Hmm, probably my least fave Stephen King book I've read so far. I don't really know why, but for some reason I had a really hard time getting into it, especially the first part with just Bobbi (weirded me out that she was referred to as 'Andersson' when we were getting her POV), but when the other characters got introduced it got better.

Though idk. I knew nothing about the plot when I picked it up and from the title you expect them to encounter some sort of horrible monster that knocks and freaks you out and that wasn't what I got AT ALL, so maybe that's why I didn't really like it. It's a bit too long for a book that doesn't engage you properly, even though I enjoyed the second half. ( )

Another of my favorite King books... ( )

I don't remember this book at all, nor do I remember marking it as read. I think that was some sort of mistake - I probably got it confused with another book.

But I'll leave this note here to remind myself not to read it. Even the author thought it was bad.

this is the first King book that I remember abandoning in disgust in what an awful book it was. Since then I've learnt that it was around this time that King was in the midst of his cocaine habit and that goes a long way to explain the results - but does nothing to explain why the publishers accepted (and published) it. Could they not just have shoved it in a drawer somewhere?

The first time I read this novel, 30 years ago, it was the first time I'd experienced any major disappointment with Stephen King's writing. Every single novel before this--with the exception of [b:The Eyes of the Dragon|10611|The Eyes of the Dragon|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1430121758l/10611._SY75_.jpg|3083085], which could be pushed to the side due to it being a bit of a YA experiment--had been, to varying degrees, all winners.

Then came The Tommyknockers. Hoo boy.

Back then, I was disappointed with the novel, but couldn't put my finger on exactly why. Maybe it was all the pseudoscience involving batteries and vacuum cleaners. Maybe it was the SF elements. Whatever it was, I wasn't crazy about it.

It was with some trepidation that I came back around to this one, having nothing but those feelings of disappointment, and they were only increased from the tragic image I still carry in my mind of Jimmy Smits fighting a big rubber alien in the movie version of this story. The movie did us no favours.

Yet, when I started the book, the entire opening, first with Bobbi, then the extended (and far too long) breakaway to Gard old Gard, then their coming together was actually quite good, if a little bloated.

But then the book breaks away and leaves them to focus on a series of different townsfolk for a few hundred pages, comes back to Gard, skips away again, gives us scenes that could have--and should have--been excised from the final draft.

And through all that, some of King's pseudoscience that had, at the beginning, not been too horribly out of whack (okay, well, yes, if you looked at it askance, eyes squinted, tongue at precisely the right angle, and brain in a very low gear), just seemed to get dumber and dumber as the novel progressed.

Provisionally, Gard is the main character, but that doesn't truly become apparent until about the last third of the book. Prior to that, the reader is thrown all these stories with all these characters, some deserving our empathy, most not, and we're left to puzzle out what it's all about.

It's about, like many of King's novels from [b:The Shining|11588|The Shining (The Shining, #1)|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353277730l/11588._SY75_.jpg|849585] on, about addiction. Unfortunately, I also think this was when his own was developing a life of its own.

This novel's a hot mess. There's a decent novella in there about Bobbi and Gard and Peter the dog, if you strip out most of the supporting characters and wonky science and make it more about the horror of slowly being consumed by your addiction while isolated from the world.

There's also an excellent creepy little story about a boy who accidentally makes his brother disappear and the toll it takes on him afterward.

And the rest? Sorry, for the most part, while there's some well-written showpiece scenes--this is King we're talking about here--the bulk of this novel is, I'm sorry to say, absolute shit.

It was bad the first time around. While I saw some glints of the King brilliance in the re-read, for the most part it was even worse the second time around. It's still a disappointment. ( )