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. She realizes pretty quickly that its no tin can or license plate. Its huge. Over the course of a few weeks all the while she's digging at this thing in the woods she begins to have crazy ingenious ideas. But it also has a downside as she begins to suffer from what looks like some type of radiation sickness. I don't want to spoil the book ..you'll have to read The Tommyknockers to find out what this thing is, and why the town is going completely insane! The movie totally sucked. For the characters of Bobby Anderson I would have picked Sigourney Weaver and for Jim I would have maybe picked Liev Schreiber with a beard..