(Gwendy's Final Task) We’ve arrived in 2022 (the present year as I’m writing this, though anyone reading this post will be looking back from 2023), and with 2022 comes the end of the odd little Gwendy trilogy that starts with a Stephen King/Richard Chizmar collaboration, continues with an installment by Chizmar alone, and then finishes … Continue reading Honor The Dead By Serving The Living
(Stephen King) It seems like a Stephen King blog should have a Halloween post. After all, we associate King with horror, and what day of the year do we most associate with horror? Halloween, of course. No doubt there will be a selection of King adaptions available on TV or streaming today — heck, maybe … Continue reading Repost for Halloween: We Make Up Horrors To Help Us Cope With The Real Ones
(Duma Key) Lisey’s Story may be King’s most autobiographical novel, but I have to believe that Duma Key is at least up there. Sure, Edgar is an artist and not a writer, but he’s also recovering from a truly horrendous batch of vehicle accident injuries. And using his art to do it. Anyone who’s read … Continue reading If There’s A God, I Think He Needs To Try A Little Harder
(Dreamcatcher) So, I know I’ve read Dreamcatcher once before. I think I saw the movie as well. None of it stuck, though — I remembered so little of it that I may as well have been coming to it with only the knowledge that this is the book with the shit-weasels — something that even … Continue reading That’s Either Inspiring or Horrible. I Can’t Tell Which.
(Insomnia) Insomnia is one of those King books that a lot of people seem to actively dislike, but I can’t imagine why. I’ve loved it since the first time I read it. It’s a reference-heavy book — particularly when it comes to Dark Tower references, and I’ve noticed that Dark Tower lovers specifically seem to … Continue reading It’s A Long Walk Back To Eden, Sweetheart, So Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff
(Four Past Midnight, "The Library Policeman") It’s just my observation, but when I see Four Past Midnight come up in Stephen King groups or subreddits or whatever, it’s not very well liked. Usually, people will say that there are one or two stories they can’t stand, and that the others are OK. And the funny … Continue reading Fear is An Emotion Which Encloses and Precludes Change
(The Tommyknockers) I’m going to get this out of the way up front — I don’t like The Tommyknockers. It took me multiple tries to read through it the first time, and when I was done, I used the book to prop something up in my kitchen because I was just never going to read … Continue reading No One Gets Taken Who Doesn’t Want To Be Taken
(Misery) Misery is fascinating to me on at least two levels — as a story, yes, but also as insight into the way both writing and reading for pleasure works. King will, of course, take his lumps for having so many writer protagonists in his pantheon. He really does do that a lot. Write what … Continue reading Art Consists of the Persistence of Memory
(Stephen King) It seems like a Stephen King blog should have a Halloween post. After all, we associate King with horror, and what day of the year do we most associate with horror? Halloween, of course. No doubt there will be a selection of King adaptions available on TV or streaming today — heck, maybe … Continue reading We Make Up Horrors To Help Us Cope With The Real Ones
(It: A Novel) One of the things that I’ve always liked about Stephen King is that when he writes from the perspective of children, he never wraps up by acknowledging that the adults were right all along. Because they often aren’t right, and more to the point, when it comes to the world of children, … Continue reading Grownups Are the Real Monsters
Uniquely Portable Magic 