Book Review: The Dead Zone by Stephen King

Since I’m on a King binge that I just can’t seem to quit, I carried on with The Dead Zone, on someone’s recommendation. I’d never heard of this book before, at all, and was surprised to find out that it’s one of his earlier works.

Again, going in blind makes King’s books not feel so long for some reason. With IT, The Shining, The Dark Tower series and various other, the fact that I know something about them makes me want to rush ahead. With this one I was just along for the ride, and it was a pretty good one.

The short version of the plot is that John Smith ends up in a coma for several years and when he wakes up he has powers. The more I read of King, the more I realize he loves supernatural powers that start with tele. Whether they are -pathic, -kinetic, -portation or anything else, he loves it. I kept feeling like I was reading both The Shining and Carrie while I read this, and I liked it. The premise is strong and he does a hell of a good job of building a story around it (as usual).

The ending however, sucked. I’ve heard a lot of people say that King writes terrible endings, but this is the first time I’ve agreed. I was very surprised when what I thought was going to be the main plot just fizzled out somewhere around the 40% mark. After that, it kind of felt like King didn’t know what to do, so he just kept on writing for another few months until he quit.

So far, this is at the bottom of my list of King books. Disappointing.