Audiobook – Narrated by Edward Herrmann – Excellent narration.***Ebook: Not quite 4**** but more than 3*** So, 3 and a half stars.The Onion wrote an article claiming that King couldn't remember writing The Tommyknockers. He (King) then admitted that it was actually true, as he couldn't remember writing many novels from the 80s due to his alcoholism, including Cujo.For me, Cujo was a winner whether King remembered writing it or not. I can’t say the same for The Tommyknockers! Or so I thought.When I first read this book, many years ago, I hated it. Hated it! Hated it! HATED IT!I hated it so much I wanted to throw it on the floor and stomp on it, like a little kid throwing a tantrum in the candy aisle of the grocery store because his mother won’t let him have any chocolate. It was one of the worst books I’d ever read.Now, some thirty years later, I have to eat humble pie. It’s still not a *great* book, and the beginning bored me witless, but I kind of enjoyed it.Well, except for the romance, such as it was:“Gard my dear, my dear, always myshhhhOh please I love youBobbi I lovelovekiss mekissyes”UGH!So, while this book may not be in the same class as the aforementioned Cugo, it had a vastly different effect on me this time round. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t want to trash it…and it made me cry! I guess I must be “growed” up enough now to appreciate it.***CONNECTIONS: Haven (Firestarter, It, Pet Sematary, Mrs Todd’s Shortcut, 11/22/63)DerryRebecca Poulson (IT) “found a fifty-dollar bill fluttering from her back-door welcome mat, two twenties in her bird-house, and a hundred plastered against an oak tree in her back yard.” This was some of the money from the Derry Farmer’s Trust, which blew open after an explosion following the final confrontation with IT.The Arrowhead Project (The Mist)Jack Sawyer (The Talisman, Black House)The Alhambra (Talisman, Black House)Arcadia Beach (Talisman, Black House)Cleaves Mills (The Dead Zone, IT) Bobbi started writing her first novel in a “scuzzy Cleaves Mills apartment.”Derry Home Hospital (Mrs Todd’s Shortcut, IT, Insomnia)Juniper Hill Asylum (IT, Insomnia)New England Paper Company – Burning Woods (Uncle Otto’s Truck)Tommyknockers (Desperation) “What’re tommyknockers?” David asked.“Troublemakers,” Johnny said. “The underground version of gremlins.”Big Injun Woods (IT). The Micmac burial ground in Pet Sematary? “The remains of the Micmac Indian tribe had laid claim to nearly eight thousand acres in Ludlow” “It was in Ludlow that they buried their dead when they were decimated by influenza in the 1880s.”WZON (IT) Radio station owned by Stephen and Tabitha King.John Smith (The Dead Zone, Cujo) “Around two-thirty that afternoon, (David) Bright suddenly began to think of another Johnny—poor, damned Johnny Smith, who had sometimes touched objects and gotten “feelings” about them.”David Bright – Journalist (The Dead Zone) While at UMO, King wrote for The Maine Campus, which, at that time, was edited by David Bright. Ka (Ka-mai, Ka-tel, Ka-tet) – “Ka is the will of Gan, roughly synonymous with destiny or fate.”(DT2: The Drawing of the Three, DT3: The Wastelands, DT4: Wizard and Glass, DT5: The Wolves of the Calla, DT6: Song of Susannah, DT7: The Dark Tower, Rose Madder, The Little Sisters of Eluria, Insomnia)Lubbock Lights - The Lubbock Lights were an unusual formation of lights seen over Lubbock, Texas during August and September of 1951.Utica, NY (The Stand) Also, when asked where he gets his ideas King often replies, “Utica, New York, there’s a little shop there.” “Rimfire Christmas” is a novel written by Bobbi Anderson. It’s mentioned in The Stand.Police Officer Peter (Jingles) Gabbon shares his nickname with Delacroix's pet mouse, Mr Jingles, in The Green Mile.Jack (Sawyer) (The Talisman, Black House) Tells Gard that his is mother died in a car accident:“You look like you been drunk a long time.”Yeah? How would you know?”“My mom. With her it was always funny stuff like the Tommyknockers or too hung-over to talk.”“She give it up?”“Yeah. Car crash,” the kid said.John Merrill, father of Ruth Arlene Merrill McCausland shares his name with John (Ace) Merrill (The Body, Needful Things, Nona, )Henry Amberson, a forest ranger from Newport, died when his pacemaker exploded. Chief of Police, Howard “Duke” Perkins (Under the Dome) had a pacemaker that exploded.Henry Amberson – shares is surname with George Amberson (11/22/63)Fryeburg Fair (Mrs Todd’s Shortcut, Uncle Otto’s Truck, Bag of Bones)Carnival Glass – Ruth McCausland mentions Carnival Glass - David Drayton’s (The Mist) wife Stephanie collected Carnival Glass and Nettie (Needful Things) also collected Carnival Glass.Arnette, Texas (The Stand, The Monkey) is mentioned.The Black Clock – The Doomsday Clock - http://thebulletin.org/timelineChuckling noises coming from the drains (IT) - Ev Hillman “Sometimes he would lie in the dark and think he heard chuckling noises coming from the drains in the furnished room he had rented on Lower Main Street in Derry to be near his Grandson Hilly who was in the Derry Home Hospital.A clown in the sewer (IT) - “Tommy had begun to hallucinate; as he drove up Wentworth Street, he thought he saw a clown grinning up at him from an open sewer manhole—a clown with shiny silver dollars for eyes and a clenched white glove filled with balloons.”The Shining Movie - “So what was he supposed to do? Grab Bobbi’s ax and make like Jack Nicholson in The Shining? He could see it. Smash, crash, bash: Heeeeeere’s GARDENER!”The invisible barrier that prevented Ruth McCausland from leaving Haven was reminiscent of The Dome.The Shop (The Stand, Firestarter) The few remaining Havenites are taken to Virginia to be studied in a facility that had “once been burned to the ground by a child.” (Charlie McGee)Orono (IT, Pet Sematary)Greg Stillson (The Dead Zone – DT7: The Dark Tower)Crosman Corner – Shares its name with Crosman’s Funeral Home (Under The Dome) Homeland Cemetery, Derry (Needful Things, The Dark Half, Gerald’s Game)The town of Hampden – Shares its name with Hampden Academy where King began teaching high school English in 1971.The town of Albion - Shares it’s name with Nettie’s (Needful Things) husband Albion Cobb.Rebecca Bouchard Paulson (IT) There is also a Paulson Nursing Home in Bangor (IT)Rebecca Bouchard Paulson shares her name with Stanley Bouchard (Pet Sematary) Stanley Bouchard is the man who told Judd about the secret Micmac burial ground. Old Derry Road (Mrs Todd’s Shortcut)Starlite Drive In – There’s a Starlite Drive In in 11/22/63.Flexible Flyer (The Shining, Nona, IT, Insomnia, Cujo, Bag of Bones, Dreamcatcher, DT7: The Dark Tower, China Lakes – Author Meg Gardiner wrote a novel called China Lake in which Stephen King gets a mention “When Nikki walked in I thought it was the exclamation point on the day. She had on chartreuse maternity overalls, bright camouflage for her grief, yet she raised a camera and started snapping flash photos, saying ‘Lord, oh Lord, it’s really you. Evan Delaney. I want to have your baby. After this one, I mean – this one belongs to Stephen King.’’Fifth Business - “Fifth business” is a storytelling term referring to a significant character outside the usual framework, someone who isn’t the hero or heroine, the best friend, or the villain.” (Needful Things, Revival)Croatoan (Screenplay - Storm of the Century)http://anilbalan.com/2011/10/17/the-c...
After a long and tortuous decision making process, the hubby finally settled on Tommyknockers as my Stephen King book for Giving me the Creeps. I was interested in Salems Lot but apparently that was going to be "too many vampires" when I was hoping to get to the strain as well.He prefaced handing me the book with "the first 67 pages or so are really dry, but once you get past that it's good". Unfortunately it was more like the first 150-190 pages, sooo the equivalent of a novella worth of mind numbing boredom. Leaving me once again contemplating why oh why no editor has ever sat Stephen King down and said - look dude, you're obviously a good writer, but we've got to curb some of you more diarrhetic verbiage, because nobody needs to wade through rambling thoughts from characters that don't have anything to do with the story for 150 pages. Now I've read the entire Dark Tower series, The Stand, and his On Writing book, so Tommyknockers wasn't my intro to Stephen King or his verbose writing style. But it did take belated Thanksgiving dinner last weekend with 14 others to remind me the book was actually written during his obscene substance abuse years. Several people mentioned they thought he had said he couldn't remember writing it (because he was so high the whole time), and I did later read on wikipedia that he thought this novel was a metaphor for his addiction. Bobbi Anderson, a writer of popular western novels, lives in the outskirts of the small town of Haven, with her beagle Peter, in a small house left to her by her uncle Frank many years before. While walking in the woods behind her place one afternoon, she stumbles on a piece of metal buried in the ground which captures her interest. Setting off a monumental, obsessive excavation of a space ship which will eventually involve her entire township and the destruction of everyone in it.This was not my favorite Stephen King book, it had moments I really enjoyed, but they were so bogged down in useless blah blah blahing I eventually felt like I was drowning in his ramblings. Now part of this also has to do with the shear size of Kings novels, the one I was reading was written in 1987 and the hubbies copy was probably from the early nineties. This particular copy was a dictionary weight and size hardcover of 553 pages packed with the tiniest writing and the smallest margins you've ever seen, tightly spaced. I cringe to think of how many words were actually on each page, but to suffice it to say a modern printed paperback of the same book would likely have been closer to 1000 pages long. Now in a more readable book I could easily have cleared the word count in half the time Tommyknockers took me, hell the Stand took me less time and its a fair amount longer, but so much of the text was just a sticky mud of words not really going anywhere but taking up oddles of space and time.My biggest complaint about the book is how the "becoming" of the villagers sucks all their personality out and leaves a story full of drones wandering around doing stuff. I think one of Kings real talents is character development, and his large cast books with many interesting personalities are what I've come to think of as his trademark. So it was disappointing to read a book so full of characters who only have personalities for a few pages before the alien air takes hold and they turn into these, not even particularly creepy, alien/drone hybrids.But boy oh boy, Tommyknockers has a great ending! And in the past I've mocked Stephen Kings dislike of pre-planning his books, as the reason his books are good but his endings blow chunks. I mean how can someone rave about the talents of J.K Rowling and still think writing without a purpose "to see where the story takes him" is a good method?? Anyhow, it worked for him here, as many new characters streamed into the story, livening things up, and even the people of Haven were a little more enjoyable Look even writing a review for Stephen King makes for epically long windedness!
What do You think about The Tommyknockers (1993)?
Yaaaaas! Compelling story, endearing characters, heady concepts, a healthy dose of humor, and a sprinkling of references to other Stephen King works make this book incredibly satisfying. Did I mention that the story is compelling? Like couldn't put it down, thinking about it all day kind of compelling. Like if it wasn't a library book, I'd have had it open in one hand all the time, regardless of what I was doing with the other. This is in my top five Stephen King books (counting the Dark Tower series as one unit, of course). Why four stars? Because some of the writing is just shitty, terrible similies (you get to use the dynamite in a rotting vegetable line only once, okay?) and I suspect a good editor could have shed at least 50 pages from this brick of a book. Plus, I found a hearty handful of typos, and that always annoys me. How many eyes passed over this text before printing time? Regardless, I love this book so much that I might watch the (undoubtedly terrible) miniseries, if only to watch Leandro get iced by the Coke machine.) Good stuff! Read this!
—M.liss
This book is avoiding a single star merely because of the respect I have for the man and because he always manages to redeem himself with story. But this - out of the thirty or more books I've read by him - is by far the most repulsive instance in terms of its writing. I've never been so heartless in my reading of him. I religiously underlined phrases and sentences that made me cringe, were awkward, unnecessary, clunky. He is - in his own words - the quintessential putter-inner. He seems to love putting more in just for the sake of it rather than because it contributes. The book could easily have been 200 pages less than what it was. He milks the fuck out of everything, and instead of topping off the bucket nicely, all we have is a cow writhing on the ground in pain, with dry, twisted nipples. I have about fifty examples, but I'll give only a few. Firstly, an example of putting in, p 885. "Never fired a warning shot," Weems cackled breathlessly. "No, I never did. Never did at all." I don't try to be economic with every single sentence I write, but I feel that King could have stopped at 'breathlessly'. Or even at 'cackled'. I'm not sure what the context was here, and it would pain me to go over it again, but I'm sure he could easily have made 16 words 8 in this case. Here's another general example that every single King fan will have come across before. "No, Bob didn't like it. No, he didn't like it at all. Nosirree Bob!!" So, what we've learned here is that Bob doesn't like it. Five words was all it needed. Not only am I pummelled over the head with more words, but I'm also now angry at the author for drawing attention away from the story in a horribly awkward, melodramatic way. Here's one from p808. I'll include the context to show you why I want to pull my hair out. Bobbi is now turning into a Tommyknocker, and her feet are becoming hoof-like and sharp, which Gardener notices and points out. "If Bruce Lee had a foot like that, he would have killed a thousand people a week, Bobbi." (This quote is Garderner's thought, not dialogue.) Now, when I notice MY best friend and one-time lover transforming into an extraterrestrial, I try my hardest to refrain from Bruce Lee comparisons, however apt. How the fuck can anyone who appreciates reading take this sentence seriously? I love the idea of this book. Anything to do with aliens will easily catch hold of me, but this is just plain disgusting. Another putter-inner, p.243. "Any second now I'll come to and find myself trying to breath salt water. Any second now. Just any old second." Stop reading at 'salt water'. P.301: "She stopped in the back yard, panting, her mousy blonde hair hanging in her face, her heart beating so fast it frightened her." Generally, people are frightened when their hearts beat fast. P.276: "When his skin began to turn red, he stepped out into a bathroom as steamy as London in the grip of a Sherlockian fog." Just say steamy. Reading this sentence felt like a three-day camel ride. P.252: "What have you got in there? A time machine that runs on Penlites? What's the New Improved Bobbi got in there?" What the fuck is with this New Improved business? Silly and melodramatic. P245, King is describing a horribly loud noise inside Gardener's head: "It was like being inside a stereo speaker turned all the way up." Original. P.462: "He screamed and swore and even drummed his feet up and down on the floor like a child doing a tantrum because he has been denied an outing." Again, stop at tantrum. I could go on. I understand that some of these examples will seem perfectly normal to a lot of readers, who might just consider me too sensitive. But so much of this book is just bad writing. I've never been so overwhelmed by similes in my life. If it had been just 700 pages, I might have relaxed. But almost 1000 pages of it destroys your love of words a little. King said once that he wished he was better[at writing], and I can't help feeling that it's a shame I have to agree. At least sometimes. His imagination is ridiculously efficient, no doubt, and the story itself is the reason I can't totally dislike the book, but Jesus H. Christ why the flying fridge?
—Jason Carlin
Tommyknockers was an enjoyable read. The small town setting has been used by King in several books and works well here. There was some parts I felt were needlessly drawn out, but on the other hand I enjoyed the thorough look into the background of both Anderson and Gardener, the two main characters. The book has humor, suspense, and love. Although at times I felt myself drifting away from the story, I knew enough of King's work and was rewarded for my patience.The book is separated into 3 smaller books. Books 1 and two are where I felt King's penchant for wordiness went a little far. Even so, there were some dramatic spots in book one that left me amazed once again at King's ability at character development. Gardener isn't perfect and it's the imperfections that allow an intimate look inside his soul. The life he breathes into the character seems so real that at times I believe he's writing about himself and not the fictional Gardener. About halfway through and into book 2 the pace begins to pick up. The story drifts away from Gardener and more towards the conflict between the town residents. The difference between this novel and other King novels is the antagonist. The entire town, save for a few, is slowly overtaken by the evil and individual motivations of residents wilt before the overpowering evil consciousness that slowly erodes any traces of humanity.While I found myself slipping away at times in book 1 and 2, book 3 was fast paced and engaging. I won't go into detail and spoil anything, but I will say there were some funny moments that I'll remember for awhile. Overall, this was an entertaining read. If you enjoy King's novels, especially the small town settings he uses, you will enjoy this one. This may not be the book for you if you’re looking for a fast paced, quick read. While not among my favorite King books, I still enjoyed it. 3.5 stars.
—Tim
