‘The Dead Zone’ by Stephen King

My Review (5 stars out of 5)

With girlfriend Sarah in tow, Johnny Smith has a run of luck at the Wheel of Fortune, but after dropping his girl off at home, Johnny’s cab is involved in a head-on collision, killing the driver and leaving Johnny in a coma. Waking up almost five years later, Johnny is shocked to learn how much things have changed. Aside from his mother’s raging religious mania and his girlfriend’s new husband, he finds he is now cursed with the ability to see into the future. Though these ‘hunches’ have always been with him in some form since a childhood accident, these new experiences throw him into a confrontation with a dangerous and power-hungry politician.

I first read The Dead Zone as a teenager, though my memory of it tends to fixate on the movie version (starring Christopher Walken), so I thought it was time I gave it another look. Though it’s perhaps not one of Stevie’s best works, I really enjoyed it, particularly the depth he goes into with each of his characters. If you’ve read his book On Writing, you’ll know about how his writing has changed over the years and might notice some early mistakes in this one – such as an over-reliance on adverbs. But apart from that, it’s a great read and kept me going all the way through, even though I knew the ending.

Another classic from the King of horror (see what I did there?)

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