Dreamcatcher

Rating:
Summary: I want a real Dreamcatcher!
Review: I liked it because the plot was really entertaining for an ardent science fiction reader like me.

In their childhood, Jonesy, Henry, Pete and Beaver rescued retarded Duddits from bully boys, and they are good friends since then. Toward their adulthood, they got separated again, and original four boys made it a habit to hunt together annually at Hole in the Wall.

At Hole in the Wall, they encountered a disaster to meet Aliens from space! For reasons unknown, their UFO made a crash-landing in the winter woods. UFO and their crews are relentlessly devastated by the primitive firearms of human military forces. All the problems were cleared away, so it seemed. In reality Aliens were executing more devastating plan and no one realized it except Jonesy!

Jonesyfs mind was assaulted by the last surviving Alien named Mr. Gray. Blocked by Jonesyfs exceptional mind power, Mr. Gray could not conquer Jonesyfs mind. Jonesy barricaded himself in the backyard of his mind. Henry somehow knew his friend Jonesy was living in his head in spite of bodily control of Mr. Gray. He chases Jonesy to save the world with the help of retarded Duddits, the Dreamcatcher.

Real battle was fought within the virtual world of the past. Their childhood experience decided the outcome of the battle. Really weird development of the battle was confusing, but it succeeded in attracting readers to the final stage of the fate of mankind!

Rating:
Summary: Dreamcatcher
Review: I was reccomended by a friend to read "Dreamcatcher". I had always known about Stephen King but never read one of his books. I can gladly say I was not disappointed. I can say I loved, I can say I liked it, then why do I give it four stars? It is confusing and childish at the times when the men were boys. Otherwise it was a beautifully crafted book filled with heart and horror. An interesting technique in this book is that it is written in third person but switches points of view from section to section, giving scenes depth that is not found in other books. I liked it but i would not reccomend it for a first time King reader. Try "The Shining", it is King at his finest with classic horror and genuine spookiness.

Rating:
Summary: Out of Sex Description
Review: I listened the CD version of this book. There are 20 CDs read by DeMunn! This is the longest story I've ever heard. I went through most of them on the road between Kansas City and St Louis. Though the reader may have to go back and forth in time with the development of the story, it's still manageble and will feel relaxed if heard from DeMunn, one of King's best storytelling, 'an actor of great skill and subtlety who knows that less is more especially when it comes to this book's ample blood, horror and ferocious little aliens'.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Don't read this book even if the first 200 pages catches your attention. The rest of the book is drawn out, lacking energy and originality. The theme of "alien among us" is done to the death and this book offers nothing that can't be seen in other similar stories. Total waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: great story thats dragged out a bit
Review: ultimately the story is about four friends from derry, maine all coping with growing up. there are a host of subplots including alien invasion and the extraordinary bond the four friends have with one down syndrome kid named douglas cavell (I DUDDITS)
the writing i think is top notch and the character development and interplay is excellent. the story is an interesting one. four friends who meet and save douglas cavell, a down sydrome kid, from the humiliation at the hands of a bully. from that moment on life is diferent for the kids. they can "read" each others thoughts. as they get older and life becomes more complicated they all battle their own demons.
then during a weekend trip to their old favorite place "the hole in the wall" intervenes fate via an alien infested older man named mccarthy. the strory from here gets very interesting. i liked it alot but felt that it dragged on a but far and too long in spots. the movie is good and i enjoyed reading the book a second time to see what the movie skipped over. there was a lot of details, as always with movies, that were left out. the comradarie around the friends and the relationships between all the friends and the aliens and our hero were top notch. i felt such a warmth and drawn into the circle with these men. the problem i had with this book is that there was so much going on and so many details and subplots that my mind became tired from reading after a short while. there was so much going on and so many subplots that the main story seemed to drag.

Rating:
Summary: Another great Stephen Kind book
Review: Finally....I found time to sit down and submerge myself in one of Stephen King's works and was immediately swept away. The way he shows the action and envelopes you in the story is what makes him one of the great all-time authors of today. Dreamcatcher is a great read that keeps you riveted to your seat, turning those pages to chase the characters as they fight for their lives and for humanity. You won't be disappointed. ...

Rating:
Summary: bloated entertainment for flatulence lovers . . .
Review: I tried. I did. I read 150 pages of this book before growing bored and vaguely repulsed. If you enjoy numerous bloated, over-inflated descriptions of bodily functions (stinky burps and farts), you'll love this book. The characters were dull and poorly defined (I kept mixing them up), the pace was glacial, and the plot dull. And I generally love Stephen King. I think he wrote this as therapy, as one of the characters was recovering from a near-fatal car accident. But it wasn't very entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: SSDD?? Read and decide.
Review: Four lifelong friends at their annual hunting trip in the deep woods of Maine. Middle aged, each is suffering some sort of difficulty. Mid-life crisis? I don't like the term, but I think that's what King was after here. Introduce an alien-possessed guy and you have all the elements of a classic King novel.
The concept of friendship is not a new one for King, he must have had great friends as a kid to be able to capture the essence of friendship that lasts a lifetime. But these 4 have a special bond, forged during their years of friendship with Duddits, their childhood friend with Down's Syndrome. They are telepathic with one another.
While there are plenty of people around in this isolated hunting territory, these 4 friends are best equipped to deal with the alien beings. The alien "capture" consists primarily of mind invasion, making this novel one more of psycho-thriller than bone-chiller.
So, what's wrong with this book? It's length? Hardly new for King. The flatulence? I fail to see how this is worse than boogers, amputations, melting skin, and other highlights of King thrillers. C'mon you guys, lighten up!
Stacked against other King novels, this was not my favorite. While it had all the elements of classic King, it moved a bit too slowly for me at times. In spite of the advance billing regarding the "brave thing" these men did as boys, it's significance isn't made clear until late in the book. The relationship with Duddits, while charming, also isn't clarified until late going. I spent a lot of time wondering how the dreamcatcher was involved in this whole thing.
But in the end, this novel is worthy of at least 3 stars. Take away all of his other books and examine it on it's own merits. The characters are believable, the friendship is sincere, their frailties and problems make them sympathetic. The storyline is creepy, you fear for these guys (although as much from the armed forces as the forces of evil), and there are several surprises. One thing King does better than most writers is develop several characters and story lines at once which merge together late in the book. This does not work if only one of them is interesting. It works for King and the complexity of it all exercises my brain enough to make it enjoyable.
I don't like it when I suspect a book is written with the movie already in mind. While it wasn't as in-your-face as other books I've read, I had to wonder if he was thinking about it while writing this.
All that being said, I still recommend this book. There's a lot to like. High expectations of anything King can make us critical. But on it's own, this is a good read.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad summer reading
Review: The most chilling aspect about this novel rests in author Stepen King's actual experience. After barely surviving a near death accident, King wrote this thriller as a form of therapy. When Jonesy's ( a main character)frightening experience as a result of a car accident, King truly grabs the reader with a extremely intimate and personal account of survivor fear.

The rest of the book is often derivitive (THE THING, King's own screenplay for THE LONESOME DEATH OF JODY VERRELL in CREEPSHOW, among other works)and overlong. However King's crisp sentence structure, expert ear for dialouge, vivid use of space, adroit plotting and descriptions combine to make for a pleasant way to pass the summer hours. A fine "by the pool" read.

Rating:
Summary: Not first-rate King
Review: This book is more sci-fi than horror, I think. There's a touch of King-esque gore, but this novel couldn't give a six-year-old a nightmare. The fearsome aspects were mostly psychological. Being locked inside your mind by an alien is scary enough, but it's a different kind of fright from his other work.

Instead of King's trademark chill, the reader is treated to little green (okay, gray) men, telepathy, spaceships, secret military operations, and a weird space disease which causes rancid flatulence. This is the stuff of science fiction! It's a distinct departure from his famous writing style, but a good read overall.

Hold on! A good read... But not for Stephen King!

After all these years, we've come to expect a great deal from King. This could be unfair. Everyone has flubs. Maybe even King can be granted a pardon. The readers who are really disappointed with this book are the ones who know King's work. Newcomers to King just see it as a book (and a pretty good one) and hold no preconceived expectations ("ooh, Stephen King wrote it and it'll scare my pants off").

There's a decent plot here, and strong characters. I think some of the characters could have been developed a bit more to enrich the story before King butchered them (there was some familiar King bloodshed in this scene), but that's just me. I loved their interaction in the flashbacks. The touching shared childhood of the five main characters makes the reader lament their unfortunate present circumstances.

The aspect of this book that kept me reading was the ingenious way King kept revealing tidbits. One of many examples: Josie is mentioned several chapters before he told her story. The reader wonders, "Who's Josie? What's the deal here?" and stays with the book. He does this in many instances. Maybe used this method in hopes that at least some of the readers would actually finish the book. It got really slow.

If you're thinking of reading this one, go ahead but make sure you've got a back-up book. It's fine, but try another King first.