Anyone read it? I just finished it. What a wild ride that book was! I have to say that a lot of Stephen King's most recent writings have to me at least, fallen way short of his potential. You know he was hit by a car a couple of years back? Well he must have been laid up for quite a time because of that, and it shows with this book. He really gave his FULL attention on this one. At the back of the book, he writes that he wrote the book while recovering, and used a fountain pen to write the entire book (no quick shallow typing with this one), wrote by candlelight even once when the electric went out.

Now if ONLY he would write a continuance to his Gunslinger series, which, in my opinion, are one of his BEST of the BEST.!

You know, I have STILL never managed to get into the gunslinger ones. No patience I suppose.
I agree with you about King's recent offerings though, some were not really up to scratch. I liked Dreamcatcher, but before that the best he had churned out for a while was Insomnia - I thought there was some real tenderness in that story between the main characters.

Now I am trying to wade my way through Black House - co-written with Peter Straub as a sequel to The Talisman. Now I loved the Talisman, but I cannot get into this one at all - it is written from the point of view of a 2nd person observer in present tense - "you walk towards the man standing on the street corner, and as you near him..." blah blah blah. This makes it VERY difficult to feel any kind of empathy with the characters at any level, because it puts you as a bystander - in the story, but somehow separated from it - rather than a part of it or an observer which could be achieved by 1st or 3rd person narration. Very Odd, and doesn't work IMHO.

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: Epona ]</p>

Hi LadyWendy! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well I actually had a fallout with Stephen King, my favourite book was of course year of the werewolf?? Only had it in Swedish..

I also liked Talisman, but then the tears of the dragon?? (geesh, booktitles..) ((As you might see this is from a long time ago since I stopped reading swedish books at the age of nineteen.. :S )) I found his book a bit "booring" and overly building the horror with grossnes rather than with good language, settings and such. I like his language and use of words, and such but well, I never again found any books I really liked..

Is this perhaps a book to help me like Stephen King again??

(contains spoilers!)

I wasn't really into King anymore the last few years (read almost everything but a few when I was 14/15 years old), but a few months ago I re-started again, read Hearts of Atlantis and a few of his older novels I missed (Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, next on my list is The Stand), so as soon as I read the positive reviews of Dreamcatcher, I decided to pick up an American import copy (first time I've read one of his novels in English, and it struck me it was as easy to read through it as if it were in dutch. His style is not too complex, I mean. [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

And I loved it. [img]smile.gif[/img]
It was quite original, a different perspective and especially at the beginning the story developped rather quickly; while one could have suspected the entire novel would be about running away from the aliens after the first 100 pages, there was an interesting twist in the story, suddenly introducing a lot more characters and completely changing the focus on a pursuit.
And of course, grey aliens, ripley's and telekinesis is still "weird" and absolutely fictional, but King never got too wacky this time, he's written weirder stuff in his days (walking dentures and toad rains anyone? :D ), the story didn't get too unbelievable that it would ruin your reading experience.
Furthermore it had some truely classic moments like the scene with Beav, the alien in the toilet and the toothpicks - one of those scenes that could be as classic as the "here's Johnny!" scene in The Shining if it were made in a movie...
Speaking of movie conversions, I somehow doubt if a movie version of this novel could have as much impact as the novel itself did... Most of the scenes could be quite spectacular and classic, but for a large part, especially the Jonesy-sitting-in-a-room-in-his-mind scene could lose a lot credibility on the Big Screen... I really hope the {inevitable) movie made out of this novel is convincing enough, not as bad and laughable earlier made novel-to-movie conversions (Tommyknockers anyone? ugh).
We'll see. [img]smile.gif[/img]