Product Description

A devastatingly powerful novel from the master of modern horror and suspense

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155162 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 736 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
A notice to those who feel that Stephen King has lost his magic touch: Desperation is the genuine goods. The ensemble cast of ordinary Americans thrown together by chance, including a disgruntled alcoholic writer and a child who is wise beyond his years, may be a bit too familiar. But the nearly deserted Nevada mining town with an enormous haunted mine pit and an abandoned movie theatre where the survivors hang out makes for a striking battleground, and the grisly action rarely flags. Best of all, though, are the characters of Tak, the ancient body-hopping evil who emerges from the mine, and of "God"--whom the New York Times describes as "the edgiest creation in Desperation. Remote, isolated, ironic, shrouded behind disguises, perhaps ‘another legendary shadow,' this deity forms a sly foil, and an icy mirror, to Tak."

Daily Mail
'A massive volume of terror crafted creepily'

Daily Telegraph
'Genuinely masterful'

Customer Reviews

Fantastic
One of his best by far, gripping and original storyline that kept me hooked from start to finish. A must have for Stephen King fans

Best days are gone...
Two-hundred pages less, and some tightening of plot, and this might have been one of King's better works. However, this is the work of a man who, after a promising start, has no idea where the story is eventually heading, and how his protagonists are going to get out of the scrape they are in. And so appears one of the most contrived deus ex machinas I have ever read - the boy who has a direct line to good old Gahd himself. If I didn't know better, I'd be suspicious I was reading something from an evangelical re-born Christian. But not a bit of it... King has simply run out of ideas and is unwilling to revise what he has already written. If you can overlook such a terrible way in which to resolve problems in a story, give the novel and extra star.

And so to King's writing itself. Everything I like and am irritated by him is here. On the good side, there is his always readable tale-spinning and his flair for drawing the reader in. King's characters are for the main part likeable, and events for the first two-thirds of the book generally kept me entertained and engrossed. But then there is the bad. Stephen, if you are going to have your characters laugh hysterically, then please have them laugh at something funny. While King can turn a witty phrase or two, he is NOT a witty writer of dialogue, and what his characters (in practically every book he has written) find outrageously funny, I doubt anyone else would. And as for the previously-mentioned deus ex machina of David (a boy of eleven who has the vocabulary of an adult, by the way), it is so ham-fisted and cringeworthy, I was tempted to leave the book unfinished. Also, there are other King hallmarks such as his own taste in music being that of his main characters (IE, obscure sixties bands, in this case extensive references to the Young Rascals' Good Lovin'). Write what you know is one thing, having an endless parade of main charcters who are basically Stephen King alter egos is another.

So, not a disaster of a novel, and anyone who can overlook King's obsessions and foibles, and a terrible case of extreme convenience altering the course of the novel, then here's another Stephen King page-turner you will probably enjoy. Just don't expect it to be 'It', 'The Shining', Christine', etc. This is very, very much 'Rose Madder' territory.

Scarily Good!!!!
Desperation is one of King's best books to date. Usually, I find that his books start off slowly and build up to the main action - Insomnia, The Regulators etc. However this book is gripping from the first page. With engaging characters, exciting plot-twists and a truly frightening character in Collie Entragian this book is a good read from start to finish. I would highly recommend it to both those who are regular King readers and novices who want to read something new and exciting.