Dream Catcher - Softcover

Stephen King

Softcover

ISBN 10: 074343627X ISBN 13: 9780743436274

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2001

Synopsis

Once upon a time, in the haunted city of Derry, four boys stood together and did a brave thing. It was something that changed them in ways they could never begin to understand. Twenty-five years after saving a Down's-syndrome kid from bullies, Beav, Henry, Pete, and Jonesy -- now men with separate lives and separate problems -- reunite in the woods of Maine for their annual hunting trip. But when a stranger stumbles into their camp, disoriented and mumbling something about lights in the sky, chaos erupts. Soon, the four friends are plunged into a horrifying struggle with a creature from another world where their only chance of survival is locked in their shared past -- and in the Dreamcatcher. Never before has Stephen King contended so frankly with the heart of darkness. Dreamcatcher, his first full-length novel since Bag of Bones, is a powerful story of astonishing range that will satisfy fans both new and old.

About this title

Review:

What might be done to human beings by the "Other"--whether the "Other" be vampires, demons or creatures from outer space--is always in competition for absolute horror with what we do to ourselves. Stephen King has, in his time, played with both sources of the nightmarish and in Dreamcatcher, the first complete novel since his near-fatal accident, he gives us both.

Four childhood friends, united by secrets, are caught in the quarantine zone when something crashes into the remote forests of Maine; and the question becomes who will avoid being eaten alive by alien fungi, torn from the inside by alien ferrets, possessed by alien minds or menaced by a psychotic military commander to whom ruthlessness has become a macho ego trip?

The Earth is in peril as well, needless to say, but most of our attention is taken up with a few men caught on the edge, and where the most important thing in the world turns out to be the fact that four small boys saved a fifth from a beating.

This has the hall-marks of a good King novel--memorable catchphrases whose meaning we only gradually learn and a sense of how it feels to be human. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"The New York Times Book Review"

Fascinating...A frenzied, multilayered, ever-accelerating nightmare.

"The Miami Herald"

Prime King at his most engrossing...[he] has lost none of his ability to mine terror from the ordinary.

"Chicago Tribune"

A tour de force -- has more passages of power and imagination than some writers produce in a lifetime...[An] entertaining must-read.

"The New York Times Book Review" Fascinating...A frenzied, multilayered, ever-accelerating nightmare.

"Chicago Tribune" A tour de force -- has more passages of power and imagination than some writers produce in a lifetime...[An] entertaining must-read.

"The Miami Herald" Prime King at his most engrossing...[he] has lost none of his ability to mine terror from the ordinary.

The New York Times Book Review Fascinating...A frenzied, multilayered, ever-accelerating nightmare.

Chicago Tribune A tour de force -- has more passages of power and imagination than some writers produce in a lifetime...[An] entertaining must-read.

The Miami Herald Prime King at his most engrossing...[he] has lost none of his ability to mine terror from the ordinary.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 074343627X
• ISBN 13: 9780743436274
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 896