(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
(Charlie the Choo-Choo) Charlie the Choo-Choo is a children’s book written by Beryl Evans, also sometimes known by what I believe is her pen name, Claudia y Inez Bachman. Why am I writing about a children’s book by some woman in my Stephen King blog? Well, if you know the Dark Tower, you know that … Continue reading Don’t Ask Me Simple Questions, I Won’t Play Silly Games
(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
("Cookie Jar") So, remember I said that The Bazaar of Bad Dreams had an extra story in the paperback version that wasn’t in my Kindle? That it was published in a magazine, apparently open to the public, but that I couldn’t access the story or the magazine? And that the only version I could find … Continue reading Even Two Bits In A Bum’s Upturned Hat Mattered
(Revival) Revival gets my vote for the most frightening King book of all time. It’s probably the most a King book has scared me since encountering Thinner around the age of 13. And unlike Thinner, Revival scared adult me and still has the power to scare me on re-read. I’ve only read Revival once before … Continue reading Any Day Could Be The Day We Go Down, And We Never Know
(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
(The Wind Through The Keyhole) I don’t know if Stephen King will return to the Dark Tower again, or if he wants to, but we know that he at least did at one point, because this is part of the main Dark Tower series. Although it came years after the end of the series, it … Continue reading The Stories We Hear in Childhood Are The Ones We Remember All Of Our Lives
(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
(Ur) Have I mentioned before that I’m reading these all on a Kindle? As much as I can, anyway — there are rare exceptions. Storm of the Century comes to mind — I had to buy the book. But mostly, I read on a Kindle. It lets me highlight and take notes without making a … Continue reading The Tower Trembles; The Worlds Shudder In Their Courses
("The Gingerbread Girl", Just After Sunset) I had that strange experience with Just After Sunset — the one where I know I’ve read this book, I am pretty sure that I owned a hard copy of this book at some point and read it immediately upon acquiring it, as I do with most Stephen King … Continue reading There Was Magical Thinking; There Was Also Magical Doing
Uniquely Portable Magic 