller list. But for patients threatened by the latest trends in bioethics, "Power Over Pain" fills an important gap.
Val:Y