The Tommyknockers
Encyclopedia
The Tommyknockers is a 1987
horror
novel by Stephen King
. While maintaining a horror style, the novel is more of an excursion into the realm of science fiction
for King, as the residents of the Maine
town of Haven gradually fall under the influence of a mysterious object buried in the woods.
In his autobiography, On Writing
, King attributes the basic premise to the short story "The Colour Out of Space
" by H. P. Lovecraft
. It also draws fairly obvious parallels with the classic 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the 1959 novelette The Big Front Yard
by Clifford Simak. King wrote the book during a period of acknowledged substance abuse
, and has written that he realized later on that the novel was a metaphor for that addiction.
The writer and critic Kim Newman
has cited another influence on the novel, saying that in it King had "more or less rewritten Quatermass and the Pit
," a 1950s BBC television
science-fiction serial involving the excavation of a long-buried alien spacecraft, and the growing influence of the dormant machine on surrounding human beings. This influence was also picked up on in The Times
newspaper's review of the book on its release.
The original 1987 hardcover edition was issued with dust jackets in three different states. The most common ones are with the author's name in gold (pictured on the right) and red lettering. The more rare state of the dust jacket features the author's name in silver lettering and pale blue light shining from under the door, as opposed to green as in the other two variants.
The book's central protagonist is a poet and friend of Bobbi Anderson, named James Eric Gardener, who goes by the nickname "Gard". He is a man with left-leaning, liberal sensibilities who is apparently immune to the ship's effects because of a steel plate in his head, a souvenir of a teenage skiing accident. Unfortunately, Gard is also an alcoholic. His relationship with Bobbi deteriorates as the novel progresses. She is almost totally overcome by the euphoria of "becoming" one with the spacecraft, but Gard increasingly sees her health worsen and her sanity disappear. The novel is filled with metaphors for the stranglehold of substance abuse, which King himself was experiencing at the time, as well as for the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive fallout (as evidenced by the physical transformations of the townspeople, which resemble the effects of radiation exposure), of unchecked technological advancement, and of the corrupting influence of power. Government agencies are uniformly portrayed as corrupt and totalitarian throughout the book, and Bobbi and Gard themselves are led into thinking that they can use the ship's "power" as a weapon to overthrow such authority figures.
Seeing the transformation of the townspeople worsen, the torture and manipulation of Bobbi's dog Peter, and people being killed or worse when they pry too deeply into the strange events, Gardener eventually manipulates Bobbi into allowing him into the ship. After he sees that Bobbi is not entirely his old friend and lover, he gives her one more chance before he finally kills her with the same gun that Monster Dugan had almost killed her with in her back field previously. However, just before she dies, Bobbi sends a telepathic APB
and all the townspeople show up at her place very quickly. Meanwhile, Gardener accidentally (by dropping the gun) shoots himself in the ankle. In exchange for using the "new and improved" computers and what little "becoming" he underwent to save David Brown, Ev Hillman helps him escape into the woods (which soon catches fire from one of the Tommyknockers' "toys") at which point Gardener enters the ship, activates it, and with the last of his life telepathically launches it into space, resulting in the eventual deaths of nearly all of the changed townspeople but preventing the possibly disastrous consequences of the ship's influence spreading to the outside world. Very shortly after (in the epilogue) members from the FBI, CIA, and "The Shop
" invade Haven and take as many of the Havenites as possible (they kill nearly a quarter of the survivors) and a few of the devices created by the altered people of Haven.
In the last pages, David Brown is discovered in Hilly Brown's hospital room, safe and sound.
The book takes its title from an old children's rhyme:
King himself wrote the second verse; and claims to have heard the first verse when he was a child.
based on the novel was shown in 1993 on ABC starring Jimmy Smits
as Jim Gardener and Marg Helgenberger
as Bobbi Anderson. The film differs from the novel by stating the aliens return to life by sucking life out of the Haven residents, instead of the Haven residents slowly transforming into aliens.
1987 in literature
The year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.-Fiction:...
horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
novel by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. While maintaining a horror style, the novel is more of an excursion into the realm of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
for King, as the residents of the Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
town of Haven gradually fall under the influence of a mysterious object buried in the woods.
In his autobiography, On Writing
On Writing
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a memoir and writing guide book by Stephen King, published in 2000. It is a book about the prolific author's experiences as a writer. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly listed On Writing 21st on their list of The New Classics: Books - The 100 best reads from 1983 to...
, King attributes the basic premise to the short story "The Colour Out of Space
The Colour Out of Space
"The Colour Out of Space" is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the wild hills west of Arkham, Massachusetts...
" by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
. It also draws fairly obvious parallels with the classic 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the 1959 novelette The Big Front Yard
The Big Front Yard
The Big Front Yard is a science fiction short story by Clifford D. Simak which won a 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.-Summary:The story is about the conversion of an ordinary house into an interplanetary portal or stargate by mysterious alien beings who apparently have taken up the task of...
by Clifford Simak. King wrote the book during a period of acknowledged substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
, and has written that he realized later on that the novel was a metaphor for that addiction.
The writer and critic Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
has cited another influence on the novel, saying that in it King had "more or less rewritten Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
," a 1950s BBC television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
science-fiction serial involving the excavation of a long-buried alien spacecraft, and the growing influence of the dormant machine on surrounding human beings. This influence was also picked up on in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper's review of the book on its release.
The original 1987 hardcover edition was issued with dust jackets in three different states. The most common ones are with the author's name in gold (pictured on the right) and red lettering. The more rare state of the dust jacket features the author's name in silver lettering and pale blue light shining from under the door, as opposed to green as in the other two variants.
Plot summary
While walking in the woods near the small town of Haven, Maine, Roberta (Bobbi) Anderson, a writer of Wild West-based fiction, stumbles upon a metal object which turns out to be a protrusion of a long-buried alien spacecraft. Once exposed, the spacecraft begins releasing an invisible, odorless gas into the atmosphere which gradually transforms people into beings similar to the aliens who populated the spacecraft. It also provides them with a limited form of genius which makes them very inventive, but does not provide any philosophical or ethical insight, instead provoking psychotic violence (on the part of people like Becka Paulson, who kills her adulterous husband by fatally rewiring the TV, killing herself in the process) and the disappearance of a young boy (David Brown, whose older brother Hilly teleports him to another planet referred to as Altair 4 by the Havenites).The book's central protagonist is a poet and friend of Bobbi Anderson, named James Eric Gardener, who goes by the nickname "Gard". He is a man with left-leaning, liberal sensibilities who is apparently immune to the ship's effects because of a steel plate in his head, a souvenir of a teenage skiing accident. Unfortunately, Gard is also an alcoholic. His relationship with Bobbi deteriorates as the novel progresses. She is almost totally overcome by the euphoria of "becoming" one with the spacecraft, but Gard increasingly sees her health worsen and her sanity disappear. The novel is filled with metaphors for the stranglehold of substance abuse, which King himself was experiencing at the time, as well as for the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive fallout (as evidenced by the physical transformations of the townspeople, which resemble the effects of radiation exposure), of unchecked technological advancement, and of the corrupting influence of power. Government agencies are uniformly portrayed as corrupt and totalitarian throughout the book, and Bobbi and Gard themselves are led into thinking that they can use the ship's "power" as a weapon to overthrow such authority figures.
Seeing the transformation of the townspeople worsen, the torture and manipulation of Bobbi's dog Peter, and people being killed or worse when they pry too deeply into the strange events, Gardener eventually manipulates Bobbi into allowing him into the ship. After he sees that Bobbi is not entirely his old friend and lover, he gives her one more chance before he finally kills her with the same gun that Monster Dugan had almost killed her with in her back field previously. However, just before she dies, Bobbi sends a telepathic APB
All points bulletin
An all-points bulletin is a broadcast issued from one US law enforcement agency to another. It typically contains information about a wanted suspect who is to be arrested or a person of interest, for whom law enforcement officers are to look. They are usually dangerous or missing persons. As...
and all the townspeople show up at her place very quickly. Meanwhile, Gardener accidentally (by dropping the gun) shoots himself in the ankle. In exchange for using the "new and improved" computers and what little "becoming" he underwent to save David Brown, Ev Hillman helps him escape into the woods (which soon catches fire from one of the Tommyknockers' "toys") at which point Gardener enters the ship, activates it, and with the last of his life telepathically launches it into space, resulting in the eventual deaths of nearly all of the changed townspeople but preventing the possibly disastrous consequences of the ship's influence spreading to the outside world. Very shortly after (in the epilogue) members from the FBI, CIA, and "The Shop
The Shop (Stephen King)
The Shop is a fictional, top secret United States government agency in the writings of Stephen King. It plays a central role as the antagonist in the novel Firestarter, the miniseries Golden Years, and the film The Lawnmower Man, and is an element of the novel The Tommyknockers...
" invade Haven and take as many of the Havenites as possible (they kill nearly a quarter of the survivors) and a few of the devices created by the altered people of Haven.
In the last pages, David Brown is discovered in Hilly Brown's hospital room, safe and sound.
The book takes its title from an old children's rhyme:
King himself wrote the second verse; and claims to have heard the first verse when he was a child.
Miniseries
A TV miniseriesThe Tommyknockers (TV miniseries)
The Tommyknockers is a 1993 television miniseries based on the novel The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. It was directed by John Power, and starred Marg Helgenberger and Jimmy Smits in the two lead roles.-Part One:...
based on the novel was shown in 1993 on ABC starring Jimmy Smits
Jimmy Smits
Jimmy Smits is an American actor. Smits is perhaps best known for his roles as attorney Victor Sifuentes on the 1980s legal drama L.A. Law, as NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the 1990s police drama NYPD Blue, and as Congressman Matt Santos on The West Wing...
as Jim Gardener and Marg Helgenberger
Marg Helgenberger
Mary Marg Helgenberger is an American film and television actress known for her roles as Catherine Willows in the CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and as K.C...
as Bobbi Anderson. The film differs from the novel by stating the aliens return to life by sucking life out of the Haven residents, instead of the Haven residents slowly transforming into aliens.
Editions
- ISBN 0-606-04113-3 (preboundPreboundA prebound book is a book that was previously bound and has been rebound with a library quality hardcover binding. In almost all commercial cases, the book in question began as a paperback version.An alternate term is "Library Hardcover Paperback"....
, 1987) - ISBN 0-451-15660-9 (mass market paperback, 1988)
- ISBN 84-01-49998-4 (hardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
, 1992) - ISBN 84-01-47465-5 (hardcover, 1999)
- ISBN 0-399-13699-1 (hardcover)