Desperation

Luis Mejia - Desperation is a deep and certainly scary work of fiction which gives way to a general sense of message through it's thoughtful scenaries. Among the King universe Desperation is unconventional, although it gets quite refreshing for it's style. It captures the crudeness and strambotic sense of the desert, the mystic power always present in his paranormal fiction, the storyline is easy-going and lineal (which gives the plot a witty sense), and the reader can be excited by the All-American characters King writes with such a dark sense of anti-humor. Apart from this factors usually present on Stephen King's work, it's impossible not to think that, even for King, the work shoud've been better crafted; while the storyline is understandable, it hits into common and even incredilby predictable boundaries; clutches of plot pieces are wrolngly scattered on through (Eg: the survivor lady which gets to the cinema and the impossible to connect section's of David Carver's past) and specially the quick and running ending, which is worst portrayed than the length of the whole novel. By all means, at the end of the novel, take a great time to think about the deepness of the messages so wonderfully expressed on the novel; the merciless aspect of God (the "hole" Desperation represents, the destiny God carries out on David and even the rest of the connecting survivors), the crude appeareances of stereotypes, and how evil and goodness are balanced. Be prepared to read an unconvential King novel, all gotten into the bloody side of the desert and the terrible perspectives of loneliness in towns and it's only connections.

This book concerns a number of travellers trapped by what appears to be a maniac cop, in a mining town called Desperation, and their attempts to escape.

As Stephen King books go, I did not think this was one of his better ones, but was a pretty good read, nonetheless. I felt the characters in the story were reasonably good, and kept you interested in them, for most of the time, anyway, as it should be pointed out, that this book is slow moving in parts, by this author's standards.

The main drawback, I felt was that the whole 'Tak' thing was weak, and got slightly boring at times. It also could have been explained a bit better.

This was the first Stephen King book that I ever read. I saw it at a 2nd hand store and figured for $5 I couldn't go wrong. Well I have to say when I opened it that night after work I could not put it down! This book was amazing! The intese details paint a perfect picture. Definately a good read.

Once again a novel about the classic battle of good vs. evil, but King (as usual) does a good job of coming up with original material. This keeps the reader involved, as the suspense comes from trying to figure out just what/what the bad guy is and what he wants.

That said, even when writing a horror book about the unreal, it is not justifiable to throw all logic out the window, and sadly King forgets logic in both the details and the overall plot.

For instance, in one scene a main character is looking at a WALLET-sized photograph and is able to clearly identify not only three men, and the baseball cap that one of them is wearing, but also the name of the club on a sign behind them. If this isn't bad enough, it should be mentioned that the photograph is 30 years old. (I guess they don't make photos like they used to.)

Flaws in the plot are also clumsy: in another scene hero David makes another one of the main characters empty his pockets to make sure that the guy isn't carrying any "evil rocks". But when does he do this? Not after another lady is found with evil rocks, when it would be logical. Instead, the pockets are emptied in fact much later: RIGHT AFTER David declares that this guy has had a "change of heart" and is now certainly on the good side.

Most embarrassing is the overall theme. All through the book, the main characters all determine that "God must be cruel" to let so many people die in the town. But on the last page of the book, it is once and for all decided that "God is love". What happened during this time for the main characters to change their minds? The evil guy decides to let the main characters escape, but God commands them to destroy the evil guy, which leads to the death of 2 of the main characters in the process.

Flaws aside, overall the book is entertaining. However, in between the action, King for some reason has some of the narrative recounted by hero David (who tells the background story after seeing it in a vision) rather than just having flashbacks in the story. This leads to a book that would be equivalent to a fast-paced action movie that is inexplicably interupted up by 10-minute sequences of dialogue.

Above all, the book is poorly written. The plot is formulaic and forgettable. The author's attempt to be suspenseful and scary fell flat. I'm not a Stephen King reader but I was sorely disappointed by this book.