The Tommyknockers

Oct 22, 2012 Dustin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read

Prior to going into my second reading of The Tommyknockers, I wasn't sure that I even wanted to read it. Needful Things, Lisey's Story, or The Talisman would have been preferable, as those three novels have been on my mind a lot lately. The only reason I decided to go with The Tommyknockers is because it won the SK group read for September, and I'd never participated in a group read, and wanted to be a part of it.
Having said that, I am so glad that I did!

I finished last night, and what can I...more
Prior to going into my second reading of The Tommyknockers, I wasn't sure that I even wanted to read it. Needful Things, Lisey's Story, or The Talisman would have been preferable, as those three novels have been on my mind a lot lately. The only reason I decided to go with The Tommyknockers is because it won the SK group read for September, and I'd never participated in a group read, and wanted to be a part of it.
Having said that, I am so glad that I did!

I finished last night, and what can I say? For the most part, I loved every word, although I do think it drags a bit here and there. That final scene with Hilly and David served as the icing on the cake for me. It's such a tender moment, and very sweet, too.
Also, a lot of readers don't particularly care for Book II, but it's my personal favorite. The town's history is fascinating, and I loved the "now-let's-eavesdrop-on-our-fellow-neighbors" feel of it, which is very reminiscent of Under the Dome. In all earnestness, I don't feel that the middle section is disjointed, clunk, or otherwise disconnected to the rest of the novel. On the contrary, every aspect seems to be in direct (or indirect) relation to everything else.
Additionally, I love intricate stories with a plethora of characters, and this is no exception... especially Ruth McCausland and Hilly Brown. They are easily my two favorite characters. I really got into young Hilly as an individual, mostly because he and I share some similar attributes. And he is HILARIOUS. I literally laughed aloud at some of the things he got himself into!

As King's epic tome comes to a close, there are several scenes that stick out very much, one in which I won't forget any time soon. For instance, the Shed People's various inventions, or modifications, if you will. Then there's the classic Coke machine and the maniacal smoke detector, soaring through the woods like something out of Star Wars.
Finally, there's Gard's ascension, and most importantly, the dire circumstances behind it. I LOVE how it's fueled by virtually
everything and everyone around him. It's a very powerful scene, IMO.

There are so many other aspects of the novel that I could go on and on about, but I won't, for fear of spoiling the story to those that haven't read it yet.

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Dec 11, 2007 Laurel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who live in the woods and want to be frightened

Shelves: girlhood-nostalgia

Okay, so I may have read this when I was twelve, but I tell you, it fucked my shit up! It's really really long and has violence and intrigue--if you're twelve and you start it in December, you might not finish it until mid-January. The best part was that it was the first book that made reference to location that I had actually been. IT took place in Maine, people, what could be creepier??
This is an underrated classic with possibly the best title of all time. Just say it. Tommyknockers. Awesome.

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Dec 08, 2012 Marvin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Let's face it. Stephen King can't write science fiction.

I'm not even sure why King even thought Tommyknockers needed to be written. It's bad SF and not as all equal to his horror writings. It doesn't dazzle and it doesn't shine. The best thing I can say for it is that it doesn't feature a rabid Saint Bernard.

Update: I might have to change that first sentence. King's 11-23-63 proved that he can write effective science fiction, at least in the speculative history sub-genre. But I still dislike The...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Chris rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I remember years ago when the movie came out, on I think ABC, I was glued to the television the two Sunday nights it was broken up on. Sadly I don't remember a single thing about the movie and had never read the book. Thankfully, the Stephen King Group here voted this book to be the group read and having just finished what I was reading I decided why not.

Now, I have been a bit torn as to how to rate this book so I hope I can make sense as to why I gave this three stars. Let me start with what I...more I remember years ago when the movie came out, on I think ABC, I was glued to the television the two Sunday nights it was broken up on. Sadly I don't remember a single thing about the movie and had never read the book. Thankfully, the Stephen King Group here voted this book to be the group read and having just finished what I was reading I decided why not.

Now, I have been a bit torn as to how to rate this book so I hope I can make sense as to why I gave this three stars. Let me start with what I wasn't to keen on. I thought the book was a little longer than it needed to be. There were plenty of sections in my opinion that didn't help the book progress, or seem to have any relevance to the plot line. I also felt that there were a lot of characters to follow and that there were times I got confused as to where each character was in the story; so I would have to back track to a previous chapter dealing with that character and reread. It also seemed to draw on in the beginning of the book. Book 1 of this could have been so much shorter in my opinion and I am glad I had my King Group to assure me it gets better, otherwise I might not have kept going. In the end, it did get much much better.

The only other thing that seemed to bother me just a bit is the fact I didn't find this very creepy. A lot of people found this book creepy and I was looking forward to chills up my spine and goosebumps on my arms, I didn't have any of that with this book. Maybe it is just me, or the fact I have gotten used to Stephen King's style that it takes more to scare me, but I felt like I was missing out on some important aspect of this book. A re-read may be in the distant future to see if I missed something.

Now on to what I enjoyed about the book. First and foremost for me are the characters. I have said this in other reviews, but King has this amazing talent for writing real flesh and blood characters. These characters had so much depth that I was always pulled in when learning something new about their fictional lives. I laughed with these characters and almost cried with some. A certain incident with Hilly was tough to bear and I will say no more for those that haven't read it. There also were a lot of sections that were really interesting, I was pulled into the story and wondered what was around the corner. Again, it wasn't the trembling fear of the unknown I was looking for around that corner, but mere curiosity that kept me going. The final thing I feel worth mentioning was the humor King adds from time to time. There are these little occurrences that just made me laugh, maybe because they were so ridiculous or because it was just that funny I enjoyed King's little breaks.

Overall, this wasn't may favorite King novel or favorite novel overall, but it wasn't terrible. This isn't one I would think of re-reading, but I do feet I missed something that so many others experienced. I learned early on that this was one of the books King wrote Under the heavy influence of Drugs and Alcohol and I can see that it affected his work. It defiantly made the character of Gard believable and someone I felt almost pity for. Who knows he might have been a representation of King under those chemical influences. I think that also made the parts feel a little disjointed at times and as well cause the book to run on at times. I did enjoy this book and I am so glad I read it. (less)

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Jan 09, 2013 Kelly Hager rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of the books that I was most nervous about re-reading. It's one of the longer ones (979 pages, according to Kindle) and about 550 pages on my battered hardback copy. (No, I don't know why there's over 400 pages of difference between the Kindle and physical copies.)

This is the first of the re-reads that has real references to other books in the Stephen King universe. And honestly, that's one of the best things about reading his books: the idea that these are real places and real event...more

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Jun 25, 2009 Dan Schwent rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

Bobbie Anderson finds an object buried in the woods that happens to be the tip of an alien craft. After she tampers with it sufficiently, the whole town gradually begins changing into aliens.

A guy I used to work with kept urging me to read this one. He read half of it during a week long stint in the brig while in the navy, then rescued the book from destruction while he was throwing the ship's trash in the ocean a week later. Was it worth it? Hell yes. King novels don't usually affect me but I d...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, stephen, king

Bobby had been out walking with her faithful dog one day in the woods behind her home in Haven, Maine, when she found (well, tripped over actually), a piece of shiny metal sticking out of the ground. Her dog doesn� t like it, as he whimpers and cowers away, but she is intrigued and starts to dig, completely losing track of time as she does so. It� s much, much bigger than she had at first thought, huge in fact. The work of excavating it consumes most of her time. When her best friend and occasio...more

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Dec 15, 2010 Richelle T. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, ghost, stories

It's a little sci-fi a little horror a little mystery all wrapped up in one big package! Stephen King is more of a writer of the sinister the possibility of treachery and maddness in each of us. A true sense of horror of that slight jolt of electricity that for a second makes you just want to drop the book really wasn't present here. But there sure were some cool ideas! The way people pay for new found abilities with the blood of the not-so innocent was a somewhat humorous twist in this book (al...more

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Jun 07, 2013 Robert Butler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've had this one in my collection for a while and couldn't remember reading it - so I gave it a blast. I've read lots of Stephen King novels and whilst he tells an excellent tale, he doesn't always get the endings right. I thought that Tommyknockers has one of the better Stephen King endings, much better than some of his recent books like `Under the Dome'.

The story introduces us the characters in the book and we start to get to know them. Even the secondary characters are well detailed and brou...more

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May 29, 2013 Gigngogn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Don't open the door...

Bobbi Anderson and the other good folks of Haven, Maine, have sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell.

From Publishers Weekly

King's new novel, a numbing variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, offers its own best commentary on itself. Nearly one-third of the way through the 560-page book, protagonist Bobbi Anderson, a writer of westerns, describes what she has stumbled upon in her backyard to her friend Gardener, an alcoholic

...more

Don't open the door...

Bobbi Anderson and the other good folks of Haven, Maine, have sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell.

From Publishers Weekly

King's new novel, a numbing variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, offers its own best commentary on itself. Nearly one-third of the way through the 560-page book, protagonist Bobbi Anderson, a writer of westerns, describes what she has stumbled upon in her backyard to her friend Gardener, an alcoholic poet: "It was a flying saucer. No self-respecting science-fiction writer would put one in his story, and if he did, no self-respecting editor would touch it with a ten-foot pole.. . . It is the oldest wheeze in the book." After the vampirish Tommyknockers in the spaceship have wrought their evil magic upon the inhabitants of Haven (Tommyknockers live on the blood of comatose humans circulated through mind-reading PCs connected to VCRs), the unfortunate townspeople have, it seems, "become" (the word, over-used and never explained, is King's) "something else" (the vague words are also the author's). The "gadgets" of the town "become" living beings that kill (there are marauding hedge cutters and Coke machines, Electrolux vacuums, Yamaha motorcycles and flying smoke detectors ) and The Tommyknockers is consumed by the rambling prose of its author. Taking a whole town as his canvas, King uses too-broad strokes, adding cartoonlike characters and unlikely catastrophes like so many logs on a fire; ultimately he loses all semblance of style, carefully structured plot or resonant meaning, the hallmarks of his best writing. It is clear from this latest work that King himself has "become" a writing machinethis is his fourth novel since It was published 14 months ago; the faithful readers not overwhelmed by his latest fictional "gadget" are likely to wonder, as poet Gardener does near the novel's end: "What had it all been for? He realized miserably that he was never going to know."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Yet another mammoth horror novel from King, this dark tale depicts a small town's fatal encounter with creatures from outer space. Events start with Roberta Anderson, a writer of Old West novels, unearthing a flying saucer on her remote wooded property. Five hundred pages later alcoholic poet Jim Gardener, Roberts's former English teacher, finds himself aboard the flying saucer in outer space. In the interval the creatures (Tommyknockers) destroy the citizenry of Haven, Maine. While this is not one of King's more original novels, it does have plenty of blood and guts, macabre humor, and a well-wrought realization of the New England countryside. No doubt King's legions of fans will demand it. BOMC main selection. James B. Hemesath, Adams State Coll. Lib., Alamosa, Col.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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May 01, 2013 Helen Requiescat rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this is some great horror, by my master king, i dont even know where to begin praising it, thirty years after its come out its a classic already, you see with the right horror you have to have some firm ground in the story where theres not horror because if the whole worlds horror like in some stories by some sneaky writers then you dont have a place to feel whats not horrifying and what is. if everything is horrible then everything just feels terrible and its no fun. thats what my professor cal...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Art Griswold rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wanted to give this a 3.5, but with no option for that, and the fact that I didn't think it warranted a 4 I rounded down to a 3.
It's a solid enough sci-fi story, with a ton of neat little gadgets that most of us would love to have or want to try to build. I really dug the effects of the town limits too.
I think that in the King universe of heroes, Gard doesn't get enough love. He should rank much higher than I'm sure he does on most people's lists of such things.
I also firmly believe, and this...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Josh rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i literally just finished reading this book. i normally love stephen king stuff with the exception of Firestarter, which certainly wasn't awful but it did get a little slow and dry for me as it went on. that being said, Tommyknockers is a horrible book. i'm reading through all of King's work in order and i'm really dedicated to getting through it all, so i forced myself to finish the novel. i'm not going to say it was good at the beginning, but at least it was readable-- if for no other reason,...more i literally just finished reading this book. i normally love stephen king stuff with the exception of Firestarter, which certainly wasn't awful but it did get a little slow and dry for me as it went on. that being said, Tommyknockers is a horrible book. i'm reading through all of King's work in order and i'm really dedicated to getting through it all, so i forced myself to finish the novel. i'm not going to say it was good at the beginning, but at least it was readable-- if for no other reason, because i was excited to start another book of his.

SPOILER ALERT:
one of the biggest flaws of this book was the lack of good characters. i was ok with the two main characters, Bobbi and Gard, at the beginning, but within just a few chapters i really didn't like either of them. Bobbi, kinda sorta turns into an antagonist, and Gard turns into the "hero" of the book. here's the problem though. at least for me, Bobbi becomes intolerable long before she's supposed to. i think King was going for a "tragic downfall" type of thing with her. we were supposed to empathize with her in a way because she was one of the main characters. however, she acts so stupid so early on that the reader can't feel sorry for her or for Gard, her friend. Gard on the other hand is this guy with a shady past but as everyone in the town turns evil, we see that he's good hearted and so he gets elevated to the position of protagonist. however, he too, is so stupid and unlikeable early on that he can't really do anything to redeem himself. yes, i was rooting for him a little at the end but not because i liked him. it was just because i hated everyone else so much. the thing is, i'm not convinced characters have to be likable for a story to be good. if you need evidence of that, just look at The Great Gatsby. extremely good book, extremely dislikable characters. i think the problem with these characters is that they're just awfully written. Stephen King is not (from what i've read of his) terrible at writing characters. in fact, some of his books have phenomenal characters, and yet these one's were just bad. they were all so shallow. in order to understand what i mean, you have to know what the story is about. it's about this woman (Bobbi) who uncovers a UFO which changes everyone in the town into crazy/smart people/aliens. it soon becomes evident that the townspeople are turning evil. when i say the characters were shallow i mean they were all bad or unlikable people to begin with. there weren't upstanding smart noble people who changed, or i should say there weren't any that we saw. this means that instead of feeling sorry for the townspeople, (which the reader should) we just hate them. the very few protagonists in the book are presented as having no flaws (with the exception of Gard, who's unlikable and stupid, as stated before) i guess what i'm getting at is that there's no conflict between the characters. in other stories, good guys will turn bad, or will have inner struggles, or one thing or another but here, the characters are all just flat and boring.

then there's the issue of length. i'm of the opinion that any story should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story and to get the point across. there are Stephen King stories that are extremely long and yet they're readable because they're well written, and everything (or most of the stuff) in the story is necessary. this book on the other hand, had so much filler content it was disgraceful. does other stuff by King have filler? certainly. most of this filler is just fine because it's well written. there are a few cases where it definitely doesn't need to be there, but none of his books have had filler material to the extent that the Tommyknockers did. since i'm such a King fan, i will most likely be returning to certain books, and for that reason i'm tempted to make my own edit of this novel. probably half of the book could be cut out and every single scene would still be intact. it's frustrating reading and forcing oneself to finish a book when it could easily be hundreds of pages shorter. if this book was in the 200-300 page range it might be tolerable but it's length is definitely a contributing factor to how bad it is.

on top of this, there's the Stephen King-isms, the Main setting, small town, lots of characters, etc. these stereotypes are present in 90% of his stuff and yet, again, most of it is well written, so it's tolerable. but here, i just found myself aggravated that he was recycling all the same elements once again. if you can incorporate the same elements into every single one of your works, but all of it is well written, great! and that's how i felt about King's previous books. I wasn't blind to the fact that he was recycling certain elements, but it was written well enough that i didn't care. here, i kept saying "you can't just recycle your material and expect it to automatically be good. you can't write about tons of people if none of them are interesting.

the last major problem i with this book was how cheesy and unrealistic it was. you know the old 1950's and 1960's sci fi movies? that's exactly what i was thinking of as i was reading The Tommyknockers. everything is run by batteries and everything just works and does unbelievable things without any scientific explanation. as i was reading about all the different objects people created i thought of the crappy cardboard/christmas lights effects of those old B movies. i'm usually really good at suspending my disbelief. in fact, usually it bugs me when people get all nit-picky about elements in books or movies in regards to things not being possible. but here it was so bad, i just couldn't buy it. for instance, in the book there's this portal type gun that opens a door to another planet/world/place. they build the gun with every normal day things, including batteries. now i don't have a problem with someone opening portals to other worlds, especially if magic is involved. i could even understand that being possible with high tech machinery or whatever, but everyday household items? powered by regular batteries? geez that's stupid!

i feel like i could maybe keep rambling but that's the bulk of the problem's i had with this book. the only reason i gave it two stars was because there were a small handful of cool parts/scenes in the book but not enough to make up for how bad it is. i wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they're a die-hard Stephen King and "simply have to read all his books" like me.(less)

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Feb 07, 2013 Al rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Something was happening in Bobbi Anderson's idyllic small town of Haven, Maine. Something that gave every man, woman, and child in town powers far beyond ordinary mortals. Something that turned the town into a death trap for all outsiders. Something that came from a metal object, buried for millennia, that Bobbi stumbled across. It wasn't that Bobbi and the other good folks of Haven had sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell. It was more like a diabolical

...more

Something was happening in Bobbi Anderson's idyllic small town of Haven, Maine. Something that gave every man, woman, and child in town powers far beyond ordinary mortals. Something that turned the town into a death trap for all outsiders. Something that came from a metal object, buried for millennia, that Bobbi stumbled across. It wasn't that Bobbi and the other good folks of Haven had sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell. It was more like a diabolical takeoverâ€¦an invasion of body and soul--and mind.

From Publishers Weekly

King's new novel, a numbing variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, offers its own best commentary on itself. Nearly one-third of the way through the 560-page book, protagonist Bobbi Anderson, a writer of westerns, describes what she has stumbled upon in her backyard to her friend Gardener, an alcoholic poet: "It was a flying saucer. No self-respecting science-fiction writer would put one in his story, and if he did, no self-respecting editor would touch it with a ten-foot pole.. . . It is the oldest wheeze in the book." After the vampirish Tommyknockers in the spaceship have wrought their evil magic upon the inhabitants of Haven (Tommyknockers live on the blood of comatose humans circulated through mind-reading PCs connected to VCRs), the unfortunate townspeople have, it seems, "become" (the word, over-used and never explained, is King's) "something else" (the vague words are also the author's). The "gadgets" of the town "become" living beings that kill (there are marauding hedge cutters and Coke machines, Electrolux vacuums, Yamaha motorcycles and flying smoke detectors ) and The Tommyknockers is consumed by the rambling prose of its author. Taking a whole town as his canvas, King uses too-broad strokes, adding cartoonlike characters and unlikely catastrophes like so many logs on a fire; ultimately he loses all semblance of style, carefully structured plot or resonant meaning, the hallmarks of his best writing. It is clear from this latest work that King himself has "become" a writing machinethis is his fourth novel since It was published 14 months ago; the faithful readers not overwhelmed by his latest fictional "gadget" are likely to wonder, as poet Gardener does near the novel's end: "What had it all been for? He realized miserably that he was never going to know."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Sep 08, 2012 Andy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Meh. A moderately fun ride but with problems. [No spoilers in this review]

Very long, as a result of many repeated descriptions and minor characters who don't go very far. It was 1900 pages on my reading device.

Not King's strongest writing. Almost entirely narrated as if the character was speaking, meaning lots of pop culture and brand name references, which makes the book feel dated. It also makes it harder to read in places, where you just want to know what's going on, not decipher slang.

He dro...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Stuart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

SPOILER ALERT

People have been complaining about this book because it is apparently so long but I think they fail to see the reason why if this book was any shorter it would lose its impact. Its substantial length is necessary to show the epicness and scale of the developments taking place in Haven and to contrast them to when everything was normal before. Every single town person with a few exceptions is under the influence of the ship and the book needs to do each of these characters justice to...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Sakura87 rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autori-nordamericani, fantascienza, horror, novecento

Ieri notte a tarda ora i Tommyknocker, i Tommyknocker, mi hanno annoiata e oggi ancora.

Bobbi Anderson è una riservata scrittrice di western che vive ad Haven, fiorente cittadina del Maine, in una tenuta lasciatale dallo zio. La sua vita scorre senza emozioni, finché, una mattina d’estate, non inciampa letteralmente in qualcosa molto più grosso di lei: un oggetto non identificabile sepolto nel suo terreno. E’ l’inizio di una lunga e strana parentesi per Haven, parentesi che finirà per coinvolgere...more Ieri notte a tarda ora i Tommyknocker, i Tommyknocker, mi hanno annoiata e oggi ancora.

Bobbi Anderson è una riservata scrittrice di western che vive ad Haven, fiorente cittadina del Maine, in una tenuta lasciatale dallo zio. La sua vita scorre senza emozioni, finché, una mattina d’estate, non inciampa letteralmente in qualcosa molto più grosso di lei: un oggetto non identificabile sepolto nel suo terreno. E’ l’inizio di una lunga e strana parentesi per Haven, parentesi che finirà per coinvolgere anche il poeta alcolizzato Jim Gardener, che è stato strappato al suo tentativo di suicidio dalla quanto mai realistica sensazione che Bobbi avesse bisogno di lui. Dunque Jim si reca ad Haven in autostop e…

Normalmente tento di argomentare le mie recensioni il più possibile, perché possano essere d’aiuto ad altri eventuali lettori. Cerco di capire, quando mi riesce, cosa può piacere di un libro e a chi, su cosa si può soprassedere, cosa proprio non va, sempre in termini soggettivi, ma il più obiettivamente possibile.
Con Tommyknockers mi viene un po’ difficile, ma tenterò comunque: è una delle letture più abbandonate e riprese della mia vita, ma dato che l’autore è sempre e comunque il mio scrittore preferito, ho deciso di riprenderlo diversi anni dopo l’ultimo tentativo, e questa volta è stato quello definitivo, anche per capire il motivo per cui tante volte l’ho abbandonato.
La verità è che buona parte de Le creature del buio, naturalmente per i miei parametri soggettivi, è perfettamente inutile. Dopo aver letto la prima metà del libro, mi sono chiesta più e più volte cosa sostanzialmente contenessero quelle quattrocento pagine. E ve lo dice una che ha amato tutti gli altri grandi tomi di King, cioè L’ombra dello Scorpione, It, The Dome, Insomnia, Cose preziose. Le parti iniziali dei suddetti libri, sia pure in centinaia di pagine, narravano una storia, ponevano basi interessanti e solide per lo sviluppo successivo del libro.
In questo libro, invece, il nulla più totale: una barbosa presentazione della protagonista, Bobbi Andersen, che poteva risultare un ottimo personaggio se, paradossalmente viste tutte le pagine a lei dedicate, King ce l’avesse presentata con più attenzione; invece, la mente di Bobbi cade quasi immediatamente vittima dell’influenza mentale di misteriose creature, rivelando in seguito solo pochi stralci della ‘vera’ Bobbi. Dopo una presentazione di Jim Gardener, già meglio caratterizzato, la visuale si sposta ampiamente sui cittadini di Haven, per poi tornare solo molto tempo dopo sulla coppia principale.
Troppo dispersiva la parentesi su Haven per chiamarlo romanzo corale, troppa poca attenzione sui personaggi principali per non farlo. Mi risulta pressoché inclassificabile.
La trama possedeva buoni spunti (la ‘possessione’ di una cittadina del Maine da parte di entità aliene sconosciute e il conseguente sviluppo nei cittadini di capacità medianiche e creative sorprendenti), ma alla lunga la ripetitività delle sequenze ha ammazzato qualsiasi curiosità di leggere-a-tutti-i-costi-per-vedere-che-succede. Il finale, e credo di andare controcorrente perché pare che non sia particolarmente apprezzato anche da quell’esigua fetta di lettori che ha amato il libro, mi ha invece soddisfatta, e senza dubbio mi avrebbe soddisfatta di più se mi fossi goduta appieno quel climax di follia che il libro preparava già da trecento pagine. L’Epilogo, in ogni caso, è delizioso.
Di questo libro salverei, quindi, solo la parte iniziale e la parte finale: è questo che mi ha spinto a dare due stellette piuttosto che una, cosa che ho fatto con L’acchiappasogni nonostante quest’ultimo si sia fatto leggere molto più facilmente.(less)

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May 06, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen King's sci-fi riff on those stories where an outsider comes into a town and finds all the locals are acting strangely. The cool thing about King's version is that, unlike most versions of this plot line, you actually get to see it from the inside, following the experience of the locals as they are slowly transformed.

What was good:
+ The story is suspenseful, creepy, and sometimes even a little scary.
+ As always, King makes a solid effort at characterization and many of the major character...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Donovan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, thriller

I don't normally buy hardcover books but this was one I had to get. I love my science fiction and if it mixes in horror/thriller elements in a semi-believable setting then it is going to be a winner with me...And so Tommyknockers was. It reminded my of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space while it is fantasy, it also holds a great deal of the here-and-now in the story and I find that captivating. The characters are realistic and there's enough depth in the story to keep you immersed. As with good...more I don't normally buy hardcover books but this was one I had to get. I love my science fiction and if it mixes in horror/thriller elements in a semi-believable setting then it is going to be a winner with me...And so Tommyknockers was. It reminded my of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space while it is fantasy, it also holds a great deal of the here-and-now in the story and I find that captivating. The characters are realistic and there's enough depth in the story to keep you immersed. As with good Stephen King, you can't help but wonder what you would do in the same situation.

Plot ***Spoilers***
While walking in the woods near the small town of Haven, Maine, Roberta (Bobbi) Anderson, a writer of Wild West-based fiction, stumbles upon a metal object which turns out to be a protrusion of a long-buried alien spacecraft. Once exposed, the spacecraft begins releasing an invisible, odorless gas into the atmosphere which gradually transforms people into beings similar to the aliens who populated the spacecraft. It also provides them with a limited form of genius which makes them very inventive, but does not provide any philosophical or ethical insight, instead provoking psychotic violence (on the part of people like Becka Paulson, who kills her adulterous husband by fatally rewiring the TV, killing herself in the process) and the disappearance of a young boy (David Brown, whose older brother Hilly teleports him to another planet referred to as Altair 4 by the Havenites).

The book's central protagonist is a poet and friend of Bobbi Anderson, named James Eric Gardener, who goes by the nickname "Gard". He is a man with left-leaning, liberal sensibilities who is apparently immune to the ship's effects because of a steel plate in his head, a souvenir of a teenage skiing accident. Unfortunately, Gard is also an alcoholic. His relationship with Bobbi deteriorates as the novel progresses. She is almost totally overcome by the euphoria of "becoming" one with the spacecraft, but Gard increasingly sees her health worsen and her sanity disappear. The novel is filled with metaphors for the stranglehold of substance abuse, which King himself was experiencing at the time, as well as for the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive fallout (as evidenced by the physical transformations of the townspeople, which resemble the effects of radiation exposure), of unchecked technological advancement, and of the corrupting influence of power. Government agencies are uniformly portrayed as corrupt and totalitarian throughout the book, and Bobbi and Gard themselves are led into thinking that they can use the ship's "power" as a weapon to overthrow such authority figures.

Seeing the transformation of the townspeople worsen, the torture and manipulation of Bobbi's dog Peter, and people being killed or worse when they pry too deeply into the strange events, Gardener eventually manipulates Bobbi into allowing him into the ship. After he sees that Bobbi is not entirely his old friend and lover, he gives her one more chance before he finally kills her with the same gun that Monster Dugan had almost killed her with in her back field previously. However, just before she dies, Bobbi sends a telepathic APB and all the townspeople show up at her place very quickly. Meanwhile, Gardener accidentally (by dropping the gun) shoots himself in the ankle. In exchange for using the "new and improved" computers and what little "becoming" he underwent to save David Brown, Ev Hillman helps him escape into the woods (which soon catches fire from one of the Tommyknockers' "toys") at which point Gardener enters the ship, activates it, and with the last of his life telepathically launches it into space, resulting in the eventual deaths of nearly all of the changed townspeople but preventing the possibly disastrous consequences of the ship's influence spreading to the outside world. Very shortly after (in the epilogue) members from the FBI, CIA, and "The Shop" invade Haven and take as many of the Havenites as possible (they kill nearly a quarter of the survivors) and a few of the devices created by the altered people of Haven.

In the last pages, David Brown is discovered in Hilly Brown's hospital room, safe and sound.(less)

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Jun 15, 2011 Robbie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At first it is slow and I almost gave up on reading it. However, right about the third chapter I couldn't put it down. I did not find it frieghtening but it was sometimes very intense. The story focuses on Roberta (Bobbie)Anderson who is a wild west writer of sorts in a town called Haven, Maine. She finds a metal spaceship in the woods behind her house and begins to try and unearth it. She feels it is communicating to her and telling her things. The book involves all sorts of chracters, plots an...more

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Feb 22, 2011 Blaine Engeland rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read quite a bit of Stephen in my youth. These books actually got me into reading and enjoying nights at home alone with a plate of cookies and milk and a good book. I finished this book in 3 days and it's a fairly thick read. I totally got into it. Every page was written very well and the plot and story were just intense. Booby Anderson is out jogging in the woods with her little dog and trips over a piece of metal jutting out of the dirt. She is totally intrigued by it and begins to dig...more

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Oct 31, 2010 Rhiannon Ryder rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After a long and tortuous decision making process, the hubby finally settled on Tommyknockers as my Stephen King book for Giving me the Creeps. I was interested in Salems Lot but apparently that was going to be "too many vampires" when I was hoping to get to the strain as well.

He prefaced handing me the book with "the first 67 pages or so are really dry, but once you get past that it's good". Unfortunately it was more like the first 150-190 pages, sooo the equivalent of a novella worth of mind n...more After a long and tortuous decision making process, the hubby finally settled on Tommyknockers as my Stephen King book for Giving me the Creeps. I was interested in Salems Lot but apparently that was going to be "too many vampires" when I was hoping to get to the strain as well.

He prefaced handing me the book with "the first 67 pages or so are really dry, but once you get past that it's good". Unfortunately it was more like the first 150-190 pages, sooo the equivalent of a novella worth of mind numbing boredom. Leaving me once again contemplating why oh why no editor has ever sat Stephen King down and said - look dude, you're obviously a good writer, but we've got to curb some of you more diarrhetic verbiage, because nobody needs to wade through rambling thoughts from characters that don't have anything to do with the story for 150 pages.

Now I've read the entire Dark Tower series, The Stand, and his On Writing book, so Tommyknockers wasn't my intro to Stephen King or his verbose writing style. But it did take belated Thanksgiving dinner last weekend with 14 others to remind me the book was actually written during his obscene substance abuse years. Several people mentioned they thought he had said he couldn't remember writing it (because he was so high the whole time), and I did later read on wikipedia that he thought this novel was a metaphor for his addiction.

Bobbi Anderson, a writer of popular western novels, lives in the outskirts of the small town of Haven, with her beagle Peter, in a small house left to her by her uncle Frank many years before. While walking in the woods behind her place one afternoon, she stumbles on a piece of metal buried in the ground which captures her interest. Setting off a monumental, obsessive excavation of a space ship which will eventually involve her entire township and the destruction of everyone in it.

This was not my favorite Stephen King book, it had moments I really enjoyed, but they were so bogged down in useless blah blah blahing I eventually felt like I was drowning in his ramblings. Now part of this also has to do with the shear size of Kings novels, the one I was reading was written in 1987 and the hubbies copy was probably from the early nineties. This particular copy was a dictionary weight and size hardcover of 553 pages packed with the tiniest writing and the smallest margins you've ever seen, tightly spaced. I cringe to think of how many words were actually on each page, but to suffice it to say a modern printed paperback of the same book would likely have been closer to 1000 pages long. Now in a more readable book I could easily have cleared the word count in half the time Tommyknockers took me, hell the Stand took me less time and its a fair amount longer, but so much of the text was just a sticky mud of words not really going anywhere but taking up oddles of space and time.

My biggest complaint about the book is how the "becoming" of the villagers sucks all their personality out and leaves a story full of drones wandering around doing stuff. I think one of Kings real talents is character development, and his large cast books with many interesting personalities are what I've come to think of as his trademark. So it was disappointing to read a book so full of characters who only have personalities for a few pages before the alien air takes hold and they turn into these, not even particularly creepy, alien/drone hybrids.

But boy oh boy, Tommyknockers has a great ending! And in the past I've mocked Stephen Kings dislike of pre-planning his books, as the reason his books are good but his endings blow chunks. I mean how can someone rave about the talents of J.K Rowling and still think writing without a purpose "to see where the story takes him" is a good method?? Anyhow, it worked for him here, as many new characters streamed into the story, livening things up, and even the people of Haven were a little more enjoyable

Look even writing a review for Stephen King makes for epically long windedness!

(less)

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Jun 25, 2009 Samie Foster rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of Stephen King's ealier books, and I like his earlier ones as a oppose to now. Now his books seem jump all over the place and I just don't care about those. But this one stayed focus for the most part. But it did have a few stupid things in it. Some really stupid things like Jesus talking through a guy out of a TV beofre he dies. I mean that's not nessary and pointless.The character was like a none named victem in a horror like who shows up for two seconds before he dies. I look at...more

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Mar 28, 2007 Kathy Juveli Hauck rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So here's the thing. I made the big mistake of reading this book about 15 years ago, when I was pregnant with my second child and in the midst of morning, noon and night sickness. I thought this was a great, scary book, but then something in it triggered my gag reflex and I had to put it down. Everytime I have attempted to get back to reading it, I'm brought back to the days of vomit and have to put it back down.

Maybe Stephen King is just that good. I'm going to try it again this summer.

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Nov 10, 2012 Sakeenah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think this book is overlooked and under rated. It has a lot of the features that people complain about with King books: a lot of time getting to know the main characters (yet the females still feel 2D), like every.single.thing they do, some hokiness in certain aspects, a lot of minor characters that get built up and then destroyed quickly, and in some opinions an end that is somewhat anti-climatic. I could see younger readers getting lost a little as some references seem dated. Also, there is...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Andrea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this in the middle of high school. It's the first book I remember reading that sucked me in so completely that I forgot where I was and what I was doing.

Where I was and what I was doing was: English class, sitting beside my friend Jessie and ignoring the lecture in order to read my book on my lap under my desk. I could hear the characters' voices in my head, see the [obligatory Stephen King monsters, the nature of which I won't divulge in case you haven't read it]; I wasn't even aware of...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Turtleduck rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was OK. Overall I liked the story, I liked the concept and it was quite a strange story. But I did find it a little hard to read in parts. Anyone who has read Stephen King knows that he has a tendency to waffle on and on unnecessarily, and I think that was partly the problem in this book. I was about halfway through when I just had to put it down for about a month. Eventually I did go back to it and I finished it the second time around. The other side of the problem was thought the book begin...more

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May 21, 2012 Todd Russell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, reread, ufo

I read this book when it first came out and decided to reread after seeing a number of people online trashing the story. Fondly, I remembered the tale which follows Roberta 'Bobbi' Anderson and her dog Peter stumbling over a strange object poking out of the ground. Bobbi becomes obsessed with digging up the object, which turns out to be (view spoiler). As more and more of the object is uncovered, Bobbi and the rest of the townspeople...more I read this book when it first came out and decided to reread after seeing a number of people online trashing the story. Fondly, I remembered the tale which follows Roberta 'Bobbi' Anderson and her dog Peter stumbling over a strange object poking out of the ground. Bobbi becomes obsessed with digging up the object, which turns out to be (view spoiler). As more and more of the object is uncovered, Bobbi and the rest of the townspeople began to go through a disturbing transformation. They can read people's minds and the atmosphere soon becomes poisonous to non-townspeople. Bobbi's alcoholic poet friend, James Eric Gardner ("Gard" for short) senses Bobbi is in trouble and comes to her rescue. A skiing accident left Gard with a metal plate in his head and he is somewhat immune to the effects of the object. Does Gard convince Bobbi to leave the town and stop digging? No! He stays and helps her dig while she helps him feed his alcohol addiction.

The first third of the book is mostly Bobbi, Gard and the object. The middle third involves how the object affects various townspeople including my favorite subplot of the book: a little boy named Hilly Brown who does a magic act and (view spoiler). It is this subplot which literally kept me reading through the middle section.

The closing third of the book returns to Bobbi, Gard and the object. (view spoiler)

A large number of the cast have substance abuse problems and it's my understanding the author was going through this at the time of writing this book. If this is true, it adds to the realism and darkness in these characters battling their addictions.

I disagree with other reviewers who say this is one of King's worst books. It's not as great as I remember it being when I first read it. Some parts are a bit cheesy and the middles section is more long-winded than necessary, but the ending--oh my!--the ending delivers. Yes, there are shades of his story "Trucks" (and the awful movie Maximum Overdrive), but those bumps aside, King is firing fast and furious the last hundred pages. I proudly recommend this book to those who like a dose of sci-fi with their horror. Hard science fiction readers probably will want to pass. This is a solid four star King read for me. I'm curious what another 20+ years will do for this story and my memory. Thank you for another entertaining read, Mr. King.(less)

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Jan 27, 2012 Laura rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: trash, too-long

I remembered liking this book when I went through the obligatory Stephen King phase in middle school and high school. There were a few specific things that I remembered about it, but other than that, I was drawing a blank, so I decided to reread it as an adult.[return][return]THIS BOOK IS HORRIBLE. Anyone who has read King can tell you that he has a tendency to go on and on. . . but that's really all this book is--going on and on (and on and ON). However, it sucks you in with a few interesting e...more

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Aug 14, 2010 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book got bad reviews, but I'm not sure why because I really enjoyed it. It might be because there's a flying saucer in it, and whenever anyone brings one of those into a tale, everyone groans. This is a mystery to me. The story is not about the flying saucer and the aliens (in fact, there aren't any aliens, except maybe some dead ones in the saucer itself, and you don't find that out for sure until the last few pages). It's about the effect the radiation from the ship has on the town next t...more

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BETWEEN THE COVERS: The Tommyknockers	4	13	Apr 25, 2013 10:55am
Stephen King Fans: The Tommyknockers	322	148	Nov 28, 2012 01:10am
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Thomas Covenant	2	55	Aug 21, 2011 10:48pm
Stephen King Fans: Tommyknockers & The Langoliers	29	94	Oct 01, 2010 10:49am

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