The Dead Zone is a work of fiction by one of my favourite authors, Stephen King. It was first published in Great Britain in 1979 by Raven books and the edition I currently own was published by Warner. For the few of you who do not know, Stephen King is a prodigious writer of horror and has ... Read review
If any of King's novels exemplifies his skill at portraying the concerns of his ... more
generation, it's The Dead Zone. Although it contains a horrific subplot about a serial killer, it isn't strictly a horror novel. It's the story of an unassuming high schoo...
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If any of King's novels exemplifies his skill at portraying the concerns of his ... more
generation, it'sThe Dead Zone. Although it contains a horrific subplot about a serial killer, it isn't strictly a horror novel. It's the story of an unassuming high school ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
If any of King's novels exemplifies his skill at portraying the concerns of his ... more
generation, it's The Dead Zone. Although it contains a horrific subplot about a serial killer, it isn't strictly a horror novel. It's the story of an unassuming high schoo...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Check Site.
If any of King's novels exemplifies his skill at portraying the concerns of his ... more
generation, it'sThe Dead Zone. Although it contains a horrific subplot about a serial killer, it isn't strictly a horror novel. It's the story of an unassuming high school ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
If any of King's novels exemplifies his skill at portraying the concerns of his ... more
generation, it's The Dead Zone. Although it contains a horrific subplot about a serial killer, it isn't strictly a horror novel. It's the story of an unassuming high schoo...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Check Site.
Advantages: Excellent read Disadvantages: Don't start late at night (u won't put it down)
The Dead Zone is a work of fiction by one of my favourite authors, Stephen King. It was first published in Great Britain in 1979 by Raven books and the edition I currently own was published by Warner. For the few of you who do not know, Stephen King is a prodigious writer of horror and has produced such classics as: ‘Carrie’; ‘Christine’;The ‘Shawshank Redemption’; ‘The Green Mile’ and much, much more. All of the above have been made into major films ... ...business:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Plot – An Overview ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Dead Zone opens with a prologue and in this we meet a young (anonymously named) John Smith enjoying a clear winters day on the frozen lake enjoying ice skating and trying to work out how the bigger kids can skate backwards. When he finally masters the art, unfortunately, the young Johnny falls and hits his head on the ice, losing consciousness. ... more
The Dead Zone is a work of fiction by one of my favourite authors, Stephen King. It was first published in Great Britain in 1979 by Raven books and the edition I currently own was published by Warner. For the few of you who do not know, Stephen King is a prodigious writer of horror and has produced such classics as: ‘Carrie’; ‘Christine’;The ‘Shawshank Redemption’; ‘The Green Mile’ and much, much more. All of the above have been made into major films and have enjoyed success on a par with the books.
Now to business:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Plot – An Overview ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Dead Zone opens with a prologue and in this we meet a young (anonymously named) John Smith enjoying a clear winters day on the frozen lake enjoying ice skating and trying to work out how the bigger kids can skate backwards. When he finally masters the art, unfortunately, the young Johnny falls and hits his head on the ice, losing consciousness. King gives the impression that this is an important event which is relevant to the story even thought the character himself quickly forgets the incident.
The second section of the prologue follows the antics of a Greg Stillson, a cruel man who is on the road selling Bibles. As all good prologues should, it effectively sets up reasons and character to ensure that later in the book you know who you are dealing with and in Johnny’s case, why. I say no more.
We then join Johnny as an adult, a teacher in fact and a good one. He is an easy-going young man and is about to take his girl, Sarah to the funfair for the evening. The evening gets off to a bad start when Johnny plays a practical joke on Sarah and it backfires, but they soon make up and spend an enjoyable evening together. Then On the way out of the fair, Johnny decides to try his luck at the Wheel Of Fortune. His luck is incredible and as he cleans up, Sarah gets sick and due to a bad hotdog and Johnny stops and takes her home. Tonight was to have been the night that they consummated their relationship but by the time they get back to Sarah’s home it’s obvious that their plans have been thwarted as she feels too ill.
Being a nice, easy-going bloke, Johnny leaves her and gets a cab back to his place. The cab crashes and Johnny is severely injured, leaving him in a coma. When he finally emerges from it, years later, he finds Sarah married to another man and the world he knew changed beyond recognition.
He also has the ability to ‘sense’ things about people when he touches them and can tell what the future holds for them very accurately.
That is all I’m going to give away, I’ve said a lot but it won’t detract from the read at all because the story is great and quite involved and I haven’t given any clue to where this perception eventually takes him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Characters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The characters in the book are all well ‘fleshed out’ and the way that King gives a little at a time as to insights into the characters makes you feel that you are getting to know things about them gradually, as you should when you get to know anyone. Johnny is a great character that you can’t help but identify with and when he has difficult decisions to make, you really wonder what you would do. By the same token, the ‘villain’ is given so that you learn how he has grown into what he is and also how and why that makes him as dangerous as he is. The other characters in the book, such as Sarah, Johnny’s parents and the doctor who treats him are similarly identifiable because you can see why they take the courses of action they do – especially whilst Johnny is still in a coma.
The Dead Zone is an excellent novel. Extremely well paced, very original (especially for it’s time) with believable and likeable characters and understandable villains. Though this book is classified as belonging to the Horror genre, I personally wouldn’t place it as such, I would call it a thriller I suppose. Whatever you call it, it is a very good read and I would recommend it very highly.
Advantages: Great storeyline Disadvantages: Not executed as well as it could have been
In the last few months I've gotten in to Bob Dylan, bought The Pearl by Brian Eno, read my way through the Hitchiker trilogy, not to mention experiencing what us mere mortals call 1984 by George Orwell. In retrospect it was a bad time to come back to The Dead Zone. When I read it two years ago it was thrilling and well crafted, and while it's still a great book, this time it just seemed a bit too Bestsellerish. There's a fantastic storey to be told, ... ...Perhaps what I wanted was the Stephen King who wrote The Shining. The Stephen King who created something so wonderfully impossible that I just had to believe it. The Stephen King who wrote something that you had to make an effort to read, not something that you can just scan read on an airplane. The Dead Zone is less of a challenge, I don't really have to think too hard or see things from anybody's angle. But anyway, as I said, the actual storey ...
markhobbs 18.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Advantages: first part of the book is mildly engaging Disadvantages: too much American politics, not 'horror' enough, a bit hard to follow.
...OK and decided to borrow The Dead Zone by Stephen King, thinking it might be more like a horror story. It was also one of the shortest of his I could find at the library, being 467 pages long. I had heard a bit about Stephen King and knew he was a popular horror writer, confirmed by the popularity of the book at the library. ~Plot~ (contains some spoilers)
The prologue basically introduces the characters using the past for the reader to get a feel ... ...and starts to get 'hunches'. The other character introduced at this point is Greg Stillson, a travelling saleman with uncontrollable anger. The book then goes onto describe a physcic experience at a fairground Johnny has and the relationship between him and another fellow teacher, Sarah. After a car crash, Johnny falls into a coma for 4 years and wakes up to find Sarah married, with a son and a change in American politics. Johnny gets a few physic ...
jessjessjess 24.10.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Advantages: A good rivetting read Disadvantages: Some might not like the early style
...was my first introduction to the weird world of Stephen King. It hooked me. The Dead Zone was responsible for a marked decline of interest in anything that wasn't supernatural, thought-provoking and downright bizarre.
Based around the life of John Smith, this is a tale about the gift of Pyschometry, a paranormal activity that involves receiving psychic signals from whomever or whatever the person touches.
John received a head injury as a child ... ...his recovery will be.
The psychometric powers display themselves early on, leaving him and others confused. This great gift has it's benefits but with the good comes the inevitable bad. The visions are emotionally charged which drain him, they are disorientating and terrifying on occasion, and there is one vibration that is incomprehensible and the carrier of a knowledge of dread. This is the key tale to the book...
As I usually do, I will leave ...
Salgirl 10.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Advantages: Well written, good characters Disadvantages: Not scary
...one of this best. The main plot point is that a young man is out with his sweetheart, has just dropped her off home after an unusual round of luck at the fairground and then gets in a car accident. After the car accident he goes into a coma for a few years, and we he wakes he can feel evil in people and things those evil people have touched. It's lacking largely because it simply wasn't scary. It had King's realism, the depth of his characters, their ... ...The most scary point in the whole book was when the main character had his run of luck at the fair, that was it. 'The Dead Zone' refers to things the man can't remember after the accident, simple things, like being unable to visualise a park bench. Not a bad book, easy to read and engaging til the end, but not scary, and I read King for the scare. ...
surveysista1988 10.06.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Advantages: Well crafted with a point Disadvantages: none
...happen because of it. and the other is where a person expresses, usually latent, psychic powers, such as telekinessis, pyrokinessis, telepathy etc. the story then flows around how they cope with their powers then led them into bizarre situations within a normal world.
The Dead Zone falls into this category and this book is a blinder.
A well crafted story of a guy who has psychic visions and how his life is turned upside down by both the visions ... ...with this extraordinary gift? and the extraordinary responsibilities that come with it?
This is not a horror in the true sense of the word. It's not a blood and guts book, or one that make's you need a flashlight under the bed sheets. Instead it is a touching story of one man's struggle to rebuild his life and do what's right.
It's one of the few books that I can reread again and again. ...
sfxartist 28.08.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Dead Zone - Stephen King
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Advantages: A gripping read Disadvantages: Not as strong as other novels by Stephen King
something that really makes you cringe, but also beware of a twist in the story that will make you shudder.
Being a horror book it would only be suitable for people who love horror! However don’t fear it isn’t as gory as a Shaun Hutson book, but it is equally gripping.
I have not seen the film of this and I think that helped. I have the feeling that the film was over the top and nothing as exciting as the novel. This is the second StephenKing book I have read and it has made me want to read more. However the story is not as complicated that of other StephenKing books such as The deadzone, but it must be considered that the genres of the books are slightly different and Pet Sematary was one of his earlier novels. The storyline of Pet Sematary is not believable but don’t let this put you off. Pet Sematary is ...
Awake in the dead zone and awake to a nightmare. Recoil in horror as you are touched by a young man cursed with the power to perceive the evil in men's souls. And whose ability to see into the future forces him into a terrifying confrontation with a charismatic, power-hungry and infinitely dangerous man.
Compare The Dead Zone - Stephen King to other similar Horror Books »
Stephen King's claim to fame ; Superb atmosphere ; Sublime plot ; A vivid imagination that stretches all supernatural boundaries ; Probably responsible for some of the best horror films of the 70's and 80's
Some unessesary background in the first half ; Kubrik mucked up the story too much ; Could have been much more (*)
A nice gripping and readable novel ; A terrific tale of survival ; Very atmospheric ; The characters thoughts and feelings are projected well to the reader
Suddenly stops flowing towards the middle ; King can be slightly over obsequious towards the main character (*)
