(Carrie, 1976) Like the book, the movie Carrie came out before I was even born. By the time I was the age of the characters, in the late 90s, high school looked markedly different than this high school looks, and prom looked really, really different. That doesn’t seem to matter when I read the book … Continue reading “It Was Bad, Mama. They Laughed At Me
Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022) The title quote is an Oscar Wilde quote used in the movie adaptation of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, not a King quote. I did say I was going to blog some movies/adaptations… although don’t expect these to come in order. Probably not on any specific days either, at least for now. But … Continue reading “When The Gods Wish to Punish Us, They Answer Our Prayers.” –Oscar Wilde
I don’t know what day I started this chronological read. Even looking back on the blog doesn’t tell me because I was several books in when it hit me that since I was kind of compulsively taking notes and highlighting things anyway, maybe I should turn them into posts, and I wrote the first few … Continue reading Here’s Something I Learned In Empis: Good People Shine Brighter In Dark Times
("Finn") One more short story by itself. This one is called “Finn,” and it was published directly on Scribd, which is an app that you can use to read books and stories both in text and in audio form — I read “Finn” in text, but it’s available both ways. I got the app specifically … Continue reading Either I’ll Still Be Here When I Get To The Bottom, Or I Won’t Be. Simple As That.
("Willie the Weirdo") Here we have another short story by itself. This one was published in McSweeney’s, which is not a publication I normally buy (because they want to charge $95 for a subscription of four issues, and I cannot do that), but I bought this one on its own specifically for this story — … Continue reading You Want Death? Get A Mouthful
("Red Screen") This post is going to be pretty short, I think, so I’m going to take a moment up front to talk about where we are in time. Today’s post is not a book, but a short story that’s fairly new, so I don’t believe it’s been collected anywhere yet. (It was available by … Continue reading It’s The Perfect Disguise. We’re The Perfect Disguise.
(Billy Summers) It’s a little difficult to know exactly what to say about Billy Summers. If you read some of the reviews (and Twitter rants) when the book came out, you might think that it was just a massive anti-Trump screed. It’s not — characters in the book do mention Trump in passing, and they … Continue reading Did You Know You Could Sit In Front Of A Screen Or A Pad of Paper And Change The World?
(Later) But is it a horror story? Later is published as a Hard Case Crime novel. Which I actually find a little strange… I mean, I guess it is a crime novel but is it more of one than, say, The Institute? Or Mr. Mercedes? Neither of them were Hard Case Novels, but both of … Continue reading As I Said At The Beginning, This Is A Horror Story
(Nightmares in the Sky) Happy New Year! This will be short because there’s not a lot here. I’m also out of order — the book I’m talking about today was published in 1988. However, I just discovered it for the first time, so I figure that maybe you, whoever you are, will want to discover … Continue reading They Are Watching You
(If It Bleeds) OK, we’ve returned to Stephen King stories written by Stephen King now. I didn't want to end the year on a non-King book -- that feels wrong -- so you're getting a random Saturday post. Happy end of the year! If It Bleeds is both a novella collection and the title of … Continue reading Love Is A Gift; Love Is Also A Chain With A Manacle At Each End
Uniquely Portable Magic 