Stephen King

Johnny , the small boy who skated at breakneck speed into an accident that for one horrifying moment plunged him into THE DEAD ZONE.

Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half year trip into THE DEAD ZONE.

John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed power--the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in THE DEAD ZONE.
--back cover

The Dead Zone

Dead Zone - Das Attentat

Justin Staack

7 Punkte
Der Religionswahn von Johnnys Mutter war so übertrieben, dass es nur noch störend war. Auch der Handlungsstrang mit Frank Dodd und Greg Stiltson fühlt sich so an, als würden einfach zwei verschiedene Geschichten zusammen getackert werden. Die starke Bindung, die man durch Johnny, als aller welts Charakter aufbauen kann und sein Umgang mit seiner damaligen Freundin, Familie und seinen Werdegang, sind so gut, dass sie das Buch noch retten.

Daniel Spruill

But sometimes, Johnny thought, absently massaging his temples, it seemed it would be better, more merciful, if you lost touch with even these last vestiges of childhood. You could never discover the books that had first turned you on in quite the same way. The lucky coin had not protected from any of the ordinary whips and scorns and scrapes of an ordinary life. And when you looked at the ornaments you remembered that there had once been a mother in the place to direct the tree-trimming operation, always ready and willing to piss you off by saying “a little higher” or “a little lower…”

My favorite King since ’Salem’s Lot. It feels like a culmination of his work in the 70s, throwing away supernatural monsters for real-life horrors and character studies. It’s a drama, for the most part, with otherworldly elements and his best protagonist in Johnny Smith.

I loved loved loved the sequence at the county fair and the Wheel of Fortune. He builds tension masterfully and kicks the book off with the accident and it never lets up.

The Frank Dodd sections in Castle Rock were my favorite, and even though I went into it knowing the identity of the killer, it never dulled my reading experience.

King really foretold the future of American politics with Greg Stillson… need I say more?

Just a really, really fantastic read. Can’t wait to revisit this one.

After four and a half years in a coma, Johnny Smith awakens with a knowledge of the death zone and an ability to see the future, a horrible power that he does not want and cannot escape

Lara Engle

This is a sad one. It's really a tragic love story hidden in supernatural horror. As always, King creates characters who appear on the page immediately as genuine and human as anyone you'd meet in real life. It's nightmarish how many of the political predictions came true in recent years. Sometimes I think Stephen King has a bit of that precognition himself. But hey, quit sniffin' that wicked cocaine.

Wynter

I know I can always rely on Stephen King to tell an imaginative story with living, breathing characters. When it's cold and rainy out, and the yellowing leaves are being torn off the trees by gusts of autumn wind, there is nothing better than to get a warm blanket, a comfy pillow, and a hot beverage, and settle down for the day with a novel by King. That is how I spent all day today. 

Dead Zone could have ended at part one, and it would have been a great thriller/murder mystery. But it went further into some great sci-fi about fate, choices, and purpose. It tugs on a few heart strings, and makes you feel for the characters. I liked it a lot.

Loulou

La zona muerta 
Una auténtica obra literaria del gran señor y rey del terror Stephen King.
Este libro sigue la historia de Jhonny Smith y hay que ser honestos ¿que clase de nombre es ese? 
Una maldición, un accidente o una bendición de Dios.

The two things that conjured up that horrible night, were his run of luck at the Wheel of Fortune, and the mask . . . Meet Johnny Smith. A young man whose streak of luck ends dramatically in a major car crash. Followed by blackness. A long, long time in cold limbo. When he wakes up life has been turned upside down. His fiancée has met someone else. And Johnny is cursed with the power to perceive evil in men's souls. He's had these hunches since he had an ice-skating accident as a child. Now he has an ability to see into the future. An ability which will bring him into a terrifying confrontation with a charismatic, power-hungry and dangerous man . . .

Some of King's best character work. I was very moved by Johnny's journey and struggle with his responsibilities, and especially the end of the book. One of my favorite King works so far (this is my sixth novel written by him)

Stijn de Boer 

Celeste Richardson

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions. 

I finished this book over a week ago. Why haven’t I already marked it completed, you may ask? Well, I have this thing about not reviewing a book immediately, so I’ve just been completely ignoring the fact that I completed it. This delay is partly due to the fact that I’ve been insanely busy and too tired to read more than a handful of pages a day, much less having time to properly formulate a response to what I’ve read. But the other cause for the delay is that mediocre books are the hardest to review. And as much as I’ve been loving King the past few years and have enjoyed binge-reading his work every October, that’s what this book was for me: mediocre.

There was nothing wrong with the book, exactly. The writing was in King’s signature style. The character development was on point; in fact, Johnny might be one of my favorite protagonists King has ever penned. There was a multifaceted depth to Johnny that really appealed to me. The secondary characters were sympathetic and believable. I think the problem for me boils down to two issues: the believability of the antagonist, and the plot. 

First, let me address the antagonist. Greg Stillson just didn’t work for me at all. I know there are charismatic sociopaths out there who could convince a vegan to don a leather jacket and eat a hamburger while maintaining eye contact with a cow. But true charisma requires a certain level of charm, right? We’re told that Stillson is charming, and we’re even shown him charming crowds of people into figuratively eating out of the palm of his hand. However, I as the reader was never charmed, and thus found the charisma very difficult to accept as fact instead of some weird brainwashing technique preformed by King on his creations, not by Stillson to his constituents. I don’t know if this was just me, as I’m sure there are many out there who would disagree vehemently, but I couldn’t see Stillson as anything more than a jerk of the highest caliber. Because of this, his entire half of the plot just never did ring true for me.

Now, about the plot. The whole concept of a preternatural insight into the lives and futures of others is a great foundation for a King novel, and one that he wrote with much aplomb. I’m also a big fan of the idea that one can recover from some type of extreme trauma and have actually gained some sort of ability like this. The addition of a Dead Zone in the mind that would keep certain facts regarding both average life and second sight from being easily viewed or remembered by said mind is also interesting, but seemed like almost an afterthought, a way to tie the title into the story. Generally, King’s title concept is incredibly important to the plot, and I felt that the story could have taken much the same route with an almost identical outcome without the presence of the Dead Zone. Yes, I understand the point being made here, that there’s nothing quite so ominous and terrifying as a future imagined. While these fears were not proven, they were also not refuted, leading to the pentacle of the story. I’m just unconvinced that the presence of the Dead Zone really altered very much. 

Also, it felt like very little actually happened in this book. The story meandered through the majority of the book. However, I did feel that this was one of King’s stronger endings; it didn’t leave me feeling frustrated, which isn’t a claim I can make regarding all of his books. I also like that I’m going back and reading some of his older work after starting with his more recent publications. Because I’ve already read 11/22/63, I could see how aspects were inspired by The Dead Zone, which was fun for me. Because I read Needful Things before picking this one up, I found it incredibly interesting to visit Castle Rock before the arrival of Mr. Gaunt. In other words, there were aspects of this book that I enjoyed. Even still, it didn’t wow me. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t mind-blowing. It’s a book that I would pick up if stuck in an airport of doctor’s office for an extended period of time, if a stranger offered it and I had neglected to bring a book of my own. But I would have no qualms about closing it mid-chapter and handing it back to the owner when my name was finally called.

Cams Campbell

I don't know how I hadn't read this one. I wanted a book for a road trip, one that would draw me in, be easy to listen to, and make the miles pass by quickly. This book was that. 

I've enjoyed Stephen King since I started reading him many years ago. This was classic King, but what I really enjoyed about this one was the internal monologue of John Smith and the idea of consequences. When he's trying to figure out about people *believing* only *after* events and not before, and the idea of fate and whether he really can change it. The religion aspect is interesting too - there are no answers, only questions. *Did* God put Johnny there to do those things? Was his mother actually not entirely crazy? 

I'll save up another King for my next road trip, maybe Cujo or Salem's Lot, another two that have passed me by.

Kathleen Mullins

Diesel Cheung

This book had a really cool concept, but it just kind of ended in a very anti-climax way. Although, I have to say that Greg Stillson can be a metaphore for the current political leader of the united states.

Jana Pashovska

Just as eerie and complex as many of King's other works, but I wasn't much impressed by it. I struggled to get myself immersed into the story and didn't care much for any of the characters nor any of the plot developments, just kind of cruised through it without, only stopping once or twice to rethink something that was written. It reminded me a lot of 11/22/63, which is one of my favourite books, but without all the lustre of it. Again, not impressed. I will need to read another King after this just to wash away the bland feeling it left me with.

Nava

Awake in the deadzone and awake. . . into a nightmare.

Recoil in horror as you are touched by a young man cursed with the power to perceive the evil in men's souls. And whose ability to see into the future forces him into a terrifying confrontation with a charismatic, power-hung and infinitely dangerous man.
--back cover

Stephan Happe

Louis-André Labadie

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

A #1 national bestseller about a man who wakes up from a five-year coma able to see people’s futures and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in The Dead Zone—a “compulsive page-turner” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma after his car accident and discovers that he can see people’s futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiancée married another man during his coma and people clamor for him to solve their problems.

When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future. With “powerful tension that holds the reader to the story like a pin to a magnet” (The Houston Post), The Dead Zone is a “faultlessly paced…continuously engrossing” (Los Angeles Times) novel of second sight.
source: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Dead-Zone/Stephen-King/9781508217862

Bastien Vaucher

Jordan Card

A man awakens from a 5-year coma to discover he has powers to see visions of the past, present and future, a power which drives him insane.

The Dead Zone

Reviews