The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

Viking Press - August 1979

428 pages

After winning big at the Wheel of Fortune at the county fair, Johnny Smith takes his sick girlfriend Sarah home and then jumps in a cab, planning to go straight to his home. Today is not Johnny Smith's lucky day, however. The taxicab gets caught in an accident that kills the driver and puts Johnny into a coma for five years. When he wakes up, he needs extreme surgery on his legs, arms, and neck, but that's not all. When Johnny wakes up, he realizes that he's psychic.

Okay, that doesn't even begin to describe the plot of the book, but I couldn't reveal any more without giving it away. That alone is about the first 75 or so pages of the book. The reason that it doesn't even begin to describe the plot is because there isn't just one plot. And yet, it's all (for the most part) in Johnny's viewpoint. The problem is that this would do better as a book series or a television show (it actually was a TV show from 2002-2007). It cannot follow one storyline. Storylines are finished at various intervals, and a new one begins. Very few loose ends were tied up at the end, and the ending seemed like an easy way out of the book. I'll allow you this one bomb, Steve. But next time you'll be getting a letter and a copy of the review.

Grade: D