I was excited at first and then everything came to a standstill. I lost interest after the first one hundred pages, yet somehow slogged through another two hundred pages before chucking the book.

Not King's best. ( )

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. ( )

Suoraan sanottuna tämä oli surkein Stephen Kingin kirjoittama kirja, minkä olen lukenut (ja olen suurimman osan suomennetuista kirjoista lukenut). Suurin syy on varmasti oma scifi-vastaisuuteeni. Lentävät alukset ja avaruusoliot eivät vain kolahda minuun. Asiaa ei suinkaan parantanut kirjassa esiintyvät hyökkäilevät Coca-Cola-automaatit ja lentävät pölynimurit…
Huumori, roisi kielenkäyttö ja vaikuttava loppu ovat Kingin tavaramerkkejä, joihin voi luottaa Kolkuttajissakin. Kyseessä ei missään nimessä ollut tylsä kirja. Sen loppuun lukeminen oli helppoa, sillä tarina kulki eteenpäin sopivassa tahdissa koukuttaen.
Kingillä on myös ihastuttava tapa nostaa esiin yksittäisiä henkilöitä, jotka aluksi vaikuttavat täysin irrallisilta hahmoilta, mutta matkan varrella he liittyvät tarinan punaiseen lankaan jollakin tavoin. Henkilöiden kuvaus ei ole kovin laaja, mutta sitäkin pistävämpi ja King tuo esiin heistä sellaisia piirteitä, jotka tekevät hahmoista mielenkiintoisia.
Kaiken kaikkiaan Kolkuttajat ei varsinaisesti ollut huono kirja, mutta minun näkökulmastani huonoin Kingin kirja.

-Morre- ( )

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 -- 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. ( )

I read this a long time ago, so forgive me if the details are distorted.

In a lot of ways, The Tommyknockers was a pretty cool book. There’s the mystery of the artefact buried in the woods. It’s causing lots of strange, miraculous, and often creep behaviour in the residents of the town alongside. It’s also turning them into mechanical geniuses somehow and slowly causing physical alterations in them too. It won’t let the inhabitants leave the town. There’s the excitement of encountering a potential hero who is immune to the artefact’s evil power and could save the town from the horrors engulfing it. But every potential hero is thwarted, and eventually, when the next one appears, you’ve had just about enough of this bloody repetitive plot. The Tommyknockers is way, way too long, although that’s hardly surprising, since it is a Stephen King novel. There were things I really liked about the end, and a great deal of the novel was truly disturbing, but it’s so long it desensitises you to its own horrors until the only thing that’s bugging you is how many more pages are left. ( )