Dreamcatcher

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't finish it
Review: I really, truly wanted to love this book. I have been reading Stephen King since the late '70s and always look forward to anything new by him. I could only get through 300 pages before I just had to give up. I reached the point where there were three Jonesys and then I realised it was time to throw in the towel. King is best when he does straight horror and Sci-fi is not my favourite genre, but this book was kind of muddled and kept jumping all over the place. I think that this story would have benefited by being 200 pages less and not delving so deeply into the whole psychological thing. Anyway, I will continue reading Mr. King's books, but just can't really recommend this one.

Rating:
Summary: Thud! Thud! Thud!
Review: Reading Stephen King is like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You turn the pages and you wait for the thud and when it comes you keep on turning those pages because you know this is no ordinary pair of shoes, this is a set of shoes for the multiped monster hiding under your bed, and you know another thud is coming, and another, and another.

In Dreamcatcher, King introduces four boyhood friends who once defied the secret code of adolescence by performing a noble deed. Henry, Jonesy, the Beav, and Pete have kept in touch as the decades marched them toward their forties. Each November they meet at Hole in Wall, a deer camp that once belonged to the Beav's dad.

In the year 2001--a jarring number that sounds too far in the future to be Now--they meet as usual, just four guys out for a good time in the woods with their hunting rifles and their beer and their haunted memories of a yellow line and their other friend, Duddits, a man trapped forever in childhood. This will be their last hunting trip, though, because the aliens have landed and they're wreaking unspeakable havoc in the Maine woods, where animals flee first from the strangeness that has crashed into their quiet world and then from the governmental agents of damage control.

King weaves together past and present, childhood and adulthood, exploring the threads that bind us to our old friends, and our old selves, as he creates a world at once eerie and familiar, gross and engrossing, day bright and nightmare dark. The thuds just keep on coming...

Rating:
Summary: Welcome Back Mr. King!!
Review: Stephen King is back and better than ever with Dreamcatcher. Not only does he re-enter the world of horror like only he can do, he's also woven several mysteries into this incredible new novel. And, there's NOTHING like Mr. King's humor - subtle, but always, always there. I shuddered at the description of Jonsey's accident - obviously a throw back to the author's near brush with death, and all the little clues only avid King fans will recongise are strewn through. I can't begin to say how happy I am that he's back!

Rating:
Summary: back to the old KING
Review: i think this was typical KING before Bag of Bones. the story is eerie, though I will admit a little slow in places but by the middle of the book it really books.I was getting used to the newer KING but I'm pleased with this new book and I think any true STEPHEN KING fan will be too.

Rating:
Summary: The King is back!
Review: I've been a Stephen King ever since I read "Carrie" in hardcover back in the '70s. All of his fiction has interested me, even those of his works that I found not up to what I expected from him. After his accident, I was worried that his writing would be affected, but "Dreamcatcher" put those worries to rest. The book is enjoyable in the way only a King book can be: interesting, frightening, and a good peek into the human condition. How he can get inside the mind of aliens and madmen always amazes me! Of course, this book suffers from some of King's normal faults; it's overwritten, and a lot of it could have been edited out without damaging the story one bit. So what? It's not great literature, but it's entertaining, and that's what I want from Mr. King, to be entertained. He delivers that in a big way, and I look forward to many more years, and many more books, from him.

Rating:
Summary: Who moved my cheese?
Review: No, but seriously, Stephen is the King of cheese-moving. He moves more cheese than a rat in a Winnebago, know what I'm saying?

Rating:
Summary: VROOM VROOM...sputter
Review: Like many of the reviewers here, I'm a diehard, longtime King reader. He's been my favorite author since I bought the HC of Cujo when it first hit the shelves, and last year marked my 20th year as an avid fan. I just think he's a great storyteller, and love his writing style, especially his characterization.

The first book I actually had trouble finishing was Gerald's Game. After that, a few more came, and I was starting to worry King had finally burned himself out. Then the Green Mile restored my faith. Since then, there's fortunately been enough titles that I've really enjoyed interspersed with the ones I read once and put away with the rest of my collection, gathering dust. Unfortunately, of the latter titles happens to be Insomnia, and that's the King book Dreamcatcher reminded me of most strongly.

I am sorry to say that Dreamcatcher falls into the "never pick it up again" category. I really didn't think it was going to. All the excerpts I read online were wonderful, and I was starting to get attached to some of the characters already and couldn't wait to read more about them. I was pretty sure this was going to be one of his better ones. I didn't have high expectations, but I did expect the rest of the novel to be in the same ballpark as the excerpts I read.

At first everything was going great-I was getting into the plot, I couldn't wait to see what happened next, and hoping nothing bad happened to the characters I liked. There were a couple of points where I got a little confused, but no big deal. A couple of plot-lines that involved events in the character's past started, and I was interested to know what happened to the characters as kids. The narrative jumped around just a tiny bit, but I knew it would be explained later.

Then I finished part 1 (about 150 pages in, I think). Part 2 started and it wasn't quite as enjoyable, but I gave it a chance. Fortunately other readers have commented that the narrative was confusing, so I don't feel so stupid, but I started having to page back and see if I'd missed something, or get the male characters straight. IT jumped around a lot too, and while I agree IT was uneven and bordering on sloppy in a few spots, it's one of my favorites. 3/4 of the way through, I wondered if he had to rush this book out because of a deadline, because it seemed like he was desperately slapping together the plotline as he went along. I know King has said with many novels that as he was writing, he didn't know what was going to happen next, and the book almost wrote itself. I have no problem with this when the prose is well-written and I'm drawn into the characters-some of the books he's said this about were among my favorites. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work so well this time.

There were scenes in the character's past that seemed to play a big factor on the events that were eluded to, but on a couple of him, he never went back and fleshed it out. I also wondered if he'd handed in a rough draft, and since this was his first fiction since his accident, his editors didn't want to discourage him so they kept their usual feedback to themselves and figured it was better to put out the book, flaws and all, quickly and not give any suggestions to improve the book. I also get the sneaking suspicion someone in charge said, "what the hell, it's Stephen King and his first novel since his accident so it'll sell like crazy no matter what's between the covers". It just seemed to need polishing up, and I kept wondering if King just submitted the first draft the second after he finished it without even a re-read, and that's what was published.

I'm running out of room, so I might as well sum up with what I liked about the book and what I didn't.

What didn't work for me-

-the character of Duddits and his mother started out great, but I ended up feeling manipulated and feeling like Dean Koontz (who I also enjoy, but when I want to read Koontz I'll pick up one of his books) stepped in to write a section, and didn't try very hard.

-there's a strong theme of childhood and memories of past, but the novel didn't flash back long enough for it to work, and it felt incomplete. Several times I found myself paging back, wondering if I missed something. Nope.

- what seemed like recycled material from IT and Tommyknockers, which is fine if it works, but it didn't ring true to me

-too much of the plot being all over the place, too many places at once kind of at random

-the whole 'Mr. Gray' thing along with the character of Kurtz- just didn't hold my interest and bordered, I felt, on self-indulgent

-now that I think of it, almost everything after the first "act".

What did:

-characters I cared about (though not as much as usual with King)

-the "in-jokes" about Derry that first time readers won't catch

-the flashback scene to the first encounter with Duddits

-the you-know-what weasels

-almost all of Part One.

So, if I had the put every King novel I read in order of my favorite to least favorite, this wouldn't be at the very bottom (Insomnia would be there along with Rose Madder and Gerald's Game and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon). But it would be in the bottom 10. I didn't rate this above 2 stars because I know King can do so much better.If you're a hardcore King fan like I am, obviously you'll pick it up like all his others if you haven't already. But I would advise not paying full cover price, and keeping your expectations low.. Unless for some reason you loved Insomnia, in which case you'll probably have more fun with this book than I did. I understand that there's bound to be some misfires with a writer as prolific as King, so I chalk Dreamcatcher up as one. Fortunately, I know there's gonna King books somewhere in the future that I love and become some of my favorites. This just isn't one of them. Oh well...

Rating:
Summary: typical King
Review: I was a big fan of king up till the shining and since then he's just another get paid by the word hack.I got the loan of this book from a friend and spotted every single old idea of his that he's recycled hundreds of times over....The man just isn't scary and he's oh sooooo predictable. "HP Lovecraft". your mantle of the best horror writer this century remains unclaimed.

Rating:
Summary: Boring!!!!!!
Review: I have been a Stephen King fan for years and loved his earlier books. This one is a disaster. I kept trying to read it but finally gave up. I think he has lost his ability to write great books such as The Stand, Carrie, Pet Sematary, Salem's Lot and other earlier books. Luckily I got this book as part of an introductory offer for membership in a book club. I'm glad I didn't spend much money on it.

Rating:
Summary: To put it nicely....
Review: This book really stunk. It almost seems like he forgot to send the manuscript to the editor. Surely the editor wouldn't have let him ramble on and on about snow, and trees, and oh-my-god the smell and sound of the bodily functions of these "people". I vowed that I would never again rush to the store to buy one of his books because they have been so diappointing, but I did this time because it was tauted as "a return to horror". I now once again vow to NEVER rush out to buy his books. The used bookstore will have plenty of his stinkers for 50 cents in the future.