The Dead Zone

By Stephen King

Beware, The Wheel of Fortune…

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Aug 1, 1980
• ISBN: 9781101138144

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are 11/22/63, Under the Dome, and the Dark Tower novels Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Reviews for The Dead Zone

[rsplenda477 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another one of those books where I saw the movie first and didn't get around to reading the book until years later. King's political thriller hits so many themes that America is still struggling with to this day: dangerous populism, frustration among blue-collar folks, political corruption, and more. Our protagonist, Johnny Smith, finds himself in a nightmarish situation where he can see "flashes" of upcoming events after waking from a coma from a terrible accident 5 years before. He manages to get by for the most part until he comes face-to-face with local New Hampshire politician, Greg Stillson, at a political rally. Smith is horrified with what he "sees" and must come to grips with the most difficult decision he has ever had to make in his life.

[megaden_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I expected more from King.

[tromboneal-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes drawn out, and some of the characters were more evil than necessary, but I enjoyed it overall.

[trayceetee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the very first Stephen King book I ever read (at age 12, btw), and I'm surprised I never re-read it until now. It's the one that got me hooked on King- - and I mean HOOKED. Yet, I never revisited this one....
I saw that it was recently released inn audio, with James Franco reading it. I was convinced: time tho luck this baby up again! So glad I did! It's even better than I had remembered, plus Franco brings such richness to the story with his reading of it! I highly recommend this book to you, even (especially?) if you're not a King fan.... it's different from his usual fare.

[msaucier818 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I always love returning to Stephen King. This was one of his earlier novels and I had not heard too much about ti. Apparently there was a movie made out of it many years ago. I think this story has aged well. It is classic King with his ability to tell a story, foreshadow, and really get into the minds of his characters. This novel follows a person with supposed psychic abilities, and while fantastical, the story does seem plausible. I enjoyed the read.

[bekkil1977 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

John Smith is in a bad car accident, in a coma for over four years. When he awakens, he has the disturbing ability to see things, things in the future. He is labeled a psychic, and called a huckster by many, but he just wants to be left alone. There is a great little section where Sheriff George Bannerman of Castle Rock calls and asks him to help him catch the strangler who has been preying on women and young girls in Castle Rock for six years. John reluctantly goes and when he tells Bannerman that the killer is one of his own deputies, Frank Dodd, Bannerman is stunned and doesn't want to believe it. John persuades him to go to Dodd's house, and they find Dodd has committed suicide. The ending was so great, just spot on, how John doesn't actually kill Stillson like he wants but still is able to discredit him and make him look like a fool.

[beebowallace · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I like King's early novels, I feel they're the best in his catalog. That being said, I was quite disappointed with The Dead Zone. The storyline felt all over the place - nothing held my interest throughout the book.

[theoriginalbree · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yeah...Stephen King is a good writer. Amazing, actually. I was disappointed by the ending of this book. Don't get me wrong. I had a better time reading this than trying to look for something to watch on TV. The ending just didn't sit right with me.

[kathay-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are probably some faults with this book, but I easily love it the best out of all of my Stephen King favourites so I had to rate it as "amazing".

I still remember the first (of many, many, many) time that I read it and how it got me so emotionally worked up that I wanted to shake characters and shout in their faces "just believe him! Why don't you believe him?"

Frustrating, emotional, gripping, and overall a book that left me better off than it found me.

[carol420 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A coma patient awakens after several years and finds that he can see future events just by touching people. He didn't ask for this gift and he doesn't want it! A later TV series was made from this book with all the characters created by Stephen King. The fist couple of seasons stayed close to the book but began to take on a life of their own in later seasons.

[catellington · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This novel is not so much horror as it is, say, maybe suspense ... if you could even call it that.

I found The Dead Zone to be very slow, short of boring. And I can remember the feeling of wanting to abandon it midway through, but I dislike starting something and not finishing it, so I trekked on...

Maybe for some The Dead Zone would be a great and cozy read, but the writing, as far as I'm concerned, is "uncharacteristic" of King.

[marlene9nl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It has been ages since I read this book and that was when I only read my books translated in Dutch. I am glad I now have an English copy and planning to read it one day again.

[nandakishore_varma-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In my own personal opinion, this is the best story Stephen King has ever written. Not the most frightening, not the most thrilling, no: but this novel has true literary merit. And a tragic hero (not a mere "protagonist, mind you) who really qualifies for the title.

John Smith (his name immediately marks him out as the "common man") is blessed and cursed with second sight. It began as a minor ability due to a skating accident in his childhood; but when he wins big time at the roulette wheel in a village carnival, this "gift" proves to be his undoing. Because while coming home late from the carnival, the taxi John is travelling in meets with a horrific accident, and he is precipitated into a four-year coma.

While he is asleep, John loses his career, girlfriend, everything. He wakes up a pauper in material terms, but endowed with the full-fledged version of his latent childhood gift.

And thus begins the career of John Smith, the clairvoyant.

As he moves from discovery to horrific discovery, the amount of darkness he unearths in human souls pushes John further and further down into a sort of spiritual abyss. There seems to no purpose to his tragic life, until he meets Greg Stillson, prospective presidential candidate. A casual handshake allows John Smith a look into the cesspit that is the soul of the future president of the USA: and suddenly, he finds that there is something he has to do. Finish of Stillson, before he finishes of civilisation as we know it...

***

There is horror in this novel. But it is not supernatural, oh no: John's supernatural power is benign. The horror is in what that power unearths. Yes, Greg Stillson is the boogeyman in this story.

One must pay homage to Stephen King's gift of seeing into the future. At the time the novel was written, people would have laughed at the idea that a secular democracy would elect a blackguard like Stillson into office. I would humbly suggest that events of the past two decades have convinced me otherwise.

This is one of the most meticulously crafted books that I have read. John's and Greg's careers start simultaneously, sure to meet at some point of time: yet King weaves the narrative so expertly that when the meeting finally takes place, there is no sense of the let-down of predestination. And the denouement (like in 11.22.63) is totally unexpected.

The last chapter, "Notes from the Dead Zone", is one of the most beautiful passages of prose in my experience. Stephen King rises almost to the level of a poet here, the way the words flow.

Five stars, all the way.

[coloradogirl14 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am slowly but surely working my way through Stephen King's novels chronologically, with the Dead Zone being the most recent book of his I've read to completion, excluding Doctor Sleep. It had been awhile since I first The Dead Zone, and it was sort of like reading it for the first time, since there was so much of it I didn't remember.Johnny has been gifted with an unusually keen sense of perception (or luck) ever since he hit his head on the ice as a child. But trouble really starts for him when he's in a horrific car accident and falls into a coma that lasts for five years. When he wakes up, he's miraculously able to walk, talk, and remember much of what happened to him, but now he notices that he has a supernatural ability to know things about the people he touches. And when he shakes hands with up-and-coming politician, Greg Stillson, he sees a horrific vision of nuclear war in the not-so-distant future - a vision that will surely come to pass unless Johnny kills him.Even though this was written in the late seventies/early eighties, it still has a distinctive Stephen King FEEL that's hard to describe but easy to understand if you've read a lot of his work. Maybe it's the combination of dark suspense, deep characterization, and straightforward writing, but whatever it may be, this book has the unofficial Stephen King stamp.The book's main flaw is that the story feels disjointed, instead of everything working together towards a final conclusion. First we see Johnny before his accident. Then we see him after the coma trying to cope with his new skill. Then he's called in to help solve a horrific series of child rapes and murders in a nearby town. Then he's hired to tutor the son of a wealthy New England family. And it isn't until THIS part in his life that Johnny even meets Greg Stillson, although the reader has been treated to several forays into Stillson's mind before this. The plot just feels like a string of beads stretched out in a line, with separate beads not having much to do with one another.Does this affect the entertainment value of the story? Not for me. It's a fast read, Johnny is a likeable yet conflicted character, and the other characters are just as interesting. Not my favorite Stephen King, and one I probably wouldn't suggest unless someone had already read a good chunk of his work already, but still a solid and entertaining choice.Readalikes:Some of Stephen King's less horror-centric titles might make for good suggestions, including The Long Walk, The Green Mile, and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (novella).Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. Both titles feature a likeable protagonist with an unwanted gift of supernatural visions, although Odd Thomas's story is less grounded in reality than The Dead Zone and features more dark humor.

[joel.g..gomes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After watching a few episodes of the television show (and a glimpse of the movie with Christopher Walken and director David Cronenberg) I already knew much of what happened in this book story. So why read it? Because, adaptation issues aside, it's still a Stephen King book and he's not the kind of writer who delivers a bad book. Sure, they may not be all perfect, but there's always a lot of good qualities in them.

THE DEAD ZONE has very few, if any, things against it. It's well written, well developed and well plotted. The main story doesn't differ much from what happens in the movie, but it would be impossible to fit everything that happened in an almost 500 pages novel into a movie with less than two hours. Adapting a movie usually requires that the unessential aspects be trimmed and that's fine if you don't read the book prior to watching the movie. Or if you're kind the person who can separate one thing from the other, without making futile comparisons.

Everything that isn't in the movies or in the TV series is not essential to the story. True. Stephen King could easily have told the same story without those small secondary story lines. But it's those story lines, those unnecessary peaks at the characters that make like Stephen King so much. He could have written THE DEAD ZONE without them, but it would not have been the same book. Nor as good.

[claireh18 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although a huge fan of King's work, I couldn't really get into this book and didn't feel i could connect with the main character. In the film version, Christopher Walken takes the lead and I have to admit that I enjoyed that more than the book on first reading it.

[rosencrantz79 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I will probably attract the attention of the CIA or the Secret Service if I intimate that it would be beneficial for all humankind if John Smith, the protagonist of Stephen King's The Dead Zone, had occasion to shake the hand of our current president. So I'm not going to suggest that. I will, however, suggest that this is a tightly-crafted novel that exemplifies some of King's best work. And that the 1970's Vietnam/Nixon impeachment/Watergate backdrop makes for a setting that resonates in today's political climate.

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

King just started hitting his stridewith tthis story about a man given the gift of insight and prenostacation. He sees a future candidate for the U.S. presidency who will start WWIII and take out humanity.

[karieh_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Funny thing? The face on the cover of my copy (published in 1980) looks eerily like Anthony Michael Hall who would portray Johnny in the TV series (which I also like) MANY MANY years later. Hmmmm....

[glamrockskisuit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first Stephen King book and although he isn't one of my favourtie authors I still think he is good. I liked the book. There were some quite creepy moments but like most of his books it wasn't exactly action packed...more like...subtle action...oh I dunno...heehee

[santhony_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As with many of King's works, I find his books that deal with real people to be far scarier and more entertaining than the books that involve supernatural (and many times silly) monsters and beings. Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, The Shining, Misery are terrifying without being ridiculous.

[snukes-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quick, easy read. I enjoyed how King considered the moral and societal implications of clairvoyance rather than just taking for granted that it would be accepted and appreciated. Tidily ended.

[srboone · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

King's foray into the thriller genre isn't as successful as his earlier titles. It's talky and dense, but with the sharp characterizations king is known for.

[edward.lorn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For Goodreads: 2.5 stars.

I think I dislike this book a little more every time I read it. The Dead Zone is, for the most part, boring setups that lead to lackluster climaxes, if they can be called climaxes at all. Maybe "payoffs" would be a better word... But I think what I dislike the most about this book is all the political mumbo jumbo. I simply don't give a shit about politics, and this book is full of it. If Johnny Smith isn't thinking about how shitty he has it, he's ruminating on the political climate. This is purely subjective, of course, because if you dig your stories dredged in government, battered in legislature, and fried in policy then this book is definitely for you.

Honestly, The Dead Zone never had a chance. Not this time around at least. Especially coming off my reread of King's exceptional third outing, The Shining. (In case you're wondering, I skipped The Stand because I just reread it last year.) I suppose The Dead Zone is a perfect example of that old saying: They can't all be winners. King came out the gate with five fantastic novels. He was bound to lay a stinker on the world eventually.

I do enjoy the first 140 or so pages of this book, but everything's downhill from there. King had some terrific characters, but it seems as if he didn't really know what do with them once they were established. It's funny, because the book feels more like a collection of interconnected short stories than it does a novel.

Notes on the film and television adaptations: I love Christopher Walken. He's one of my favorite actors. But I've never been able to finish the film adaptation of this book. It bores me to sleep every time. Shit's better than L-tryptophan, son! And the TV series with that dude from Weird Science? All I saw of that were the commercials. I suppose this story just doesn't pique my interest. I do believe this is the final time I'm reading this one. Maybe...

Notable names:
Jerusalem's Lot (Obvious)
Gendron (used throughout the King-verse)
Richard Dees (the despicable main character of King's short story "The Night Flier")
Inside View (a gossip rag like The Enquirer that shows up quite bit inside the King-verse. The aforementioned Richard Dees is a headhunter for said magazine.)
Carrie (mentioned as a book instead of a person)
And, of course, Castle Rock (No-brainer)

In summation: One of my bottom five when it comes to King's books, right down there with Wizard and Glass and the absolutely terrible From a Buick 8. I'm definitely not looking forward to my reread of the latter.

On to Firestarter, which I don't remember at all. I read this one in my teens and haven't read it since. I'm looking forward to it because I don't remember hating it and I dig the movie adaptation very much.

[krypto_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I imagine I must have identified with the main character, as this book really got to me (it's had remarkably little effect on people I've recommended it to, mind). It's a reasonably simple plot: a man wakes from a long-term coma to find he has mental powers, but Stephen King's masterful writing ability puts it way above the average tale. I believed every minute of it, and was literally shaking at the conclusion.

[eldaveer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of Stephen King's better books.If you were transmitted back in time to 1910, would you kill Adolf Hitler? That's the premise this book works off of. Fascinating novel.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not being either a Stephen King or a Horror fan I haven't read many of his books. However having started watching the series (I love the satelite sometimes - it's on SciFi) I had this intense urge to find out how the series compared with the book. There are definite links, those links made by a fan when he's using a book as a starting block and running from there. I would suspect that the differences should start to make themselves more evident in the next couple of episodes. The first episode was very derivative - even down to the murderer and other events. (Deirdre trying hard not to do spoilers on either)It is an interesting read, even if the stress on John Smith is unremitting.

[djupstrom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting concept...seeing the future after waking up from a coma. I wonder if it has something to do with the time while you were a vegetable and your brain not functioning, that when you come out of it you mind is doing double time to make up for all the time lost. Think of all the possibilities!

[stefany_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For some reason, my recollection of reading this book before was very vague. Therefore, I went into the rereading process without knowing what to expect at all. Boy, was I surprised. After finishing it, I think that The Dead Zone is one of King's best novels.The character development is superb and I think that Johnny Smith is possibly one of King's best developed characters. We also spend considerable time with his family members and the principle villains and these characters are all strongly developed and quirky in their own ways.The story, while not action packed, takes the reader completely into the world of Johnny Smith, a regular guy with a bit of psychic ability and some incredibly bad luck. A big part of the storyline revolves around the political climate of the 70's but it is written in such a way that it stays interesting throughout. I honestly did not experience any moments of boredom with the story.As I'm finding with several King books that I've re-read lately, The Dead Zone is not really a horror novel at all. There's a little bit of gore and graphic violence and of course King's choice of language is a bit colorful at times, but really this is a good suspense story with a bit of politics and psychic powers thrown in for good measure.All in all a GREAT novel. I highly recommend it.

[jvalka_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first half of the book is rather slow to get going, focusing mainly on Johnny's relationship with his parents and Sarah, a woman he loved just before the crash. I really like the Wheel of Fortune scene at the fair though, and how it becomes a recurring symbol. This heat up when he tracks down Frank Dodd, but the investigation is over rather abruptly. Nevertheless, King does a fine job plotting here, with Frank Dodd and the restaurant fire premonition leading Johnny to the inevitable conclusion that he must assassinate Greg Stillson for the great good of the world. Johnny is tormented by his psychic gift and the way it distances him from other people, haunted by his mother's words that God has a mission for him to do.