Fire child
Firestarter (. English Firestarter ) is a horror - novel of US writer Stephen King , by the New York Viking Publishing was published in 1980. The Bastei-Lübbe-Verlag published the translation into German by Harro Christensen a year later.
content
The main character in Feuerkind is Charlene "Charlie" McGee, a young girl with the ability to pyrokinesis : She can light a fire with her will and set any objects on fire. Charlie was born with pyrokinetic talent after her parents participated in a drug experiment as college students. Initially, their ability is prevented by the parents' rigid potty training and their not yet fully developed pituitary gland . Her strength only emerged occasionally; B. in the crawling age when she stumbled over a teddy bear and burned it in anger. As a result of the drug experiment, Charlie's father Andy developed the ability to influence other people's will through his thoughts. Her mother has light telekinesis and telepathy skills. Compared to Charlie's abilities, however, the powers of the parents are weak.
The McGees are being tracked by the Shop , a government intelligence agency that was involved in the original experiment. The company's agents want to investigate Charlie's abilities more closely and conduct further experiments to use pyrokinesis as a weapon in the Cold War. The parents want to prevent this and try to evade the company's access. The agents murder Charlie's mother, whereupon Andy and Charlie flee to New York. But the company does not give up and keeps tracking them down. They find refuge in a remote hut owned by Andy's grandfather for one winter, until they are discovered there too and taken prisoner by a special agent of the company, the Indian John Rainbird. The agents drag her to the company's headquarters in Longmont, Virginia.
The agents separate father and daughter from each other and try to get both of them to demonstrate their skills in controlled experiments. However, they are primarily interested in Charlie and essentially limit themselves to Andy in keeping him under control. Charlie initially refuses to ignite objects in the laboratory. However, she changes her mind when Rainbird - disguised as a friendly guard - sneaks her trust and changes her mind. Little does Charlie know that the company intends to definitely kill her after the experiments are over. Charlie's abilities are too vast and unpredictable for the agents.
Andy has a premonition that Rainbird will be dangerous for his daughter and secretly and carefully evades the drug control of his guards. He uses his skills to influence the company's boss, Captain Hollister, and to arrange his escape with Charlie. Father and daughter then meet for the first time on the company's premises. Agent Rainbird, however, saw through Andy and Charlie's intentions. He ambushes the two and shoots Andy. Before Andy dies, he instructs Charlie to burn everything down on the way to freedom. Charlie obeys her father and turns the entire building complex into a flaming inferno in which Rainbird and many other agents are killed.
Charlie goes into hiding with a farm couple. Before the company's agents dig into her hiding place, she fled to New York. She wants to get her story into the media there, something her father tried before in vain. Rolling Stone magazine makes it stand out as an independent press body that is not monitored by the government . Charlie hopes that publishing her story will protect her from the company. The book ends when you enter the editorial office.
useful information
- In addition to the regularly published edition of Viking , 726 collective copies were simultaneously published by the American publisher Phantasia Press, Hunting Woods , consisting of 700 numbered and signed copies as well as 26 copies marked A – Z, which are bound in asbestos (!).
- In 1981, Feuerkind was recognized by the American Library Association as Best Book for young adults (in German: Best Book for Young Adults).
- The novel was filmed in 1984 by Mark L. Lester under the title The Fire Devil . The main role of Charlie was cast with child star Drew Barrymore . 2002 came with Firestarter - The Return ( Firestarter 2: Rekindled ) a cinematic television sequel, in which Marguerite Moreau starred took over.
Link to other works
- The company is a secret agency that is also investigating what happened in The Tommyknockers and is mentioned in Langoliers .
expenditure
- Stephen King, Feuerkind, Heyne, 2007, ISBN 978-3-453-43273-4
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marcel Feige, Imprint Verlag, 1999, "Stephen King Lexikon", ISBN 3-89602-228-8 , page 184