How great is this book!!

[Stillreading]

This is the third of three King books I've recently read in quick succession, and although I have enjoyed them all (the previous two being Needful things and The Dark Half) this book by far is one of the best pieces of fiction i think I may have ever read. I actually find it amazing to be able to say that given just how many books I have read over the course of my life and consequently just how jaded I've become because of it, but this book truly is tremendous. I've always thought--and i have no doubt that others will agree vehemently--that SK's best work always features two pivotal elements: human psychology and personal moral dilemmas. This book has that in spades and is further reinforced by a brilliant knack for creating both suspense and tension, in addition to weaving a complex yarn of fact and fiction.

There is something about the taughtness and dispassion of the narrative, as well as the pacing of King's earlier books that appeals to me.

[thymeoperator]

i love that story because it's so emotional as well as scary, tense, mysterious and thought-provoking.

[the_constant_reader]

By far my favorite. I read this in highschool and have read about 30 more of his books plus countless other books by different authors, but this will always be my fav. book of all time.

[aptpupil]

Agreed.

The Dead Zone was the first SK book that I ever read, purely because my first wife was a fan before me, and wanted me to read The Stand, but it seemed intimidatingly long to me at the time (although it has since become my favourite SK novel).

If I hadn't loved The Dead Zone, I may never have read another SK book, but luckily I though that it was great. I can empathise with Johnny Smith more than just about any other SK character.

[JRM]

Reading these comments just gets me even more excited to really get started! I just bought the book and will be reading it later tonight (I've read a few pages so far).

[Mr.Bobbo]

Still,

I envy your experience; the first time I read this one, it was a groundbreaking experience in Story. At the early age of eleven, or maybe twelve, and after reading THE SHINING, and "typical" pre-adolescent titles by Heinlein, Doyle, and even Stephen R. Donaldson's LORD FOUL'S BANE, this one blew me away...

At this late date I'll admit that the King novels that I read early on were probably inappropriate for someone my age, I never failed to recognize a very effective ability in creating an endearing and original narrative; years later, I was always proud to have "discovered" this author before many in the Mainstream. Though many of his books will always hold a dear place in my memory, THE DEAD ZONE will always be the one singular work that got me started on a mature level of appreciation for American novels. Absolutely a fine, fine piece of work, and one that I can still open, to any page, and immerse my mind in--immediately.


Okay,
Bobbo

[Er0tic NeUr0t1c]

really good book but i dont agree in saying its my fav

[Matthew.Degnan]

This is one of my favourite SK books. I started to really like the characters in this and then the main one dies at the end! I could see it coming of course. It is quite a predictable story, but very emotional as well.

[Mr Nobody]

I recently re-read this and in a lot of ways it's quite a shock to realize the book's now 30 years old! It really didn't seem it in a lot of ways. Cultural references aside, of course.

[missrowanoak]

I read this book 20 years ago. I was 17 and the worst thing my father could imagine was me reading Stephen King. My father hated fiction, could not understand why anyone would read anything "made up." So, I read everything King had written, of course. And I've kept reading. And I loved The Dead Zone, loved Johnny Smith, and remembered the book fondly as a real favorite.

I never re-read it though. I've re-read almost all of them once. (On Writing I have read four times-- tied with The Dark Half.)

Well, I just finished it. I've changed a lot in twenty years. I worked in factories, nursing homes, restaurants. I went to college, got degrees in English and history, went to graduate school in a large city far from my rural roots. I'm so different than I was at 17. I could have never seen at 17 that I would be 37 and one semester away from finishing a MFA in Fiction Writing. (My father is long since dead but I doubt he'd be amused if he were alive. The irony is not lost on me.)

The Dead Zone is one of the finest books ever written. By anyone, any were, ever. I couldn't know that at 17. I wasn't widely read. Hell, I lived over an hour from a bookstore! Had Wal-Mart not had this book, I would likely have never read it.

When you are in a MFA program, you spend a lot of time being told by so-called artistes that books like this one are trash and that in reading them you will rot your mind. I had a poetry prof last semester who took every class to remind us to read "only the best" and let me just say, SK wasn't on that list. He liked to remind us of this every week or so.

Well, I'd like to beat him about the head and face with The Dead Zone and give him a good lesson on the art of storytelling and use of beautiful language. The last section of this book is as beautiful as any poetry I've ever read. The story is one of the most tragic, touching, and human that I have ever read.

I don't think that I would be where I were if not for this book and others like it (The Stand, IT, The Tommyknockers, Needful Things, Skeleton Crew, and all the books of the early 90's and the entire 80's. I don't think I would have found fiction or the desire to create it without these books and this author. I've re-read some of the stuff I read at that time in my life and it simply doesn't hold up. It's garbage. Not this though-- this showed me (along with the other books) that fiction writing, horror writing, could be art, was art.

Thank you Mr. King. May God Bless and keep you all your days.