I am slogging thru this mud bath and amazingly enough I'm past page 800. It's unbelievable the deterioration in quality of his writing over the past 30 years. this novel is uncompareable to The Shining or It e.g. I guess a creative mind deteriorates with aging. This novel lacks suspense, the attempt at humor fails, the characters are about as interesting as cardboard, and it's written on an 8th grade level. I've read most of King's books, mostly just to be entertained and get away from it all. He lost money on this one. I'm not going to be so eager to buy any more of his books. Sorry King. This monster barbell doesn't cut it.