Dreamcatcher

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Summary: Dreamcatcher
Review: Alright, i liked this book because it had a lot of action and the plot twisted and turned quite a bit. There was some pretty explicit gore and just plain nasty stuff but if you can get past that then i would suggest this book to anyone looking for a good thriller.

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Summary: dreamcatcher review
Review: Dreamcatcher is a story of five men who have grown up together, pete, henrey, beav, jonsey and duddits. The four (besides duddits) have gone on a yearly hunting trip to main for the past 25 years. However this year a stranger comes into camp. Along with him comes military quarrantine, ANG, and undescribable forces inside their heads. These forces allow telepathy and other powers. Will the three remining men be able to stop the infection of the northeasts main water source? Read this book and find out for yourself and then tell your friends.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent. Thrilling. A puzzle until the ending is revealed.
Review: When four friends save a mentally retarded boy, they knew their lives had changed. But not like this. An amazing and thrilling adventure that will leave you shivering under your covers for hours. Please read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Borrowed Material
Review: The more I read public reviews, the more I realize how little business some people have in reading a book in the first place. Before I even begin my analysis, allow me to warn anybody who was around in the seventies and eighties and is perhaps expecting a rehash of Cujo or Firestarter--this isn't it. This book is not bare gore and tension, as many people continue to expect King's writing to be. If you want that, you won't get it here.

That said, for anybody still considering the book, I'm really not sure what my recommendation would be. Honestly, when I look at the writing and the story, I can see very little originality in it. Just for fun, I tried to construct a list of all the things that were taken from previous books, and I couldn't come up with one instance that didn't show up somewhere else. If you're experienced with King, think of this as something of a combination of It and Tommyknockers, with Tom Cullen tagging along just to keep things interesting.

Of course, I should also say that this book is done better than any of those which it borrows concepts from. While some might call it bloated (I hate to tell you, but if six hundred and change pages is bloat, somebody needs to cut Robert Jordan's hand off), it is considerably leaner than its closest companion in the King library, It, which helps an awful lot. Doubtless the fact that the manuscript was written in longhand helped in that regard. The characters and the situation turns out to be very similar to what you'd find in Tommyknockers, but unlike the fellows in that clanger, these ones are actually likeable at least some of the time. Though the elements may be borrowed, the overall product is far superior to any of Stephen's previous "horror" stories.

All of the usual caveats come with this book, of course. The characters are fairly two dimensional (although I must admit that Henry is one of the better rounded characters I've encountered in a King novel), you'll encounter more brand names in a night of reading than you would watching television, and the story itself carries a lot of ornamentation that takes up space (mostly about the protagonists' pasts). It would also be wise to note that this book does, at several points, deal with situations that King chooses to analogize with the image of dynamite going off in a person's corn chute. You can imagine, then, that this story sits a little on the offensive side of the fence, which means that if you're expecting something like Hearts in Atlantis, you'd probably better keep looking. I also have some issues with the plotting of the story, since I believe that King plays a rather poor trick in his attempt to resolve the story that is more confusing than entertaining.

For all of its shortcomings, I have to penalize this book at least a star, but I still recommend it to anybody who's got a few afternoons to spend and isn't offended by a little explosive anal imagery. While it is not his best book by a long shot, this is probably Stephen King's best horror novel, and certainly the one which best exploits his talents as an author.

Rating:
Summary: Read it!
Review: This is defintely a book that is worth reading rather than watching the movie. Stephen King as always weaves his words so well that the images your imagination conjures up will far exceed anything that can be done on-screen. Another page turner by Stephen King.

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Summary: Don't know how anybody can give this 4 or 5 stars
Review: Honestly speaking I thought this was just BAD!!! I've read reviews about how wonderful the story and characters were. I just didn't see it. I thought if you've read this King book, you've read all other King books. All the characters are rehash of his other books, the story was very corny and unbeleivable. I know that with any fiction (and movie for that matter) there has to be a "suspension of disbelief" in order to enjoy the story. I can do that with stories but this one was just too hard to do. The problems of suspending disbelief:

-How can a 4x4 rollover on it's side doing about 30mph in deep snow and mud cresting a hill when the woman hunter is sitting in the road? All you have to do is let go of the gas and the thing will stop in a few feet.
-Why were they so creeped out and covered with sweat when the lost hunter was in the bathroom and wasn't answering? What was so creepy about a lost hunter with missing front teeth and rancid farts? Come on!
-Do you really think the military guys plays "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Stones when they go in hot and heavy on an alien massacre? Just a little too corny for me. I could just picture the Special Ops playing that song or some rap song in their helicopter gun ships as they rescue Jessica Lynch in Iraq. I DON'T THINK SO! They are too professional and have to have full concentration on the task at hand to be listening to some rock song as background music!!!! Just not realistic.
-The general coming into the scene as described gave me the impression of a John Wayne movie doing a General MacArthur impression. Again - corny!
-Duddits - Can you spell moon? M-O-O-N spells moon. Rehash character from his earlier book "The Stand". Nothing original.

I could go on and on but I think I made my point. I struggled to finish the book but I was determined to do so and when I did the first thing I did was throw it away.

Rating:
Summary: Great book... I mean eBook
Review: It is a very good book, I was stuck to it from page (screen) 1. Although it can get complicated at times King does a great job of handling the many different times, spaces and characters in the story.
I also want to praise the eBook version for Palm OS. I never had a problem reading it. It was great to always have the book with me without the extra weight. I encourage everyone who uses a Palm OS device to take it to the next level and read an ebook, it is GREAT!

-VBP

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, riviting and endearing...a good read!
Review: Although this may not be Stephen King's best work to date the Dreamcatcher is certainly an embodiment of fine storytelling from a master storyteller.

It is a riviting and at times fast paced story of four childhood friends; Jonsey, Henry, Beave and Pete who re-unite for their traditional hunting trip in the woods of Northern Maine.

King uses flashbacks into the past to introduced Dudits, a forever man-child with extraordinary powers of the psyche to see "Beyond the Line". He is the victim of childhood bullies when the four first meet him as children. They become his heros and conversly, he becomes theirs.

While at the hunting lodge they come face to face with men and women who are not at all what they appear to be.

They encounter bowel born, blood thirsty creatures and experience extremly high tuned paranormal events which ultimatly determines their individual destinies.

A master of complex and convoluted story telling, King doesn't fail us here. Each of the four has to find a way to survive this very surreal situation.

In the mean time aliens are landing throughout the snowpacked woods. The military has been ordered to go in and take care of "the problem" while one of the worst snow storms to hit the North East is falling from the sky like machine gun pellets. Much like the ones in the hands of the wrong solders.

The forces being brought into handle "the problem" are darker and more devious then what they have encountered so far. We are given a wide angle view of the darkness and evil that can lurk within the human soul.

King weaves the story like a complicated braid from past to present and back again as he takes the reader on this very convoluted and, throughout most of the book, exciting, horrifying and heartrendering journey.

It's an enveloping and endearing story with an even tempo. There are times when a good editor would have taken control and cast out some of the long and confusing dialogue throughout the book. It can be a page turner yet there are places where skipping pages is a real temptation just to get to a place where it doesn't take your head and squeeze it so hard. That should be reserved for text books. Not for readers of fiction.

Yet how much of this is truly fiction?

The ability to "see beyond the line", to be able to see and hear anothers' thoughts is what ultimatly brings everyone closer to what they may perceive as a "Creator" or Universal Mind with the ensuing forces of good and evil.

King has again brought into play his recurring theme of good and evil in the Dreamcatcher.

The four's love of Dudits and ultimate dedication along with the need of his guidaence and help, is clear and a very compelling part of the story. Dudits is a truly loveable character and touches the hearts of the readers. At least this reader!

It is only through Dudits ability to see "beyond", to see inside the minds and hearts of others is there any hope for survival and hence healing.

I highly recommend this book for dedicated and "Constant" readers. For newbee's it's a great book and an engulfing story but another book, like the Stand might be a better introduction into the mind and possible motives of Stephen King.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Book but not the Best
Review: Dreamcatcher was a good book but there were a few things i didnt like aboutit.I didnt like how Stephen King sometimes wrote like he was talking to himself.Sometimes i got so mixed up with it especially when he kept switching between past and present and what was happening at the Hole in the Wall and Duddits....Onthe upside it was a good book with lifelike characters and a really scary plot. It was one of Stephen Kings better books.

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Summary: A love-hate relationship
Review: DREAMCATCHER was my first Stephen King novel. Probably not a good choice for an introduction to this immensely prolific and gifted novelist. I loved and hated this book. I loved that I was compelled by the creative story line to race to the end of 800+ pages to find out what happens. However, I hated that I found the story difficult to follow at times because of the Jonesy/Mr. Gray combined entity. I loved the fact that the plot was a tale of the relationship between five very close friends. However, I hated that these relationships weren't more deeply developed and shared. I loved that this book actually evoked very real visceral reactions in me. However, I hated feeling nauseous during some of the descriptions of the byrum and the human response to the alien mind control. I would dread that I was going to feel nauseous, but I had to pick up the book again. Talk about mind control. This is a book that you hate to love and love to hate. Mr. King is every bit the powerful writer that he is noted to be. Read it, but beware! - Robert John Estko, the author of EVIL, BE GONE.