The Tommyknockers

Plot

While walking in the woods near Haven, Maine, writer Roberta "Bobbi" Anderson discovers a metal protrusion of a long-buried alien spacecraft. The ship releases an invisible gas that transforms people into beings similar to the aliens, granting them a limited genius for invention without ethical understanding. The spacecraft prevents affected residents from leaving, provokes psychotic violence, and causes the disappearance of a young boy named David Brown, whose brother Hilly teleports him to a planet called Altair 4.

The central character, James Eric Gardener, a poet nicknamed "Gard," is partially immune due to a steel plate in his head from a teenage skiing accident. Gard, an alcoholic prone to violent binges and blackouts, watches as Bobbi is overcome by the ship's euphoria, her health and sanity deteriorating. He stays to try to halt her decline, witnessing the townspeople's transformation, the torture of Bobbi's dog Peter, and deaths of those who pry too deeply.

Influences

In his autobiography On Writing, King credited the basic premise to H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Colour Out of Space." A poem from King's childhood was used for the book's preamble. Critic Kim Newman described the novel as having more or less rewritten the television serial Quatermass and the Pit, in which an alien spacecraft excavated in London evokes latent psychic abilities in nearby people. King wrote The Tommyknockers during a period of significant substance abuse, and metaphors for addiction appear throughout the book.

In a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, King called it an awful book and the last one he wrote before cleaning up his act, adding that it could be good if rewritten to half its length. Other themes include the dangers of unchecked technological advancement and the corrupting influence of power. Bobbi uses the threat of stupid people in charge, citing the Dallas Police's handling of the JFK assassination, to enlist Gardener's help. Gardener obsesses over atomic power and nuclear mishandling.

The physical transformation resembles the toxic effects of ionizing radiation. The dog Peter is a beagle, a possible reference to Peter S. Beagle, who published his first fantasy novel in 1960 and later edited an anthology including a story by King.

Adaptations

A two-part television miniseries aired in 1993 on ABC, starring Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger. King stated he did not like it, feeling it was cheap and thrown together. NBC announced in July 2013 a new miniseries, and in March 2018, James Wan, Roy Lee, and Larry Sanitsky were reported to be developing a feature film version.