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Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt
''The Tommyknockers'' proves that Stephen King can do
anything he wants to. We already knew he could grip us with
good horror stories and so-so horror stories. Now he has
shown that he can grip us with a lousy horror story as well.
-- New York Times
Publisher's Weekly
King's new novel, a numbing variation on Invasion of the
Body Snatchers, offers its own best commentary on itself.
Nearly one-third of the way through the 560-page book,
protagonist Bobbi Anderson, a writer of westerns, describes
what she has stumbled upon in her backyard to her friend
Gardener, an alcoholic poet: ``It was a flying saucer. No
self-respecting science-fiction writer would put one in his
story, and if he did, no self-respecting editor would touch
it with a ten-foot pole.. . . It is the oldest wheeze in the
book.'' After the vampirish Tommyknockers in the spaceship
have wrought their evil magic upon the inhabitants of Haven
(Tommyknockers live on the blood of comatose humans
circulated through mind-reading PCs connected to VCRs), the
unfortunate townspeople have, it seems, ``become'' (the
word, over-used and never explained, is King's) ``something
else'' (the vague words are also the author's). The
``gadgets'' of the town ``become'' living beings that kill
(there are marauding hedge cutters and Coke machines,
Electrolux vacuums, Yamaha motorcycles and flying smoke
detectors ) and The Tommyknockers is consumed by the
rambling prose of its author. Taking a whole town as his
canvas, King uses too-broad strokes, adding cartoonlike
characters and unlikely catastrophes like so many logs on a
fire; ultimately he loses all semblance of style, carefully
structured plot or resonant meaning, the hallmarks of his
best writing. It is clear from this latest work that King
himself has ``become'' a writing machinethis is his fourth
novel since It was published 14 months ago; the faithful
readers not overwhelmed by his latest fictional ``gadget''
are likely to wonder, as poet Gardener does near the novel's
end: ``What had it all been for? He realized miserably that
he was never going to know.'' (November)
Library Journal
Yet another mammoth horror novel from King, this dark tale
depicts a small town's fatal encounter with creatures from
outer space. Events start with Roberta Anderson, a writer of
Old West novels, unearthing a flying saucer on her remote
wooded property. Five hundred pages later alcoholic poet Jim
Gardener, Roberts's former English teacher, finds himself
aboard the flying saucer in outer space. In the interval the
creatures (Tommyknockers) destroy the citizenry of Haven,
Maine. While this is not one of King's more original novels,
it does have plenty of blood and guts, macabre humor, and a
well-wrought realization of the New England countryside. No
doubt King's legions of fans will demand it. BOMC main
selection. James B. Hemesath, Adams State Coll. Lib.,
Alamosa, Col. |
