History Literature / TheTommyknockers

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Gardener's few allies die to get him to the ship, he himself dies after being forced to kill Bobbi, and the rest of the townspeople (who are all irreversibly transformed into Tommyknockers) all either die from withdrawal or are killed by the federal government, but Gardener's sacrifice manages to remove the ship as a threat to Earth and even saves David Brown. The film has a more upbeat ending with most of the town including Bobbi surviving and the ship being permanently destroyed, though Gardener still dies via HeroicSacrifice]].

* ForWantOfANail: All the events are triggered by Bobbie stumbling on a piece of metal, which is lampshaded by the book's opening line.
-->For want of a nail the kingdom was lost - that's how the catechism goes when you boil it down.

* DisabilityImmunity: Gardner from is immune to the effects of the spacecraft of the titular aliens, as he has a metal plate in his head due to a ski accident. Two other characters experience this to a lesser extent, Ev Hillman (smaller plates in head from a war injury) and Anne Anderson (extremely extensive metal dental work).

* DisproportionateRetribution: After gaining mind-reading abilities, Hank Buck, one of the Havenites discovers that a member of his poker circle, "Pits" Barfield regularly used to cheat. Hank teleports him to "Altair 4", a faraway, desolate planet that hardly has any air. Just how much did Barfield steal? [[spoiler:Pennies]]. This story is included to show the Tommyknockers' crazy temper, as well as to show the last time they killed each other due to petty differences.

* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Ruth Mccausland's]] death manages to alert Gardener that there's something sinister going on in the town, but the narrative flat out states she'd be happier with her other accomplishment: "Voices or no voices, the lady died sane."

** [[spoiler:Anne Anderson, of all people, uses all the rest of her life force to power a weapon which incinerates Freeman Moss, thus saving Gardener's life.]]
** [[spoiler:Ev Hillman and Peter the dog do likewise, using their energy to power the machine that saves David Brown and then attacking the townspeople once more.]]
** [[spoiler:Gardener himself dies having expended absolutely of all his brainpower and dying from multiple wounds, but he manages to remove the Tommyknocker's ship from Earth in the process.]]

* EvilDetectingDog: Bobbi's dog, Peter is afraid of the spaceship from the very beginning. As more and more of the ship is unearthed, all animals disappear from the forest, even insects. Bobbi finds some animals killed by the ship's effect; it's unclear if they all died, or many of them just escaped.
* FinalBattle: [[spoiler:The climax of the story is Gardener's struggle to survive as the entire Haven township sets out to kill him.]]

* ForWantOfANail: All the events are triggered by Bobbie stumbling on a piece of metal. The book actually starts with this sentence: "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost - that's how the catechism goes when you boil it down."
* GadgeteerGenius - What everyone in town becomes, doing such things as turning a tube of lipstick into a laser gun.
* GoOutWithASmile: [[spoiler: Gardener]] dies smiling, because, as he lies dying, he has a happy dream.

* InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien: The Tommyknockers. They don't even begin to understand the technology they somehow managed to figure out how to [[strike: use]] ''make'', and they don't have the common sense to use it to its greatest advantage. The biggest example of this is that all of their tech needs direct current, and wall current is alternating, so they use batteries - something as simple (and on earth, widespread) as an AC/DC converter literally doesn't occur to them.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tommyknockers_9708.jpg]]

The story is influenced by [[Creator/HPLovecraft HP Lovecraft's]] short story ''Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace'' and the British television serial ''Series/QuatermassAndThePit''. King wrote the book during a period of substance abuse, and has written that he realized later on that the novel was a metaphor for that addiction.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Gardener's few allies die to get him to the ship, he himself dies after being forced to kill Bobbi, and the rest of the townspeople (who are all irreversibly transformed into Tommyknockers) all either die from withdrawal or are killed by the federal government, but Gardener's sacrifice manages to remove the ship as a threat to Earth and even saves David Brown. The film has a more upbeat ending with most of the town including Bobbi surviving and the ship being permanently destroyed, though Gardener still dies via HeroicSacrifice]].

* BuryYourGays: Played with; [[spoiler: pretty much every citizen of Haven dies apart from two children, but the last survivor apart from them is specifically noted to be a lesbian.]]

* DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler: After Gardener launches the ship and leaves Earth's orbit, the remaining Tommyknockers all experience this. With the ship gone, they lose all purpose and direction in life. Many of them subsequently [[{{DrivenToSuicide}} kill themselves]], succumb to the now normalizing air around Haven or try to [[{{LastStand}} futilely hold out against the National Guard.]]]]

* DisproportionateRetribution: After gaining mind-reading abilities, Hank Buck, one of the Havenites discovers that a member of his poker circle, "Pits" Barfield regularly used to cheat. Hank teleports him to "Altair 4", a faraway, desolate planet that hardly has any air. Just how much did Barfield steal? [[spoiler: Pennies]]. This story is included to show the Tommyknockers' crazy temper, as well as to show the last time they killed each other due to petty differences.

* HomicideMachines: The Havenites built several of these, to guard the city borders. One of them is a floating Coca-Cola vending machine [[spoiler: which kills John Leandro]].

* IWantMyMommy: [[spoiler: Leandro]]'s last thought, right before he's killed is "Mama!"

** Bobbi's sister, complete with introductory KickTheDog moment (she reduces an airline stewardess to tears, seemingly for the hell of it). When she was younger, she bullied her own parents. (One such incident involved her habit of grinding her teeth until she had to get dental work done. She tried to force a guilt trip on them for not stopping a habit that she herself refused to give up). When she tells her mother that she called Bobbi to tell her that their father was dead, she said that Bobbi laughed (untrue). Then she goes to Haven and tries to pull this on the locals. BIG mistake. [[spoiler: She ends up as a BrainInAJar]].

* MeaningfulName: Haven. [[spoiler: Eventually the Tommyknockers become so dependent on the radiation from the ship they can't even leave Haven without becoming mortally ill.]]

* MercyKill: Gardener does it [[spoiler: to Bobbi, and later to the people (and the dog) in Bobbi's shed]].

-->"This is a work of fiction, with one exception: The ''Tommyknockers'' are real. If you think I’m kidding, you missed the nightly news."

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: In the film, pretty much everyone survives, including Bobbi and most of the townsfolk (Gardener still dies, though). Even poor Peter the dog makes it. The novel has the exact opposite outcome, with pretty much the entire town being wiped out and both main characters dead by MercyKill and HeroicSacrifice respectively]].

* TrueArtIsAngsty: {{Invoked}} in Bobbi's backstory; all her snobby, pretentious writer friends instantly abandon her when she starts writing Westerns.

** Before the start of the novel, Gardener shot his wife in the face during a binge (she survived). He woke up in a prison cell, not remembering it; when he asked the deputy what did he do, he answered: "Shot your wife. That's what you did. Good fucking deal, uh?" These words often come back to haunt him.

* DrivenToSuicide: After being caught in the woods at the site of the ship, Anthony Dugan is taken to Bobbi's shed and brainwashed into going back to Derry, write a farewell note how he can't live without Ruth, and shoot himself.

* JerkAss: Bobbi's sister, complete with introductory KickTheDog moment (she reduces an airline stewardess to tears, seemingly for the hell of it). When she was younger, she bullied her own parents. (One such incident involved her habit of grinding her teeth until she had to get dental work done. She tried to force a guilt trip on them for not stopping a habit that she herself refused to give up). When she tells her mother that she called Bobbi to tell her that their father was dead, she said that Bobbi laughed (untrue). Then she goes to Haven and tries to pull this on the locals. BIG mistake. [[spoiler: She ends up as a BrainInAJar]].
** Also Joe from the TV miniseries who not only cheats on his wife, but he throws her lunch for him and his sons, laughs evilly after making his wife feel bad for herself and abandons a search for a lost kid to have an affair again, knowing that his wife would be more concerned about the search than him.

* TheKlutz: Hilly is very accident-prone, mostly due to his curious nature. According to his father Bryant "Hilly without screw-ups is like mcDonald's without hamburgers".

** Also, the energy weapon that Gardener uses to kill several Havenites, which is specifically noted to look like a parasol.
* PeopleJars: [[spoiler: The people in Bobbi's shed.]]
* PragmaticVillain: When they set out to stop Ev Hillman and police officer Anthony Dugan from discovering the ship, Bobbi orders the Havenites not to kill Dugan, no matter what, since two cops already went missing near Haven and town constable Ruth has died recently, so she fears that another police officer dying or going missing will attract too much unwanted attention. Instead she opts to make him commit suicide in his hometown Derry.

* SmolderingShoes: Two cops are almost completely disintegrated with a Tommyknocker weapon. All that remains is a single smoking shoe. With a foot still in it.

* TokenGoodTeammate: For a given value of "good," Hazel McCready serves as this for the council of "Shed People." She's always the one to advocate for more benevolent uses of their powers (like retrieving David Brown), and is the peacemaker amongst the group. Notably, once she dies, the remaining Shed People immediately murder each other.

* ClassicalAntiHero: Jim Gardener. While not unintelligent, he is an alcoholic and often ends up doing stupid or even violent things when drunk.

-->The Tommyknockers, Bobbi had told Gardener, were great sky travelers. This was true. But never, anywhere, had they met anyone quite like this one man, who kept going, even with his shattered ankle, his great loss of blood, and his ingestion of a drug that should have rendered him unconscious fifteen minutes ago, in spite of the great lot he had vomited up.
-->Impossible - but happening.
* DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler: After Gardener launches the ship and leaves Earth's orbit, the remaining Tommyknockers all experience this. With the ship gone, they lose all purpose and direction in life. Many of them subsequently [[{{DrivenToSuicide}} kill themselves]], succumb to the now normalizing air around Haven or try to [[{{LastStand}} futilely hold out against the National Guard.]]]]

* PsychicStatic: Ruth [=McCausland=] thinks of tongue-twisters to hide her thoughts, playing them constantly in the back of her mind. Gardener (who has it much easier because of the steel plate in his head) uses "old addresses, bits of poems, snatches of songs", or just repeats the word "shield".

* TokenGoodTeammate: For a given value of "good," Hazel McCready serves as this for the council of "Shed People." She's always the one to advocate for more benevolent uses of their powers (like retrieving David Brown), and is the peacemaker amongst the group. Notably, once she dies, the remaining Shed People immediately murder each other.
* TownWithADarkSecret: Haven becomes this (and technically already was, once its history is revealed).

* TrueArtIsAngsty: {{Invoked}} in Bobbi's backstory; all her snobby, pretentious writer friends instantly abandon her when she starts writing Westerns.

It was adapted into a 1993 miniseries starring Creator/JimmySmits, Creator/MargHelgenberger, E.G. Marshall, Creator/JoannaCassidy, Cliff [=DeYoung=] and Traci Lords.

It was adapted into a 1993 miniseries starring Creator/JimmySmits, Marg Helgenberger, E.G. Marshall, Joanna Cassidy, Cliff [=DeYoung=] and Traci Lords.

* TheReveal: When Gardener goes into Bobbi's shed, and finds out what's in there. [[spoiler: There's [[PoweredByAForsakenChild people (and a dog) she turned into]] [[LivingBattery living batteries]].]]

* RandomTransportation: The Tommyknockers are able to teleport things, but they can't determine where they go, so for traveling, they use spaceships.

** [[spoiler:Gardener himself dies having expended absolutely of all his brainpower and dying from multiple wounds, but he manages to destroy the Tommyknockers' source of power in the process.]]

* BodyHorror: The process of "becoming". For most people, it's just teeth falling out, but a select few's skin becomes transparent, and tentacles appear in the place of their genitals.

* AtmosphereAbuse: A non-planetwide example: the transformed residents of Haven manipulate the air in and to a certain elevation above their town into something that is both more breathable for them and toxic enough to any entering humans to make them turn back, sick, shortly after crossing the town line, as well as oxygen-poor enough to prevent internal-combustion engines from functioning.

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler: Every Havenite dies, save for Hilly and David Brown.]]

* ParasolOfPain: At the beginning of the novel, Gardener gets into an argument with a guy at a party about the safety of nuclear power. Eventually, it deteriorates into Gardener beating the guy up with an umbrella. He notes to himself that this is the only part people will remember.

* Big Bad: The titular Tommyknockers themselves serve as this collectively in the novel however they are led by a few people in the town who transform into a group of Tommyknockers called The Shed People.

* TheHardHat: Gardener and Ev Hillman are immune to the effects of the spaceship, because they have metal plates in their heads (Gardener because of a skiing accident, Ev because of a war wound). Anne Anderson is somewhat protected by extensive metal dental work. In case of Gard however, [[ImmunityAttrition several weeks of working day in, day out to dig up the ship eventually results in so much exposure to the ship that despite his metal plate, he too slowly starts to "become"]], making it harder for him to keep his mind from getting read.

* SupernaturalIsGreen: Especially prevalent in the tv-series, where everything associated with the spaceship has an eerie green glow.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The number of named characters in the book? About 75. The number important to the plot? About 10.

* MostWritersAreWriters: Bobbi and Gardener.