By Stephen King
Release Date: May 1, 1990
Ebook Available from WV Reads!
3 stars - A chilling apocalyptic tale that feels ripped straight from today's headlines, despite being originally published decades ago. King fans will find much to embrace, while some-time fans might be a bit overwhelmed. I was enthralled but also sort of exhausted while reading this enormous novel.
King prefaces this re-release by saying he knows it's quite the undertaking for a reader. I was inclined to agree. The publisher's decision to chop so much of the original story for printing purposes was wrong. It effectively kills a writer's vision too often for weak reasoning. But here King seems like he hasn't fully developed his trademark prose just yet. He has so many characters introduced in the beginning that it's hard to really connect with any one or two of them. It takes some time for the adventures to start but the plotlines do get all twisted and tangled together. I found it fascinating to follow every day, ordinary people trying to survive horrific event. Anyone who gets more and more scared reading today's headlines, should probably hold off on this book.
Many scenes are spine-tingling and I think will stick long after I finishing them. There's a good blend description wise of character personalities, settings, and science. King acknowledges that some people probably prefer the short version. I think I may have been in that camp. I've never been a fan of director's cuts, feeling like the film is dragged out and expanded. However, I did not read nor have a copy of the short version so I do not know what details were missing. To be honest, some of this feels really dated while the general plot itself is very timely. Dates suggested this was updated for 1990 but much of the content is still very 1970s-ish. This book is prime for one of those tv-reimagining updates. Overall, there's almost no way to get bored or too bogged down in the details here, but be prepared to really dig in your heels.
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