Firestarter

Rating:
Summary: Magnifique
Review: Being far too impatient to wait quietly for Stephen King to write a new book, I've recently taken to collecting some of his older novels to read in the meantime. "Firestarter" is one of King's earlier works, but it shows none of the amateur qualities that often afflict the early novels of some writers.

The book tells the story of Charlie, an 8 year old girl who possesses the power of pyrokinesis, a result of experiments her parents took part in during their college years. This ability makes a sinister government outfit known only as "The Shop" particularly keen to get their hands on her, and they don't care how they go about it.

The book opens with Charlie and her father on the run from Shop agents through the streets of Manhattan. Through their desperate attempts to escape, we begin to see more of the mysterious powers Charlie and her father possess, right up to their inevitable capture. However, where the book really starts to bite is in the Shop's Virginia compound, where a disillusioned hitman starts to think that perhaps Charlie can teach him more about death than any of the hundreds of people he has dispatched during his "career".

Firestarter is a genuinely riveting book, one that will have you cheering out loud for Charlie and her dad, Andy, and that will have you fuming at the insensitivity, inhumanity and cynicism of the bureaucrats that run any federal government.

Rating:
Summary: Stays with me
Review: Well, hello, Mr. King! This is one of the few books he's written without sounding either completely nuts or like he just didn't care about what he was writing. King has created a real, live, fiery if you will, book that captures the reader.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. Little Charlie McGee is just your cute, cuddly, normal child-- except for the fact that she can create fire with her mind. Her father and mother were part of a drug testing experiment that gave them psychic powers-- Charlie was the result of their marriage. Now the government wants Charlie as a weapon of war, and they're prepared to say and do anything to get her back. King traces the present with stunning urgency, emphasizing again and again the hopelessness of the father and daughter's run against the government. He then traces the past with equal grace, weaving the story all around you to make sure you get it, but always dangling a loose end for you to while the night away trying to wrap up.

Leave it to King to take a topic most would scoff at (pyrokinesis) and transform it into a very real, and very haunting, book. The characters struggle and push and feel, and by the end you'll be feeling along with them. With King's warped mind and unique take on the lengths our government will go to, he is quite the storyteller-- it makes one wonder whether M. Night Shalaman took his cues from King.

Rating:
Summary: Firestarter by Stephen King
Review: Do you enjoy thrilling, horrifying, and exciting novels? I know I do because of a man with a mind that has no limits for creativity and horror, Stephen King. The catchy hardcover of a pair of eyes in a flame and the title, Firestarter, in huge bold letters caught my attention. From that very instant I knew I had to read this novel that had me under a spell already.
Firestarter starts out with Andy and Vicky McGee meeting each other at a drug testing job offer known as "The Shop". Andy and Vicky fall in love and end up having Charlie, which I think is a boy name but surprisingly Charlie is a girl. However as the story of this family goes on Charlie, only 8 years old, becomes aware that she posses extremely strong mysterious powers due to the combination of the drugs that both Andy and Vicky took. "The shop" turns into a secret Federal government that kills Vicky to try to get to Charlie. After every failure to capture Charlie, "The Shop" chase both Andy and Charlie isolating them from mankind taking them to the border of insanity. The fact that the drug agents make Charlie angry it also encourages her to release her powers against evil. Now the question throughout the novel is the following: "Is Charlie really evil or good?". To make things more exciting a hitman is introduced to become Charlie's friend. The Hitman begins to learn more about death than any of his killings he had throughout his career. The story has so many blasts and excitement its hard not to go into further details. I will leave it up to you to discover those details.
The novel has so much intensity that the author goes deeply into the mind of the main characters and puts the reader to the tip of their shoes cheering for Andy and Charlie. The book made me think that if such people existed with powerful powers such as pyrokinesis how would the world be today?

Rating:
Summary: probably my favorite king book
Review: Andy McGee is a character who, in my opinion, is one of the best King has ever come up with. Here is an ordinary man who got way over his head, pursued relentlessly by government agents because of his daughter's pyrokinesis, his ability to function, let alone look after his daughter, is awe inspiring. On his own, he might well have commited suicide, but charlie drives him to extremes to keep out of the hands of the government. This is a guy who will go to the wall and beyond for his daughter. The selfless determination to do what's right for another person is the quality that makes him such a memorable character. I've read Firestarter a few times, and the ending has still got emotional power. Read. This. Book. NOW!

P.S. And when you're finished, pick up a copy of The Bachman Books used (King took it out of print). Firestarter, Roadwork, and The Running Man are probably the strongest things Stephen King has ever written.

Rating:
Summary: As fast paced as a brushfire.
Review: Firestarter is a fast paced read. It is a story of desperate people on the run from the government told from the perspectives of an adult (Andy McGee) and a child (Charlie McGee).

I saw the movie awhile back, but the book goes into greater detail of character development, particularly the thought processes of the various characters.

I was pleasantly surprised that the original experiment (performed on Charlie's parents) was described at length. The experiment gone wrong and the subsequent cover-up was probably the scariest part of the book.

Firestarter feels more like a government conspiracy-techno thriller than a typical King horror novel, but somehow the formula still seems to work very well.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book For Anyone Who Enjoys Stephen King
Review: Firestarter was very fun to read. I loved to read about Andy and Charlie through their perils with The Shop. I think this book should be read by anyone who has read and enjoyed any other novels by Stephen King. Although it was a great book, it should not be read by anyone who is under the age of 13, nor should any of his other books, as they are difficult to understand, and often include violence. This book in particular included a few scences of violence, and again it should not be read by people under thye age of 13. I do not think this book is quite as good as his other books, such as The Shining, but it is still one of the best books I have ever read. Charlie's struggle with her powers were a great read, and should be enjoyed by people who have not read this book. Andy and his thoughts of what using his powers were going to do to him were interesting, and they made me want to read more and more about Charlie and Andy's desperate struggle. The whole entire story of Firestarter was a captivating experience. This book is a great example of Stephen King's work, and should be read by all people who have the chance to do so in their lifetime.

Rating:
Summary: Ugh
Review: Having read a couple of King novels, I bought a copy of Firestarter because I thought that it would be an exciting science fiction novel. Boy was I wrong. Overall, the book was slow and lacked much excitment.

The story is a girl who inherited pyrokinetic powers from both of her parents who participated in a pyschology experiment in college. After the government discovers the telekinetic powers of the family, they seek to capture them. Agents murder the mother but the father and daughter--Charlie--escape. There run from the government encompasses the first part of the book, which is somewhat interesting. The two use there talents to manuever themselves around the country. The finally reach a safe haven in a family cabin, and unfortunately the book sends too much time on there daily life at the cabin and the government spying on them. Somewhere in the middle there is an incident where a farmer befriends them and doesn't seem to mind that Charlie burned down their farm. Eventually, there are captured.

After the first hundred pages or so, the book really takes a turn towards the boring side. Charlie and her father spend the rest of the book trapped in a government prison. Here we meet the horrible character John Rainbird, a Native American assassin who has a "fancy" for shoes. Rainbird is probably one of the worst characters I have found in King's writings. King characterizes him as a person who enjoys killing others, even little Charlie. Frankly, this is just sickening. Rainbird isn't even an interesting or devishly likable character. Too much time is also spent characterizing Cap Hollister, another boring villian.

The chapters in which the characters are in prison are slower than a turtle crossing the street. There are entire chapters in which Charlie's father is characterized as getting fat and losing his ability and basically just sitting around and doing nothing. Other chapters further detail the disturbing character of Rainbird or Charlie's events in prison. Who cares? Where's the action?

The action does pick up near the end, but it is woven into some type of stupid plot twist to try to free Charlie from enternment. I won't tell you how the story ends, but I found it thoroughly disappointing...even more disappointing that the endings of most King novels.

Overall, Firestarter just moves too slowly to maintain interesting. Novels that were more than twice as many pages as Firestarter (The Stand, IT) moved much faster and were quite readable. Firestarter wasn't. It took me about four months to actually finish it because it was so boring. I wouldn't recommend it. Check out some other works by King instead.

Rating:
Summary: A poor representation of Stephen King's true abilities
Review: I've read many books by Stephen King including "The Stand", the first five of the "Dark Tower" series, "Thinner", "Misery", etc. All of them have left me speechless about how someone could weave a story from nothing, into something that left me craving for more. After my completion of Firestarter however, I was not wanting more, and in fact, I could've done with less. Many of Stephen King's novels are written in a sense that he had some sort of great inspiration, but sadly "Firestarter" seemed to lack inspiration of any sort. If you've read the story, you're well aware that it's about a little girl named Charlie that has the ability to create fires using only her mind... I hope this strikes you as weird, considering it's so basic compared to some of King's other wiritings, such as "The Stand" where he wrote 1000+ pages about an apocolyptic plague that overthrew the better part of the planet, it just strikes me as funny that King would even joke about writing about a mutant who really can't even be called a mutant, seeing is that she has every human charactaristic everyone else did, except the ability to light fires. The plot was was well written, I can give him that, but his development of the characters was something I cannot give him. The story starts off talking about Andy and Charlie, and throughout the entire book, you only learn a few things about them. Overall I think this book could've been written better. I'm giving it a three out of five because I think King was in a slump, and we all get into those time after time.

Rating:
Summary: A good King book
Review: I found Firestarter very touching.The way Andy protected Charlie for over a year.The story wasn't scary but it was exciting.This is one of King's best books.

Rating:
Summary: A Thriller With Bad Character Development
Review: As always Stephen King has thought up a great plot with great moments, then fowled it all up with bad characters. The book is an exciting novel with plenty of suspence that in itself earned all three stars. With frightening chapters full of mystery and suspence, and most importantly, plenty of Sci-fi fantasies common with King's books. As I have already said, what reallly brings the whole nolvel down are the charaters. Even the main one's seem unrealistic and the minor players in the story are as unrealistic as Middle Earth. Stephen King is a great story teller but lacks in beleivability of characters.Overall an okay story.3 stars