This trope, somewhere between catchphrase and mantra, is a favourite slogan of the grown-up teenage buddies who serve as the collective protagonist of Dreamcatcher, the latest 600-page doorstop from the world's wealthiest novelist, and his first return to the arena following his recent near-death experience with the hit-and-run driver who almost killed him. It could also serve as a capsule review. If Stephen King was a professional – rather than a hobbyist – rock and roller, Dreamcatcher would be classified as a "roots move": an exercise in getting back to where he once belonged. For several years, he has been methodically extending his literary range with an impressive succession of novels – Bag of Bones, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Hearts In Atlantis – which contrived to capitalise on his known strengths whilst augmenting his capabilities in terms of how he could write, as well as what he wrote about.Still, King's ordeal has tested him to destruction both physically and psychologically. The resulting aesthetic retrenchment should, therefore, come as little or no surprise.

Written, he informs us in his afterword, in a little over six months, working longhand with "the world's finest word processor, a Waterman cartridge fountain pen", Dreamcatcher serves little purpose other than for Big Steve to reassure both himself and his public that he can still do it like he used to.Writers write what they need to write, when they need to write it. In some cases, need is defined in financial terms, though this applies less to King than to any other living author. With an annual income somewhere in the region of $65m., he could shut down his computer (or, in this case, lock his Waterman in a desk drawer) forever and still live better than all but a tiny handful of this planet's inhabitants.It is therefore safe to assume that King wrote Dreamcatcher in response to a different kind of need: that of going back to basics, of refamiliarising himself (and his readership) with his most basic bag of tricks. As such, it does indeed demonstrate that all his bits are in working order.The prose crackles; his command of the New England demotic interior monologue as a narrative voice still delights, and as the novel reaches its climax (albeit by the scenic route) a narrative which seems to be progressing on rails careens off down an unexpected siding.King is still the master of his own clichés rather than their slave, but a massive chunk of the book – roughly corresponding to its third quarter – is devoted to a virtuoso display of that kind of induced page-turning wherein the author contrives to keep the characters nominally active without materially advancing the plot, generating a propulsive impatience which skates the reader over an extended dull patch in the shortest possible time.

This passes for "readability" in certain quarters, but it is mildly disheartening to see him returning to a shabby old three-card trick he seemed to have discarded several novels ago.So we find the aforementioned bunch of teenage buddies grown to adulthood – the progress of youthful bonds into later life is one of King's hardy-perennial themes – sequest-ered in an isolated rural cabin during a hunting trip. A distressed stranger crashes in with Something Awful close behind. It's an X-File rather than an Ancient Evil from a violated Native American burial ground – or is it? Keep turning those pages.Dreamcatcher will delight those who miss the Big Steve of old They will hail it as a return to form: King Klassic. Admirers of his more recent and more adventurous work, on the other hand, may simply find it to be same shit, different book. Now that King has proved his point, we can only hope that this limbering-up exercise will be succeeded by more of the intriguing new dances he was demonstrating before nemesis laid him low..