The Tommyknockers is a science fiction horror novel by American author Stephen King, first published in 1987. It marked a significant departure for King, blending his signature small-town horror with overt science fiction elements involving alien technology and its corrupting influence on humanity.
The story is set in the fictional town of Haven, Maine, where writer Bobbi Anderson stumbles upon a buried alien spacecraft in the woods. As the ship is unearthed, it releases an invisible gas that begins transforming the townspeople, granting them enhanced intelligence and inventive abilities but stripping away their humanity and ethics. The only person partially immune is Bobbi's friend, the alcoholic poet Jim 'Gard' Gardener, whose steel skull plate from a childhood accident shields his brain from the ship's influence.
King wrote the novel during the height of his struggles with substance abuse, and he has since been openly critical of the book, calling it 'an awful book' and attributing its excesses to the cocaine-fueled energy with which it was written. Despite his self-criticism, the novel was a massive commercial success, debuting at number one on bestseller lists and remaining a notable entry in King's vast bibliography.
The novel explores themes of addiction, the double-edged nature of technological progress, and the loss of individual identity to a collective consciousness. The title refers to an old folk legend about mischievous spirits that knock on mine walls to warn of cave-ins, repurposed by King as a metaphor for the alien presence that 'knocks' on the minds of Haven's residents.
