Dreamcatcher

Rating:
Summary: Dreamcatcher
Review: I am not a King fan but found this a damn good read. Fast paced and gripping, I coudn't put it down once started. If you don't buy it, at the very least put it on your local library list.

Rating:
Summary: Been there, done that...
Review: I have been a huge Stephen King fan since I picked up a paperback version of Carrie around 1978. I own a copy of all the fiction he has written (most in hardback purchased the day it went on sale) - and some of the non-fiction. I have often said that I would like reading King even if he wrote the text on a cereal box. So this ain't yer typical King-bashing that has so annoyed me in the past when it came from others. Yes I know he was in a bad accident and it wasn't clear if he was ever going to write again, and if he did, there was speculation that he wouldn't be the same and so on.

So now there's this new book (that I advance-ordered from Amazon). Let's see... Haven't I seen the telepathic aliens theme explored before? Oh that's right - "The Tommyknockers". And isn't there something familiar about a tight-knit band of friends who shared an intense experience when children that shaped and influenced their adult lives and who must band together to stave off a really nasty alien? Oh yeah - "It".

But it's not only that. I don't particularly mind plot recycling. King is a master plotter and as I said earlier, in my opinion a truly great writer. But all great fiction, particularly science fiction (and that's what this is) depends on versimilitude and at least some shred of scientific accuracy for its integrity and believability. And here that's a problem, because the whole shebang depends on an alien symbiote being able to infect humans. Sheesh, most terrestrial pathogens are so host-specific that they can't even be spread from one species to another, even though all share a common genetic origiin. Ever heard of a cat catching measles from its owner?

So "Dreamcatcher" was pretty much a disappointment, at least for me. I guess it might be OK for hard core Stephen King fans, (and I am still one and will still rush out and buy the next one as soon as it's available), but if you haven't read anything by King yet, my advice is don't start with this one. It might prevent you from discovering some of the many truly wonderful works by this talented author (e.g., The Stand, The Talisman, The Shining).

Rating:
Summary: King Guts It Out
Review: When a pro athlete is hurt and plays through the pain, he (or she) has to rely on brute strength and raw talent to get through the game, and that seems to be what King did in the writing of DREAMCATCHER. He was in pain as a result of his near-fatal accident, and he even wrote the book in long hand. The result is a journey into King's heart of darkness, a claustrophobic trip in extremely close proximity with an intelligent alien virus. This is stripped-down King, relying on his natural story-telling skills and love of language. While not as polished as, say, BAG OF BONES, this novel is effective at what it attempts, and it is so crammed with raw horror that you get the feeling the whole thing is going to come apart at the seams and splatter you with...well, you get the picture. King guts it out, and the end product ain't pretty, but for King's fans, it's a trip to horror heaven--by way of cancerous hell. Even playing hurt, he turned out a winner, like the pro he is. Thank God we didn't lose him.

Rating:
Summary: A lot of fun
Review: I am halfway through reading this book. It is a fun read. I appreciate King's somewhat dark sense of humor, including his analogies to icons of American culture ...and the pacing is great. It pulls you right along. I couldn't wait to find out what strange thing would happen next.

Rating:
Summary: or maybe just 2 & 1/2
Review: I've been a King fan for years (through all the ups & downs)and although I found the book quite entertaining,(once you get started you just HAVE to know what comes next)I felt extremely let down at the end.All the build up & momemtum,only to be told at the end,no big deal,the Aliens are'nt really dangerous & would have died on their own!?!?! definitely a let down. I sometimes enjoy his intense attention to detail,but in this case,it seemed to go on & on taking forever to get to the point.If you like Mr.King,it's worth a read,but no need to rush

Rating:
Summary: Sigh, I really had my hopes up
Review: I love Stephen King. I have read most of his work and I was really looking forward to adding this one to the list. Sadly this book is probably one of the worst ones ive read. I have actually been a fan of King's newer novels, but this is the first one were I am able to see the deterioration of his work. There was not a single point in this novel that I cared about any character. The plot not only has huge wholes but delivers a surprise ending that not only makes no real sense, but is contradicted many times in the novel itself. Dont waste your money on this book in hardcover. If you must read it wait for it to come out in paper back.

Rating:
Summary: Wake up and smell the FRESH air
Review: I have not finished this book yet, so I can not give my full opinion of it yet. The reason I am writing this so early, is because I am sick and tired of hearing people complaining about King's newer works. I hear people tell me that King is a horror novelist, and that is why they don't read him, then I look at the reviews in this, and everyone wants only horror.

Though I have to admit that King's more recent works that are attempting to be scary are not as frightening as the older ones. But I will never complain, because I have found his more recent works to be much more meaningful than his older ones.

Again, I have not read all of the book, but everyone complains about the last two hundred pages being some sort of "chase scene". With a book of six hundred and twenty pages, is it really that bad?

All I want to say for now(and I will say more when I am finished) is that so far I love this book. And I hope that if you are upset about it not being as much of a horror story, you do not like any other books by any authors that are not horror, because if you do then you are being unfare to King's books, simply because you had made up your mind previously that it had to be a horror story.

Rating:
Summary: The end lets it down
Review: The publisher's synopsis of Dreamcatcher on the inside of the dust cover doesn't really tell you much about the book. Who or what is Duddits? What's going on with this McCarthy feller? It also doesn't sound like your average Stephen King novel. However, as we all know, you're pretty much guaranteed to enjoy anything King writes, so with anticipation, we start the book.

The basic plot is that a group of men, friends since junior school, are out hunting in the woods of Northern Maine. One of the group, Jonesy, is recovering from a car accident that left him with a broken hip, so he stays in a treehouse at camp, where he almost shoots a man stumbling into their cabin (he mistakes him for a deer). Seeing that the man has been wandering in the woods for days, Jonesy takes pity on him, invites him into "Hole in the Wall", feeds him and offers him his bed. Big mistake. The man is missing his canine teeth, muttering about lights in the sky and obviously has something very amiss inside him.

Thus begins "Dreamcatcher", and it's a very promising start to the book. We immediately begin to wonder where McCarthy has been, and what happened to him.

However, the book goes slightly downhill from here. The action jumps to the other half of the quartet, Henry & Pete, on their way back from the store. They narrowly avoid running over a woman sitting in the middle of the road (in the midst of a blizzard, no less), and so begins their own particular part of the nightmare.

However, where the story really begins to veer off course is with the introduction of the military, led by the starkly insane Kurtz. The book culminates in a chase scene that brings the characters from Maine to Boston, and lasts roughly a hundred pages too long. There were times when I was tempted to put the book down and read something else instead.

However, all this aside, "Dreamcatcher" is still a very enjoyable book. There are simply a few too many sub-plots, as well as veiled references to incidents in the friends' past. It's not a book you will read in two days flat without putting it down, but as something to read on a Sunday afternoon, it more than cuts the mustard.

Rating:
Summary: Did we all read the same book?
Review: I thought this was one of King's best books! I found the referenced to his accident funny and a little creepy. I could not put the book down and read it in 3 days!

Rating:
Summary: More than it seems
Review: This book is less accessable than many of Mr. King's works. Many of the reviewers have given up on reading it partway through. This is a mistake, as you begin to see the events which have unfolded in a very different light by the end of the book. While at its surface level the plot doesn't unfold as brilliantly in Mr. King's masterpieces, in its undercurrents it is more terrifying and poignant. After finishing it I decided I would never read it again, but I have found myself going back to reread the seminal sequences - this book is worth the exercise to read deeply, think, and feel what he is saying.

The characters of Duddits, Jonesy, and Henry are so rich that the fact the others are more shallow, or similar to characters in other King books didn't bother me at all.

Those reviewers who thought that childhood equals innocence and purity, or that the Duddits character is pure light, are missing a very important undercurrent. This book affected me deeply, partly because I have a son who is autistic and otherworldly, and it was impossible not to see him in the Duddits character, about whom there is more than there seems.

This is not a give-'em-what they want book, (one can tell by the number of unfavorable reviews), but it is a worthwhile, if emotionally exhausting journey.