The Dead Zone by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I like Stephen King’s world-building better than his horror. It’s hard for books to scare me, so I don’t get much out of the fright aspect of these novels. But he builds interesting, convincing characters in worlds that feel real.
There are two significant plot problems in this book.
The first is structural. The first half of the book is the protagonist getting and learning about his powers. The next quarter of the book is the protagonist using his powers to catch a serial killer. The next quarter of the book is the protagonist using his powers to stop the next Hitler. Notice a problem?
Yeah. 90% of the book is Act 1. The most important conflict takes up very little space. There are two major issues that arise that you think are going to be the main conflict. But they aren’t, first one, then the other. Is The Dead Zone about him winning his girl back? 25% of the book later, the answer is no. That’s not what it’s about. Is The Dead Zone about him stopping a serial killer? 25% of the book later, the answer is no.
If the novel is about using psychic powers to stop the next Hitler, you have to let us know that earlier. You make your character’s most heroic moment feel like an afterthought.
The second problem is conceptual. Every time the protagonist has a psychic flash, it comes true. King spends a huge chunk of time in the novel demonstrating this. If we ever doubted that these flashes represent the truth, he proves them right like 8 times. But then the stop-the-next-Hitler plot depends on one of them not being right. Is it important for us to know that sometimes, if a hero does the right thing, these visions might not come to pass? Then establish that at some point!
He has a vision of a post-apocalyptic future caused by this politician. All of his visions so far have come true exactly as he saw them. Yet he tries to stop this one from coming true. And succeeds. That’s a problem. As far as King has told us so far, that’s not how this works.
Anyway. Good world-building. Not scary. Poor understanding of Baptists. Plot problems. Read Hearts In Atlantis or Salem’s Lot instead.
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