#64 in Horror
The Dead Zone
- 426
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
- Film 1983 +1
- On screen
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Our view
“The Dead Zone” is less a horror novel than a moral thriller about a man who glimpses the future and must decide how to act. His visions, set off by touch, lead to a small-town killer and a rising politician, and some readers find the novel more unsettling now than in 1979. The dilemma is the book’s heart, and its four hundred-odd pages pass quickly.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Dead Zone is a science fiction thriller novel by Stephen King published in 1979. The story follows Johnny Smith, who awakens from a coma of nearly five years and, apparently as a result of brain damage, now experiences clairvoyant and precognitive visions triggered by touch. When some information is blocked from his perception, Johnny refers to that information as being trapped in the part of his brain that is permanently damaged, "the dead zone". The novel also follows a serial killer in Castle Rock, and the life of rising politician Greg Stillson, both of whom are evils Johnny must eventually face.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen 2 times — from 1983 to 2002.
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 620 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 81% of the weight and the score stays at 7.7 — the Horror average of 7.5 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 46 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 574 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Dead Zone?
It has 426 pages — shorter than 54% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 6.9 and 7.9, closest to this book.
