The Tommyknockers

The ending was good and happy, but a lot of people died. I got this bookin September and it took me a month and a half to read it. It was fun and somewhat fast paced to read, bit I had to slow down or Mr. King slowed me down to read the details and the batteries and some of the towns folk. The build up was great as I was wondering why people were losing their teeth,but I soon caught on in the middle. The town and what happened to it caught me off guard a bit; it's ending was similar to Salem's Lot if I'm correct. If you like a good alien story then this is for you despite the final fight scene and chapter being odd and strange.

Controversial, but only for slow readers.

The deal is, I'm a pretty fast reader. I tear through books. It is often that a book will be disappoint me because I can clearly see the gaps in plot, or areas where perhaps the author set the manuscript aside, only to return and forget nuances crucial to the development of the story.

This book, one of King's most hotly debated, almost reads like two books: a before, and an after. The first is pure character development, the second all action. I engage with both because they are King trademarks. I don't mind reading about the characters, the minutiae of their lives, of the mundane, because I know that King will deliver in the end. I never got bored, or lost my place. King writes in a fury that shows how dedicated he is to the plot, and he is one of the very few authors that do not disappoint my voracious reading appetite. I enjoyed 'The Tommyknockers,' perhaps not his best, but far from his worst. Besides the extensive 'intro,' it is classic King through-and-through. Reading 'Tommyknockers' now, after reading some of his most recent work, is like returning to your childhood home. A little predictable, familiar, and like the same ghost story told again and again, it's all in the anticipation of what you just know is going to happen.

Why you should read it: if you love vintage King, the good ol'-fashioned Maine backwoods King. Because you love his crazy characters.

Why you shouldn't read it: if you are a slow reader. If you are impatient, and lost to subtlety. If you don't care for well-crafted prose and instead like edge of your seat action without stops.

The story is solid, you just have to be dedicated.

I read this in 2020. The story was set in 1987. As this book has technology at the heart of the tale, it was interesting to consider what high-tech was considered to be 32 years ago. There were no grand gaffes or anything it was just genuinely interesting.

As a story, it was standard King fare - a page turning story with likable characters having weird adventures in Maine. I don't mean that to diminish the story (or King) as I think people expect this and it's part of the appeal. I certainly enjoy it.

The only thing that was off-note was a scene when one of the central characters goes on a harangue about nuclear energy at a dinner party. It was so clearly King using the character as a conduit to voice his own concerns - understandable given how proximal the Chernobyl disaster was to the time of this writing. Nonetheless the naked advocacy is transparent and discordant. And long! Man, he went on for what felt like a whole chapter with his diatribe. It felt amateurish, frankly, and reminded me of the closing chapter of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in which Rudkus meets the communist party leader and the reader is pummeled with a lengthy, zealot's accounting of the miracle of communism/socialism. King (and Sinclair) and myself share similar ideological leanings so it's not the perspective I took issue with, it's the brazen unsubtle attempt to use the character to beat the reader about the head it. I was so annoyed I literally almost put the book down but instead paged forward to when it seemed like the speech was over. After that everything was back on track, and stayed there.

Other than that though, like I said, a fun, spooky, scary, witty tale right in the mold of The Master.