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The Tommyknockers

The Tommyknockers

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It is good but not great
Review: The Tommyknockers is best described as an interesting book about the unknown, specifically alien artefacts, but also happens to be a bit of a let down in certain departments, namely the conclusion and some plot development that goes a bit stray. The Tommyknockers is certainly his most original work and is a cross between "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Salem's Lot".

Basically a woman discovers a crashed UFO in the woods, digs it up, becomes hyper-intelligent and this "alien virus" spreads to others in the town who find themselves up to all sorts of good and bad things in very peculiar ways.

When all is said and done the characters are interesting and it has its moments as you would expect from this author, but ultimately it is a bit of a letdown and doesn't really finish quite like it started. King has done better but then again a lot of other authors have done worse. This is only really for the King lover. Go elsewhere if you want a good King book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Tops Desperation and Pet Semetary
Review: This book has turned out to be my favourite writing by Stephen King. It was simply amazing and had me sit and want to read on and on until it was finished.

A few things of interest that makes it shine. One, it is the funniest he's written. He intentionally makes you laugh with some jokes and you share in the laughter with the pessimistic ironic ideas of the characters. Two, the heroes are either very weak (Ev Hillman/Ruth McClausand) and are doomed from the start or are somewhat distasteful (Ben Gardener) but you have to go with them and by the end are cheering them on like no one before. Even people that appear to have no redeeming qualities at all become someone you want to high five (Anna Anderson). Three, the suspense is Hitchcockian, what you don't know or what you don't see makes you want to read on and on and on to discover the truth. Four, suspense is driven by King's hints of what is going to happen to a character even before it does as well as ending a chapter with a dramatic cliff hanger and then going off to another character for the next chapter. Fifth, the absolute horror of the shed is so disturbing that it was honestly one time a mental picture rather than a visual picture would make me jump. Six, the premise is not necessarily original but it is done no way I've seen before.

Read this book. You'll hate the characters you loved at first and love the characters you hated first. But all in all, the evil that is being fought in the book by the characters unites you behind them all! That alone makes a heck of a read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Tommyknockers knocking on my door...
Review: Compared to one of his later alien books (*ahem* Dream catcher *ahem*), this book is a masterpiece. Compared to other alien books, written by writers who specialize in it, it's prety standard.

But the aliens aren't the focus of the book - the relationships between the people, with the spaceship as an accelerator of issues that already exist under the surface. This is S. King's specialty, and he does it very well in this book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: it is boring....
Review: this is my first stephen king book and its a disappointment, the book length is too long and could be shortened by half, it's one of the few books that i cant seemed to finish(which is rare), its a very slow-paced story and utterly boring although the concept of the story is fresh and rather good and since i read this i have not read any other stephen king book

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A literary B movie
Review: The Tommyknockers is one of the books Stephen King wrote when he was coked up and running out of ideas. It rolls along like a freight train, packed with classic B-movie ideas like: a town turning into zombies, a hidden flying saucer, and a flawed hero trying to save everyone. By the end, everything is on fire and the hero is stumbling through the woods with most of his bones broken, running on adrenaline and fear.

It's a lot of fun. Stephen King dropped all pretense to being a serious writer when he wrote this little epic of trashy suspense. Sure, the inside of the flying saucer is a let-down --- and the fire-bug at the end is pointless --- but Stephen King really knows how to keep you turning the pages.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Grabs your attention and keeps it....
Review: I've always loved Stephen King's style of writing because he gets you a little bit used to the characters before he starts putting them into difficult situations. However, this particular piece is not his normal set up. He starts off with one of the main characters stumbling over a conflict right away, and he paints a broad vista of her (and other people's) characters as they encounter situations and you begin to see their human-ness. You keep reading not only because of the plot itself, but because you want to know more about this character or that one, and you want to identify with them. Although not one of King's characteristic works, definitely one of his good ones.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An Homage to so many genres! One of King's best!
Review: Okay, first things first: King has always been haunted (no pun inteneded, yea, right) by what Hollywood moguls do to his work on the screen. If you missed the mini-series of the same name, then count yourself fortunate. It truly bites the big hairy root. Having said that, I would like to point out that it is doubly sinister that such a terrible visual representation should be associated with such a rich masterpiece!! A genuinely new twist on the "flying saucer" sub-genre, this story also has many golden interludes that make it a must for fans of serious fiction.
Take for example the peek into the world of poetry readings. Who would of thought that that would have a place in a King novel! But look where it leads! The drunken argument between Gardener (the alchoholic, and slightly suicidal protagonist poet) and the rep from the local atomic energy outlet is priceless! ("Nobody ever died from radiation...") Not only is it informative, but it is charged with incredibly satisfying passion when he puts the rep in his place with the facts! Later on, we feel his frustration and angst at being treated as a manual labor mule in the excavation of the saucer. There's also a boy's first magic show that ends in tragedy (or does it?). There's the pricelessly subtle "love/not love" thing going on between Gard and Roberta, our other protagonist, the one who kicks everything off by stumbling over a piece of otherworldly metal sticking up a few inches out of the ground. How about the frustrated housewife who suspects her husband is having an affair, and wouldn't you know it, the plastic statue of Jesus on the TV starts talking to her and confirms her fears. King seems to have a dim veiw on the merits of telepathy, for he uses it to show the ultimate destruction of trust, not to mention humanity.
It is ironic that King, being the best selling fiction author of our time, is so often underrated as a writer. His use of metaphors and pathos ranks up there with Mark Twain and Harlan Ellison! This (along with IT and THE TALISMAN) is the book I always recommend to people I meet who haven't ever read a King Novel (yes, there are quite a few out there!)
As is 99 percent of the time, the book is much more satisfying than any movie. It is my humble opinion that people like King would be much more revered as overall artists if people would spend more time reading than watching movies.
Anyway, get this book! It is a roller-coaster ride of emotion, drama, tears and a few chills as well!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: what's wrong with you people?
Review: People who are panning this book, I must ask you, what is your problem? The main critique seems to be that the book has no direction. I assume that is because it shifts the focus from the main characters for a huge chunk in the middle, to focus on what's going on in town (the fictional villiage of Haven, ME). But I contend that this is where the book really takes off. I found this novel to be very satisfying, and so far I've read it twice. It's a unique science fiction story, with extremely interesting characters, plot twists, imaginitive situations, genuinely creepy scenes, and not a small amount of humor. I also thought the ending was pretty cool. I really don't understand the negative reviews. What were you people looking for? This one has it all.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: King's Worst Yet
Review: To start off I have read many of Stephen King's books and till this day none of them have ever ever let me down: The Shining, Carrie, It, Pet Semetaty, 'Salem's Lot, Bag of Bones, Dreamcatcher,Dead Zone, Green Mile, etc. I've read all of those and more. Never have I disliked a King novel until this one.

Unlike most people people I found the first 200-300 pages the most intriguing. After that I just felt like he was droning on, and I've never felt that with his writing. Even with "It", which was a full 1,080 pages long, I was never bored. Tommyknockers was boring.

A major problem I had was TOO many characters. IT was really hard to keep track of all of them. Also, I felt like he was keeping us in the "blue" about many things. I didn't like it. For instance, the people's "becoming". He kept referring to it, but for the longest time he doesn't tell us what in the world he means. Also, the green in the shed. He was keeping the reader hidden from things and it wasn't fun.

For the only time ever I felt as if Stephen King was really wordy. I mean, "It" is very long, but never ever really too wordy. It was always interesting. This time around King hiy a sour note. To sum this novel up...Don't waste your time with this nonsense, ever.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I Hate This Book
Review: I could go on to explain why I don't like this book and save you from having to read it, but I don't know where to begin. I loved Carrie, but this is a huge let down. I don't know why people think this is one of King's best works. My god this this is one of the worst books I have ever read in my life. On the plus side, the novel does start out nicely, but sadly it all goes downhill into a spiral of aliens and random; pointless events. The plot makes no sense when one closely examines it and that is what is the biggest let down. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.


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