Rating: 
Summary: Too much work
Review: The story line was pretty good -- aliens crash-landing on earth and spreading a deadly disease. However, trying to follow the story as it weaves through all the telepathic messages, flashbacks and mental gymnastics of the characters is just too much work to be enjoyable. The book could have been 350 pages instead of 900 and would have been much more enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Exhilerating!
Review: I read the book once and read it again.
I think it's absolutly marvelous!
Rating: 
Summary: BORING BOOK
Review: I have in the past enjoyed King's books however, the Dreamcatcher
jumped around to much, in fact in places it just rambled on as if
King just wanted to fill up the pages with words. I read the first
400 pages hoping it would get better, it did not. Graham Masterton
is still the best.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books I've read in a long time!
Review: I read this entire book during a recent bout with the flu. I've always enjoyed Stephen King's books though there have been a few I haven't liked as much in the past but all of his books are entertaining. This book is one of those I couldn't put down and couldn't stop reading until the last page. Its a very involving story about four friends who go on a hunting trip only to find more than they bargained for when a stranger stumbled into camp. Its a sci fi book that has a lot of heart and feeling. Its sad, its funny and it never disappointed me.This is a book that a reader of simple stories might find too involving. It jumps around from character to character and it also jumps back in time. The characters are all very well-drawn and real. The four friends are people you really care about when you read this and you feel sad when a character is killed. I don't want to spoil the plot too much so I will just say that I found King's aliens to be a very good interpretation. A little different than the usual fare. The interweaving of the past and the present was very well done. The last hundred pages is very suspenseful, leading you to the conclusion and a shocking revelation. All in all, it was a brilliant piece of work. I think it was one of his best.
Rating:
Summary: A Parable for the 21st Century
Review: First off, I will admit to being an unashamedly loyal Stephen King fan. In my humble opinon, even the most medicore of King still makes for entertaining and enjoyable reading. The best of King is downright awesome. That being said, I was amused by some of the negative reviews of this book. Some feel that only die-hard King fans would enjoy it. I strongly disagree. I am most definitely not a sci-fi fan, and began reading Dreamcatcher with that in mind. But this is so much more than your typical alien-invades-earth-tries-to-take-over genre. This story is, in fact, a complex and mind-bending hero's journey epic. Knowing that King wrote this book while recuperating from his almost fatal accident could explain the deeply probing questions raised in the story. King himself was probably asking himself the very same questions. What does it really mean to be human? Is our humanity a good thing or a burden we must carry? It's true that the story takes some getting used to. It jumps back and forth in time, moving from character to character. The reader needs to become familiar with each character and their role in the story. Four childhood friends, bound together by an act of courage as young boys, find themselves once again bound together as adults in the face of the potential end of life on earth as they knew it. In this book, King has created one of the most incredible and deep characters in recent literature - Douglas (aka Duddits) Clavel, a simple boy with Down's Syndrome, who becomes a pivotal presence, the glue that holds everything together. The story is, to be sure, so complex that at times the reader can become somewhat confused. But I found that, for the most part, that confusion did not detract from the story, and, even if some parts didn't make total sense, I simply moved on and was able to pick up keep going. All the characters, good and bad, are brilliantly developed. There is no doubt that this story is more cerebral than some of King's other novels, and for that reason, will not be for everyone. I started it with the assumption that it would probably not be one of my King favorites, but in the final analysis, I discovered that it was. I suspect that most readers will either love it or hate it. The reviews tend to uphold that theory. It was for me, a deeply satisfying experience.
Rating:
Summary: Dreamcatcher Ho-Hum
Review: This is just one more of Stephen King's recent ramblings. It probably has a good plot, but the constant use of "shock-words" and vulgarities detracts from a good story. It is way too wordy and could have been written as a novelette such as "Thinner". All indications are that this may be my last Stephen King purchase.
Rating:
Summary: BRAVO......Absolutely Wonderful!!
Review: This book is the absolute best. It totally draws you in! King paints a picture of exactly what the Derry boys are going through in only a way that King can. This was money well spent....if you are a fan of Stephen King you will not be disappointed. Take heed though....don't start it if you have to get up and go to work the next day because you can't put it down!
Rating:
Summary: Dreamcatcher abounds with horror!
Review: This is not a tale for the squeamish. Stephen King is back, binging us this sci-fi/horror tale of an alien invasion. Of course, there is more than that. Much, much more.
Four teenagers--Beaver, Pete, Jonesy, Henry--were walking home from school one day when they saw a Downs Syndrome kid being picked on by older kids. The four intervened, and became fast friends with the boy. His name was Duddits. The boys didn't know it at the time, but Duddits was changing them, allowing them to..."walk the line."
The boys developed psycic abilities. Nothing extrordinary, but certainly something you'd want to write home about. Well, the boys became men, and they began to lose contact with Duddits, but not with each other.
Every November they get together in the Maine woods to hunt. This year, however, something bad happens. A strange man appears in the woods, farting and burping uncontrolably. He smells unnatural. And he thinks its four days previous.
For four days he's been wandering around in the Maine woods? He says he's from miles away--though he doesn't know it. How can this be?
This is only the start of the horror, as the men realize that humans are no longer the only intelligent life on earth. Something has landed, something that is dying, that wants to sread itself so its species can live. Someting that needs the human body to incubate its young. Something that can control the human mind.
Throw in an insane Military colonel bent on controlling the spread of the aliens, and you have a top-notch thriller, complete with biting humor, grusome blood and guts scenes, and enough tension to last you the rest of your life. Keep guessing until the very end, because with Stephen King, there is know way to predict what will happen...
Rating: 
Summary: The Not So Grand Finale
Review: Avoid unless desperate for a Kingfix. This novel blows a gasket in the final "act." Up until that point, I was hooked, especially after two hundred odd pages of a gripping chase sequence. But the long heralded return of the Duddits character, while moving, is also a major let down. King is one hell of a yarn spinner and sustains interest throughout, but tale's end is an abrupt fizzle, downgrading this into a routine X-FILES pastiche. DREAMCATCHER does not continue King's winning streak begun with BAG OF BONES and then THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON. No worries, he's sure to get back into the groove in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Not the old Steve, but still remarkable.
Review: I just got done reading DreamCatcher. It was excellent. Dreamcatcher is about life and it's meaning, about governmental conspiracy and constitutional betrayal, about friendship, and about the continuing battle with our foes from outer space. Stephen King has mastered his skill of character development. I related to some of his main characters, while others, I've actually met--even the psychopaths. Incredible. You would think the guy would have ran out of ideas by now, but his use of symbolism hasn't spoiled. Yes, DreamCatcher has much symbolism that makes the story complex and hard to understand off hand, which some might find distasteful, but it is genuine and profound nonetheless. The symbolism, in fact, is the basis of this thought provocative story. Readers who prefer original King might find the story a struggle, but you can still see him here and there. There are a lot of wonderfully made visual effects in this story, that are quite gory and painful. And the way some parts were written was far from anything John Irving. This book contains a ton of profanity, makes lewd remarks, and explains how boy children loose their innocence rather rapidly. This story would most certainly make upscale morality freaks cringe...unless their curious and want to explore a little. I hear a lot of people complain that this story is just a re-make of his book TommyKnockers. It is not. It's a continuation, almost, in the same way Insomnia is a subdivision to his Dark Tower series. All his books, in fact, are linked in one way or another, and that's more a attribute than it is a flaw, because it makes all his stories into a single entity, and that shows good character with a lot of game. Thank you.
|
