Get your own Free Home PageOK, I admit it. I sometimes read Stephen King. I would even go so far as to say I enjoy Stephen King; he might not be high on the list for literary worthiness, but he spins a darned good yarn. I know that by and large he writes horror, rather than science fiction, but that's often of interest to science fiction readers. I think Insomnia is almost a science fiction (or, rather, science fantasy) book anyway, so I'll include the reviw here.
King is a real page-turner. Once you start one of his tomes, you have to carry on--and I think that's the best way to read them. As far as I'm concerned, King's books do not stand up well to being read in short bursts. Unfortunately, you have to dedicate a fair bit of time to them, since King is not noted for his ability to keep things brief and to the point. But hey, his editor probably isn't too fussy these days ;-)
On to the story then. Insomnia is the story of Ralph, an old age pensioner who discovers a "parallel" world, the denizens of which (a mixture of elves and goblins of the type that might not seem out of place at Roswell) seem to be responsible for all of mankind's woes. These little fellas go around killing off people who's "time has come" with a sort of semi-religious glee. How does Ralph discover this world? Yep, that's right - he suffers from insomnia, and starts to see the little people out of his bedroom window at night. All would be well, if it wasn't for the fact that one of the little people seems to have got ahead of himself. It's OK to claim the soul of someone who is old, or ill, and ready to die, but this little chap is going around knocking anybody off, simply because he can. No respect, that's his problem. Of course, as is the way with these things, the rogue goblin is particularly interested in knocking of Ralph's nearest and dearest. Cue much in the way of hearty shenanigins.
In terms of plot, this probably isn't one of King's strong books. That said, it's a reasonably simple idea, and by means of character development (in the King sense) he manages to keep the story going at a cracking pace.
There were two things that disappointed me greatly about this book:
What do I mean by that? Well, in terms of the fantasy elements of the story, you could just see the special effects people licking their lips. I think that King wrote this book with a view to a film being made of it, and the technical feasibility (from the point of view of special effects) of much of the plot sticks out like a sore thumb.
Secondly, and this is the bit that really sticks in my throat, King was brave enough to make his central characters, and many of the minor characters in ths book, old people. His heroes were old people. But instead of capitalizing on this, he completely ignores it. These characters could be 35 or 70, it makes no difference to the telling of the story. Worse still (cue dreadful plot device), because of their exposure to this parallel world of elves and goblins and mischief makers, the main characters actually undergo a ridiculous process of rejuvenation so that, as part of the inevitable happy ending, our heroes feel about 35 again.
Don't misunderstand me, I enjoyed this book, in the way that I enjoy most Stephen King books. It's just that it could have been so much better.
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