Rating: 
Summary: Better Than the Books it Rips Off
Review: At first glace, Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher" is an amalgam of "It" and "The Tommyknockers." A group of friends who fought evil in childhood (It) must band together to ward off invading, mind-controlling aliens (Tommyknockers). Neither of those books are King's best work, and neither is Dreamcatcher - but it manages to one-up most of King's old works. It's amazing how much his style has matured here, and the reader can tell what King admits to in his afterward: Dreamcatcher was written on a slower pace, by hand, with an inkpen, in notebooks. No typewriter, no computer. Take that, John Grisham.The story follows four hunting buddies: Beaver, Pete, Jonesy, and Henry. When they were young, they prevented a Down's syndrome child from a beating at the hands of the local football star, and in doing so, they managed to form a bond that goes beyond normal human understanding and friendship. Now, they are in the woods and an alien ship a quarter of a mile wide has crashed. To make matters worse, another hunter shows up disoriented, farting and burping ethyl alcohol and suffering from a bad case of alien trichinosis. When his body erupts and a worm starts attacking the friends, things get bad. When a crazed government agent named Kurtz (a nice reference to "Heart of Darkness") shows up, things get worse. King has crafted a tale that, while not original, warrants more praise than It or Tommyknockers. The prose isn't on the same level as "Bag of Bones," and the story isn't as sweeping as "The Stand," but Dreamcatcher is a fine page-turner, and one fans of King will no doubt enjoy. His ability to create believable characters with realistic histories is where King truly shines, and he doesn't fail to please in Dreamcatcher. It seems he's become obsessed with telepathy and psychic powers lately, although he manages that topic far better in this book than he did in his recent miniseries, Rose Red. He doesn't pretend to be writing snotty literature, and that's what makes King's books so enjoyable - they aren't self-conscious. For alien invasion, pseudo-horror, psychological page-turners, you can do worse than Dreamcatcher. Grade: B
Rating: 
Summary: The horror within
Review: King shows us once again that horror is not necesarily something lurking out there stalking us. Real horror comes from our own minds and hearts. Although the novel contains UFOs and aliens, the most creepy things are among the characters way long before any unusual event ever happened. Four kids grown up to adulthood, true friendship catalyzed by a fifth retarded kid; a hunting gathering at the woods; munching parasites; lights in the sky; all this mixes to come up with a page-turner book.
Rating: 
Summary: King at his not so greatest.
Review: This book is certainly not one of King's best. It has most of the elements that make a Stephen King book great but it is lacking something. Being over 600 pages long doesn't help the matter. The plot is where the major problem lies. I'm still trying to decide if this book was about a retarded boy with magical powers, space aliens, or four friends who could 'see the line'. King tries to tie everything in this book together with the 'dreamcatcher' and it just doesn't jive(for me anyway). The idea of the dreamcatcher isn't very clear and seems almost thrown in as an afterthought(or for a cool title). Dreamcatcher does contain entertaining reading and it will pull you in at certain points. King is a genius at shocking and making you laugh, even in this book. However, there are times when it feels like a chore to read. This isn't a horrible book, it's just extremely mediocre. It may be that I've become spoiled by all of Stephen King's wonderful novels. If this book was written by another author I may have given it another star but I must grade King by his own standards which are very high.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of his best
Review: I am a big Stephen King fan. I love his ability to describe in such detail that you can picture every scene. This book was no different. I appreciate how he weaves his other books and ideas in some books. This one directly mentioned events from IT. He even mentioned Pennywise the clown. It was long and it really didn't add to the plot. I couldn't stop once I started, but I've enjoyed many of his other works much better. While it wasn't my favorite, it wasn't my LEAST favorite. If you are a Stephen King fan, you'll enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Combination of Other King Books
Review: Dreamcatcher is an alien invasion thriller. King, being a good writer, adds in other elements, and (of course) makes reference to happenings in other books--there is graffiti saying "Pennywise Lives" at one point in the book for the "It" fans. Dreamcatcher tells the story of four friends who, as pre-teens/early teens, saved a Down's Syndrome kid, Duddits, from an attack by bullies. The friends remained in touch over the years, but lost touch with Duddits as they grew up. All four are now suffering from various adult maladies such as depression, loneliness, and alcoholism. The four go hunting together and get caught by a blizzard and by invading aliens. They are also trapped in by psychotic army/government agents hunting the aliens and quarantining the area. The friends' are thrust into the role of protecting themselves, others in the quarantine, fighting off the aliens and saving the rest of the world. All of this makes for great pageturning, as you could only expect from King. The book combines horror themes from several of King's earlier works in an enjoyable manner. The alien takeover of human bodies is very similar to the story King told in The Tommyknockers. The actions of the government are much like the government's actions in Firestarter or The Stand. The flashbacks between what the four friends did as kids and what they did today is similar to any number of King books, but perhaps closest to It in that they saved other children, with the exception that, unlike in almost all of King's other books, the kids were children in the late 70s rather than the 50s. Finally, much of the action involves people alone with their thoughts, with a monster, or at most with one companion. Thus, King is able to indulge in a lot of stream of consciousness, interior monologue writing. King is always a master of writing about people dealing with their own interior demons while trying to fend off outside monsters like in The Shining. He does it well here too. My most major quibble is that King's characters always ring truest when they are average Americans, writers, or, of course, psychotics, the people King writes about best. His character development is not as good when his main characters are a psychiatrist and a history professor, as is the case here All that said, I think that King's masterpiece of supernatural horror/thriller writing was "It" (unless you count the re-editing of "The Stand" as a new book). King clearly has moved on to other genres in his full-length novels, concentrating on fantasy in his Dark Tower series, human melodramas in books like Dolores Claiborne, The Green Mile, etc. I believe that both he and his loyal readers feel nostalgic for his supernatural horror books, and this book was, hopefully, fun for him to write and fun for us to read for nostalgia. For new readers or readers who have read King books from other genres only, I would suggest reading some of his horror classics such as The Shining, Carrie, The Stand, It, etc. before reading this book. If you like all of those, you will like this one as well.
Rating:
Summary: Invasion of the Intestine Weasels
Review: The reunion of four old friends from Derry, Maine, is ruined when two of them are in a road accident caused by an oblivious woman pedestrian. The woman harbors an alien fungus, that mutates in the body into a dangerous life-form, something like a razor-toothed weasel. Before too long, the thing erupts from her body and goes on a killing spree. But that is only the beginning of troubles: the isolated cabin in the woods where the friends planned to reunite is surrounded by a military cordon, publicly denying local UFO activity while secretly rounding-up into camps all infected humans. This book contains some of King's best characters and writing, and is quite well-plotted. It has a major underlying flaw, which is the handling of the aliens. King isn't consistent, or terribly coherent, in explaining the extraterrestrial threat. He also employs a telepathic plot device that becomes terribly confusing to follow, though with a little effort the reader can overcome it. It is also - like virtually all of King's fiction - far longer than it really wants to be, suffering from a great deal of unnecessary padding, though it has less redundancy than many of the author's other works. In brief: a typically good King read, short on logic or coherence but very strong on character and plot.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent !
Review: It isn't the very best, but definitely one of his best.
Story keeps you enthralled, a real page-turner ;)
Rating:
Summary: Only a true fan can finish this book
Review: This book is NOT one of S.K.'s best. He is still a master writer, however the flashbacks every five pages got a little annoying. As always the characters lept off the page, but the plot is left seriously wanting. Don't read this book unless you have major patience and time to kill.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad
Review: Once the dreamcatcher caught my attention it didn't let me go. A little slow at first but as soon as McCarty appears it gears up to speed. Anyway I think it will be difficult to turn it into a good film as most of the plot goes on within the minds of the characters.
Rating: 
Summary: dont waste your time
Review: I have read almost all of stephen kings books and of all that i have read this is by far the worst. I could go on and on about how bad it was and why but trust me it is a wast of time. Dont bother.
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