(Hearts in Suspension) If you’re an ebook reader like I am, you should know that Hearts in Suspension isn’t available that way. I could only find it in hardback. It’s also not a story. Or maybe it is, but if so, it’s not a fictional story. Mostly. It does include "Hearts in Atlantis", which you … Continue reading And When It Came – KAPOW – It Lit Up The Landscape For Miles Around
(Mr. Mercedes) To me, Mr. Mercedes feels like the mark of a new era in King's books. That sounds grander than I actually mean it to, but I don’t know how else to put it. It differs from what came before, though, in some ways that seem important. Mr. Mercedes (taken alone — this is … Continue reading That’s All History Is, After All: Scar Tissue
(11/22/63) If people who don’t learn from the past are idiots, the world keeps proving that a lot of it is populated by idiots. I hate sounding like a pessimist or misanthrope, but I can’t help what is. As I write this, the Supreme Court is poised to move us at least 50 years into … Continue reading A Person Who Doesn’t Learn From The Past Is An Idiot, In My Estimation
(Full Dark, No Stars) So this is one of King’s collections of novellas. It contains four of them: 1922, Big Driver, Fair Extension, and A Good Marriage. The title of the collection is definitely accurate because these are some seriously dark stories. Not even so much in the scary sense as they are dark in … Continue reading Take My Hand, Constant Reader, And I’ll Be Happy To Lead You Back Into The Sunshine
(Blaze) Richard Bachman is pretty prolific for a dead guy, isn’t he? He died in 1985, of cancer of the pseudonym, having published Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, and Thinner. Yet, we saw him pop up again in 1996, with his “newly discovered” book The Regulators (coincidentally an alternate universe to Stephen … Continue reading It Was A Dirty World, And The Longer You Lived, The Dirtier You Got
(The Regulators) Richard Bachman was dead by this point in King’s career. Died around the time of Thinner. Cancer of the pseudonym. But are writers ever really dead if they’ve left their words behind? Maybe not. The Regulators is Richard Bachman’s “last” book. Sure, Thinner was also his “last” book, but then The Regulators was … Continue reading None Of This Was Real, After All
(Thinner) So, Thinner is a King book that’s really a Bachman book. Except that it has a load of King thrown in. I’m not going to look this up right now, but I sort of think that the secret of King’s pen name was out by the time this story was published. Or shortly after, … Continue reading The Definition of An Asshole is a Guy Who Doesn’t Believe What He’s Seeing
(The Running Man) The movies based on the books aren’t a big part of this blog currently, because I’m trying to re-read the books, that’s what I’m concerned with, and in so many cases, the movies based on King’s book’s are practically different entities. So I’m mentioning them when I remember anything about them, but … Continue reading Say Your Name Over Two Hundred Times and Discover You Are No One
(The Long Walk) The Long Walk appears in The Bachman Books, and if I remember correctly, it came after Rage in the original collection – at least the one that I owned. The Long Walk is a fantastic book, and one that I’d like to see on screen. Except, I’d imagine that it would be … Continue reading Any Game Looks Straight If Everyone is Being Cheated at Once
(Rage) When I was in high school, I owned a book called The Bachman Books. It was a collection of four novellas written by Stephen King under his pen name of Richard Bachman. By this time, it was well-known that Bachman was King, of course. I believe that Rage appeared first among those novellas collected … Continue reading It’s Only a Little Secret, But Having a Secret Makes Me Feel Better
Uniquely Portable Magic 