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The Tommyknockers cover art

The Tommyknockers

By: Stephen King
Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
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Summary

Everything is familiar. But everything has changed.

Coming back to the little community is like walking into a nightmare for Jim Gardener, poet, drunk, potential suicide.

It all looks the same: the house; the furniture; Jim's friend, Bobbi; her beagle (though ageing); even the woods out at the back. But it was in the woods that Bobbi stumbled over the odd, part-buried object and felt a peculiar tingle as she brushed the soft earth away.

Everything is familiar. But everything is about to change.

©1987 Stephen King (P)2010 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about The Tommyknockers

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This book is awful, but don't take my word for it.

I'm sure that hard core King fans will love this book. As a lover of Lovecraft and Nigel Kneale I constantly come across Tommyknockers referenced as being influenced by Colour Out of Space and Quatermass and the Pit, as to Quatermass an almost total rewriting. But the book is awful, it's too sprawling and rambling, even for King who is famous for stretching out a premise for dozens of pages this book goes the extra miles in pages. After a little bit of background searching I discovered this was the last book King wrote before cleaning up his substance abuse. Suddenly, with this knowledge, the book took on a skewed interest, I started to recognise in the writing when King was 'up' and when he was 'on a downer'. I was fascinated in an entirely different way, but don't take my word for it this is an excerpt from Rolling Stone King interview from OCTOBER 31, 2014 1:37PM ET

Did the quality of your writing start to go down?

Yeah, it did. I mean, The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act. And I’ve thought about it a lot lately and said to myself, “There’s really a good book in here, underneath all the sort of spurious energy that cocaine provides, and I ought to go back.” The book is about 700 pages long, and I’m thinking, “There’s probably a good 350-page novel in there.”

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17 people found this helpful

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Top 3

Loved it, definitely in my top 3 King reads.
Performance was great.
For me, slightly reminiscent in feel to both Needful Things and Dreamcatcher...which is no bad thing.

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10 people found this helpful

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a very long drag...

A well written but a weak story ... long and meandering. I've listened to a lot of audiobooks and it was tough staying the course. It was however well read.

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8 people found this helpful

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When monsters find buried monsters


This is a book that feels like it was written around many short stories unified to create a denouncement of nuclear power and the consequences of not utilising our power sources intelligently, there is also and allegory to our bellicose nature and that is the problem it feels like a pastiche of many concerns but not focused on any by the end.

It is fun and has some very good short stories, including the drunk writer denouncing all about their blindness of the perils of nuclear power.So if you need a Stephen King fix this is perfectly acceptable.

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7 people found this helpful

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good

I enjoyed it! looked forward to listening to more everyday which is a great sign!
aliens or horror? love it!

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6 people found this helpful

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Original story but goes on a bit

I love King's older books and this one is better than I remembered. Saying that, I did find the ending went on and on and on. Definitely worth listening to though.

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6 people found this helpful

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Tommyknockers knocking at your door

What made the experience of listening to The Tommyknockers the most enjoyable?

Apart from being a good story, Edward Hermann is a very easy on the ear reader who takes the story at a nice pace and gives an excellent performance reading the book.

What other book might you compare The Tommyknockers to, and why?

I'd say that Needful Things by Stephen King has a similar feel but the story is very different. A town gets overtaken by a force that could potentially have hugely disastrous consequences.

Have you listened to any of Edward Herrmann’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I haven't listened to his other work but I'd definitely consider it now... if the story is right :)

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The epilogue, but I can't give away anything more than that.

Any additional comments?

A good story if you like sci fi but don't expect as much as you had in Dreamcatcher.

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5 people found this helpful

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Disappointed

I love Stephen king, but I really couldn’t get into this book at all, just seemed so boring to me.

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4 people found this helpful

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King

I loved this book all over again , must have read it 5 times a good while ago, still ,listening to it captured me just as it did the first time.

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4 people found this helpful

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one of his best

great story, well read and very gripping from the start! if you liked 'it' you will love this.

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3 people found this helpful