A review by macabrelibrarian
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King

3.0

All I've ever heard about this book is, "SK was on a ton of drugs when he wrote this, and it's evident." I take that to mean people thought it was weird. Yes, it was weird, but it was coherent, and it incorporated a lot of lore about high strangeness that already exists. I won't mark it down because of that.

However, like many of SK's books, this was just too damn long. The audio book topped 27 hours. There were a lot of people whose storylines I didn't follow simply because I didn't care to follow them. That is absolutely my main beef with this book: Its excessive length diluted the really good stuff.

And there was some really good stuff! 

The concept that if there is life on other planets, it might have the capacity to be just as stupid and self-destructive as we are is genius. That we don't understand or care about the ethical implications of the technology we create and the fact that it will probably contribute to our inevitable downfall? That there's still time to turn it around, but only at great cost and sacrifice? I can't think of anything more poignant than that...in fact, it's probably even more relevant almost 40 years after its publication.