I sometimes wonder if our current reality causes horror novels from previous eras to lose their creepiness. Was anyone, back in the day, terrified of the notion of Tommyknockers?

A recommendation from a friend, I was a little on the fence about good old Stephen King. I've read a few, and strangely enough, often on the recommendation of someone else, and alas, these "oh you must read it!" gushings usually lead me up for disappointment. Whilst I've enjoyed "The Green Mile" and 11-22-63", novels like "needful things" were moderately enjoyable, but felt a bit dated in the modern day.

However the saving grace of this book is that one shouldn't be put off by it's largesse. Good ol' Stephen flourishes his words to create quite a tome, but you only need to read one or two sentences here and there if you're looking to get to the heart of the story in a hurry. Because unfortunately for those who are impatient like myself, King doesn't like to hurry to anything. There's that dramatic tension building music playing in your mind when you're flicking through the first 100,200 pages of this. It's going somewhere and you can only hope that wherever these weird townspeople of Haven are going, that its going to be damned good.

The second part of the novel is my favourite section, and the various townspeople falling under the hypnotic green whatever and talking to Jesus or being zapped away in a magic show that puts David Copperfield to shame, is the best part of the novel for me. The excavation of the ship and the "becoming" was quite slow paced and I felt like pulling my own teeth out through some parts of it.

If you're in it for the slow burn, there's a lot to love about King's books. There are a million different nuances to his writing and connections between novels and characters that there's plenty of web discussions dedicated to unravelling, but perhaps the genius touch is best felt when even on the surface, you can at least partially enjoy the book, even if you're reading a little too fast.