Insomnia

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Summary: Insomnia: Twisting the boundaries between dream and reality
Review: Stephen King's novel Insomnia is a "colorful" and gripping tale that has readers wondering what will come next. Ralph Roberts and his lady friend go on slightly lengthy journey into the limits of reality to help save their town of Derry, Maine. During the spell of torturing insomnia, Ralph and his friend must deal with Purpose, life, death, and Random in order to bring sanity back into their crazy lives. Although a little slow in the beginning and end, this story will keep you turning pages and thanking Stephen King for his brilliance.

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Summary: The Dark Tower is in Here
Review: This is one of King's BEST "stories". The master story teller of our time is at his best here creating visible characters and worlds - the King pin at his best. Any fiction fan, and especially any King fan -like me - who doesn't love this book is loosing their edge. I've read the hard back and listened to the audio book 3 times. The audio veresion is super. For you Dark Tower series fans - like me - the Crimson King and company is here also. And, if i'm not mistaken, Jake is here too. I think he is perhaps the young artist saved by Ralph Roberts, he's drawing the tower and Roland. Sneaky, another King twist just like in Heart's in Atlantis and Black House.

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Summary: A good read that I couldn't put down.
Review: I really do not understand why so many people have given this book such negative reviews.

The main character is lovable and easy to identify with although part of the senior community, this story drew me and kept me turning the pages. The story has so many things to contiplate, growing old, abortion rights,woman's rights, and how we handle death.

For king fans it is easy to pick out refrences to some of his other works, especially the tie in to the Dark Tower series.

Unlike others I found this a quick read, often finding myself compelled to read just one more page, but unable to stop there.

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Summary: A different type of Stephen King novel
Review: I have seen a lot of reviews that have deeply criticized Insomnia. This book is definitely a moderately difficuly book, but nonetheless I love it. You must be very patient with it. This book is like a snowball going down a hill. It gets faster paced and more exciting as it goes on. The last 300 pages of this novel are probably the best last pages he has written, and that is saying a lot when I've read The Shining, The Stand, and most other popular King novels. This book really enables us to see what Mr. King is like. We can see his positions on many political issues such as abortion. The book is very touching and I think everyone cried when Ralph dies at the end. My favorite part is probably when they are in the lair of Atropos and Ralph is cutting poor Atropos in pieces. Another weird scene is when the Crimson King poses as Ralph's mother. If you can get by the first 300 pages this is a tremendous book. The first 300 pages were totally sparse of action, but I found it bearable because Stephen King does a great job of letting us see what it is like having just lost an important family member like a wife, and suffering Insomnia. This novel turns from a dull book to an extreme page turner at around page 400(soft cover) when Ralph and Lois go into the Derry Home hospital to see Jimmy Vandermeer and see for the second time the little bald doctors, Clotho and Lachesis. When the quartet went to the 'upper levels' so many of my questions were answered about why Ralph was suffering Insomnia and also I learned a great deal about the Dark Tower series. The only Dark Tower book I have read was The Gunslinger. Insomnia cleared up a lot for me. I will say this again, Insomnia is a great book ,but you must get by the first 300 or 400 pages first, then the action comes.

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Summary: One of Stephen Kings Best & Best Audio Book I have ever herd
Review: This is an overlooked gem. Stephen King has a great hero who is 75 years old and just does what needs to be done (truely greatest generation, I mean I wouldn't go under that tree!) . He hooks up this a woman as strong as him. I hope Stephen King never dies. This is also Eli Wallach doing the voices and man did he hit it out of the park with this one. Great music as well. 20 STARS! One of the best Books on Tape ever done.

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Summary: Hours of my life wasted on this...
Review: Crap, crap, crap, crap! I love King, but had to drag myself through this uninteresting story. I made myself finish it because I had faith Uncle Stevie (King that is) would reward the reader in the end. Boy was I wrong! Look to his earlier stuff for a good read, this book's a real nightmare! PS- Did I mention it's crap?!!

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Summary: Total waste of my life
Review: It must have taken me over a month to read this book and i read 90 percent of it and put it down and never finished it.Why? Because it sucked and it didnt go anywhere and i didnt care what happened to anybody in it. this is hands down the WORST book he ever wrote and everyone knows it. If you go in the store and pick up any Stephen King book you always see tons of great reviews on the front back and inside, this book does not have one good review written on it so that must mean something. After this book i pretty much gave up on King,I think i tried to read The Regulators and Desperation but they both were pretty uninteresting. so basically what Im saying is dont read this book.

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Summary: Don't be fooled by negative reviews
Review: Bottom line: this is a good story, plain and simple. It's not an outright horror novel. This is a story of characters and ideas. Yes, it is long and others have complained of this, but I found it to be a flowing read; even the so-called "slow" first 200 pages. I enjoyed Ralph Roberts and his friends and was captivated by his predicament.
Insomnia is a wonderful book to read if you're a King fan or not, but...
This really is a Dark Tower story, one that just doesn't follow the principle characters. One of the main points in the DT series is that there are other worlds. Ralph's Derry, Maine happens to be one of them. The Crimson King is the antagonist of the Tower, while Roland is the "hero." His name and certain images are presented later on in the book and may seem odd to those who have not read the Dark Tower series. If you love the DT series, you have to read Insomnia and it is that much more enjoyable. If you haven't, pick up the Gunslinger and Drawing of the Three to test the waters. You'll definitely want to read the whole series.

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Summary: Not his best, but worth a look
Review: I say this book is worth a look, but it's not as simple as that. At almost 800 pages, this book kept me occupied for more than two weeks. While it kept me interested, it took so long to read that I felt like I could have read three other good books in the same time period. In my opinion, this book could have been trimmed to 400 pages and been no worse for the wear.

Despite these criticisms, the book was entertaining. Ralph Roberts begins experiencing "early waking" insomnia after the death of his wife. He later learns that his widowed friend Lois Chasse has the same problem. They begin to detect auras and see "long-timers", beings that exist on a different plane and live much longer lives than human "short timers". All of this spiritual enlightenment is set amid the backdrop of an abortion rights convention and the extreme reactions of Derry townsfolk on either side of the debate.

This novel explored interesting themes of fate--whether we should tamper with it, whether it really exists, whether we can change it, whether a force known as "the random" can interfere with it. It also explores the theme of death--whether there is a preordained date certain for each human, whether we can change the date certain and whether we should try, and what happens next. These themes were interesting and required the reader to do a little more heavy lifting than other King books I have read. Which is probably a good thing, but I still question whether King needed 800 pages to accomplish this goal.

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Summary: Steve, what happened?
Review: I've loved every single Stephen King book I've read - except for this one. It stinks! I can't understand what happened - how can such a talented writer produce such a bomb?

It's just *dull*. You'll just be waiting for it to end. If you have not read any King, do not choose this one. Anything else he has written is better.