King, Stephen: Dreamcatcher

We were holidaying in beautiful New England. It was fall, the leaves had just started to rust, and the wind of the Atlantic started to chill. Clear, blue skies covered Acadia National Park and the Green Mountains were lush. Everywhere was beautiful... except, in the world of Stephen King. In his New England aliens had invaded and disease was preparing to spread through the Maine counrtyside like a forest fire. We passed a number of the places that I was reading about, which was interesting and gave a snug a feel to the story, like when the winter comes and the open fire is sparked up for the first time since Spring. But what of the story?

Well, Mr King is varied in his writing. I have always thought that. He has a noticeable style, one that's consistent, witty, interesting and colourful. Each sentence flowers, intertwining history, current events, philosophy and emotion. You find out interesting little facts and explore the local towns and countryside. It's always good entertainment, it's always fun.

Dreamcatcher is a hybrid of SciFi and horror; aliens harboring fatal diseases, crashed spaceships and long, slimey worm-like creatures known, peotically, as Shitweasels. The story has all the props, but with an added Stevey-Bonus - Four childhood friends, reunited and reliving the events that brought them close as Primary school kids. Like IT years before, it has the seeds for a wonderful creation.

But I didn't much care for it. Like IT, the plot starts of thoroughly introducing us to the characters, describing their varied upbringings and their more varied adult lives. Up North, strange things are happening, we are drawn into the plot. The winter scenery is described with a clarity as crisp as the snow, and the isolation from the outside world sounds more like Vladivostok than Northern Maine. There's a wonderful scene, possibly one of King's greatest, where the woodland creatures are all fleeing, the wolf and the rabbit, the deer and the bear, and none of them paying attention to what would normally be their prey or predator. The horror is rife, as always, King takes the Western World's fashionable fears, chops and dices them and sprinkles them between the lines - in this case, at the beginning of the 21st century, Cancer. But, sadly, as with a few of King's books, the plot looses momentum and withers away to a few fast-paced threads without much reader-relation, and ultimately the Humvee speeding down route one doesn't synchronise with my slowing pulse. I feel a little disappointed; the time I've invested in getting to know these characters all seems a little wasted. Then I take a look at the book I'm reading, it's horror, from the man who defines the genre. So why am I looking for emotion? Perhaps it's me, I think; I like to relate to the characters. But no, I feel let down because I know what Stephen King can deliver, he gave us the Shawshank Redemption, the Body (stand by me) and numerous others. He brought in all the props, and a great plot, but like the Shitweasels, they never really got anywhere.