Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Gallery Books (2016), Edition: Reissue, 992 pages
Description
Fiction. Thriller. HTML: Late Last Night and the Night Before... ...Tommyknockers, tommyknockers, knocking at the door. 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 takeover...and invasion of body and soul�??and mind.
Media reviews
The first third of ''The Tommyknockers'' is wonderful. With his usual eerie effortlessness, Mr. King attaches us to Bobbi and Gard, taunting us with menace neither they nor we can define. When evil starts gobbling Haven with a vengeance, swollen prose and comic-book grue spurt out one authentic gem
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(a little boy's magic show) and instill in us a creeping terror of good country folks. The last third of the novel is Armageddon, as is usual with Mr. King. Show Less
Subjects
Original publication date
1987
Similar in this library
It by Stephen King
User reviews
LibraryThing member jseger9000
The Tommyknockers is not a fan favorite, but I REALLY like the book. It could be that I'm a fan of Stephen King who also happens to love a good UFO story, so I am more forgiving. I dunno. I like it anyway.
Reclusive Western author Bobbi Anderson stumbles over a chunk of metal in her back field. She
The more the object is unearthed, the more she changes. Not just her, but the entire town of Haven suddenly seems to have flashes of genius. There are also more sinister changes taking place in Haven…
So there are similarities to his classic ’Salem’s Lot. But he isn’t just rewriting his own work here. The tone and themes are quite different and I get the feeling that Stephen King used the book to deal with his addictions. The closest we get to a heroic main character is an alcoholic poet and the effect the object has on the people of Haven is drug-like.
The book isn’t just some slog through an author’s dark night of the soul though. It is still a typical big Stephen King novel with a detailed, believable small town and realistically drawn characters full of Peyton Place intrigues. Watching what they can do to each other as their petty emotions are coupled with their newly discovered ability to cobble together lethal gadgets is half the fun of the book.
I really don't see why it gets such a bad rap. It is long, it is detailed and it probably could have been pared down. But I enjoyed it the whole way through.
Reclusive Western author Bobbi Anderson stumbles over a chunk of metal in her back field. She
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decides to dig it up expecting to find anything from a can to a refrigerator. It turns out to be something else. Something massive. Something not of this Earth.The more the object is unearthed, the more she changes. Not just her, but the entire town of Haven suddenly seems to have flashes of genius. There are also more sinister changes taking place in Haven…
So there are similarities to his classic ’Salem’s Lot. But he isn’t just rewriting his own work here. The tone and themes are quite different and I get the feeling that Stephen King used the book to deal with his addictions. The closest we get to a heroic main character is an alcoholic poet and the effect the object has on the people of Haven is drug-like.
The book isn’t just some slog through an author’s dark night of the soul though. It is still a typical big Stephen King novel with a detailed, believable small town and realistically drawn characters full of Peyton Place intrigues. Watching what they can do to each other as their petty emotions are coupled with their newly discovered ability to cobble together lethal gadgets is half the fun of the book.
I really don't see why it gets such a bad rap. It is long, it is detailed and it probably could have been pared down. But I enjoyed it the whole way through.
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LibraryThing member whiskerkid
I read the book and i wasn't able to sleep for a week. The dam thing nearly made me piss my self in the middle of class (And this was on a bright a sunny morning.) The movie on the other hand left a bad taste in my mouth.
LibraryThing member Frenzie
Oddly enough, various reviews seem to complain about the best parts of the book, saying that not enough time is spent on the mystery central to the story. But the the detailed and amusing background to Gardener's addiction and obsession all but spells out what the book is about: humans with human
The second half of the book could be silly at times, but I think that should be read primarily intertextually with King's other works and of course science fiction films from the 1950s. The guy thinking he should've bought an extra pop with his two burgers is attacked by a floating Coke machine. Just the kind of thing the genre expects. One might wonder whether it was merely pastiche or proper parody. It went back and forth a bit, but I think the lack of difference between the Tommyknockers and the Dallas Police had at least some bite.
In conclusion, I'd say the book is well worth a read. Just think of it as a story about addiction and obsession, with a healthy dose of parody and hilarity. It's not great, but it's definitely not worth the scorn.
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concerns, just like all of King's work I've read. We all are or can become the Dallas Police, unless we stand guard against it. Which because of his own problems, the protagonist for the longest time does not.The second half of the book could be silly at times, but I think that should be read primarily intertextually with King's other works and of course science fiction films from the 1950s. The guy thinking he should've bought an extra pop with his two burgers is attacked by a floating Coke machine. Just the kind of thing the genre expects. One might wonder whether it was merely pastiche or proper parody. It went back and forth a bit, but I think the lack of difference between the Tommyknockers and the Dallas Police had at least some bite.
In conclusion, I'd say the book is well worth a read. Just think of it as a story about addiction and obsession, with a healthy dose of parody and hilarity. It's not great, but it's definitely not worth the scorn.
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LibraryThing member PaddySheridan
This book starts off well, with two main characters and a story that develops well. Then it starts branching off, the two main characters are essentially forgotten and from then it trudges along with different characters, none of which are developed, and a story that's going nowhere. From about
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halfway through I found that I was skimming the pages and staying with the book only because I wanted some resolution. It as like being addicted to a drug, hating it and hating myself for reading it but staying with it in the hope that it would all come together. Steven King can write well but I think he should be ashamed of this book. There is nothing good or edifying about it. Having read about 60% I deleted it from my Kindle and felt the better for doing so. Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
My reaction to reading this novel in 1983. Spoilers follow.
I refer to this novel as the interminable Tommyknockers because it is need of serious editing. I would shorten the sections involving Bobby Anderson and Jim Gardener and there’s a lot of extraneous depictions of various characters’
To be fair to King, the Gardener and Anderson is the centerpiece of this novel, the main exploration of the theme of love, and the plot bears a resemblance to King’s The Shining. There Jack Torrance was possessed by the motel, but his loving wife refused to leave him until she had to violently confront him. Here Gardener stands by Anderson as she increasingly falls under the sway (and physically changes into) the aliens until he eventually has to kill her. Gardener is a very obnoxious character at first with his rantings against nuclear power and drunken behavior, and I wanted something bad to happen to him. But Gardener’s saving graces is that he realizes his unhealthy obsession and faults King’s great line is “When it came to matters of restraint, James Gardener had a bad containment system. There was some technician inside who should have long since been fired. He sat and played with all the wrong switches. That guy wouldn’t be really happy until Jim Gardener went China Syndrome.” If at story’s end I didn’t mourn his sacrifice to save the world, I didn’t hate him.
The theme of love inspiring great sacrifice and devotion was also echoed in Ruth McCausland’s suicide which attempts to alert the authorities to the dangers of the town she loves. It also shows in the incredible pain and suffering Ev Hillman, WWII veteran, takes to save his grandsons Hilly and David. (The scenes where would-be magician Hilly accidently sends his beloved David to an alien planet via Tommyknocker technology is one of the best ones in the book. Fittingly, the novel ends with the brothers lovingly reunited and their love contrasted with the vastness of the universe.
To be sure a lot of the incidental scenes with minor characters and their reactions to the Tommyknocker influence could have been eliminated, but they’re some of the best parts of the book. King’s skill at dialogue and quickly creating vivid, interesting characters (even if only to kill them at chapter’s end) is his strongest virtue. Many of these characters are more interesting than Gardener and Anderson. I paricularly liked Anderson’s scary sister, and the angry, bold, overconfident doctor/pilot who crashes after discovering the saucer. King has his typically lethal machines here. This novel features a killer Coke machine.
There are allusions to various sf works including Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters. Like that novel, the aliens use their human hosts harshly. Here the parasitism seems mental and the aliens transform various intelligent species into forms they can use – or at least King’s vague explanation suggests. Eventually, the townsfolk of Haven can’t survive. Reference is made to King’s The Dead Zone – a character from that novel shows up here. His fellow reporter is one of the best characters though he dies after getting access to his big scoop. There are often allusions by King to his other works. He even makes a disparaging, playful allusion to himself as that profane writer of hard to believe horror stories as oppossed to Anderson’s – characters are often writers in King’s works – clean cut, easy-to-take Westerns.
I also liked the rather stupid alien influence who spends so much time buying batteries to power its fantastic tech rather than just buying an ac/dc convertor and tapping into power lines. (The alien reacts quite angrily when Gardener mentions this point.) An obvious flaw in the logic of the aliens depicted is how they obtained such high tech if they don’t understand how it works? Did they assimilate from races they possessed? King’s vagueness on this point is matched by the depiction of the past history of the woods the saucer is buried in. It is implied the saucer’s influence created problems in the past but certainly not to the extent it does it Haven. Is the difference, as is implied, due to vaporous emission from the saucer’s hull and those emissions increasing after it is uncovered? While most of the novel is a little long and tedious in parts, the final and 120 pages or so moves quickly. Starting with young reporter John Leandro determined to get a scoop – even if it kills him, which it does – on the doings in Haven, the novel escalates into a bloody, strange, apocalyptic battle between the alien/humans of Haven and the rapidly encroaching authorities who have tumbled onto the fact that something strange is happening in Haven.
I refer to this novel as the interminable Tommyknockers because it is need of serious editing. I would shorten the sections involving Bobby Anderson and Jim Gardener and there’s a lot of extraneous depictions of various characters’
Show More
metamorphises as the entire town of Haven is transformed into alien-like creatures. To be fair to King, the Gardener and Anderson is the centerpiece of this novel, the main exploration of the theme of love, and the plot bears a resemblance to King’s The Shining. There Jack Torrance was possessed by the motel, but his loving wife refused to leave him until she had to violently confront him. Here Gardener stands by Anderson as she increasingly falls under the sway (and physically changes into) the aliens until he eventually has to kill her. Gardener is a very obnoxious character at first with his rantings against nuclear power and drunken behavior, and I wanted something bad to happen to him. But Gardener’s saving graces is that he realizes his unhealthy obsession and faults King’s great line is “When it came to matters of restraint, James Gardener had a bad containment system. There was some technician inside who should have long since been fired. He sat and played with all the wrong switches. That guy wouldn’t be really happy until Jim Gardener went China Syndrome.” If at story’s end I didn’t mourn his sacrifice to save the world, I didn’t hate him.
The theme of love inspiring great sacrifice and devotion was also echoed in Ruth McCausland’s suicide which attempts to alert the authorities to the dangers of the town she loves. It also shows in the incredible pain and suffering Ev Hillman, WWII veteran, takes to save his grandsons Hilly and David. (The scenes where would-be magician Hilly accidently sends his beloved David to an alien planet via Tommyknocker technology is one of the best ones in the book. Fittingly, the novel ends with the brothers lovingly reunited and their love contrasted with the vastness of the universe.
To be sure a lot of the incidental scenes with minor characters and their reactions to the Tommyknocker influence could have been eliminated, but they’re some of the best parts of the book. King’s skill at dialogue and quickly creating vivid, interesting characters (even if only to kill them at chapter’s end) is his strongest virtue. Many of these characters are more interesting than Gardener and Anderson. I paricularly liked Anderson’s scary sister, and the angry, bold, overconfident doctor/pilot who crashes after discovering the saucer. King has his typically lethal machines here. This novel features a killer Coke machine.
There are allusions to various sf works including Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters. Like that novel, the aliens use their human hosts harshly. Here the parasitism seems mental and the aliens transform various intelligent species into forms they can use – or at least King’s vague explanation suggests. Eventually, the townsfolk of Haven can’t survive. Reference is made to King’s The Dead Zone – a character from that novel shows up here. His fellow reporter is one of the best characters though he dies after getting access to his big scoop. There are often allusions by King to his other works. He even makes a disparaging, playful allusion to himself as that profane writer of hard to believe horror stories as oppossed to Anderson’s – characters are often writers in King’s works – clean cut, easy-to-take Westerns.
I also liked the rather stupid alien influence who spends so much time buying batteries to power its fantastic tech rather than just buying an ac/dc convertor and tapping into power lines. (The alien reacts quite angrily when Gardener mentions this point.) An obvious flaw in the logic of the aliens depicted is how they obtained such high tech if they don’t understand how it works? Did they assimilate from races they possessed? King’s vagueness on this point is matched by the depiction of the past history of the woods the saucer is buried in. It is implied the saucer’s influence created problems in the past but certainly not to the extent it does it Haven. Is the difference, as is implied, due to vaporous emission from the saucer’s hull and those emissions increasing after it is uncovered? While most of the novel is a little long and tedious in parts, the final and 120 pages or so moves quickly. Starting with young reporter John Leandro determined to get a scoop – even if it kills him, which it does – on the doings in Haven, the novel escalates into a bloody, strange, apocalyptic battle between the alien/humans of Haven and the rapidly encroaching authorities who have tumbled onto the fact that something strange is happening in Haven.
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LibraryThing member lovelyliquid
This book has a slow start and is hard to keep a timeline on. Overall this book does not leave a lasting impression, the story line is slow and is not what I would expect of a Stephen King novel.
LibraryThing member silversurfer
Too over blown.
LibraryThing member mmyoung
This is the first King book where I felt his tendency to writer insert plus the weak (sometimes seemingly nonexistent) editing led to such an uncomfortable bloat that the "horror" was robbed of impact. Long before the end I just wanted it to end.
In addition this is not _really_ a work of horror --
In addition this is not _really_ a work of horror --
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rather an attempt by a master of horror to write a book that used science fiction tropes. Like many a non-Science-Fiction author he does so clumsily. Similar books have been written by science fiction writers who needed several hundred fewer pages to deliver more wonder, horror and fear. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lukerik
If, like me, you're a bit of an sf fan then you may find those elements of this novel to be cheap, derivative and merely a hook to hang the theme of the story from... which in this case seems to be drug abuse. Haven and it's inhabitants symbolise the drug user and the different elements of their
I have two main problems with it. Firstly, Gard has to be the most boring lead character ever created. BORING. Secondly, King doesn't seen to know who's side he's on. He spends ages gaining your sympathy for Bobbi but then you step outside her and her transformation. You're left in an emotional limbo. Either let us sympathise with those undergoing the change, or give us entirely an outsiders view so we can feel some threat from them.
Still, that said, as always it's a pleasure to listen to King's voice and there are some nice touches, like the destruction of the clock tower and its subsequent disguise.
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personality, with the spaceship symbolising the need to get as high as possible. Apparently, it was after writing it that King gave up drugs, only then realising what the book was about. If this is true then he must have written it in much the same way as Bobbi writes her novel. Actually, if he did write it in that kind of disconnected way it would explain the defects of the book.I have two main problems with it. Firstly, Gard has to be the most boring lead character ever created. BORING. Secondly, King doesn't seen to know who's side he's on. He spends ages gaining your sympathy for Bobbi but then you step outside her and her transformation. You're left in an emotional limbo. Either let us sympathise with those undergoing the change, or give us entirely an outsiders view so we can feel some threat from them.
Still, that said, as always it's a pleasure to listen to King's voice and there are some nice touches, like the destruction of the clock tower and its subsequent disguise.
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LibraryThing member camarie
I seriously almost vomited as I read this book. It is graphic, and disturbing and horrifying, but worth it. I couldn't even bring myself to read it at night it frightened me so much. Yet it is well written (or course, it's King) and gripping, like a beautiful and deadly black hole that sucks you
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in. Splendid read. Show Less
LibraryThing member Edward.Lorn
Well, that was unexpected.
First time I read this, I loved the first two-thirds of the book and loathed the last third. This time, it was the exact opposite. I enjoyed the introductions to Bobbi and Gard all right, I guess, but the middle was boring. I almost gave up. In fact, I switched to the
But here's where it gets really weird. All the cool references at the tail-end of the book are for books King hadn't yet written. Specifically, Under the Dome. Usually, I tell people to read King's books in order, but if you plan on reading Under the Dome, you might want to leave The Tommyknockers for after you finish it. There are at least two huge spoilers for Under the Dome in this novel. There are two more, but they are well hidden gems.
I also find it terribly rad that King first mentions Haven way back in 'Salem's Lot, yet it would be more than a decade before he actually wrote about the town.
Time for the bad news. This book is one of those King novels that feels bloated. There's so much unneeded information in here that I would suspect as much as two-hundred pages could have been left on the cutting room floor and no one would have noticed. King doesn't even like this book. He stated as much in a recent interview that and Dreamcatcher are his least favorite novels because they were both written during periods of recovery (one before and after drug rehab, and the other while recovering from being ran over by a van). To quote King exactly: "The Tommyknockers is a mess, man. So's Dreamcatcher."
References to other books:
Gard mentions Ka while in deep thought.
Gard meets a young boy named Jack outside of the Alhambra H. (Huge reference to The Talisman here)
Clown holding balloons is seen in a storm drain.
All this further cements my claims that all of King's novels tie-in to the Dark Tower in some way. Even books like Firestarter and Misery, as well as other books that King has not verified as tie-ins.
Notable name:
Big Injun Woods (Pet Sematary)
Derry (It, Insomnia)
Johnny Smith (The Dead Zone)
There are far more connections to other books in the King-verse but some of them are spoilers and/or I'm saving them for my next Decade with King post.
In summation: The Tommyknockers is a big book. It feels like a big book. His novel It doesn't feel half as long as this book, and it's over 400-pages longer. A lot of ideas are rehashed this time around, too, and reading King's library in chronological order makes all these reused concepts stand out like a sore thumb covered in neon pink spray paint and glitter. I wouldn't tell anyone to skip The Tommyknockers, but you can leave it for last. Recommended for King completionists.
First time I read this, I loved the first two-thirds of the book and loathed the last third. This time, it was the exact opposite. I enjoyed the introductions to Bobbi and Gard all right, I guess, but the middle was boring. I almost gave up. In fact, I switched to the
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audio book so that I could play Minecraft while listening to it. Then, an odd thing happened. I became involved again. (This was after the vagina tentacles.) I started catching reference after reference, and the book became a kind of treasure hunt. F*ck*ng awesome, dude. But here's where it gets really weird. All the cool references at the tail-end of the book are for books King hadn't yet written. Specifically, Under the Dome. Usually, I tell people to read King's books in order, but if you plan on reading Under the Dome, you might want to leave The Tommyknockers for after you finish it. There are at least two huge spoilers for Under the Dome in this novel. There are two more, but they are well hidden gems.
I also find it terribly rad that King first mentions Haven way back in 'Salem's Lot, yet it would be more than a decade before he actually wrote about the town.
Time for the bad news. This book is one of those King novels that feels bloated. There's so much unneeded information in here that I would suspect as much as two-hundred pages could have been left on the cutting room floor and no one would have noticed. King doesn't even like this book. He stated as much in a recent interview that and Dreamcatcher are his least favorite novels because they were both written during periods of recovery (one before and after drug rehab, and the other while recovering from being ran over by a van). To quote King exactly: "The Tommyknockers is a mess, man. So's Dreamcatcher."
References to other books:
Gard mentions Ka while in deep thought.
Gard meets a young boy named Jack outside of the Alhambra H. (Huge reference to The Talisman here)
Clown holding balloons is seen in a storm drain.
All this further cements my claims that all of King's novels tie-in to the Dark Tower in some way. Even books like Firestarter and Misery, as well as other books that King has not verified as tie-ins.
Notable name:
Big Injun Woods (Pet Sematary)
Derry (It, Insomnia)
Johnny Smith (The Dead Zone)
There are far more connections to other books in the King-verse but some of them are spoilers and/or I'm saving them for my next Decade with King post.
In summation: The Tommyknockers is a big book. It feels like a big book. His novel It doesn't feel half as long as this book, and it's over 400-pages longer. A lot of ideas are rehashed this time around, too, and reading King's library in chronological order makes all these reused concepts stand out like a sore thumb covered in neon pink spray paint and glitter. I wouldn't tell anyone to skip The Tommyknockers, but you can leave it for last. Recommended for King completionists.
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LibraryThing member jodes101
This was pretty much the end of a long running love affair with Stephen King. I remember reading it and just thinking what went wrong.
LibraryThing member oxlena
Long, strange, confusing, and not overly rewarding. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I've read better, but I've read much, much worse. The movie is just weird. Unlike the movie, the book doesn't paint the Tommyknockers out to be evil or bad in any way; they just grant the people the
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knowledge to accomplish what they desire...More or less. 3 out of 5 movies that portray a lady in her fifties as a twenty-two year old. -_- Show Less
LibraryThing member pahoota
Grotesque for grotesque's sake.
I've never read a piece of fiction that frightened me or gave me nightmares; perhaps I lack imagination. However, I read this two decades ago though and still remember the line "(so-and-so) is on Altair IV" startling me. I'll give it an extra half star for that. But
I read this book at a time of my life when I thought anything NOT assigned by my English teacher was a masterpiece. And even back then I remember being subtly disappointed, excepting the well executed final scene.
I've never read a piece of fiction that frightened me or gave me nightmares; perhaps I lack imagination. However, I read this two decades ago though and still remember the line "(so-and-so) is on Altair IV" startling me. I'll give it an extra half star for that. But
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it's easier to shock 15 year olds, and easier to titillate them with sex and gory violence, which is probably why I liked this book back then. I read an interview with King years later where he recalled being high on cocaine throughout the writing of The Tommyknockers. That explains the book's general craziness. I read this book at a time of my life when I thought anything NOT assigned by my English teacher was a masterpiece. And even back then I remember being subtly disappointed, excepting the well executed final scene.
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LibraryThing member phaga
This was a pretty good book. After reading On Writing i kind of like it more, knowing that Gard's alcoholism was a reflection of King's and his way of trying to deal with it.
LibraryThing member lexi1022
This is another one of Stephen Kings books that are scary but not for the normal reasons. This one really delves into the nature of humans and how easily they can be tempted to do some truely awful things when power is involved. What starts out as an inocent trip in the woods ends in something
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truely awful. Nice book, great story, but a bit to wordy for my tastes. Show Less
LibraryThing member keely_chace
When Bobbi Anderson trips over a lip of metal in the woods outside her home in rural Maine, she sets in motion a chain of supernatural events that slowly destroy the inhabitants of the nearby town of Haven. Stephen King always spins a pretty fun yarn, but wow, he really should have tightened this
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one. This sprawling tale contains a kerjillion or so characters and plot threads, and after the mind-boggling work or keeping track of them all, the novel's resolution is a bit of a let-down. Oh, well. At least I got a lot of bang for my audio book buck on this. It was something like 27 hours! Show Less
LibraryThing member ASmallHolding
I first read this book when it first came out, and loved it. Back then, it was several notches above anything else of its kind. I have re-read it a few times over my lifetime, and have just finished it again. It still has the power to shock, and my perception of the characters and their actions has
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changed. For me, still an excellent read. Show Less
LibraryThing member rsplenda477
Very boring and way to long for the master of horror. The fact that it involved aliens was a discouragement to me as well, since this is not what I expect in Stephen King books.
LibraryThing member mossagate
Another book in which I felt Stephen King could have used an editor. I have a theory that after he got famous, his publisher just decided to let him write whatever, no matter how meandering and verbose it might be. I still enjoyed it enough to finish - I have quit other books of his for droning on
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into nothing - but I skimmed quite a bit and didn't think I missed anything. Quite a few things could have been trimmed and it would have made for a more interesting read. Show Less
LibraryThing member shabbyrabbit
It's been a long time but if I remember I thought the end was weak. I'd like to have time to read it again someday and see how I feel about it now.
LibraryThing member gopfolk
I’m clearly behind in my reading when I pick up a King book from the 80’s that I haven’t read. This was a great book and while it reads like a King book the story has a bit of a sci-fi slant that I have not really read in him much before. The characters, while a lot of them, were really well
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developed and engrossing. I’m sorry that it took me this long to finally read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member StefanY
I thought that this book overall was much better than I had remembered from my first read of it. What I find odd is that the parts of the book that dragged for me were the end of part 1 and the beginning of part 3. The part of the book that most people have complaints about, part 2, was actually my
I did find the early mentioned parts of the book to drag a little. I think that my main reason for feeling this way was that these parts of the book took the focus off of Haven and put the attention directly on characters who were doing other things but were compelled to return or travel to Haven. This in itself was fine, but I felt that he took too much time to give us a blow by blow on their journeys to Haven when he could have skipped a lot of that and focus more on the events surrounding their actual arrival.
This is not among King's best by any means, but the strong characters, storyline and concept carry it pretty well and make it worth reading.
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overall favorite section of the book. I rather enjoyed the little vignettes through this section going from one character to another and seeing how things were affecting them. I did find the early mentioned parts of the book to drag a little. I think that my main reason for feeling this way was that these parts of the book took the focus off of Haven and put the attention directly on characters who were doing other things but were compelled to return or travel to Haven. This in itself was fine, but I felt that he took too much time to give us a blow by blow on their journeys to Haven when he could have skipped a lot of that and focus more on the events surrounding their actual arrival.
This is not among King's best by any means, but the strong characters, storyline and concept carry it pretty well and make it worth reading.
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LibraryThing member bradsucks
I got to around page 450, realized I had about 300 left and that I could read another book in that time. Tommyknockers wasn't terrible but there wasn't enough to keep me interested. I also think I started to recognize it devolving into mumbo-jumbo much like The Stand.
LibraryThing member srboone
This sci-fi novel is one of King's most frigid. I think the problem was that no character was called by their first name(except the dog) for the first half of the book. By the time peole get around addressing each other as people, the iciness is hard to shake.
Pages
992