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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I think this particular collection only exists on audiobook.

All That You Love Will be Carried Away is the one with the most literary merit. It draws you forward into contemplation of the human experience, without asserting anything. Makes you think about the value of art. Even the worst art, which is the best art, which is the worst art.

The one about the feeling you can only say in French is the second best. It’s a good mystery. Fun to have that moment of figuring it out. Nothing genuinely revelatory, but fun.

The others are pretty standard, I guess.

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I find Stephen King’s novels a bit long. I respect that he puts Rose and Norman’s back story first, rather than trying to work it in as a flashback. That’s good. But it takes him so, so long to get to the supernatural horror. I picked up your Stephen King novel, Stephen King, for some prime supernatural horror. And I’m reading it for like, hours and hours before you introduce the haunted painting.

Put the haunted painting in earlier, bro. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.

One thing I don’t get is the name ‘Erinyes’. These are the ancient Greek Furies: terrifying, feminine spirits who avenge familial crimes. Like in the Oresteia. Rose Madder is a Fury. If you wanted to write the Furies in a contemporary setting, you would write Rose Madder.

And yet he gives the name ‘Erinyes’ to the masculine bull spirit. At the center of a labyrinth. I’m like, dude, call it Asterion.

On the plus side, I love how he fastens his supernatural world to the real world. Part of why it works is because he spends so much time in the real world. Which I complained about. He could have done it in fewer pages.

I also love how that supernatural world remains unexplained. It’s like peering through a crack in the wall of normality. Real things stay unexplained like that. Actual spiritual reality is ineffable.

This is a supernatural horror novel in which the monster isn’t the antagonist. The antagonist is a mere mortal. He only takes on ghostliness after the supernatural is already involved. And he’s not the scariest thing in the novel. Or, at least, the two monsters are scary in different ways. Norman is a psycho killer. Rose Madder is a vengeance goddess. Which would you rather meet in a dark alley? If you’re vulnerable, prefer Rose Madder. She might chipper shredder your oppressor. If you’re evil, prefer Norman. You might make friends.

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