Dreamcatcher

Rating:
Summary: A Blast From The Past
Review: I chose the title of this review specifically to reflect how I felt about the book. It is the first of King's books I have read in a long while that I haven't really struggled to finish, although it took a little while to get going. As some reviewers have noted, it is a return to his more horror orientated roots and I am not ashamed to say hoorah for that, just because it's horror doesn't mean it's not good, or doesn't have an underlying meaning. I'm fed up with readers who get all snooty and literary and regard horror writing as inferior, go read something else if that's your problem. Stephen King is a horror writer, like it or not.There are echo's of some of Kings previous works for sure, but most of his books have some recognisable traits about them. At least, unlike Hearts in Atlantis, it had a beginning a middle and an end that were all related.If you enjoyed Tommyknockers and Christine more than Dolores Clairbone and Geralds game, you should enjoy this one, for me a return to form, but you can't please all the people...

Rating:
Summary: From a die-hard King fan
Review: As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, I was at first concerned about how King would portray "Duddits", but found I didn't have to worry. Even tho his terminology is not "politically correct", he is anything but derogatory about the condition and his character.
Overall I found this book a good read. Typical King all the way. A little wordy at times, and definitely gross in parts, but any true King fan knows to expect that!

Rating:
Summary: The King is falling
Review: Any other author would have earned an easy three, maybe four stars. But not one with the talent and history of Stephen King. You'd find yourself unable to care for the characters as the story slowly unfolds, as little care went into their development. Other elements of the plot -- such as the alien invasion and the government cover-up -- are all too familiar. And even the distinct voice and style of Mr. King fail to render them interesting.

The ending is by no means shocking or spectacular, but rather a bundle of dreams mixed with reality and parapshycology that is held together by a very fragile and uninteresting climax.

It is perhaps an irony that this novel is very similar to the dreamcatcher apparatus that was described in it: a frame of fragile plot elements held together by an even weaker story.

I guess that for an author who has given many great works to the horror genre in the past, great expectations from his ever-so-hungry readers can become a curse rather than a blessing.

Rating:
Summary: The timeless theme of overcoming evil full of poetic insight
Review: He did it again, or should I say "Duddits" again. That book was
awesome--especially toward the end. In the end part, he wrangles with many philosophical concepts, and portrays the self-doubts that sometimes are the only source of weakness. He was spot-on about the nature of evil and its power over you. Evil has no power over truth, because evil is lesser than truth. Fear, the fist of the devil, only has an impact if you do not have an ocean of truth to draw on for strength. Lies get their power only where we have failed to move toward and find greater truths--half-truths are the worst lies becausethey feel right, and get access to your heart (I have said this long before ever reading Stephens FINE book).

The great truths Stephen touches on in his books give them a timeless aspect that has a lot to do with their impact. If you have greater truth in your heart, only then can you be truly free--the evil that comes to enslave you with half-truths evaporates like a disintegrating vampire burning away in the quiet, powerful light of day. The sun leaves at night, but what we learn by day gives us fire and electricity in the darkest night. We must see that there is a greater truth we can learn which makes the sun within us, that center of meaning built by truth, as our eternal sun. There is the light that never goes out, and the sun itself pales in comparison like a picture
pales in comparison to the real thing.

The universe is a learning machine for us to come into being. It ismother and school. Those who are not motivated to learn its
secrets--the secrets of time space and matter and all of its symbolic meaning, will not be. When a half truth is cherished, evil finds a pumping heart to spread its destruction like cancer. When a man soars to that place in the universe of truth, the well of meaning and source of being, nothing is barred to him. He is a child of the universe, and the vast, complex universe is not an overwhelming thing. The universe was made for him, and is a part of his own dreams.

The universe has that haunting familiarity of dreams which is beyond the specific things we see. Even the math and sciences of it, the history of it.The universe is coherent, and we discover that coherence in our language, history, art, math, astronomy, philosophy, and science. Evil is always a lesser thing. Evil and fear are the shell of our own egg which we make to test ourselves. I sometimes think we are born alone and want to feel what it is like to have fear, to grow, to face adversity. Challenges are opportunities for learning and growth. My fears, I have found, no matter how large or complex, never seem to stick. They come in, and I see that their only power was stolen from a higher place, a higher truth. God must have given me a special life and place to do this, maybe some mutation, I don't know. You and I are of the same universe, and this path is the one path of all life--toward truth.

Stephen Kings books to me are great symbolic allegories--interwoven with all the battles and demons life itself faces in the struggle towards being born into truth out of the darkness--my old friend(from the book). Truth is the life force, darkness the labyrinth, the parts of truth found in the labyrinth light the way like the stars at night to a ships captain. Truth is a dangerous game, a real labyrinth like the one in that Marines commercial with the fire and traps and monsters. If you stop you die just as if you never even tried. To me, labyrinths seem all-or-nothing affairs. To have a chance, you need to
learn and move. Imagination is more important than knowledge, because only there will you find the infinite possibility, the things that spring into being because they are needed or beautiful (same thing really). There is where you forge the great living mobile thing that becomes truth in its highest form. That becomes real, becomes reality.

Here's a free poem I just wrote:

The symbols around me dance and sway, the engine of truth has come to play. The mountains tell stories for those that would hear, the eyes see the sounds that God painted here. I have sympathy for the devil that uncomplete thing, but I do not answer when it gives me a ring. My carpet is magic and woven from steel, there are no threads to pull to make it unreal. Darkness is not something I ever would see, I carry a
sea of light, my soul, me.

But that is just words, don't get locked into the threads. The poetry of reality is where we really live and words can never truly see or capture the essence of that beautiful crystalline maelstrom of spacetime that has become our cathedral, our home... Symbols are not, and do not work exactly like, reality. They are our stairway to heaven, and their construction the acts of God. Meaning always comes from us. Words do not know anything. They are an echo of the unity that made them. Our hands do not know, but they do what we know. God is writing the poem of reality. Stephen King helps us all to see that.
THAT is the purpose of life, and God certainly loves the flattery
Stephen gives him in his works. The admiration of a father for his son, I'm sure. If you love something, you cannot hide that. It comes through. God called, and Stephen always picks up the phone... even when he is in great pain.

Pain is truly nothing--the winds blowing through an old mansion whose windows long since broke. Echoes from our past of vestigal limbs and the cycles of the body. Like any symbol, bodily pain is
information--powerfully compelling information. But compared to
reality as it truly is, it is part of the hum of the city and nothing more. Spiritual pain is the only real pain, and it is caused by lies, doubts, guilts, and fears. Stephen King helps to lift us from this old house of pain back into the future of light, truth, and glory. A dream catcher is a great symbol, a divine symbol even. I always liked those. Those who do not grow will die, because growth is moving toward God, toward greater personal and universal insight. You reach a point
eventually where this all begins to gain a momentum of its own and comes regardless of obstacles. You become an engine of truth yourself.

um, yes, I like his books. Especially this one.

Rating:
Summary: Intellectual depressant and insulting
Review: It took me a long time to finish this book...not just because of its paperweight size either. But because it was simply hard to get through. It was such a poorly characterized novel that I had to put the book down many times and just sigh at the amateurishness of it. This surprised me greatly since many of Mr. King's previous works were excellently done (It for example). But Dreamcatcher was poorly developed and insulting in many ways.

Most notably we never really get inside the characters heads (except for Jonesy and Mr. Gray). But we never understand motivation or come to care about any of these people. When they die (which many do), I just had to say, "yeah, he died. So what?"

I also think that Mr. King is running out of original ideas. He seems to be stealing his own works from the past and trying (in vain) to reinvent them. I saw a Twilight Zone mini-movie years ago in which Mr. King himself starred. He played a back-country hick who had a large meteor land in his backyard. When he touched it, he got this red-orange fungus on him that grew and grew and eventually took over his entire body before he killed himself. Sounds way too familiar to be mere coincidence. Also, if you've ever read or watched 'The Stand' you'll remember the lovable but retarded man that everyone likes ("M-O-O-N that spells moon.") and Mr. King seems to have tried to reinvent that character in Dreamcatcher as well in the form of another retarded but gifted man/boy named Duddits.

But of all the problems that I had with this book, my largest concern was the use of insulting biogtry. Although the comments that Mr. King used came from the mouths of characters, since these characters were so poorly developed it didn't seem natural and only sounded prejudicial. Although I must admit that he left no culuture, ethnic group, or religion out in the telling. He equally insults the Irish along with the African Americans and all the way up and down the social ladder. Disconcerting.

The story: Surrounds the lives of four friends who develop psychic abilities of varying degrees once they come into contact with Duddits, a mentally retarded boy whom they save from some bullies during their high-school years. Jump to the future and aliens have sent a blight to earth to take over and wipe out humanity. Jonesy, one of the four boys now grown into a man, is their Typhoid Mary, but he is also able to fight against the encroaching mind of Mr. Gray, a being who has taken over his body. This irks Mr. Gray but he continues on his task to try and infect as many humans as he can. The scenes jump back and forth between the Jonesy/Mr. Gray character, to the Military trying to cover up the exposure, to Duddits and the rest of Jonesy's friends (who mostly die in unattractive yet boring ways). Thanks to Duddit's powers, Jonesy is able to drive Mr. Gray from his body and help stop the infectious route toward humanity.

So why two stars? Easy. The book is plotted well, almost too well, and there are some interesting sections with comical quotes. But mostly this book is simply insulting and completely unappealing. Boring. That's my take.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth "Catching"
Review: Anything the guy writes appeals to me but this one just didn't seem to hold together. A lot of good ideas but none explored or exploited the way it could have been. Really a mish-mash in which King, himself, doesn't seem to know where the story is headed or why. Could have used a good editor, too.
Black House is, so far, much more enjoyable but gosh, do I miss the King-days of "The Shining", "Dead Zone", etc., etc.

Rating:
Summary: Quota Book
Review: I can read King's work all day long, he is a quick and enjoyable read, but this book had me thinking that it was written to fill a publisher's quota for 2001. The character's childhood friendships could have been developed more and I found the characters had no depth at all. I had to finish the book, but I felt like King forgot he already wrote "IT" and was trying to capture the same glory.

Rating:
Summary: What's with the featured reviewers?!
Review: I can't imagine who or why anyone would pick up a Stephen King novel and not expect quite a bit of gore. Also the man's tendency to include a lot of "bathroom" elements in his fiction is a recurring theme in his writing that has hardly been without precedent in his work, especially recently, and intestinal discomfort really does seem to be the kernel of this book. So it seems unfair to me to whine about it.
I didn't feel that this is a novel that could be ranked with his best, but I do think it was a diverting story and certainly worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Good novel ruined by too many words.
Review: Dreamcatcher, Stephen King's journey back to his horror roots, is the story of 4 childhood friends and alien invasion. Dreamcatcher is a trip back to King to what made him famous and well-loved. A novel of pure horror and adventure. This novel is not about psychological terror the many other new paths of horror that King has tried to write. This is novel of pure action and horror. A nice simple plot involving 4 childhood friends and aliens.
In this novel, King once again proves that he is the master of modern American writing. No one can write American venacular better than Stephen King (a Mark Twain of our time). This book reads like a conversation with an old friend. Never do you stumble on complex words or phrases. Each word he chooses is the correct word for the implied meaning.
However, that said, this book, although quite enjoyable, is 200 or 300 pages too long. The feelings of dread, ickiness, pure terror, and great friendship, are drowned in too may words. This novel would have been superb if only King could learn to write concisely. He needs to discover what is needed to say, not what he wants to say. Never in this book are wondering what characters are thinking at all times, he tells you. This book is worth reading, however, remember at times you are going to get bogged down by his incescent need to explain everything. King needs to harken back to his roots of HP Lovecraft and remember what did. Sometimes the scariest things that happen in writing is what is never written, just implied.

Rating:
Summary: Did Stephen King REALLY write this?
Review: I love King books. I do. I was even given the complete uncut version of The Stand as a Valentines Day gift. But this book was (and there's no nice way to say this) utter crap. It didn't even seem like a King book. Maybe some parts did but the writing style was very odd. I do NOT recommend it, not even for die-hard King fans like myself.