January 2016 -

Oh man! It's truly astonishing. I distinctly remember reading this book in January of 2014. In fact, I even scribbled that note right in the book to ensure I wouldn't forget. The moment I delved into the prologue, it all came flooding back. Johnny Smith, who takes a tumble while ice skating and has his world irrevocably changed. How could I possibly have forgotten that I read this? It wasn't that long ago - just two(ish) years ago, really.

So, let me offer a more in-depth review.

This is one of King's most remarkable feats of character development. The protagonist, Johnny, is someone we can't help but feel deeply connected to and become fully invested in his story. We root for him, hoping he'll succeed.

In hindsight, I find myself wondering if Stephen King used this earlier novel as inspiration for his story Revival? The intersecting and connected lives of John and Stillson bear a striking resemblance, and that incident with the lightning - it's all so familiar.

I also adore the ending, which brings everything full circle with the love interest, Sarah.

It's a great read from the Master!

Update Fe. 25th, 2019 #reviewking2019 project - revisiting old Stephen King reviews:

Today, I browsed through the book and ended up re-reading large portions of it. I'm amazed that so often, people talk about Jake & Sadie or Roland and Susan as King's most romantic couples, but have we forgotten Johnny and Sarah from The Dead Zone? Because I truly, truly like Johnny. He might just be one of King's most well-rounded and healthy protagonists.

I love how, midway through the book, we encounter this Spiderman-esque plot line. Johnny, due to an unfortunate accident and coma, wakes up with a supernatural ability that he then uses to assist the local authorities in catching a serial killer. Johnny isn't a Batman-like hero who prowls the streets solving crimes; rather, he's more like the reluctant hero we see in Spiderman, but with all the talent and skill that Stephen King brings to the narrative. It's utterly compelling!

But enough about the protagonist. What about our antagonist, Greg Stillson? For all intents and purposes, he reminds me so much of our current POTUS (the one who shall not be named but who is known for spouting things like "fake news").

Greg Stillson is pure evil, and our favorite protagonist, Johnny, is the one tasked with stopping his rise to power.

I love the ending of this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it today before penning this review. Seriously, this book has every right to make its way onto my top 10 list.

It's worthy. I've changed my review from 4 stars to 5.

And, of course, it's a legendary work being the first Castle Rock book.

The Dead Zone was a re-read for me, as many will be as I embark on The Stephen King Challenge. I had forgotten just how powerful this book truly is. King was in remarkable form during this period in the late 1970s.

Johnny Smith, a young teacher, begins dating Sarah, another young educator from a different school. They fall in love, and Johnny takes her on a date to the county fair. The night is filled with excitement, and love is in the air. Sarah hints that she'd like Johnny to spend the night at her place for the first time. They have a great time at the fair, riding the rides and indulging in all the delicious fair food.

As they're leaving, a carnival barker at the Wheel of Fortune lures them over to try their luck. Suddenly, Johnny experiences a strange feeling. He believes he knows what number the ball will land on and enters a trance-like state. Sure enough, he keeps hitting the right numbers until he has over $500 in his pocket. However, Sarah mysteriously falls ill.

Driving his sick girlfriend to her house, they decide to postpone their special evening until she feels better. Johnny hails a cab and heads for home. But tragedy strikes. Two kids drag racing hit the cab head-on. Johnny is the only survivor, but he is battered and broken, and falls into a coma for 4 and 1/2 years. The doctors give up on him, and eventually, so does Sarah. While Johnny lies in a hospital bed, withering away, Sarah marries and has a little boy.

Then, one day, Sarah receives word that Johnny Smith has miraculously come out of his coma. What she thought was impossible has happened. For Johnny, it's as if he's only been asleep for a few days. But in reality, his entire life, as he knew it, has been ripped away from him. All he has to look forward to is multiple surgeries and an excruciating recovery.

During one of his physical therapy sessions, Johnny touches a nurse, and a wave of visions floods his mind. He goes into another trance-like state and tells the nurse that her house is on fire. She checks, and sure enough, Johnny is right. The wary nursing staff looks at Johnny as if he has leprosy, and none of them want to get close enough to touch him. For Johnny, this newfound ability is a curse. Newspapers, tabloids, and desperate people all come out of the woodwork, hounding him.

Then, one day, Johnny shakes the hand of Greg Stillson. Stillson is a local politician with big ambitions, and Johnny sees what would happen to the world if Stillson were in charge. The question that plagues Johnny is: What would you do if you could go back in time and prevent Hitler from coming to power? This is the burden that Johnny faces.

The Dead Zone hit me like a ton of bricks. Johnny is a very likable character, and you root for him and Sarah to be a couple. You want his life to be wonderful and to see a silver lining. But with one blow after another, it's painful to watch Johnny being forced to travel down the difficult roads he must. The characters, storytelling, and setting are all masterfully laid out by King. This is King at his best, firing on all cylinders. It transports you inside Johnny Smith's world and makes you ask yourself, "What if this happened to me?" It's an excellent tale that should be a must-read for everyone.

5 burning tires out of 5

You can also follow my reviews at the following links:

https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com

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I decided, like, I don't know, six months ago? That I was going to read ALL THE STEPHEN KING. So, I was eventually going to read this book (and all his others) no matter what. The main thing was deciding which books to read first. I chose to read this one first (and Misery and The Stand, come to think of it) because I read his On Writing back in November. He talked about the process of writing all three of them. The way he described them made me eager to read them. Anyway, the point is that he happened to mention that his writing style is more suited for character and situation writing rather than plot construction, and The Dead Zone was one of the few exceptions for him.

Actually, the book The Dead Zone reminds me most of 11/22/63. Many of the themes and events here seem like the initial versions of those in that book (and of course I ended up loving them both). There are assassinations, wibbly-wobbly time-wimey stuff, politics, doomed love, and supernatural shenanigans. The main character is a teacher... Seriously, there are so many similarities between these books. However, while 11/22/63 feels more sprawling and epic, The Dead Zone feels smaller and more intimate. More personal.

Johnny Smith is our main character. He's a nice guy with a nice, normal life. His students love him, and he's on the verge of getting engaged. Until one night, when he gets in a cab and wakes up from a coma four and a half years later. Not only has his life passed him by, but he wakes up different. When he touches people or things, he gets visions. This eventually leads his life into a collision course with a young politician whose future may or may not involve bringing the world to nuclear disaster.

I'd assumed that the core of the book was the conflict between Johnny and the politician, Greg Stillson. But that's actually only really felt in the last fourth of the book. The main thing this book does is follow Johnny from the time of his accident to where it ultimately takes him, pulling us as readers into his experience. So, as the dominoes fall one by one, we care even more as we see how it affects not only Johnny but also his family, his friends, and his enemies.

If you've never read Stephen King before and are hesitant about horror, this would be a great place to start. It's a supernatural thriller with King's signature storyteller style. It's scary, creepy, sad, and uplifting. I really liked it.

A heavily shattered psi protagonist has to deal with the demons his unwanted gift shows him. He does this by playing the more or less voluntary hunter of serial killers and world destroyers.

Mental powers are a commonly used trope in King's works. I can't name another author who uses it with such ingenuity. He unleashes the characters to observe how they freely develop their angelic or hellish powers. They become the mentalist, mind-penetrating elve, psych necromancer with daddy issues, or whatever. One could say it are descriptions of what his subconsciousness imagines certain magical powers might be made out of and how they could manifest in normal humans, ghosts, or any mythological figure.

King found himself in a similar position after he was nearly killed in a car accident. So the scenes he's describing the slow convalescence and therapy of the protagonist became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

A fun fact: King said that it was highly irritating that many people were more upset by the antagonist killing a dog than by many other scenes in his books including violence against women and children. He ironically said that this is pretty telling about human nature. „Stop hitting that dog, spank your kid instead! Thanks!“ The same happened with the completely consensual sex scene in his novel It. That was considered worse than all blood, gore, rape, and torture combined. Humans are strange, man.

Having psychic power is a great super trope. It can be with touch, senses, taking certain drugs to get in the right mood and mindset, feed on happiness, fear, or boredom. Hey, that would be funny, controlling and brainwashing other people, etc. It's easily combinable with time travel, alternative realities, fantasy, sci-fi in general, and fine to implement in any half or full breed real life events. Not to forget innuendos and connotations.

It also shows the immense flaws of the anachronistic system of identification with one glorified political leader. Loving and adoring a puppet instead of dissecting and understanding the system behind it. But because the puppet can easily turn Child's Play Chucky, slaughter the puppet masters, cut its strings, and go full extermination world domination war. It should possibly be considered to modify the system to a more direct democracy model if possible. But that's a mess all of its own too, although nothing compared to the current facepalmity. Yea, pessimistic outlook on everything, get used to it in such drivels.

One of the most mind-penetrating ideas is the horrible, real possibility of falling in a coma for years and finding out that the love of one's life is now married to another person because the doctors said that there is no certainty one may ever awake again. This is horrible, no matter when it happens in life. If one is young, the described could happen. But when kids at any age are involved, this could mean having the memory of a toddler and a kindergartener and being confronted with 2 unknown people who are both adults now and maybe even have own kids. The ultimate irony of very bad faith would be to wake up so old that one wouldn't even survive long without the severe physical consequences of the coma. Just to realize that one has missed some of the greatest periods of a human's life.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

It all began with "The Dead Zone", which was printed in "Foreign Literature" in '84. Since then, the majority (and the best) part of my life has been under the aegis of King. There are millions of us like this in the Russian-speaking space. This is no exaggeration. During the Soviet book shortage, the interesting issues of the magazine were read by a whole bunch of the rabbit's relatives and acquaintances. The novel came into my hands already bound like a book, together with Puzo's "The Godfather", probably they were printed in neighboring issues.

They gave it for three days, but I devoured it in two, and I fell in love with Stephen King for the rest of my life. Even now, I still remember the beginning of that magazine publication: "Blackness. Black ice. Blackness. Black ice. Black, black ice, don't jump on it anymore, Chuck." It's a prologue in which little Johnny Smith falls on the ice, hitting his head, losing consciousness for a second, and when he wakes up, he utters the first prophecy in his life, which neither he nor anyone around him can interpret. The older boy will drown after falling through the ice, and Johnny will forget about the unexpected epiphany for a long time.

Surprisingly, the impressions have not been erased by the past thirty-seven years and the fifty books that have been read since then. In that first one, everything was amazing: a political thriller, a story about a maniac, a mystical novel, a philosophical parable, a love story - all together in an amazing, only King can understand the ideal proportion of the Golden Ratio. It is no less surprising that after that first time, I did not return to the novel, although I have read King's favorites more than once.

I would not have turned to it again now if it were not for the audiobook. I listen to everything by Knyazev, and it is impossible to miss Stephen King in his performance. And yes, it is again magnificent, and I, once again, am amazed at how in this one-actor theater, it is possible to create such different from each other images of men, women, children, old people, and teenagers. How the visual images flare up before our eyes: fanatical Vera and aloof smarty Sara, healthy sheriff, and cynically charming villain Greg.

Every ingredient falls into the novel's cauldron at the ideal time for it, cooking for exactly as long as it takes to bring its note of taste and aroma to the action: the story of the nurse (the corneal operation will be successful) and the doctor ("the boy is safe") - the period of the manifestation of the miracle, it only enters the novel's space and shows itself generously, rewarding everyone. But this gift can also cause pain (who comes to us with a sword - a press conference).

And after that, only "in much knowledge there are many sorrows" and "if it is possible, Abba Father, let this cup pass me by." It will not pass, it was little for Him to take four years of your life, your beloved woman and mother, to make you a physical and psychological cripple, to drive you into debt, to deprive you of the opportunity to do what you love - He will lay on you, neither more nor less, the mission of saving the world from a nuclear apocalypse.

And yet King is not a God-fighter. A convinced anticlerical - yes, but globally, his world, in a thousand local cases cruel and malicious, is arranged correctly and fairly. Which does not cancel the cases of the incarceration of the innocent.

I’m not sure what to say in this review that hasn’t been said in the 4,000+ reviews done for the book, but here goes.

I’m late to the party with reading The Dead Zone! It was published in 1980 and I finally got to it in 2021. Better late then never?!

The Dead Zone has politics, a serial killer, and star-crossed lovers. It’s got tension, some mystery, heartbreak, and a deep empathy for the main character. I ended up loving Johnny Smith by the end and all the characters were fantastic, even the ones that you hated.

The Dead Zone isn’t really horror, but it could feel like horror if you suddenly have the same ability that Johnny Smith does after his accident.

Years ago, I watched the movie staring Christopher Walken that was made in 1983. I was a bit surprised by some of the differences in the book vs movie.

My advice to you dear reader is, if there’s a movie being made of a Stephen King book, read the book first! The movies usually don't compare and I can only think of a few examples that did a fantastic job with one of King's books.

Some thoughts after reading the book.

✔️ The book is more heart wrenching and raw. After reading this, I felt like I’d been stabbed in the heart.

✔️ I was more reflective while reading this and wondering how I would react if I had Johnny's abilities and life. What’s that saying? It’s a gift and a curse. Yep, that about sums it up.

✔️ The book is a wonderful character study about a happy and unassuming man, and then watching him go through dreadful changes when his life is shattered and he's given God like abilities.

Yeah, I'm really glad I finally showed up at the party! I loved everything about this book and was not disappointed! It's a captivating read that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster, making you think about life, fate, and the consequences of having extraordinary powers. The story is so well-written that you can't help but get attached to the characters and feel their pain and joy. It's a must-read for any Stephen King fan or anyone who loves a good thriller with a touch of the supernatural.

I must say that I was extremely disappointed with "The Dark Tower" and after finishing the book, I was looking for reasons why it gave me this bad feeling. I thought maybe the problem was with me because King is a great writer. Now perhaps the problem is a little bit with the story. And when I really reviewed the story in my mind again, I realized that yes, the problem is completely with the book.

Perhaps many people will like this book, but when I was reading it, I was like a person sitting in a dark cinema watching a pornographic film, but I couldn't get out of the hall because the doors have time locks.

Dobri, stari King. You are such a remarkable individual.

Your presence has always brought a sense of strength and stability.

You have a unique charm that attracts those around you.

People look up to you with respect and admiration.

Your wisdom and experience are truly valuable.

You have faced many challenges in life, but you have always emerged victorious.

Your determination and perseverance are an inspiration to us all.

We are lucky to have you in our lives.

Keep shining bright, Dobri, stari King.

Your light will always guide us.

We will always be by your side, supporting you through thick and thin.

Thank you for being who you are.

Johnny Smith had endured so much in his life.

Everyone who followed his story hoped to witness a happy conclusion for him. However, when it comes to Stephen King's works, happy endings are not always guaranteed.

The ending of Johnny Smith's tale left me with a sense of ambiguity. Did I truly like it? I need to ponder this question further.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that this is still a great read from Mr. King. His ability to craft engaging stories and develop complex characters is truly remarkable.

Overall, I would rate this book four stars. It kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end and left me with a lot to think about.

Despite the uncertainty of the ending, it added an extra layer of depth and complexity to the story, making it a memorable and thought-provoking read.

**The Responsibility of Power**

La responsabilità del potere



"We all do what we can and must be content...and if it's not enough, we must resign ourselves."



Insight, like a compass map, reveals the fragile state of our interpersonal relationships, almost always defeated by the passage of time and made pitifully inferior in the face of our absence. Narratively, the first hundred pages are perfect - with descriptions of rehabilitative physiotherapy that are panic-inducing - and the last hundred are rich in emotional moments and carry a political fear that serves as a precursor to reflection on individual responsibility for the common good. The middle part is less successful, limping in rhythm and littered with events of rather negligible significance. However, despite its flaws, the overall work manages to engage the reader and prompt思考 about the complex nature of power and responsibility. It makes us question how we use our power, both in our personal relationships and in the broader context of society. Are we content with doing the bare minimum, or are we willing to take on the responsibility of making a positive difference? These are the kinds of questions that this work leaves us with, making it a thought-provoking read.

For some reason, my memory of reading this book previously was extremely vague.

Consequently, I embarked on the rereading journey without having the slightest idea of what to anticipate. Oh boy, was I astonished!

After finishing it, I firmly believe that The Dead Zone is among King's finest novels.

The character development is truly superb. I think Johnny Smith is potentially one of King's most well-developed characters.

We also spend a significant amount of time with his family members and the main villains, and these characters are all strongly developed and have their own unique quirks.

The story, although not filled with non-stop action, completely immerses the reader in the world of Johnny Smith, an ordinary guy with a touch of psychic ability and some unbelievably bad luck.

A major portion of the storyline revolves around the political climate of the 70's, yet it is written in such a way that it remains interesting from start to finish.

Honestly, I didn't encounter any moments of boredom while reading the story.

As I'm discovering with several King books that I've recently reread, The Dead Zone is not really a horror novel at all.

There's a little bit of gore and graphic violence, and of course King's choice of language can be a bit colorful at times, but truly this is a great suspense story with a hint of politics and psychic powers added for good measure.

All in all, it's a GREAT novel. I highly recommend it.

I have just reread one of my all-time favorite books. It's truly a remarkable piece of literature that I find myself coming back to every few years or so. Each time I read it, I discover something new and exciting within its pages. I absolutely adore this book. The story, the characters, and the writing style all combine to create a captivating experience.

Not only do I love the book itself, but I also have a special appreciation for the audio version narrated by James Franco. His voice brings the story to life in a whole new way. The way he infuses each character with personality and emotion adds an extra layer of depth to the narrative. It's like experiencing the book in a whole new dimension.

I stand by what I said. This book is a classic that will continue to be cherished by readers for generations to come. Whether you prefer to read it in print or listen to the audio, it's an experience that you don't want to miss.