The Tommyknockers Book Review

The Tommyknockers is a 1987 novel by Stephen King. It is a mixture of horror and science fiction.
It was made into a mini-series in 1993.

Bobbi Anderson is a woman who lives alone near the woods in the town of Haven. She lives with her dog Peter. She is walking with Peter in the woods when she finds a metal object embedded in the ground. She is spellbound by it and it has a strange effect on her. She decides to go and dig it up. That is when the trouble starts. Her pal Jim Gardner who is a poet comes to visit her and he discovers that she has changed. He is an alcoholic and he and Bobbi have been meeting on and off for a long time. They have been lovers in the past and he comes to see her. She tells him about the strange object that she has found and he is intrigued by it at first. People in the town are changing too and they are all making new inventions from electrical items and getting tonnes of batteries.

A local boy, David Brown, disappears when he performs a magic trick. Strange things are happening and Jim notices that Bobbi is looking ill. The locals are losing their teeth too which seems to be an effect from the object in the ground. They are also turning into violent and insane people who won't let anyone in or out of Haven. They have been taken over by the object which releases a toxic gas which has poisoned the minds of the  locals and they are protecting the object from the outside world. The object turns out to be an alien ship and it has been using the locals to get it out of the ground and moving again. Jim is unaffected by the gas because of a steel plate in his head. He can see what is happening but it powerless to stop it and turns to drink. He finally steps up and he manages to get the ship moving and into space but has to kill Bobbi. Most of the locals die and he dies too as the ship leaves. The town is invaded by the authorities and David Brown appears back in town..

An interesting read, I thought that this was a good novel and I liked the premise. It is a mixture of sci-fi and horror and it was entertaining. It wouldn't be my favourite Stephen King novel, but I liked it and I would recommend it to any reader. Beware though, it is a long book so if you are not a fan of a long read, you might want to give it a miss. It took me a while to read it, but it was worth it and I will re-watch the mini series...