Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

ONCE UPON A TIME, IN THE HAUNTED CITY OF DERRY, FOUR BOYS STOOD TOGETHER AND DID A BRAVE THING.  IT WAS SOMETHING THAT CHANGED THEM IN WAYS THEY COULD NEVER BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND.

Synopsis :

Twenty-five years after saving a Down's syndrome kid from bullies, Beav, Henry, Pete and Jonesy - now men with separate lives and separate problems - reunite in the woods of Maine for their annual hunting trip.  But when a stranger stumbles into their camp, disoriented and mumbling something about lights in the sky, chaos erupts.  Soon, the four friends are plunged into horrifying struggle with a creature from another world where their only chance of survival is locked in their shared past - and in the Dreamcatcher.

I was wondering why I have not read this book when I realised that the book is written in year 2001 and I was quite over reading Stephen King by then.  It was very much in the late 80s that I was into Stephen King.  I used to owned a copy of 'It', my absolute favourite title by Stephen King other than 'The Shinning'.  I read It about three times over the years (that's what you do when you love to read but don't have much pocket money to spend on the habit) before I lend it to a friend and that's the last I saw of it.

It was with much fascination that there are mentions of incidents from It in this book and I really thank the author for bringing back memories of It (and Pennywise the clown) and how thrilling that title was.

Back to Dreamcatcher, it started of quite confusingly for me but the essence of Stephen King, the master horror storyteller proved to be in evident and he made the story works in ways that other authors might not be able to. Some might say it's rather cheesy once the 'horror' is revealed but for me it was still scarily entertaining right to the last page.

There is actually a movie adaptation starring Morgan Freeman with the same title.  I watched the movie right after I read it and for some reason the book and movie compliments each other but being a reader, books always win. :)

Stephen King writes very differently nowadays and I can't say I enjoy his current titles but Dreamcatcher is somewhere in between old and new and I can say I quite like it and enjoyed it but what I really like to do is to get hold of a copy of It.