Another Stephen King. I’m slowly making my way through them.
Aliens, but not as we think of them. No wise green aliens asking to be taken to our leader. These guys are creepy and chaotic, and did I mention creepy? Best of all they’re kind of stupid. It’s nice to see something different from the wise alien race that attacks or greets our planet and somehow have our kind of intelligence, only on a bigger scale and with morality optional.
These guys are really intelligent, and also really stupid. It’s just a different kind of intelligence that doesn’t quite mesh with our own. It’s not vastly different enough to be really novel, but it does make it interesting. Off the top of my head, I’d recommend ‘Ender’s Game,’ for an alien species with a different enough mentality to be really thought provoking. Kristine Rusch also has some very interesting species in some of her short stories. Tommyknockers doesn’t reach that level of intrigue, but the species is interesting enough to read about.
The start’s a bit slow, but if you read a lot of Stephen King then you’re used to that. It has a faster pace than some of his other books like IT. Good book, but didn’t get going for me until about half way through. For me the last half was worth it though.
Characters are interesting. I liked Bobby, she’s a nice character so you feel the pain of slowly losing her to the alien influence. Yet there’s just enough of her, right to the end that you understand why Gard is finding it so difficult to give up on her. Gard was another interesting character, flawed, but good. You do feel Gard’s dilemma. He wants to help Bobby, but doesn’t know how to go about it without risking her or his own life. Plus he just wants to believe she’s still there.
The plot was decent. Not my favorite Stephen King, but good enough to keep my interest. I’d say if you like Stephen King give it a go. The ending was my favorite part. I won’t give it away, but it wrapped things up nicely and felt like a satisfying conclusion.
Here’s the link to more reviews on this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17660.The_Tommyknockers
samaustinwriter 