Review: "The Tommyknockers," by Stephen King
Awe shucks, such a missed opportunity by King here. The Tommyknockers was a solid concept, but poorly executed. King himself has criticised this book as being one of, if not the, worst of his novels. He said it was the last book he wrote before cleaning up his act. In other words, it was written during a coke-fuelled binge of sorts. And it shows. For me, this novel is really a book of thirds. 1/3. This section of the book was honestly some of the most engaging King writing I've ever read. Prior to starting Tommyknockers I'd heard much about how this book was one of King's least liked books by fans. But when I started reading the book, I thought everyone must have been off their Tommyknocker-rocker! The first third is a brilliant examination into the two main characters' minds, their lives. The characters are interesting, likeable and hateable alike. The writing is King at his best, and it's an incredible, tense, detailed introduction into what was a very juicy concept. 2/3. Here the book collapses in on itself like a dying star. Suddenly King veers away from the two very interesting main characters, and introduces a whole shwack of characters out of nowhere. For the most part, none of them had any business being in the story. They didn't add anything to the essential grain of the idea. Rather, they cluttered up the story, screwed up the pace, and mostly, confused the hell out of me. I like to think this was where King was snorting coke off to the side of his laptop with a rolled up dollar bill in one hand while typing with his other hand. 3/3. Here the book tries to return to it's first-third roots, but by now it's far too late. You've lost the reader in all the confusion that was the coke-infused middle section of the book. King attempts to bring together everything here, but since he introduced so many different characters and random sub plots in the middle part of the book, it was like he was really grasping at straws trying to figure out how the hell to incorporate it all together. Final analysis. There's a fantastic book in here somewhere. This 550ish page novel should be cut back to about 300, losing much of the middle junk, and you'd have a helluva story here. The Tommyknockers felt a bit like a cross between Stranger Things and Under the Dome. That said, Under the Dome was far superior in execution to the concept of having a town trapped under the influence of an unknown force. I feel like Under the Dome was in some ways a chance at redemption for this concept for King. I often hear of authors who wish they could go back with a red marker and edit some of their novels. I would imagine King would want to go back and do this with Tommyknockers. If you exclude the random middle third of the novel, there is a delicious mixture of suspense, horror, supernatural, realism, and all the other stuff that makes King a staple on most bookshelves. My two star rating appears harsh. It's more like 2.5 stars. If King went back with a re-do he'd likely be able to boost this into one of his greater novels. Alas, time moves on, and so has King. There are still many many many King's left for me to read, so I'm not going to dwell any longer on this. Onward.
