The Tommyknockers

The Tommyknockers

By Stephen King

I just finished reading The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. If I had to sum up my opinion of it in one sentence, truthfully, I would say that I recommend it be on the bookshelf of anyone who has even considered alternative power sources in responses to energy crises.

This has easily been a well-crafted piece of literature which packs such a powerful point about any alternative powers (It focuses primarily on nuclear power due to the time period it represents, although the points remain to be transferable of today's alternatives.). And it leaves us with many different questions.

What's the best way to power the world, and is the "best" way always the safest way for us? And do we tend to over-sensationalize the benefits of alternative power sources to compensate for the alternative's short-comings?

King creates a wonderful criticism of it, but another criticism it presents is the idea of power—again, leaving us with many questions. If we (the people of any group-great or small) make a discovery which can alter our everyday lives as we know it, is it our duty to share it with the world? Or, is it our option?

This also challenges the idea of what is “ours,” what makes it “ours,” and why we should have control over it because we have ownership. We criticize any government for withholding secrets from the masses and dub them "The Dallas Police," but when the situation is reversed, how fine is the line between ourselves and that role of "The Dallas Police"?

In this light, King makes an intriguing point that the basic instinct of any group that makes a discovery is to keep it for themselves, thus making them the people in charge. For this side of the novel, King has proven himself (once again) to be brilliant.

However, I must confess that, from a craft point of view, the novel seemed to have some serious weaknesses. While incredibly detailed and carefully thought out thematically, the novel dragged on and on forever during Part 2 (and one or two points in Part 3). It felt like there were too many tiny side-stories within the larger novel and, sometimes, too many over-explanations and metaphors that made the point almost preachy. In my opinion, King worked against himself by doing that. Like someone too full of their opinion and vision for the story not to get out of the way.

Not to mention, he seems to grow quite tired (at least in my readings) during Part 3. It felt like he had too many repetitions in his sentences, too many ellipses, and one too many fragments. The overall arrangement of the chapters—by my thinking—did not seem to pack as powerful of a punch because they read disjointed. He could have easily taken a few of the sub-chapters and switched up their arrangement to add just a little more tension so the reader wouldn’t be wandering into the climax already having too much of an idea of what would happen. I'm sure that this was meant to steal away from the typical way that he presents his novel climaxes, but (once again), it worked against him.

And speaking of entertainment value, while I immensely enjoy it whenever his novels briefly reference one another (like the way Misery references The Shining and Cujo references The Dead Zone, etc etc) to create a realistic King-world, he had quite a few references to his works in a very short span of novel, making me again wonder if he was getting tired with the novel the further into it that he got.

Only later did I discover that, during an interview, he referenced this as what he calls a “terrible book” of his. While I disagree with him (it’s far from terrible), I think is a book that should have had another two rounds of edits completed before it went to the presses. King, during the same interview, mentioned that he could have made a decent 300 page book out of it. I think it could have been just as good if he stuck to around 400-450 pages because, thematically, he did what he set out to do (get his message across). He just might have had too many ideas that he couldn’t get out of his own way (which, to be fair, was more of a reflection of the drugs he was on rather than any weakness in him as a writer; this was the last published book during King’s cocaine addiction. I’d say it’s fair to blame the drugs for holding him back on this one).

I’d be curious to see if this was anything King would ever want to revisit. During the nineties, he did a revision and re-publication to The Stand and restored quite a lot to it. If he decided to do something similar with The Tommyknockers (not restoring pages but doing a serious revision to cut pages to tighten the work), I’d be interested in giving this book another chance. I strongly believe there’s a brilliant story in here; the reader only has to be patient enough to pay attention and let it reveal itself.

I think this novel is important to read for that reason—that there’s as much to learn from (craft-wise) as there is to experience as a thought journey. There are some amazing pieces of this novel that I absolutely loved (talking Jesus, the climatic battle, etc). And I think the premise of it is truly unique. It’s exactly the kind of novel that sticks with you, so I’d definitely recommend The Tommyknockers to anyone interested in science fiction or an emerging writer looking to learn.