Dreamcatcher

Rating:
Summary: Bottom of King's barrel
Review: Maybe, if I'd not be a big Stephen King-fan, I'd say 'Dreamcatcher' is a average novel, good entertainment, whatever. But unfortunately I'm not and so I have the heavy task for the first time ever not praising a King-novel. And even this is an understatement. I can not only not praise it, I also have to say how bad it is. Having read every King-book I have to say, even if there were some not-so-good ones, there never was a bad one. Never.

But there is 'Dreamcatcher' now (in german it's called for no real reason 'Duddits') and my disappointment about this book started after reading about 100 pages.

The story: four since-childhood-friends are on their yearly hunting trip. There discover a confused hunter, who is sick. They find out the forest their in is contamined and the military is guarding it. So they have to look for help by their old, retarted friend, Duddits.

If this sounds a bit confusing then because it is. These summary is only superficial. Let's see, we have four childhood friends who have to face they grew old, a retarted friend, telepathy, military, aliens, a lot of farting and even more clichés. If this sounds too much for one book, then because it definitely is.

King never really was the master of clichés, but here he shows that he can put one after another. The retarted friend is the real genius, the military colonel is pure evil, the aliens are either flesheating aliens or mind-telepathists.

The book in a whole is unbelievable from beginning to the end. It's also really annoying. How much do you want to read about people who fart more and more until they die very unpleasant? For me, one sentence was enough, but it lasted till the very end. The book is also unnecessary brutal and violent. It's not a somehow necessary violence as in earlier books, but seems just to be there for the effect.

The evil General Kurtz (yes, Kurtz) only wants to kill, prays a lot and doesn't like sex. Duddits, the retarted, is funny and everyone just loves him and besides that he's brilliant. Government betrays us, aliens are evil as always and the past never lets you go.

I rarely saw such unnecessary flashbacks. There are so many hints to the past that I really wondered: why? When the stories are told finally, you never know why they should be important.

The book is a poor mixture of It, Tommyknockers, any Alien-monster-story, any Alien-mindpeople-story and Rain Man.

It's hard to summarize the problem of the book. It's very confused and full of clichés and sometimes boring. Even the usual references to other books seem faked.

King writes in the end, that he wrote the book after his heavy accident. I have the poor hope, that this is not only the reason for the quality of this book, but maybe he'll write a better one now. His last good book was 'Hearts in Atlantis' and before that 'The Green Mile' (and of course the Dark Tower). But there also was the unecessary 'Tom Gordon', the flat 'Storm of the Century', the money-maker 'On Writing', the bad 'Insomnia'-copy 'Bag of Bones' and now 'Dreamcatcher. At first I thought I like his books less, because I grew older. But now I think it's him. It's really a pity.

Rating:
Summary: Dreamcatcher [UNABRIDGED]
Review: While not the WORST King has written, I hardly think that any comparison to "The Stand" is in order. Some interesting aspects, but not as good as many.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. King, have you no shame?
Review: Just curious, but, am I the only person who was offended by the repeated advertising in this book? There are at least five references to specific products such as a semi-popular bottled water, Napa or some such thing.

Why do we need to be subjected to advertising while reading a Stephen King novel? Is he so financially strapped that he has to do that crap?

I'm disappointed not only in how King took a storyline that is more than a cliche, wrote a bad book, but also had the gall to make us read ads throughout it as well.

It is sad to see King use the same formula that he has used a number of times before, big threat to human existence, some gifted person or persons who may or may not be able to overcome the threat, one of whom is extra special, then, lo and behold, the world is saved. Does he use the same outline for these stories now?

What do YOU think?

Rating:
Summary: PLEASURE AND PAIN
Review: While Dreamcatcher itself is not confusing, I am nevertheless bewildered by what Mr.King may have been trying to achieve here.

On the one hand this is the story of Jonesy, Pete, Duddits, Beaver and Henry. Five boys, now men, who were brought together after a degrading incident in which Duddits, who suffers from Down Syndrome, is ridiculed by a group of bullies. Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of horror stories, you can't help but get intrigued by these characters enough that you feel compelled to read on, just to see how their lives turn out.

On the other hand is the story of: aliens who look humanoid, but are actually spore carriers which are intent on taking over the world, or not. A bunch of crazed military personnel who don't think twice about committing genocide on their own fellow citizens. A one-dimensional psychopath who is entrusted to obliterate an entire forest's animal and human population, but who is intent on revenge. And the internal fight by one of the main characters who by the end of the tale may have only been suffering from a delusional case of split personality disorder!

If this had been written as two distinct novellas I would have devoured the first story, and fed the second on to one of the space weasels. As an interconnected novel it was a pure case of pleasure, tempered by pain.

Rating:
Summary: King's take on Alien Abductions= a great yarn
Review: I'm not a devotee of Stephen King. I don't pick up everything he writes. I generally approach things on a book by book basis. The allien attack plot of Dream Catcher grabbed my attention so I picked it up. I'm glad I did. Dream Catcher is over 600 pages. SO it's quite a long read but it's worth it. The alien scenes are handled with a very dreamy,ethereal, and bizare quality that worked. Also King puts a disturbing and creepy take on burp and fart jokes in the book. But for me the real strength of Dream Catcher is the characters and their realtionships. King as he is so good at doing details the child hood experiences of the four main characters and how they saved a retarded child from bullys and became his friend. The scenes involving Duddits are incredibly touching. Dream Catcher is one of the Better Stephen King books I have read. It's worth the time. And the last two hundred pages fly. Due to a long and exciting chase and a slam-bang climax.

Rating:
Summary: I have mixed emotions
Review: This is the first Stephen King title I've read in a few years. While I've always enjoyed his writing, I think I became "stuffed." It was like eating "grandma's" cooking...it's really quite good, but when she insists you take a third helping, you just don't have an appetite left!

That being said, enough time had passed that I was hungry for King again, and was looking forward to a dish of the master's work. My food analogy is important; as a word of warning: DO NOT EAT while reading this book!

It takes an awful lot to gross me out. Typically, I find myself amused when writers provide detailed descriptions of someone's intestinal distress. "Dreamcatcher" just about crossed that line. (And for many others, I'm sure it's WAY over!) I won't admit to screaming "GROSS!!! GROSS!!!! GROSS!!!!!" out loud, but I sure wondered how this was going to be received at the MegaPlex when it is (certainly and eventually) adapted to the silver screen.

The gross-factor does tone down a bit before the novel is half over, and I did enjoy it overall. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed some of his previous work.

Rating:
Summary: King's worst one yet!
Review: Being a big fan of Stephen King, and having read nearly everything he's ever published, I picked up Dreamcatcher on the day it hit the bookstores. At almost 600 pages it looked to be good value for my money, but I'm warning every King fan who's contemplating buying this book: it's the worst one he's ever written. Take a heavy dose of Tommyknockers, add in a little It mixed with second-rate science fiction (that's trying to be a mix between Alien and Close Encounters of the Third Kind but fails miserably) and you have a very tired-feeling Stephen King novel. If you've read any of the above-mentioned books (or seen any of the films), don't buy this book. And if you haven't, don't do it anyway. Read The girl who loved Tom Gordon or Pet Sematary instead.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed overall...spoiled by his great ones
Review: The gore, the language and the extremely confusing story made this a true disappointment for me after this exciting wait. I could not wait to get it and then really had to convince myself to even finish. I did read it to the bitter end hoping for a string to be pulled to make it all worthwhile. Alas! No string. Just a disturbing story that did not make it worthy to recommend in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: He'd have been better off finishing the e-book "The Plant."
Review: I had thought my only criticisms of King were that his prose is a little flat, though he creates one hell of a fun read. I've found even some of his sloppier sprawling work such as It and Tommyknockers to be compulsively enjoyable page turners. I've been a fan since I was in high school nearly fifteen years ago, sometimes turning away for more highbrow writers like Robertson Davies, but always returning for the sheer joy and fun I find in King's work. Not this time. The Dreamcatcher was bloated, the plot plodded like a disjointed thorazine hangover, the characters were not memorable and not even particularly likeable. Worst of all it was just plain boring. I found I didn't care about any of the people in the book, and this is the first time I've felt that way about ANY Stephen King book. My distaste for this book certainly isn't me "out growing" Stephen King as a friend suggested. I just read the six installments of King's "The Plant" that he had posted on his website recently, and it is everything the Dreamcatcher is not: Fresh, energetic, original, funny, creepy, stylish, and filled with characters that have burned themselves into my memory. Wait for the paperback. In the meantime, download "The Plant," and pray Dreamcatcher isn't an omen for the "Talisman's" sequel this fall, which I'm anticipating very, very much.

Rating:
Summary: Another Monster Book
Review: Over the last year or so, I've read "Bag of Bones", "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" and "Hearts in Atlantis". I saw a review - can't remember where - that said "Dreamcatcher" was kind of "It" meets "The Tommyknockers", so I went back: read "It" again (still not a great book, too long, too messy, too much of a dip in the middle), read "The Tommyknockers" for the first time (a complete mess but, in retrospect, sort of interesting, actually).

As with every recent Stephen King, everything starts off well. The first maybe 100 pages rocks along at a cracking pace. As long as you don't quite know what to expect (even though, of course, you know exactly what to expect), everything is good. Everything is fine. Stephen King is very good at suggesting the outline of something unsettling in the dark. The problems begin when he takes out his torch and shines it directly into the space you were busy filling with horrible things. As soon as you know what is actually hiding there, the tension (admirably created by the opening of this book, and the opening of "Bag of Bones", and the opening of "Hearts in Atlantis") evaporates.

The problem - the main problem - with Stephen King's novels (and "Dreamcatcher" in particular) is that nothing is ever enough. You take a central premise - a stranger disturbs a hunting party up in the woods - and add UFOs, grey aliens, parasites that grow in your intestines and eat their way out, insane government men, telepathy, bacteria that travels on the air like pollen, Russian suicides and disabled psychics among other things (and I do mean amongst other things - I'm chipping the "Dreamcatcher" iceberg here). Nothing is ever enough.

The full story (centred, I suppose, albeit haphazardly, around the four men that make up the hunting party) skips back to when the adults were kids themselves (in much the same way that "It" does). Which means that - with all the skipping back and forth between characters and epochs - you have something resembling a trip to Tralfalmadore with Kilgore Trout (without Vonnegut's knack for keeping complexity simple).

All of which (I was going to say) makes for an experience closer to Ed Wood or William Castle than (and here is my problem: who is genuinely scary? who figures at the other end of the scale? The only half scary book I've chanced across recently was Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves" but you can't hold that up as a comparison. Or can you? The thing is, importantly, Danielewski takes risks and Stephen King does not . . . So maybe it's that. Ed Wood and William Castle on one side and risk on the other.)

Years ago, Stephen King said (re - "Pet Sematery") that he wrote about what frightened him. I don't think that is true any longer. I don't think Stephen King is scared of aliens from space or bacteria that produce parasites in your belly. Which makes "Dreamcatcher" a sort of hollow unworthy experience, typical of every recent Stephen King novel you could care to mention.