Dreamcatcher (novel)
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- This is about the novel by Stephen King, for other uses of the word Dreamcatcher see disambiguation page
Dreamcatcher (2001) is a novel written by Stephen King. It was adapted into a 2003 movie of the same name. The book, written longhand, was the author's tool for recuperation from a 1999 car accident, and was completed in half a year.
Plot
Set in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, Dreamcatcher is the story of four friends whose lives are altered when they save Douglas "Duddits" Cavell, a child with Down syndrome, from being bullied. The four friends, who have grown up and live separate, but equally problematic, lives. When they meet for an annual hunting trip, they are faced with an alien invasion and a near psychotic army Colonel who has patterned himself after Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now, Abraham Kurtz. One of the four friends, Gary "Jonesy" Jones, seems to be under the control of "Mr. Gray", an unpleasant alien who has a terrible agenda of his own. “Bob Gray”, the name of the invading alien, is also one of the names of Pennywise the Clown in King's novel It, however no connection is apparent.
In the novel, Jonesy, an associate professor of English, was in an automobile accident similar to King's own in 1999. The alien invasion begins when Jonesy discovers a man walking in the woods who complains of stomach problems due to berries he had eaten. Jonesy then notices a red mark on the man's cheek, who exhibits dyspepsia and extremely foul flatulence. Beaver, another of the four friends, returns and they observe a large pack of animals who all have markings similar to the stranger's. When they return, the man is in the washroom, dead.
This man, the animals, and eventually a female, all share similar symptoms, and learn that they are infected with is a macro-virus. Army scientists have nicknamed the virus "The Ripley" after a character in the Aliens series. The friends discover that the infection causes its host to form partially grown, worm-like aliens, “Byrums.” They nickname these "shit-weasels", because they incubate inside the human body, exiting through the rectum.
The story continues as two of the friends are killed, and Jonesy suffering from hallucinations caused by a full-grown alien, "Mr. Gray". The characters then begin a fight to stop Mr. Gray from implementing a scheme to infect a large number of people with the virus and to prevent their annihilation by Kurtz and his followers. This task requires the help of Duddits, now an adult yet an eternal child, who is dying of a debilitating disease. It is Duddits who is the 'Dreamcatcher' for he is the one who has "powers" that is passed on the the others in various forms.
- ISBN 0743211383 (hardcover, 2001)
- ISBN 0743436288 (mass market paperback, 2001)
- ISBN 074343627X (mass market paperback, 2001)
- ISBN 0743221885 (e-book, 2001)
- ISBN 0741003694 (e-book, 2001)
- ISBN 1589456211 (e-book, 2001)
- ISBN 0743467523 (mass market paperback, 2003)
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All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.