Stephen King Book Club

I love this book. I always have. It's probably one of Stephen King's best just going by quality. And yet whenever somebody asks me my favorite Stephen King books it always slips my mind in hindsight. There are legit reasons for that, but I can acknowledge that the book has a LOT going against it, and it being wonderful isn't the most memorable thing about it.

The premise sucks. One of King's worst. It's already a hoary sci-fi trope to have a hero going back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination, but those types of stories are always unsuccessful because as Oz from Buffy The Vampire Slayer noted, "Hey, check it out." Gene Roddenberry was famously obsessed with making this crappy concept work for a Star Trek movie that never happened, and it's sort of become a sad cautionary tale about how that dude lost his touch in his later years. Frankly, I think his touch was always overstated, but sci-fi dealing with either saving Kennedy or killing Hitler doesn't work because "Hey, check it out."

The fact that the book is wonderful is great. But I always feel a little distant to it for the premise being terrible and predictable even if it's wonderful. I love it, but there is a little bit of shame attached to my love.

Why is the book great despite being a dead-end narrative premise? Stephen King did an amazing thing and decided to make the actual time-travel mission the secondary dramatic tension of the book which works like gangbusters. The actual drama is the epic love story between Jake and Sadie. A lot of it is sappy (most of the stuff of the small town high school plays and performances will make your teeth hurt) and Jake's various jokes to the reader before he has sex with Sadie wear pretty thin because they just don't stop. But King decided the hero's journey isn't having to choose whether or not to save Kennedy to save the United States. It's having to choose to give up his true love to save all of reality. THAT'S why a book with such an annoying and basic premise is so great. It's because it's not really about the lousy premise.

I will concede that the stuff with Jake shadowing Lee Harvey Oswald and George de Mohrenschildt IS pretty riveting stuff. I never even heard of the second guy before this book and came to believe his was one of history's greatest unsung villains after King gives us the scoop on him.

King Connections: Not just Shawshank, but the Derry stuff is VERY clearly connected to "IT" in a way few other novels set in Derry are. Jake meets an alternate version of Beverly Marsh and Richie Tozier in perhaps the ONLY chapter Stephen King has ever written that made me NOT regret reading and suffering through the hot mess than was "IT". "The Clown" and "The Turtle" are both mentioned and this feel like a much kinder wrap-up than King gave those characters in the damn book.

I do have to lodge a BIT of complaint there. Derry has always had its share of evil and problems due to Pennywise. "Insomnia" and "Dreamcatcher" have both correctly pointed out that Derry is not like other towns. But the notion that Derry is this seething cauldron of hatred started in this book and continuing in "Gwenddy's Final Task" does not jibe with the decent characters from "Insomnia", "Dreamcatcher", and "Bag Of Bones". It's a total retcon. Don't tell me the people Ralph Roberts hung out with were largely evil. I met them. I know they weren't.

King has done a couple of other romantic books before. "Bag of Bones" and "Lisey's Story" while both ghost stories, fit the romance genre. But I never felt Mike Noonan's romance with Mattie Devore was entirely appropriate, and the stuff between Lisey and Scott Langdon is not just posthumous, but insular, and hard to relate to. Jake and Sadie's epic love story and the choices Jake has to make to give her up resonate far more than either of those books. It's a crowdpleasing romance. King as a writer is a crowdpleaser. Him turning an epic romance into that was bound to happen sooner or later, and it was worth the wait.

I think the most brilliant conceit of the story is that Jake as the narrator claims he is not a crying man, and reveals his wife left him for supposedly being emotionally distant. I'm not gonna say Jake is the most emotionally healthy protagonist King has ever portrayed (I think Jack Sawyer as seen in "Black House" really knew how to take care of bidness) but making this character confess immediately how difficult tears come to him and still making him one of the most empathetic characters King has ever written is a clever as hell idea.

The story of the Janitor's father was great as was all the trouble Jake had to go through on the first loop. The ideas of the past harmonizing and resisting being changed are weighty themes that we learn at the end that Jake actually doesn't understand the entire story behind those paradoxes and string ripples. THAT'S the part of the sci-fi that's great. Not him saving Kennedy. Because he can't. Because, hey, check it out. Also present day alternate Ellen Dunning chewing him out over the phone for not being there to save Harry in Vietnam is a great moment to show Jake that this crap isn't any kind of game.

The alternate timeline at the end King posits doesn't sound credible to me on its face, even knowing how scary populists are in 2023. Simply because I find it a stretch all of that stuff occurring so close to World War II. In fact, fascism's current toehold is due to people forgetting that horror. What makes more sense is King hinting the natural disasters the world faced upon that particular time ripple got people nervous and crazed enough to elect crazy people. And yet, in the alternate 2011, Hillary Clinton is President. Sort of how I feel about Biden. I'm glad he is where he is, but I don't think him being there will ultimately save us from ourselves. I love that King understood that notion way back in 2011. Because Trump's election shocked and disturbed him. It was a trauma for all of us and a surprise, but it's interesting King understood having a "Good" President at the helm really doesn't effect the larger picture if things are bad enough. I eerily noticed that from present day events.

King has a lot of cool observations about the past, including that although it smelled worse, the food tasted better. Also segregation SUCKED, and he calls out Dallas by name for its racism, which is a pretty brave stand to take. My favorite thing about the past is how everybody takes the modern sayings Jake says to them they've never heard before. Jake notices that in The Land Of Ago, any jokes even TINGED with sexual undertones are considered a laugh riot and outrageous, and adults using f-bombs in front of teenagers is unthinkable, and Jake is now the coolest teacher ever! I also loved the idea that Miz Mimi talks Jake out of shopping around his horror novel because he was born to teach, and the fact that he has the ability to bring out the best parts of students and nurture their talents suggests him being a schlock horror writer would be a huge waste of his talents.

Him getting in trouble with Sadie for singing "Honky Tonk Woman" was brilliant too. She actually dumped his ass over it! Good for her!

My favorite reaction of one of the people in the past whom Jake freaks out with his honesty is the nosy and awful school superintendent who threatens to fire Sadie for supposedly "living in sin". It's not just that Jake threatens to expose the out-of-wedlock baby she had as a teenager that makes him scary. It's the fact that he ENJOYS how upset he's making her that makes him awesome. One of the reasons a reader might distrust Jake's first person take on events is that he's simply a little TOO much of a magnificent badass. Only the fact that Jake also admits his real failings which is why I'm half ready to believe a person this awesome existed and did this crazy, unproveable, sci-fi thing. I WANT badass sci-fi heroes to be people I can root for, by the way, not people I'm creeped out by. Jake Epping / George Amberson is everything I wish Roland Deschain had been. Roland SORT of came around by the end. But the things he did were still unforgivable. If Jake does a cold-blooded thing here (like when he shot Frank Dunning in the cemetery) it's because it was the right thing to do.

"How we danced!" King really going for the feels there. I love the interrogation at the end. Jake REALLY put both the FBI and Dallas Police on the spot. Just because he knew so much true stuff that he could tell a damning lie to sink them all and he'd be believed. I thought the phone call with John Kennedy was painful and unfunny, but when he talks to Jackie, you realize that was a narrative choice King made. Jackie actually understood what a close call it was and took it deadly seriously. Jake positing that JFK thought of himself as untouchable back then is both extremely uncomplimentary and probably sadly accurate. How else can you explain the guy traveling in an open-roofed car in Dallas with the amount of death threats he got? The FBI and Dallas Police dropped the ball, but if Kennedy actually had a lick of sense about the subject it never would have been a factor.

King notes in the afterword that as unlikely as it was that Oswald was lucky enough to pull off what he did, people DO get lucky. People win the lottery every day. Are the events that led to Oswald's lucky break amazing in the breathtaking incompetence of everyone involved? Yes. But they are also plausible and the simplest explanation. Occam's Razor.

The dance as the end is kind of creepy due to elderly Sadie's confusion, but I will give Jake a pass JUST this once and declare it romantic. It's really not on paper, and probably frightening, but after what he went through I'll give him that. I wouldn't for most other characters who pulled a similar move.

I love this book and will invariably give it five stars. And yet it always slips my mind when discussing my favorite King books because the premise is so flawed. Which makes the fact that the book is awesome an amazing secret. 5 stars.

I've talked crap about King's nonfiction before, but honestly, even I'M a bit surprised how badly this essay has aged.

King says a couple of true things (like that America isn't a culture of violence and the most popular entertainment isn't violent or gun-related). Or his blazing indictment over the media's ghoulishness towards the survivors every time gun massacres happen.

But man, honestly, I don't need to hear about the opinion on guns from the dude who wrote "Rage". I took special notice that although he recognized how harmful is was, he STILL refused to disown it. Apparently because he believes there was some "truth" present. What, the truth that you used to be a terrible writer, Uncle Stevie? I can't think of any larger "truths" that torpid, idiotic gun porn novel uncovered.

I think perhaps the stupidest thing King says here is that if he had a political wish, it's that all liberals were forced to watch Fox News for a year and all conservatives to watch MSNBC. I was like "Man, this guy does NOT get it." King's frustrating politics back in 2013 were classic bothsiderism which says King was both a lazy thinker, and not interested in solving the actual problem. It was much more important to him he tells any conservative readers he had left he understood where they were coming from and that liberals were equally guilty for the current polarization.

In absolute fairness to King, this was well before Trump ran for and won the Presidency, and King's opinions in the years since that happened put the blame for the situation where is belongs. But man, Stephen King was NOT a kid in 2013. It pains me to read political opinions from him that foolish when he was well into his 60's.

I also believe another thing that dates the essay is King names the shooters. In the years since, we've learned not to do that, and give them the posthumous fame and notoriety they craved. But King gives it to them which is another reason the essay has aged terribly.

I was never crazy about this essay but for some reason it hits me even worse in 2023 than it already did. 1 1/2 stars.

I need to see Duel at some point. I've been searching the streaming services for it for months.

Vince's fury at his son at the end was righteous. I didn't like much of the story, but I liked that.

All right. 2 1/2 stars.

Stephen King has written unforgivably appalling stories. What makes this one perhaps more disgusting than any of the rest of them is that he wrote a story of a pregnant teenage girl being beaten into a miscarriage, and her brother eating the dead baby and feeding it to her... WITH HIS OWN SON. How does the dude sleep at night? I don't understand him sometimes, and I don't want to. 0.

The tone of much of this feels very reminiscent of "The Eyes Of The Dragon", specifically the Tim Stoutheart tale itself. There is a little more horror here (and even gross-outs; I shuddered at the bit of the Helmsman and his spider / egg-filled sore) but I recognize King putting on his fantasy storyteller's cap for that one.

It's a solid story (within a story). My only major concern is that King sort of adds some Easter Eggs for longtime readers that Roland should NOT know, or if he did, he should made a connection to them in "Wolves Of The Calla". Like the Tet first encounters Dogans there, but Roland speaks of them here as if they are common knowledge. Same deal with the Covenant Man signing his letter MB removed link That never brought up a red flag to either Roland or the Tet? For real? What about Directive 19? Or the Red King? I can believe they forgot Bix's mentioning of Andy. But not putting ANY of this together? I don't buy it.

I think it's really interesting that Roland admits he dislikes mysteries and has a hard time solving them. This made his job as Gunslinger all the more difficult. He's especially exasperated at the end that the answer was given to him but his slow and literal mind brushed by it and refused to acknowledge it. Maybe THAT'S the reason those clues are overlooked? The thing is even if Roland would miss them, I don't buy Eddie, Susannah, and Jake would after hearing the story. I know this book is SET between the fourth and fifth books, but it doesn't quite FIT between them, if you get me, which is a failing.

Did I mention it's still a good yarn? It is. I still believe Mid-World is a pit, but this was a more enjoyable Dark Tower outing than we are usually permitted, and it ends on a note of redemption for Roland which sort of DOES fit in with everything else (at least if you squint, and I choose to).

It amazes me that Robin Furth loves the novel (and it's dedicated to her) considering it aggravatingly retcons every single original Dark Tower comic she's ever worked on. I would be fuming were I her. For the record, I prefer King's idea of Maerlyn as the benevolent wizard seen here, instead of Furth's idea that he became evil and corrupted. Although how this changes Walter's origin story seen in the one-shot comic "The Sorcerer" (or even if it does) I am unsure.

It's interesting Roland sort of presents "The Wind Through The Keyhole" story as perhaps being true to the Tet. I doubt that's true of every story in Mid-World, but Tim Stoutheart's legendary Gunslinger status strikes me as much as historical knowledge as it does Tall Tale. Which again, makes you think twice about Evil Maerlyn.

I love the idea of Roland telling this story with an f-bomb or two to a little kid (twice!) and that his mother told it to him as a sprog too.

King Connections: The haunting of the mine is a deliberate nod to "Desperation" and R.F. is Randall Flagg from "The Stand".

Back in the day, King had fans vote for which return novel he would write first: This book or the sequel to "The Shining", "Doctor Sleep". I believe this won (by the skin of its teeth, the vote was hella-close), but if you ask me, "Doctor Sleep" wound up the better book. Still, it was nice to briefly go back to Mid-World for an untold story. 4 stars.

I admit it. I'm so anal of a fan I'll read encyclopedic-related material to stuff I like. I've actually read the entire Silmarillion and The Star Trek Encyclopedia. Did not enjoy either.

Furth's Concordance for The Dark Tower is however eminently fascinating and readable, and this was my fifth go-through of the entire thing. And I seem to either learn or realize something new each time. I find Furth is a bit too forgiving of King's faults, especially as a woman. But she often manages to question the contradictions in the novels and speculate on ways things can fit. She does something similar to what I do for stuff I like. Instead of complaining about something being an obvious sloppy mistake my brain starts musing on ways everything can fit together instead. And Furth is good at winning ALL the No-Prizes, and it's something I'M good at too, so fandom apologist recognizes nerd game when he sees it.

The thing is, and this is also true about my speculations and defenses, often when you think AROUND plotholes, the story becomes far more fascinating and thought provoking than even the writer probably intended. Furth is frustrated she couldn't fit "The Eyes Of The Dragon" into Roland's world. But her theory of it being an alternate Universe that Flagg crosses in and out of followed by Thomas and Dennis fully satisfies me, and sounds like a great story in its own right. When are you writing that Eyes sequel Uncle Stevie? The GOOD R.F. just gave you your hook.

The book club is great too. Some of the questions are basic, and some of them made me think twice. It's also cool to get all of the commola stanzas from the sixth book in one place.

I read supplementary material ALL the time. Usually it's dry and boring as hell. Furth does it right for the only time I've been through this stuff. It's pretty impressive. 4 1/2 stars.

Stephen King never does Hard Case Crime Fiction the way you are supposed to and I bless him for that.

I always wonder why King is SO talented when it comes to writing coming of age stories, especially for an old dude. I think the answer is he never really grew up. I don't find Devin Jones' story as painful or cringe as some of King's other youthful male protagonists leaving boyhood behind, which is another point in the book's favor.

I don't love the mystery though. Why? For a superficial reason. I find Fred Dean and Lane Hardy's names too similar, and despite this being my fifth readthrough of the book I still get the characters confused. Not great for a mystery, especially if Hardy's the culprit.

Devin mentions some graffiti he saw about Cthulhu, which leads me to believe that entity is fictional in this story, and makes the story's troubling connections to the novel "Revival" feel less horrible to contemplate. It certainly suggests they take place on different levels of The Dark Tower.

Other King Connection Of Note: Inside View.

The stuff with Devin and the Rosses is beyond moving, and I think the idea that Joyland is in the business of selling fun is equally trite and deep. It's the owner's sincerity in saying it which makes me believe it. And Devin's time In The Fur is a HELL of a lot more rewarding and heartwarming than it has any right to be. King is wearing his heart on his sleeve in this novel. Not unheard of, but most of those stories aren't thrillers and have no supernatural elements. King made a mystery novel part ghost story and part tearjerker.

Mike's idea that his mother is forbidding him from doing things because she fears it's "the last good time" says that regardless of whether or not the kid possesses The Touch, he's already wise beyond his years, and had to grow up to fast, and he supports his mother emotionally far more than she does him. That is such a sad and adult notion and you can tell it breaks Devin's heart.

King has only done three Hard Case Crime Fiction novels but each of them were pretty great. Out of all three, "Joyland" most follows the general mystery conventions. But like "The Colorado Kid" and "Later", it's great because of all the conventions and tropes of the genre it REFUSES to follow, and each novel allows the imprint to sort of expand its scope and reach with different kinds of readers who don't usually read these paperbacks (like me, for example). This is a fine book. 4 stars.

If Stephen King Book Club has taught me anything, it's that usually the more I reread King's stuff, the more flaws I find in it. Not gonna pretend there weren't one or two moments of that here, but rereading this made me realize that all of the things I initially loved about it are still true and still work. King often doesn't stand up to close scrutiny in hindsight. "The Shining" certainly does not and is a VERY sloppily conceived and written book, as exciting as it is. And it's also racist as hell.

None of that here. Aside from the story of the True Knot and Abra feeling more fully realized and less random than the ghosts and history of the Overlook, the tone of the book is something I love. You can argue it's a thriller, or a suspense novel, and there ARE elements of that. But I don't think it's a horror book at all. It's certainly not the least bit scary, as least not for the reader. As far as I'm concerned Dan Torrance and Abra Stone are gonna kick ass and take names and nothing disabuses me of that notion. What's especially refreshing to me is that basically all of the heroes and their families survive. Stephen King hasn't exactly lost his edge (the horrible ending of Revival is still in his future) but I think age has softened his cynicism. The heroes are allowed to run rings around Rose the Hat, Crow Daddy, and the rest of the detestable True Knot and we are allowed to enjoy Abra's cruel enjoyment of Rose's suffering, and Rose losing her cool because she never sees any of this coming. King has his share of purely enjoyable stories (see "Drunken Fireworks"). But this is his most enjoyable story with actual stakes and characters you care about. And yes, the sequel to "The Shining" is better than "The Shining". By far.

My favorite thing is that it's pretty much a sequel in name only. Yes, it follows a grown-up Dan Torrance and his struggles with alcoholism, and his literally fighting his demons, but it's really Abra's story, and not about where the traumas Danny experienced in the Overlook led him. And my favorite thing about that idea is when the Overlook is returned to at the end, and some of the ghosts return too, I am delighted that Danny took these monstrous haunting things from his childhood and turned them against his enemies. When Silent Sarey faces the rotting corpse of Horace Dewhurst, I was delighted. And when Dan waves goodbye to the ghost of his father from the Overlook who just saved his life from beyond the grave, we are reminded that not all ghosts are all bad.

Another thing I appreciate about this book is that King through Danny is able to acknowledge Jack Torrance was an abusive monster. He was also good, but the problem with King's miniseries adaptation is it acted like he was well-intentioned, and the bad things he did weren't REALLY his own fault. For the Jack Torrance I read in the novel, I thought he was a loathsome jerk who blamed everybody else for his own mistakes. King identifying so strongly with him instead is a really uncomfortable thing for me. King allowing Danny's view of his as sometimes scary and both good and bad is rewarding to me as someone who never bought King's idea that Jack was as much of a victim of the Overlook as anyone else.

I want to talk about all I loved about the book, and there so much. I love that part of Abra finds Crow Daddy alarmingly attractive and charming. I love that once Dan tells his rock bottom story at his 15th Anniversary A.A. Meeting he realizes the only person who think it's a big deal is him. (And let me say, I happen to think it was a crappy thing myself. But the fact that Dan thinks it's worse than it actually is a point in his favor). I like that as damaged an adult as Dan has turned into, his job still involves helping people with The Shining and essentially doing God's work. I like that Dan's final patient in the book is the horrible Fred Carlson and he has to comfort this guy he hates and help him cross over. I like that everybody surviving and Abra's first taste of booze taking things full circle for her family makes me want another sequel (which we certainly won't get). I love that Dan turns out to be Abra's literal uncle. It's probably the fact that he's her half-brother which is the only reason Lucy Stone doesn't throw him out on his ear. "You have quite a temper, Uncle Dan." I love that. Dan cannot escape the legacy of his abusive father. Luckily he has people to talk him down. I love that a lot of the chapter and book titles were literal callbacks to The Shining. Dan looking into the mirror and seeing his face full of flies was a spooky shock, and it was pleasurable learning the reason he had those flies, and what he did with them. The narrative is just plain strong throughout.

That's a long paragraph. Why did I go through all that great stuff so quickly and cursorily? Because I need to talk about the movie.

I HATE the movie. I think it is one of the worst adaptations of a King book I have ever seen. Maybe if the book weren't awesome, I wouldn't mind the changes it made. But it is, and everything they changed was for the worse. Including Dan not being related to Abra. The climax's villains being the Overlook hotel and its ghosts rather than Rose and the True Knot. Dan dying at the end. It killing off beloved characters who survived the book because it cynically believed it needed to be a horror film, and audiences wouldn't accept a sequel to The Shining without a bunch of cruel and gratuitous deaths. I believe this is actually the reason Kubrick killed off Dick Hallorann in his movie adaptation of The Shining. The Shining is a scary book, but all the heroes survive it, and cinema horror cannot abide that idea (unless the film is "Get Out").

I'll tell you one thing I don't like about Stephen King. He likes that movie. Because it has the same ending as "The Shining" novel, and he believes it fixed the problems Kubrick's adaptation had. The film was a sequel to the "The Shining" film, not the book. First of all, I don't much like Kubrick's version either. I think it has cinematic merit that is lost on King, but the truth is it's not really scary, and it's strikes me as beyond foolish that Kubrick adapted a ghost story while excising the ghosts because he supposedly didn't believe in them. I mean, what's the freaking point, then? I do however think that while King is right Nicholson probably shouldn't have been cast because it means you EXPECT Jack Torrance to go insane, the truth is Jack always being insane is a credible interpretation of the character whether King can admit that or not. King's vanity on the subject of "The Shining" is so irksome because he appreciates a film that did MUCH dirtier by his amazing and better sequel to that simply because it decided to "redeem" the first film. Where is King's artistic integrity to "Doctor Sleep" and how amazing a story it is in its own right? "The Shining" film was over 40 years in the past! I don't care about it anymore, and neither should King! It speaks poorly that King gives a stamp of approval on one of his finest books being destroyed because the director built the message "King was right about the first film" into the ending, instead of ending it the way it should have.

Before I forget: King Connections Of Note: Sequel to "The Shining", if not precisely a direct, linear one. Sarey's ability to make herself Dim is shared by Flagg in Eyes Of The Dragon, The Stand, and the The Dark Tower books. Inside View. One of the True Knot's "homebase" towns is supposedly Jerusalem's Lot which raises a HELL of a lot of questions for me.

I think my favorite King books are Wolves Of The Calla, The Dark Tower (VII), Black House, and Doctor Sleep. Of those four, I think Black House is the only one I love more (and it was cowritten by Peter Straub). Doctor Sleep is so strong to me because it's not precisely a sequel and has its own messages and things to say. And it's fun to see a bunch of heroes kicking ass and taking names. King should do that more often. He's really good at it. And yes, I believe the sequel is superior to "The Shining". FAR Superior. 5 stars.

I've never loved this book, but even knowing that was so, even I was a little surprised at how negative my reaction to this popular novel is this time out. It hits me even worse in hindsight than it did when I first read it.

I'm gonna talk about the racial stuff because that needs a good deconstruction, and King needs a good shellacking over it, but even if it weren't a factor (and it's probably the most noticeable flaw of the book) I still would be underwhelmed. Because the prose itself feels shady. King was going for a mix of hard-boiled and straightforward, and instead wound up with cliched and boring. King has his share of crappy prose in his earlier books. I had mistakenly believed he had grown out of that by this stage of his career. But the novel feels like it's written by a much clunkier, less-experienced writer. In trying for a more even tone for this prose, King instead makes it feel unlike his own voice, and as if the things to book says feel false. And King LOVES Holly Gibney. And I do too. And it's amazing how wrong King does by her in her debut novel.

In my recent review of On Writing I SORT of mentioned my disdain of King claiming there he would never stop using objectionable words because they are a part of the experience of the types of people he portrays. It felt like the laziest cop-out for a white dude itching to get away with repeatedly saying the N-word, but there were many things I disagreed with in that how-to manual and I figured a future novel might be a better place to point out how bogus it is. And I can do that because I'm a writer. And I know everything King is saying about using offensive words coming from The Muse, and that The Muse can't be questioned or tamed is bogus.

It's utter bullcrap. I doubt King is dumb enough to actually believe it, but if he is, shame on him. I think it's likelier a cynical excuse to continue to push the racial buttons he's pushed his entire career rather than improve himself as either a writer, or God forbid, a person.

Let me be blunt. Stephen King deserves a LOT of scorn for his early novels where the N-word is used freely and repeatedly. I won't give him a pass for the malicious ways the word is used in The Stand, The Shining, The Talisman, IT, and others. Oftentimes it's a lazy way to denote a bad guy to have them refer to a black good guy that way. Equally often it was simply a cruel racial slur, not corrected by other characters or put in the context that it was wrong to say. But... But... Even I will concede King doing this was not outside of other white writers of the 20th Century. Harper Lee, anyone? Yes, Lee got criticism in hindsight, but this was not a literary sin exclusive only to King. I'm not saying it's forgivable. I'm saying back then it was common.

Mr. Mercedes was penned in 2014. Both Brady's Hartsfeld's repeated use of that word, and Jerome Robinson's appalling and painful Tyrone Feelgood routine is King taking far more racial liberties than he is entitled to, not just as a white writer. But as a white person. For many White Progressive Allies, the "privilege" of saying the n-word in front of their black friends and them being cool with it is the highest form of coolness and credibility those "Allies" could imagine. Speaking for me, I wouldn't call a black friend that word, because if they were my friend, I would care about them, and not WANT to call them that. It's weird how many "White Allies" like King see it as an attractive privilege and perk of espousing liberal ideals. I personally find King's and people like him's liberal ideals entirely suspect.

Here is the truth King lied to you about in On Writing. He is very correct that often the Muse and story itself cannot be controlled. It comes out the way it does, and for many writers, (at least the good ones), there is very little control in the ideas coming fast and furious. They occur because they are right and good, not necessarily because they have been meticulously planned out ahead of time. What King is lying to us about completely (and this is something I know for a stone cold fact is a pure lie) is the idea that swear words and offensive racial slurs cannot be avoided if the "truth" of the work supposedly demands it. This is a lie. Full stop. A malicious lie King tells us to shield himself from any responsibility he has to the readers he's hurt over his entire career because of his casual cruelty. He's saying the cruelty is outside of his control because if he actually owned it, he'd have to stop, and that would be hard. King uses racism, homophobia, and misogyny not because he's truthful. It's because he's lazy, thinks he knows better than everyone else, and is unwilling to listen an opposing viewpoint. It's a writing shortcut for him, not a truthful insight. Here is the ACTUAL truth about The Muse, and its supposed inability to be censored or tamed. The Muse is powerful for sure. What King is leaving out is that no matter how powerful The Muse is, the writer themself is actually MORE powerful, because they possess something The Muse does not: Veto Power. The Story may not be willing to be tamed, but a writer certainly has complete control over the way they choose to tell it. King told you differently in On Writing. He was lying. To your faces. To cover up his own bad actions. A good writer can go without using words they have no business using because writers actually have things called dictionaries and thesauruses and free freaking will. King acting like the hateful gutter talk he routinely engages in is his only writing option is one of the biggest writing lies I have ever seen a writer claim about the profession. And if that's so (and it is) it calls into question every single other one of King's writing "tips" in that book. That is a HUGE thing to lie about. What other lies is he speaking about on behalf of all writers that he isn't entitled to actually say? Perhaps another reread of THAT book and deconstruction is due for Stephen King Book Club. It's 2014. There is NO "sign of the times" excuse for King to do this.

That's the elephant in the room, but I also greatly dislike how their debut novel first portrayed Holly Gibney, and what Bill Hodges thought of her. I understand King writes without a net, and essentially writes the books as they go along, and often surprises himself as much as the reader. But don't you think someone like King could like maybe take a second pass, and make sure the characterization is consistent for what you were trying to say? In the later books Holly goes on and on about how Bill was kind to her and saved her life because he was the first person who ever believed in her. And yet, during their first scene when Holly tells him she likes him, King claims he's lying to her face when he says it back. How am I supposed to react in that? Not just 6 Holly Gibney stories later? But for how Bill is supposed to encourage her for the rest of THIS book?

Holly was done dirty here. Her first description is that of a spinster. Damn, Uncle Stevie, you never heard of second passes through a manuscript? What the hell, man? And it beyond pisses me off that one of Holly's moral victories at the end is her going to a beauty salon and dying her hair. King writes the horrible and offensive things he does because he believes the fact that he's an "Ally" gives him permission to do so. Seth MacFarlane has a similar desperation to be loved for crapping on the black community and minorities, but the difference there is MacFarlane never goes a hundredth as far as King always does, and MacFarlane actually KNOWS it's a weakness of his, and points out the hypocrisy through the character of Brian Griffin, so at least he's self-aware enough to know it's wrong, instead of something outside of his control because, "The Muse! The Muse!" If you ask me, this is actually a demonstration that King is NOT an Ally and never was.

And yes, the prose is juvenile and asinine, so even if King weren't a racist jerk, the entire book would feel subpar anyways. Amazingly weak effort, especially considering it's the debut novel for one of his most beloved and famous characters. King did entirely wrong by Holly Gibney in her first appearance. 1 star.

I've always hated this book but I didn't hate this read-through. It contains King's bleakest and most depressing ending he's ever written, and yet it's the fact that I care about the characters which is why that effected me so much. I never gave a crap about Louis Creed in Pet Sematary. I half-thought the horror he suffered there served him right. For Jamie and Astrid the bad things happening land and HURT.

I am still a little mad at King for the book. The implications of the Lovecraftian hellish afterlife are frightening for the rest of his connected output. Joyland being mentioned is especially troubling because it makes you wonder if that was where Mike wound up when he died. I would feel more comfortable if I knew for a fact this was just ONE level of the Dark Tower and that nothing else King wrote was connected to it. But King Connections Of Note? A few. Dorrance Marstellar from "Insomnia", Castle Rock, Jerusalem's Lot shout-out. If the horror of this book IS unconnected to everything else, it's still too close for comfort.

I think Charlie Jacobs is one of King's best and most complicated antagonists. Because despite the fact that Jamie wound up despising him, I don't remotely see him as a villain, even if Jamie does. I think he had good reasons for doing what he did, and I sympathized with both his anger and pain. I don't think a movie adaptation of this book would work because it would feel the need to turn him into a crazed demagogue just because that's how movies work. I found his friendship with Jamie both moving and heartbreaking, especially because the two men were essentially using each other by the end of it.

It is a little strange to me how dark the ending is considering the main character survived the story. But the ending is so dark and scary that you understand that it's not actually any sort of victory whatsoever. It's one of King's most disturbing books for that reason, and I almost wish it didn't exist because it puts a LOT of the other stuff in the rest of his books into question. I remind myself the idea that it's a different level of the Tower is plausible considering how many different stories King has done both about ghosts and the afterlife. But it's still a pretty hard pill to swallow, and dark and depressing stuff.

I don't feel the Terrible Sermon was as terrible as the Church-goers made it out to be. I appreciate that Jamie found a larger truth in it, but Jamie himself noted it didn't stop early on because Jacobs sounded REASONABLE as he was making it. And he was. And it sort of ticks me off the observation King is making about small religious communities in how much trauma the congregation believed they went through simply for being forced to hear a conflicting opinion. For me, conflicting opinions are what Faith is all about. And God knows Jacobs came to his opinions honestly. The fact that the entire community turned their back on him for supposedly speaking a blasphemy strikes me as the most Unchristian thing this group of people could do to this suffering man who just lost his entire family. Jamie himself turned away from the Church. But it bothers me even he didn't really notice the hypocrisy of the rest of the town. He's mad at his family of course, because Jacobs cured his brother, but it's not just Jacobs' friends rejecting him that is so bad. It's his flock not having an ounce of compassion and being unwilling to hear bad thoughts coming from a suffering man. Jamie again points out about how serious small towns take their Church-going, particularly back in the 1960's. But I don't have to pretend it's okay, much less remotely reasonable. News Flash: People routinely did bigoted and sucky things back in the 1960's. I've never believed the fact that those sucky things occurred in a decade where sucky things were common ever remotely absolved the sucky thing-doers. Wrong is wrong, and I've never bought the excuse "It was the times." That never held water with me.

Critics have accused the book of essentially being a shaggy dog story that randomly turns into Lovecraft. Speaking of someone who really DOES disdains King's tendency to Make It Up As He Goes Along, I never felt that way, at least not upon a reread. The Lovecraft subtext is in the background for the entire book whether you recognize it as such in your first read-through or not. It's earned instead of random like "The Outsider". It feels like despite the fact that the connections aren't made explicit until the end of the book, that King was writing the entire story to get to that. If I found out King actually did a rare thing and used an outline for once, I wouldn't be shocked. It holds together pretty well. It's not remotely a shaggy dog story.

The book is depressing, and makes me angry, and makes me think. And it might not have done ANY of those things of King hadn't made me care about the characters. And I guess that's the reason my impression was relatively favorable this time through. I hate the book on some level. But it still matters. I can't just dismiss it. It struck a nerve and a chord with me if only for making me fear about the implications to the rest of King's canon. It's both depressing and frightening on that score alone. 3 1/2 stars.

Technically the second book in the Bill Hodges Trilogy is WAY better than "Mr. Mercedes", but the thing is Bill Hodges and Holly Gibney have almost nothing to do with it or how it shakes out. They are Indiana Jones in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, if Indy was only in about a quarter of the picture.

The ending of course recalls "Misery", except instead of Paul Sheldon saving the precious manuscript, Morris Bellamy watches them all go up in flames and dies trying fruitlessly to put them out. Have to say I felt WAY more satisfied with the way Paul tricked Annie Wilkes back then. The manuscripts being destroyed here is a disappointment.

As dark as "Revival" was, "Doctor Sleep" and the Bill Hodges stuff sort of tell you King has sort of gotten a LOT less ruthless in his writing as a rule. 20 years earlier in his career Linda Saubers NEVER would have survived the gunshot wound to her head, much less been more or less fine afterwards. And that's not even a question. King is currently much kinder to his characters.

The most memorable moment of the book for me was when Tina Saubers asks Morrie if he's going to rape her, and King says the thing he says in response is so frightening because she doesn't understand it: "No. I won't make that mistake again." That? THAT is some damn fine prose. I feel like King's prose is a little too loose in the Bill Hodges stuff, especially because much of it is told in the present tense. That specific thing gave me chills and was a brilliant conceit at the same time. An excellent bit of writing.

Another compliment is due the book, especially because King doesn't write outlines or plan out his books in advance. I LOVE The Dark Tower. I won't deny it. But very little of what is set up in earlier books is paid off in any sort of satisfying manner in later books. But the Brady Hartsfield scenes in THIS book I feel perfectly set up "End Of Watch", and tease a GREAT deal of the plot there, without the reader being made aware that is what it is doing at the time. For King, that is VERY unusual.

Jerome's Tyrone Feelgood stuff still works my last nerve. Luckily it's not as present as in the last book, but it's present enough to still be majorly unpleasant.

King Connections: Sequel to "Mr. Mercedes", and Part of The Bill Hodges Trilogy, and a precursor to Holly Gibney's solo outings.

I gave a very negative review to Mr. Mercedes. I'm glad I can give this one a passing grade. 3 1/2 stars.

This is probably my favorite of King's short story collections. "You Like It Darker" has yet to have been released at the time I have written this review, but as of now it is also coincidentally the most recent SHORT short story collection besides that upcoming one. But is is coincidental? With the exception of notable misfires like "Mr. Mercedes" and "The Outsider", I have found King's novels have reached a level of maturity and wit they simply did not used to have in the 1980's. It doesn't shock me the same would hold true for his short fiction. It's the best collection so far. Overall: 5 stars.

Mile 81

A DAMN good read.

I love the observation that Peter doesn't ask a bunch of irrelevant questions to Rachel after what he's seen, because he's a kid, and accepts it immediately, like a rational person should (and no adult ever would). I love him telling himself at the end that he f-wording rocks (he does), and that he liked the kiss on the cheek little Rachel gave him, but it would have been better if she'd been a babe.

When Rachel tells the 911 dispatchers her parents were dead, and calls them a stupid phone person, you realize horror movie stakes are MUCH worse for very little kids. You think it's it's bad the teenagers in Freddy movies are always disbelieved? Who is gonna take warnings about a sticky monster car seriously from a 6 and 4 year old?

If I have any gripes, it's that the ending with the magnifying glass is too damn pat. I don't object to the fact that it works. I object to the fact that it's the first thing Peter TRIES, and it works. If I had written the story, the glass would have mildly hurt the car, Pete would have taken note of it, bravely doused the car with gasoline found at the rest stop from a safe distance, then then used the glass to light the car up. It's too easy of a solution as is, especially with King making it a "Baby Trick" at the beginning of the story. Just because it fit into the beginning thematically Uncle Stevie, doesn't make it the right ending. Or at least it doesn't without a couple of extra snags attached.

This is good. As horror, as a kid adventure, even as a family tragedy. It's just great. 4 1/2 stars.

Premium Harmony

I hate King stories like this. People say King has an ear for the rural poor. I say King thinks he's better than all of these characters. and is asking the reader to look down on them. I don't give King any sort of kudos for being an elitist snot.

King Connections Of Note: Castle Rock. 1 star.

Batman And Robin Have An Altercation

I like the emotional weight the story has. It talks about something about Alzheimer's I never considered: There must be cruelty in some of the unintentional things said by the afflicted including learning things about them you never wanted to know. The story matters to me for that reason.

And I totally think Tat Guy had it coming. Good ol' Pop. 3 1/2 stars.

The Dune

Stephen King doesn't plot many of his stories, but whenever he has an ending in mind, and builds towards it, it always winds up dynamite. This is one of his best twist endings, and I would argue is brilliant enough to hold up against O Henry and other literary greats.

The reader knows Wayland is wrong about the dune being nonsense, but we think Wayland seeing where the story is headed is the most logical course. Why else call his lawyer to settle his estate? The genius thing about the twist of the Judge looking startled, giving him a wicked grin, and saying "Oh, no. Not MY name..." is that it actually makes more sense than if the Judge had seen his own name. Yes, he would have gotten his affairs in order then too. But there would be absolutely no reason to tell the story of the dune to his lawyer. Wayland's right that relatives could use the story to contest the will and of course Beecher knew that. But it was never about the will. If was about settling his business with Wayland before the lawyer died.

I think the telling the story at all is cruel, but I think the best thing in the story is that the Judge is startled that Wayland guessed it was the Judge's name on the dune. It never occurred to him the most likely outcome a listener would be expecting would be that.

Another great thing about the story is that Wayland is just the character the Judge tells the story to. The reader has no reason to think the story is actually ABOUT him until the very last line. His importance to the Narrative is hiding in plain sight, but not yet evident.

I wish King either wrote more outlines or knew more endings ahead of time. He always knocks it out of the park when he does either thing (and he does them both rarely). But I wish he did it more. 5 stars.

Bad Little Kid

As a rule I dislike King's inexplicable horror fiction. Most people found The Moving Finger a gas, but I hated it.

This one is well-written though. And I cared about the characters of George Hallas and Bradley. It makes the ridiculous nature of the evil feel weird, but it gives it more genuine stakes than King writing stories like this occurring to people it's easier to hate. This is a much better way to write these kinds of unexplained stories, even if the genre will never be my favorite. 3 1/2 stars.

A Death

King says in the note that he didn't plan the ending and had no idea how it would turn out. That's why it sucks and why King so often can't stick the landing. The resolution is unsatisfying and makes the entire tension of the story seem a waste of time.

The prose is interesting for being so laconic, but the entire story is nothing but a disappointment. 1 1/2 stars.

The Bone Church

King writes weird-ass poetry. All of his poems are weird. 2 1/2 stars.

Morality

This is King's version of a high concept "Scruples" story like Indecent Proposal. On a very real level, I disagree with his conclusions. On another, although nobody in the story makes a choice I would make, the truth is everybody is different. What strikes me as ridiculous and stupid might strike other people are tempting with that much money at stake.

I wouldn't do that for 200,000 dollars (or any amount of money). I wouldn't be able to live with myself. And if I DID somehow choose to do it, I wouldn't feel as bad or broken as Chad and Nora were. I'd have to be a sociopath to do that, so it wouldn't bother me. It seems to me both scenarios cancel each other out. But again, that's just me speaking for me. Crazy and stupid people might see it differently.

I often wonder what Tabitha King thinks about some of the sexually perverse stuff King writes, and I have to wonder what his kids think too. I have written some pretty dark things myself. But nothing on this level or that I'm actually ashamed of. I wonder how King relates to his loved ones knowing they've read this part of him.

The story says at the end that the book on morality told Nora nothing she didn't already know. This story didn't tell me anything I actually believed. 3 stars.

Afterlife

The story is interesting, but I don't like it, but if does have some value to me as a Stephen King Constant Reader.

Why don't I like it? Pointless and depressing. The character of Harris interests me for how angry and defensive he gets over his sins. Not exactly the guy to be throwing stones. I think he's not in Purgatory, he's in Hell. I speculate they both are since King has said before Hell might be repetition. But they both say it's purgatory. I think they are both wrong.

The reason I value the story is it suggests the Afterlife works differently on different levels of The Dark Tower. The horrible ending to "Revival" haunts me. This story says to me it is not actually inevitable for all of King's dead characters, and just one of the outcomes of one of the worlds. Thank God.

King Connections: Hemingford, Nebraska. Yup, this story counts as Kingverse. 2 stars. 

Ur

I personally think it's terrific, but I very much understand why King was criticized for it. The commercialization for the Kindle feels really obvious and crass. But if you get past it, you get a mind-bending story that just happens to be a coda of sorts to the Dark Tower series.

The ideas of different author outputs and news headlines in different Universes is great. King explores all the cool possibilities there, and including the neat idea that some writers always have a "Constant" novel. Wesley exploring the different outcomes of the 2008 election is cool too.

King Connections: The Low Men are from the final three Dark Tower books, (as well as the novella "Low Men In Yellow Coats"), and one of their mysterious cars is probably the actual antagonist of "From A Buick 8". This story is cool because we get new details about them like that their clothes are alive and you hear awful things when you touch them. It's interesting they seem to have become stewards of both the Tower and the Rose upon Roland finally saving it, and the sigil of the Scarlet Eye raises questions about their servitude too. But when the older one tells Wesley he's getting a pass and if he has any idea how lucky he is, Wesley says he does, but the Constant Readers who have seen how the Can-Toi actually operate know he really doesn't. Mercy is not those guys' go-to. It actually strikes me as out of character, which is why it's interesting.

The controversies over what could have been changed about Wes breaking the paradox laws were classic Twilight Zone scenarios that I find it weird never occurred to Wesley as a possibility. I think they sound far-fetched myself, especially because the Low Men didn't actually know for sure. But he was up all night with worry about this bus crash. I find it hard to believe he never once considered the non-selfish implications of what he was doing. It was a pretty huge deal.

I love that when Robbie describes his crush as mousy, and says that's what he likes about her, Wes tells him that doesn't actually speak well of him. It's funny because it's true.

The product placement is annoying, but the story is pretty wild and wonderful. 4 1/2 stars.

Herman Wouk Is Still Alive

King's snotty elitism is showing again.

I will again say I don't believe "A Good Marriage" is remotely an exploitation of Dennis Rader OR his family. But this story is certainly an exploitation of Diane Schuler's story. Mostly because the circumstances are different. And yes. that actually matters. King is "exploring" things a decent person would not be exploring.

I like the old poets though. Although Herman Wouk is currently dead. 2 stars.

Under The Weather

I'm pretty sure this was Norman Bates' perspective too.

Another rare story where King knew the ending he was building towards ahead of time and it's another knock-out.

"The Dune" is great because the twist ending is something you don't see coming. Here this is the ONLY answer.

Also I wonder how it is King seems to know so much about good advertising. Every piece of advice the Narrator gives to the intern sound both right and plausible. He had similarly keen ad insights in Cujo and he was coked out of his gourd then. But maybe King should consider a secondary career as an adman.

I'll tell you what's really great about the end. It's funny, sad, dark, appalling, gross, and tragic all at once. I can't think of two many scenes that make me feel revulsion and heartbreak at the same time but the ending to "Under The Weather" sure does. 4 stars.

Blockade Billy

Another terrific story in a collection filled with terrific stories.

I love the conceit that Granny seems to be telling his story in a taped interview with Stephen King himself.

I think the biggest thing I took from this read-through is that this would make a great movie. They'd probably have to punch up the ending, but I would think there would be some iconic cinematic shots lurking in the script and it could be considered a seminal baseball flick. And I say this as a person who thinks a great deal of books of King's that were made into movies never should have been made into movies.

King Connections: You have to ask? 5 stars.

Mister Yummy

I'm not going to criticize the story. It's fine. It's the Author note I find problematic.

King says writers need not be afraid of tackling subject matters outside of their experiences because that leads to understanding. And he's right, and as far as stories about the AIDS crisis goes, this story works well enough for that too.

The problem is that King does that for a LOT of subjects, and 9 times of out 10, he is completely clueless and insensitive on a good day, and completely offensive on his worst. I don't disagree with King that writing outside of our experiences can lead to understanding. But if I were a white guy who used the n-word in my writing output as many times as King has over his 50 year career, I would never be making that specific argument, especially not on my own behalf. Just saying. 2 1/2 stars.

Tommy

More weird poetry.

Sneaking suspicion, and I could be wrong, but just based on the things he's written I don't think King was as granola in the 1960's as he says he was. Isn't horror an inherently conservative genre? I don't buy the hippie dippy act for a moment. An actual hippie wouldn't have made Mother Abigail a Republican.

I take King's peons to free love with a grain of salt is all I'm saying. 3 stars.

The Little Green God Of Agony

It's interesting King starts the story off with the reader sympathizing with Kat's disdain of Newsome, and had Newsome be right all along. Interesting. It also tells me King was probably a nightmare patient during his rehabilitation from the van accident. He very much seems to view physical therapists with disdain instead of gratitude. It's not a good look. 2 stars.

That Bus Is Another World

Wilson is a bad person and the story is equal parts frightening and appalling.

But is it even a story? It feels like a random scene King's brain farted out with no context or nuance. There is a pointlessness attached to both the central tension and the resolution. Not very well done. 1 star.

Obits

It's a good story, with a great hook, and despite Mike claiming the only real ending to a story was an obit, I found myself satisfied by the end.

Tabloids are a tawdry and ugly business, and it's a world I don't follow. A bit eye-opening and distasteful for me. And interesting. Undeniably interesting. 4 1/2 Stars.

Drunken Fireworks

More poor rural characters again, but this one works because King both likes and enjoys them, and asks the reader to as well. Although I never exactly laughed out loud, the story itself is still very funny.

King Connections of Note: Andy Clutterbuck, TR-90, Chester's Mill.

Also notable in being a rare Stephen King story in which one-one dies. Neat! 5 stars.

Summer Thunder

A bummer story and a gripping one for all that. The Stand is about how society rebuilds after the Apocalypse. Summer Thunder suggests a post-nuclear holocaust would merely put the Earth in an unavoidable death-watch. This strikes me as more scarily plausible than shared nightmares and The Dark Man.

The ending got to me too. A real gut-wrenching last couple of lines.

Heavy stuff. 4 stars.

I got into an online debate this week with people freaking out about Little Golden Books coming out with a preschool alphabet retelling of the sci-fi / horror film "Alien". "What are they thinking?" was the refrain. "What are you OVERTHINKING?" is my response. Fake kid lit books designed for amused parents instead of their toddlers are, I'm not gonna say a growth industry, but a niche that sells. At least as gag gifts. And Stephen King's "Charlie The Choo-Choo" (first seen in "The Waste Lands: The Dark Tower III") was a VERY early entry into the genre. But yeah, it happens.

While the illustrations live up to The Dark Tower's descriptions, I am unhappy Jake's thoughts from that book basically summarizing the ending were relayed verbatim. If this were more of an attempt at actual satire than a naked cash grab, King would have actually written a couple of new paragraphs to bridge the ending instead of using Jake's cynical head-jokes. Just for the record.

But it's definitely neat for Dark Tower fans and shows there is a market for this kind of thing. I bought it, didn't I? 4 stars.

It's way better than "Mr. Mercedes" (the suicide hook is alarmingly narratively effective) but Brady Hartfield just sucks. All of those uses of the n-word are just so freaking unnecessary. And even though Tyrone Feelgood only says one line, that's one line too many. It's annoying Holly has to be the one to tell Jerome it's ignorant.

I wonder if the book has been criticized for bringing supernatural elements to the "Mr. Mercedes" saga. It doesn't fit perfectly, but it sure as hell fits better than the stuff from "The Outsider".

I love that Bill kisses Holly Gibney on the lips. I was shocked at how poorly their friendship was handled in "Mr. Mercedes" and this book does it completely right. It also does right by Holly and Jerome too. That matters to me. Maybe it's because I remember how well this book handled all that which is why I was unhappy with "Mr. Mercedes" to begin with.

King Connections: Sequel to "Mr. Mercedes" and "Finders Keepers" and Holly Gibney appears in future books. Also Inside View.

I love that King gives the suicide prevention number at the end of the book. It's a serious and heavy subject matter and King doesn't always treat serious and heavy subjects as such. A really good ending to The Bill Hodges Trilogy. 4 stars.

I've always really liked this novella not just because Gwendy is a likable heroine, and because it's brimming with King Connections, but because the ethical scenario posited is so interesting and would make a good question for the Game of Scruples.

That being said the ending underwhelms a bit, but both Chizmar and King return with two more books (the next written by Chizmar solo) to wrap things up more satisfactorily. Knowing that it's not actually the one-off it was originally intended to be, and now just "Part One" is pretty cool.

King Connections: Castle Rock. George Bannerman is from "The Dead Zone" and "Cujo". There are some subtle references to The Dark Tower in many of the things Richard Farris says and does. Richard Farris is an R.F. but as seen in the final book, he actually works for The White. We'll talk about that more when we get to "Gwendy's Final Task".

A good, quick read. And solid too. 4 stars.

I know it's a collaboration between father and son, but I'm gonna treat this as a Stephen King book, just to compare it to the other post-apocalyptic stuff he's done.

The three other books in this genre by King are "The Stand", "Cell", and "Under The Dome". "Under The Dome" doesn't actually feature an Earthwide apocalypse, but the scope of the stuff in Chester's Mill and the reformation of their society places it firmly in that camp anyways.

King writes interesting post-apocalyptic fiction because he is never pushing an agenda. Okay, I know "Under The Dome" is a partisan political book, and the feminist themes here are heavy too. What I'm referring to is that King does not have a firm and unyieldingly positive OR dim view of humanity. Things in "The Stand" end all right, not because King is an optimist, but because he had the right characters fighting the good fight. "Under The Dome" ends poorly in comparison because of the bad faith actors. "Cell" is dark story where the hero's journey is mostly a push, but "Sleeping Beauties" goes back to some of The Stand's positive vibes.

Why? Mostly because while the book has its share of detestable villains (Don Peters has not a single redeeming virtue) what I found delightful that both Kings did was make the primary antagonist Frank Geary persuadable and frankly not all bad. I find Frank's justifications for his poor behavior almost as infuriating as Don Peter's personal history revisionism in his own mind, but for different reasons. But despite the fact that Frank has a bad temper, despite the fact that he is a bit clueless and not as in charge of the situation as he believes himself to be, just seeing his wife Ellen unfiltered on the other side of the Tree says he's still right about her, and about how manipulative she is, and how she refuses to see any good in him. And I see very little good in Frank myself. But Ellen is exactly as angry and scary as Frank is, but she has no idea of that fact. I love that at the end of the book Frank takes anger management and Zoloft. I don't see Elaine doing the same. Yes, the trust fund for Bobby Sorley is a form of genuine penance. But it's also a way for her to put in penance without having to do any of the work.

The thing I hate most about Frank is his selfishness. Him never even considering setting the dogs at the pound free before the big stand-off shows this is a self-involved person incapable of looking at the bigger picture. His repeating lament is "My kid my kid my kid!" without ever once stopping to realize every single other person in the world is in the exact same boat as he is. The man beats up a dude who tortured a dog and somehow entirely lacks empathy himself. It would be more forgivable if he were stupider. Since he's not, it's annoying.

Another thing that interests me is that even though the heroes win, most people are worse off at the end of the story. From the women inmates whose promised commutations and reduced sentences never came, to Clint and Lila's marriage falling apart, to Jared understanding with Mary "It's not her, it's him," most people never recovered. Clint and Lila grate a little because I think Lila does VERY wrong by Clint in the book. I get she was running from exhaustion during their main confrontation, but she had been looking into this before Aurora hit, believed the worst, as dumb as it was, and never talked to him about it. Lila is infuriated at the end that Clint wants to talk about her grief and guilt over shooting Jeanette. She believes he's not entitled to that. Her being right is besides the point. How does she not understand this was Clint's entire view of how he never wanted to talk about how he grew up? Instead of being furious at him, and distancing herself from him because it, she could have related the similarities to him. But they simply don't occur to her.

Clint isn't blameless though. She's right that he never involves her in the big decisions. He decides to get a pool without even consulting his wife? Much less quitting his job on his first day? Evie may think Clint is The Man, but that is probably Clint's entire problem.

Evie is the secondary antagonist of the book. I think she's really cool. Not just because she's funny, but because she says and does things you don't expect. Somebody who does the things she does would probably need to be a sociopath. But while she's winding up Frank over the phone, she tells him she admires him for protecting his daughter at the hospital, and that she'll always love him on some level for that. Guess which part of that maddening conversation is the one Frank remembered most? I also love that when Clint essentially shames her into saving Willy's life she calls him cruel, which blows my mind considering all of the death and misery she is responsible for. And that's another thing that bothers me. At least a little. It's a great hook for a book, but I don't feel like Evie's agenda or goals make a clear kind of sense. If it was a test for men to fail, she should have factored in them potentially passing it. And I don't see how the new world The Other Place could last for the long-term. Yeah, time runs MUCH faster there. But the women in those cocoons will eventually die of old age. What happens to The Other Place then? Their civilization was probably on as limited a clock as the men's in Our World, even if the clock would have wound down much slower.

Stephen King talks about his admiration for the character of Angel Fitzroy in the Afterward. I agree. She's great. Clint believes her to be a sociopath at the beginning of the book. He may be right. But unlike every other sociopath ever, she CHANGED. Whether it was Evie's doing (possible) or of her own initiative because of her experiences, she's the most major character actually granted a positive ending. I love her muttering under her breath that nobody better TOCUH Evie because she's an f-wording Goddess. And when she blurts out "I love you, Evie!" at the end, this is not the same character we knew in the first part of the book. Even her final murder of Don Peters feels righteous instead of frightening. And I love that.

King Connections Of Note: None (a rarity) although horror writer Joe Hill (the pen name for King's son Joe King) is mentioned as an author.

I'll tell you what this has over "Cell", and ESPECIALLY "Under The Dome". (even "The Stand" had this problem). This book doesn't end suddenly, and has an extended epilogue sharing the fates of many of the characters and how they are currently doing. Dome's sudden ending bothered me, as did Cell's unfinished one. And "The Stand" had a bunch of unanswered questions too (that hopefully the upcoming anthology can help with). But even though not many of the characters were exactly granted HAPPY endings, I felt satisfied anyways.

I don't pretend that a novel written by two men could ever truly discuss feminism in a truthful way that is realistic to most women's experiences. But I believe male writers should be allowed to attempt it. I'm not a women so I can't say for sure how successful a book of empowerment "Sleeping Beauties" actually is. But it seems pretty credible to me, especially since much of King Sr.'s earlier career was deeply rooted in misogyny. I think it's a great book myself. 5 stars.

Solid first issue. I like the artwork.

I wonder if when he started his Senate career decades ago, Mitch McConnell could ever have imagined the quote he would be most famous for would be "Nevertheless, she persisted." That fact would probably piss him off even more than the nickname Moscow Mitch. But think about it objectively. Have you EVER heard a different McConnell quote ever repeatedly so widely? I would hate to be known chiefly for that. That is the wrong legacy a politician would ever want. I love the entire thing was not just quoted at the beginning of the book, it's quoted here too.

The idea of Ree saying you can't ever be NOT bothered by a square of light is shockingly deep. Glad it was included.

Good adaptation. 4 stars.

They truncated quite a lot. Frank's confrontation with Garth Flickinger is gone, which really helped you understand both characters. I also don't believe the idea that the women who were woken from the cocoons were super strong was ever explicitly stated in the book.

One change for the better is the comic says transgender women fell asleep and transgender men were unaffected. Evie not telling Clint this in the book feels like an oversight. It's also a good early confirmation that Aurora IS a spiritual malady rather than a scientific one.

Some stuff was skipped that I think probably shouldn't have been skipped. 3 stars.

The whole bit of Lila erroneously believing Clint had an affair is gone. Probably for the best.

Jared's stuff with Mary Pak and Eric Blass being cut is less good, but also not strictly speaking necessary.

Nothing was cut in this section the story couldn't do without. 3 1/2 stars.

The art remain interesting. Unfortunately it is IMPOSSIBLE to tell that is Don Peters killing his mother. One of the drawbacks of a comic book with an all-human cast. 3 stars.

Pretty big infodump in the 2-page splash panel. I approve.

Eric Blass' stuff with Mary and Jared may be gone, but it appears they are keeping the scene of him and Don torching Essie's cocoon. Bastards.

Garth Flickinger's character design looks all wrong. I always pictured a more hippie vibe for him. He looks like Napoleon Dynamite instead.

A lot happened in a relatively few amount of pages. Well done. 4 stars.

I'll tell you one good thing about the comic. I never quite got that the book was suggesting Evie was once Helen of Troy. The illustrated page makes that easier to grasp.

The stuff with Michaela Morgan and Garth continues to be fun. Worse ways indeed.

The book also had a Doctor Who reference. But because it took place during the Peter Capaldi era, the Companion fell asleep. The comic was published in the Jodie Whittaker era, so the Doctor fell asleep instead. I think that's actually better.

Good issue. 4 stars.

That bloodbath is even more horrific in the comic. Because you understand the cop only shot Barry Holden because he witnessed his deadly errors. It was cold-blooded murder used to cover-up incompetence.

Tiffany Jones' rules for her son are actually profound. Beautiful too.

Powerful issue. 4 1/2 stars.

Wettermore shooting Miller in the leg in the story felt kind of righteous knowing what the narration tells us about what a homophobic jerk Miller was to him. Instead the language Billy uses here suggests he shoots him only because he's a Republican. The missing context takes away from the scene in the comic.

It's a solid issue otherwise though. 3 stars.

A lot of action, much of it without dialogue or narration. I will confess if I hadn't read the book, I would have been a bit lost, but I have, so I did all right.

They changed Eric dying by Don Peters' friendly fire (which is bad) but it's not like the issue wasn't already packed.

Elaine Nutter's "I am making an executive decision!" is example number 311 why she is exactly as stupid and selfish as her husband.

Big stuff happening. 4 stars.

The comic really nailed the beautiful ending, especially between the fox and the rat. Evie is not the only f-wording goddess present either. I'm starting to think that describes Angel Fitzroy too.

Really great. The splash panel of all the women around the world waking worked like gangbusters. A really solid adaptation of a great book. 5 stars.

I seem to recall this book being reasonably well-received, by which I mean "average Stephen King", which is good, but not literary genius. I'm gonna go against the grain and give it a negative review. A VERY negative review probably. I won't be using curse words or questioning King's morality (as I have in the past) but this is a definite misfire, that I don't think people really understand WHY it's a misfire.

I keep going back to King's nonfiction writing tutorial "On Writing" and his insistence that writing a story as it goes along without an outline means he surprises himself along the way, which means he can surprise the reader too. I think King is very gullible if he is as easy to surprise as that, but on paper it sounds reasonable. But when constructing an actual mystery, a police procedural, one that his agent was dying to read more after getting the first hundred pages? Bad idea. Especially for this one.

King created the ultimate locked room mystery and could not figure out a resolution for it. Clearly. Despite his claimed research of El Cucoy, that "reveal" struck me as a desperate gambit of a mystery writer who wrote himself into a corner, and had to cheat a supernatural explanation to make what he had written fit. If I had written that story, I simply would have changed the plot elements that conflicted and were impossible to explain, to something that made sense. Because King is SO damn insistent in writing things out as they occur to him, that kind of major revisionism and editing is far outside of what he does. And he probably thought, "Even MY readers will think this is stupid," so he doesn't just lean on the supernatural crutch, he brings in his popular character Holly Gibney from The Bill Hodges Trilogy to both explain it and give it credibility. Because of all of that, I think this is probably King's messiest recent book, and probably the last one with problems this specifically huge and unfixable. This is only a few years old. He might have another shoddy book or two left in his career. But that kind of poor planning and execution is not something he's really struggled with for years. Yes, this used to be a HUGE problem for him, especially in his shorter fiction. But this is the nightmare scenario of a writer making it up as they go along, and being completely unable to stick the landing. I almost feel sorry for King. But I feel even sorrier for the critics who gave the book a positive review and couldn't recognize the failures for what they were.

King Connections Of Note: The Bill Hodges Trilogy of course. Some of the phrases like "The world has moved on" as well as the Outsider speaking of "Ka" makes it the one Holly Gibney story that is probably considered Dark Tower-related.

It's am embarrassing failure. What sort of pisses me off is nobody else ever seemed to cotton on at how and WHY a mystery book ending with "a monster did it" is failing the genre. It never occurred to people that is super shady. Why? Why are people so willing to ingest crap in pop-culture, accept it, and not question it? That's almost as disturbing as the idea that King had written nearly 60 books at this point, and was still incapable of writing a competent large-scale mystery. But that genre takes dedication and planning. Two things that cannot be done if you write all your books as you go along. If anything should tell aspiring writers to take On Writing's advice with a HUGE grain of salt, it's how "The Outsider" shook out. Outlines and writing the story out of order? For a mystery? NOT a sin. Remember that, folks. There might be a test later. 1 star.

Very sweet and inspiring story.

After the election of Trump, King wanted to write a story trying to bridge the partisan divide. I personally do not believe this is possible. For me, what is going on is not a political disagreement. It's a moral one. But the fact that King tried gave us this very sweet short story with a wonderful and sad ending.

King is not remotely what I would call a perfect ally. But I liked the idea that Scott realizes that things he took for granted were not the reality for the people in the town struggling against bigotry. He slowly realizes this is something he never noticed because his privilege allowed him NOT to notice. This is something I have been guilty of too, so I recognized myself there.

It's also interesting that King wrote Diedre as initially frosty towards Scott and his overtures towards friendship. I actually understand why she's pissed. And despite the fact that Scott's intentions are good, nobody wants to feel like a Special Project or a charity case. And while I know Scott's intentions ARE good, really, how else could you describe this? The fact that Diedre comes around does not remotely make me think her earlier aggravation was unwarranted, whether she apologized later or not. I get her frustration. I love her ending every argument with "Good discussion." It shows a wry sense of humor on her end.

King Connections Of Note: Lots. Castle Rock. George Bannerman and what happened to him in "Cujo" is mentioned. The Suicide Stairs from "Gwendy's Button Box" are mentioned (although the timeline of them having supposedly been demolished only "a few years earlier" feels a bit off). Inside View from "The Dead Zone". The Night Flier from "The Night Flier" is mentioned. The band named Pennywise and the Clowns is a reference to "IT".

I think it was a bit foolish (and corny) for King to write something to help people of different political beliefs come together despite all of society's current woes. But the story is cute, and heartwarming as hell because his heart is actually in the right place. 4 1/2 stars.

Out of the most recent books King has written, "The Institute" is probably my favorite. It's his best modern work. What I love is it takes a bunch of ideas from earlier King books that didn't quite work, and MAKES them work. The bond of the kids is from "IT", only it's not icky, and the book isn't repulsive. The government agency abusing psychic kids is like "Firestarter", except Luke Ellis makes a better protagonist than Charlie and Andy McGee. And Stackhouse's form of madness and losing control is similar to Kurtz's from "Dreamcatcher", but feels credible instead of ridiculous. I buy the kids driving Stackhouse a little nuts. I never bought Kurtz being a person that openly crazy as high-up where he was. Or at least I didn't before Trump. But Stackhouse is a credible villain.

What's great is that King is not just exploring kid empowerment over supernatural evil. The evil in the book is quite banal compared to Pennywise or Randall Flagg. There's nothing supernatural or even unusual about it. Even though Greg Stillson from "The Dead Zone" was perfectly human and had no supernatural powers, his brand of craziness was still unique. The cruelty and deliberate violence of the Lisping Man's organization is the definition of banal. The rectal thermometers? No possible good reason exists for them. Even if what the Lisping Man was saying about the precogs was true, there is no reason they needed to use and abuse psychic kids to take out those targets. Absolutely none. Which means their power moves of abuse and rectal thermometry are not just guesswork. But bad and lazy guesswork by people refusing to admit they may have made a mistake. I dispute Luke destroyed the world by destroying the Institutes because they still have the precogs, and can do something about those targets if they still believe it necessary. What they can't do is abuse and molest children to keep their own hands clean. If the work needs to be done, the people doing the actual killing need to accept the potential consequences. The kids weren't actually the key to saving the world. They were simply the way the Lisping Man could avoid accountability for his actions. He's still perfectly free to sanction murder of dangerous people. He still has the precogs. The only thing he no longer has is the shield of anonymity the kids gave him. If he sanctions an actual murder, he could get caught now, and has skin in the game. No matter what he tells the kids about what THEIR responsibility is, the truth is he has been shirking his. I wish King thought to bring this up in the book himself, but I think leaving it an open controversy, and something the kids half-regret is a valid storytelling choice. It's not the RIGHT perspective for the kids, but maybe having Tim be wise enough to give them it would be giving the book TOO happy of an ending.

This is the first piece of fiction I have ever been glad to hear a character say, "You're in the South now." It is subversive King found a way to do that and make me happy instead of furious. I won't give him moral props for it, but I confess to loving the moment anyways. Damn him.

I talk a lot of smack about Stephen King. Mostly regarding his morality about race and other cultural controversies. But one of the things I LOVE about King, and this is a rare facet he shares with few purveyors of fiction (besides Spielberg and MAYBE the Duffer Brothers) is that King loves smart kids. He makes Luke cool and admirable and someone the reader likes. I have found most geeks punish ALL kids in genre for Wesley Crusher's sins. Because Wesley was so bad, it automatically makes people believe ALL kids in genre, particularly gifted ones, are obnoxious and annoying. King refuses to accept that note from nerds, and it's refreshing, and as the creator of Bernadette Anderson, I love him for it. Maybe the actual reason fans think kids are annoying is because most of fiction never bothers to put in the work to prove those fans wrong. King does. Cool, smart, likable kids matter to King, so King matters to me as a writer. I will never dismiss that aspect of him, as grossed out as I am by some of his output.

I love Avery. His love and appreciation for his friends reminds me of Luna Lovegood, except I don't have regret surrounding my love of the character in hindsight. I am allowed to love Avery's sacrifice as the triumph for him finding love and acceptance among friends for the first time in his young, doomed life it is, simply because King is not the dirtbag Jo Rowling turned out to be. King isn't perfect. But I still feel perfectly comfortable loving and being moved by Avery's gratitude as he died.

King Connections: Jerusalem's Lot is mentioned by Orphan Annie as a place that became a ghost town 40 years ago, and she suggests whatever happened to the people there is a part of this conspiracy.

Maybe those earlier books with similar premises I disliked were King's practice to getting everything right here. I can't argue with the results. It's not just his best recent book. It's one of his best books period. There really is nothing much for me to complain about, which is hella rare for fiction. For King, even stuff I love as much as this, it's unheard of. 5 stars.

"In The Tall Grass" and "Throttle" are collected here, so this book gets reviewed for Stephen King Book Club.

On the whole, I confess I don't Hill's writing. Richard Bachman has been described as "Stephen King without a conscience", and that goes mostly for Joe King's pen name too. I though "Late Returns" was great, but even the other "good" stories were morally problematic. Not a fan, and I won't be reading anything else of his. Overall: 2 stars.

Introduction: Who's Your Daddy?

I hate Stephen King's nonfiction (he writes like an elitist snot) and it's actually a bit of s surprise Joe Hill's voice sounds exactly the same. I mean, yeah, father and son. But you'd figure Hill would take pains to have a separate voice, especially in the introduction for people who've never read him. 2 1/2 stars.

Throttle with Stephen King

I need to see Duel at some point. I've been searching the streaming services for it for months.

Vince's fury at his son at the end was righteous. I didn't like much of the story, but I liked that.

I like people who think that people who use meth are "gamy". That's a good word for it.

All right. 2 1/2 stars.

Dark Carousel

Very much a Stephen King-type story. Although the Narrator actually survives, which is good. 2 1/2 stars.

Wolverton Station

Weird story.

This takes a bit after EC Comics is making the protagonist so detestable you don't care what bad things happen to him. Bit of a cliche, but probably a cliche for a reason. 3 stars.

By The Silver Water Of Lake Champlain

The ending is sad and wistful. The problem is the other kids in the story besides Gail and Joel are so damn stupid and obnoxious. Joel would probably still be alive if they ween't. 2 stars.

Faun

This story asks the question of what would happen if it had been Eric Trump and Don Jr. who had found the door to Narnia.

Not a single protagonist in the story is remotely likable which makes what happens to them feel just and GOOD. I enjoyed their deaths very much.

Dark, sadistic story that had me enjoying the role of sadist myself by the end. 4 stars.

Late Returns

I give a couple of other stories in this collection positive grades but this is the only story I actually liked and enjoyed. It's the story most like a Stephen King story in that it's satisfying by the end. None of the other stories in the collection are.

The Joan Baez song must have special significance for Hill, even though he himself chose the pen last name.

I love the concept of reading books years before they were published. The cancer girl being granted the ability to read the final Harry Potter book is great. I also like that Hill correctly gets that the only thing the reader really wanted or needed from the last book was the truth about Snape. Nothing else actually mattered. That actually does not speak well of Jo Rowling's writing skills if that's true. But it was.

My favorite story in the book. 5 stars.

All I Care About Is You

Hill sheepishly says in the Author's notes that someday he'll learn to write a story with a happy ending. That's why this sucks. The story is sweet and cool (I laughed at Chip describing what "adult functions" he could not perform) and it has to ruin everything by revealing Iris is a sociopath. It pisses me off a little. 2 stars.

Thumbprint

The detestable protagonist will make the horror that occurs to them at the end of the story feel cathartic instead of terrible, but the problem is there are no freaking stakes. Stephen King understood this about midway through his run of short stories. Will Hill eventually? 1 1/2 stars.

The Devil On The Staircase:

A powerful fable about the true nature of human evil. I don't like the story, but I very much admire it. Not just the gimmick of the Courier staircase prose, but for feeling like an entirely separate thing than what Stephen King would ever write. Sad, to say, it's really the only story in the book that DOES feel like something King would not have written.

It's a chilling story exploring a sociopathic and purely evil narrator, that hints at even more chilling things to come. The fact that it is set in the past doesn't change how frightening it is.

Maybe we've heard those birds too. In 2016.

I'm freaking myself out. Moving on. 4 1/2 stars.

Twittering From The Circus Of The Dead

This story is repulsive, disgusting, contemptible, and horrible. Stories like this are why I don't like Joe Hill and think he has about a tenth of the talent of his father. 0 stars.

Mums

Disturbing story that makes you question its reality.

Personally, I think Jack is just crazy. It's the only real explanation that explains everything. I'm a big Occam's Razor guy. 3 stars.

In The Tall Grass with Stephen King

Stephen King has written unforgivably appalling stories. What makes this one perhaps more disgusting than any of the rest of them is that he wrote a story of a pregnant teenage girl being beaten into a miscarriage, and her brother eating the dead baby and feeding it to her... WITH HIS OWN SON. How does the dude sleep at night? I don't understand him sometimes, and I don't want to. 0  stars.

You Are Released

Very sad and depressing story. It is technically very well done but I did not enjoy it at all. 2 1/2 stars.

A Little Sorrow

I don't actually get this bit. I think I'm missing something. 2 1/2 stars.

Lovely solo Gwendy outing by Chizmar. I love the concept of the Magic Feather because it's not a McGuffin like the Button Box. It's just a lucky talisman. It has no real significance. And yet, when Richard Farris leaves it for her at the end I break out in a wide grin. It's the perfect ending to the book.

I REALLY love Richard Farris, and while at this point I still believe Chizmar was under the impression he was Randall Flagg, that just makes his kindness interesting to me. King later on decided in the final book that Farris worked for The White, and R.F. was a coincidence instead of a secret ID. I think Farris working for The White is the right move. Him not being Randall Flagg is a missed opportunity. I will go further into my thoughts there when I review the final book of the trilogy "Gwendy's Final Task".

King Connections Of Note: It's a Gwendy book, so legion. Chizmar IS a nerd. Sequel to "Gwendy's Button Box". The events of "The Dead Zone", "Cujo", and "Needful Things" are alluded to. Reginald "Pop" Merrill from "The Sun Dog" is mentioned. R.F. again, although again, the next book reveals that's a red herring. Also Dorrance Marstellar from "Insomnia" really gets around.

Other thoughts of note. I feel like the stuff with President Hamlin feels unresolved, and it makes the story take place not just in an alternate Universe from ours, but probably one in an alternate Universe from the books it alluded to. I have a feeling that in the continuities of the other books I mentioned (besides "Gwendy's Button Box") Clinton became President. Hamlin makes a good excuse to tempt Gwendy with the button though. The disappointment is nothing comes of it, good or bad, either way.

The Alternate Universeness of this makes the third book go down easier, not just the stuff with the Pyramids, but the stuff in Derry too.

I love this book. The best Stephen King book Stephen King never wrote. 4 1/2 stars.

I mostly like this collection of novellas. Holly Gibney stars in her first solo outing in the title story, although it's technically long enough to have been published by itself. Wee bit too long to be called a novella.

"The Life Of Chuck" is just amazing all around, and "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" is memorable too (or at least the first half is).

"Rat" however just plain sucks. I bet a lot of people like it, which makes me hate it even more. There is something infuriating to me about a crappy project clearly being designed to be loved by the popular masses. Those piss me off far more than honest failures.

3 good stories, 1 bad one. That's a pretty good ratio for one of these collections. Collection Overall: 3 1/2 stars.

Mr. Harrigan's Phone

It's a great and sweet and wonderful story, but if I am being brutally honest (and when I review stuff I always am) it's really only dynamite while Mr. Harrigan is still alive and imparting life lessons to Craig. Once he's died, the story loses a great deal of its punch and never gets it back. This happens in fiction sometimes. I have yet to see Full Metal Jacket, but everyone who has seen it has told me you might as well shut it off after Vincent D'Offrio's part is done. It's the only really interesting thing, and the same thing is true of Mr. Harrigan.

King Connections: Castle Rock and Harlow.

I DO love the story but the truth is it's only truly amazing for the first half. 4 stars.

The Life Of Chuck

This is one of those stories, that the more I reread it, the more I outright love it. It's about a guy's death, which makes it depressing on some level, but the whole "I contain multitudes" things is how I've always viewed the human brain and experience. Each person on Earth is a world in and of themselves. I think in the Mr. Harrigan story Craig remarked that every time an old person died, a library was destroyed. Well, I think King took that idea and really got the ball rolling here.

The busker scene is a pure delight, and one of the more joyful things King has ever written. Chuck is kind of a cipher in the story. We know he's a nice guy, a great dancer, faithful to his wife and family, but outside of knowing he's a good guy who is dying, we don't get details of his actual personality. But the busking makes you instantly love him, and one of your favorite King characters EVER, indistinct personality or not.

I also love the narrative chances the story took in each part being told out order, and from a slightly different perspective from different points in Chuck's life. Dying is a sad thing, and we know King he has the ability to make it ugly. But this story proves King also has the ability to make it beautiful, and open up the whole world for the Constant Readers. It's a wonderful and uplifting story about the saddest topic possible. Those contradictions are why I responded so positively to it. Probably the best story in the collection.

Fun fact: Each of the three parts was written separately, and King put them together for this collection. Usually if something like that happens I review each part individually. But each feels as equally important to the experience as the others. Even if King wrote them as individual stories, together they really aren't. This story is really something. 5 stars.

If It Bleeds

I'm not going to say it's great or perfect. But it's the first Holly Gibney story where King has such a firm handle on the character. It's really cool as a writer when you have a unique character you love and are protective of, and this is the first story I don't just feel it, I believe it. King has claimed Gibney is his favorite character before this, but "Mr. Mercedes" sucks, the other two Bill Hodges books were hit and miss, and "The Outsider" was shockingly terrible. You can call all that practice if you like, but King is determined to do right by Holly in this story. And for me, it's the first one he does.

King Connections: Holly Gibney was introduced in The Bill Hodges Trilogy, and this seems to be an indirect sequel to "The Outsider" (including a cameo from Ralph Anderson at the beginning and end). Inside View and "The Night Flier" are also mentioned.

If I have any complaints, it's the fact that the franchise goes right back to the notion of an Outsider. I feel like it should be more than this at this point. And King's future novel "Holly" agrees with me here, but the biggest problem with "If It Bleeds" is we are already treading familiar ground. That's not usually a bad thing for recurring characters. But it shouldn't happen in back-to-back projects either.

Still, Holly's voice feels surer and more real than ever. King has gotten the knack of a character he loves, and as a writer and creator of characters I love, I recognize and appreciate the feeling. 4 stars.

Rat

Why do I hate this story? I should like it. But I don't. It pisses me off as writer. Drew Larson pisses me off.

Just so we're clear when it comes to unlikable / despicable protagonists in Stephen King books, the bulk of them are usually writers. I don't know if it's because King is self-loathing on some level, but as a writer myself it annoys the hell out me.

Are we doing this? Am I really spending the bulk of the review of this collection griping about a story about a talking, Faustian rat? This is who I am now apparently. That's just terrific.

As far as protagonists go, King's writers are rarely nice, much less heroic. Bill Denbrough from "IT" has heroic qualities, as does Gordie La Chance from "The Body", but I find both characters loathsome for other reasons. Denbrough because he's a philanderer, Gordie because he is the poster boy for toxic masculinity. Gordie irks me especially for this because I don't remotely believe when King wrote "The Body" he ever believed anyone would perceive him that way. While I'm taking down King's writer characters, might as well point out King is too dumb to understand the autobiographical one is super gross, which suggests on some level, he is too. If Gordie's toxicity were to be considered a character fault it would be one thing, but I honestly don't believe King saw anything wrong with the character when he wrote him, which boggles my mind.

Paul Sheldon from "Misery" is a drunk and a drunk driver, but he is one of the only two writer characters King has done that I actually liked. The other is Mike Noonan from "Bag Of Bones" who is the only one I have no negative notes on.

Mort Rainey from "Secret Window, Secret Garden"? Blames his wife for his own problems so badly he goes insane and kills a bunch of people. Jack Torrance from "The Shining"? Another supposedly autobiographical character King is dumb enough to believe is sympathetic, while at every point he is on the page he is rude, manipulative, and incapable of taking responsibility for his own actions. Jim Gardner and Bobbi Anderson from "The Tommyknockers" aren't actually all bad, but they sure as hell did a LOT of damage in that book. Thad Beaumont from "The Dark Half"? Not A Very Nice Guy. Lisey Landon from "Lisey's Story" may have loved her late husband Scott, but he always struck me as a loon. About the only protagonist King wrote that I hate on the level of these jerks that ISN'T a writer is Burt from "Children Of The Corn". Of course, Burt's profession was never specified. He may have been a writer after all.

Why do I hate Drew Larson so much?

Because he's stupid. And he's stupid in ways that make me believe King is stupid. And he might be.

The shaking the hands with the sneezing shopkeeper with the snotrag thing is the stupidest thing I can't get over. It pisses me off. Drew chastises himself over and over for being dumb to do that, and not washing his hands after, but that's not a reasonable thing to realize in hindsight. I would never get NEAR the guy much less shake his hand. It's one of the biggest examples of Drew creating his own problems because he lacks even basic common sense.

The other thing that pisses me off about Drew is the reason I think maybe King is stupid. King's how-to writing guide "On Writing" is not something I remotely recommend. It has good advice on how to shop for an agents, but when it comes to how to actually write a book, King doesn't understand the way he writes is a handicap for most people, so he's telling them all to write in a very stupid fashion because it doesn't occur to him there are other better ways to write a book or a script. It never crosses his mind that just because he hates outlines that they aren't useful for almost every other writer. Which makes every single damn writing tip in that book completely useless.

Drew's fear of losing the book is not a real writing fear for a person who isn't stupid, or at least doesn't write in the stupid way King does. You have a good idea. You put it down and build the rest of the story around it. You don't keep it in your brain like some kind of magical talisman and hope the writing goes well enough that you don't lose the point of what you were trying to do or the very spark of the idea. I will entertain the notion that writer's block exists for some people. But the kind of block Drew is suffering from is due solely to the fact that he's writing the story in a stupid fashion. And he's only doing so because King doesn't understand you can actually write your story any damn way you please, and that he is not the arbiter of that, and does not speak for all writers. Why should he? He writes in a stupid way, figuring out the book blind as he goes along. Miraculously most of King's books don't actually suck. A few are even great. But there quite a few clunkers in the canon that would not exist if King was able to plan better endings instead of just hoping for the best and that things would eventually come together.

Drew is causing so much stress in his family because he writes in the same stupid way King does. Forget shaking the hand of a clearly sick guy. The reason the book is in trouble and he's in danger of losing it is he's not writing down the important beats as they come to him immediately. Which I contend is super dumb.

King Connections: TR-90 from "Bag Of Bones". Derry is also mentioned.

There a rat way to write a story and wrong way. For a story about a rat, King should learn to write the rat way. 1 star.

I love all of Stephen King's Hard Case Crime books, but "Later" might be my favorite. The thing I love about them is he's done three (so far) and all three have broken the rules of the crime / mystery genre for various reasons. "Later" is the one that's a horror novel, but both "The Colorado Kid" and "Joyland" are refreshing for being unlike any other book being published by that company too. I dig storytellers who break the rules. I like breaking 'em myself.

Uncle Harry's "I am," at the end a great twist. What's ironic is that there really isn't an overreaching mystery to this book, at least not one involving a crime needing to be solved. There is no real mystery-style wrap-up prose necessary. And yet I think the fact that Uncle Harry is Jamie's father is as big a surprise bombshell as the most unpredictable of legit mystery books, even if it has nothing to do with a crime. Or does it? Jamie doesn't want to know the whole answer and neither do I.

Liz is a VERY good villain because Jamie is absolutely right that she used to have legit good points. That's what makes her falling apart so horrible.

The gimmick of seeing dead people is also unusual for Hard Case Crime (although ghosts are present in "Joyland"), but I really dug King sort of connecting this book to "IT",(a book I otherwise detest). But it was still sort of amazing to hear the concepts of the Ritual of Chud and the Deadlights brought back for characters outside of the Losers' Club. That's a pretty neat treat for longtime King readers. Neither "Joyland" nor "The Colorado Kid" connected FIRMLY to other King stuff, so that's another rule this book broke.

If King did nothing but write Hard Case Crime books for the rest of his career, I wouldn't object. Hell, he could put Holly Gibney in them! She'd fit right in! SO good. 4 1/2 stars.

It's a rare novel that King seems to be writing in a voice other than his own. He's usually not able to do that. Most of his first person and third person narrators sound like variations of him. Billy doesn't narrate much of the book besides the chapters he writes, but when King writes from his perspective in the third person, the writing becomes simpler, somewhat childish, and detailed-oriented, specifically precautions a criminal would take that regular people would never notice. Some of it is no doubt paranoia and overcorrection, but the bad guys WERE really out to get him, weren't they? Probably why he got as far as he did.

I like his friendship with Bucky. I especially like that Bucky asks Alice if Billy really called him a bad man. He's sounds disappointed, but the thing is, it's true, and something Alice needed to hear.

As he's gotten older King has gotten a lot less gross in his writing. 20 years ago Billy and Alice would have consummated things as some sort of middle-aged wish fulfillment on King's end. He properly has Billy set the correct boundaries instead.

What Billy does to Tripp is not something I find remotely acceptable or any kind of justice. That is one thing there can never be "an eye for an eye" about.

King Connections: The ruins of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining can be seen and it's mentioned it was haunted. Billy and Alice stop in Hemingford Home, Nebraska. Another young woman near her age ALSO named Alice Maxwell was a main character in the novel "Cell". It's possible this novel's Alice is her Twinner on a different level of the Dark Tower, although the timelines might not match up (even though the exact year "Cell" was set was never specified).

I think King did a relatively poor job with simple hard-boiled prose in "Mr. Mercedes". "Billy Summers" is more successful there. 4 stars.

A turn-around hardcover double-pack of a novella from Stephen King and Steward O'Nan, and one from Richard Chizmar, from Cemetery Dance Publications. Overall: 3 stars.

A Face In The Crowd by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan

The problem with this short story is that the main character Evers is SUCH an unlikable jerk. The only thing he did in the story I liked was telling Kaz they should have been nicer to Lester or left him alone.

It's a shortish novella, but it's not very good. You want a GOOD King / O'Nan team-up, read the nonfiction book "Faithful". 2 1/2 stars.

The Longest December (Expanded Version) by Richard Chizmar

It's a pretty fast and interesting read, but the truth is it ends too suddenly and I feel unsatisfied with the lack of closure. It reminds me of the Stephen King novella "A Good Marriage", only King's version satisfied me. I enjoy reading it but I don't like where it leaves off. A weak ending can ruin an otherwise strong story. 3 stars.

It's a charming as hell book. King doesn't do enough fantasy for my liking, or at least not fantasy that isn't as ghastly as "The Dark Tower" was in places. This one, like "The Eyes Of The Dragon", is a real crowdpleaser. Unlike "The Eyes Of The Dragon" it's adults only. Which is fine.

Charlie Reade, the protagonist, narrates the book himself, and I mentioned in the review for "Billy Summers" that most of King's male viewpoint characters sound exactly like him, no matter their age. And yes, that's true for Charlie too. I don't know if that a storytelling weakness per se. Let's just call it a consistency.

I love Charlie's devotion to Radar. And despite the fantasy trappings here, the King story this REALLY reminds me of is "Mr. Harrigan's Phone". Bowditch is a far more contemptible character than Harrigan was, but in fairness to this book, once Harrigan exits his story, I lose interest. When Bowditch exits his is when the fun begins.

I like the fact that Charlie acknowledges that his deeds and actions make him seem like a prototypical boy adventure hero, and he reminds the reader that he has done some terrible things no hero should ever do, to explain the heartless but righteous choices he is forced to make as the story goes along. If Charlie were a better person, he'd probably be dead. His inner demons were the thing that kept him alive in the worst of those situations.

King Connections: KIND of weird one. "Cujo" is mentioned as a film (which isn't unusual). But besides the "other worlds than these" shtick, the references to "The Dark Tower" get kind of murky when Charlie claims his father learned the expression "Long days and pleasant nights," from a book. I was like "What the Keystone Earth?!" Also Inside View, although that one is pretty much as much of a gimme, as Castle Rock, Derry, and Hemingford Home.

King writes good books often but satisfying books less often. I think the push for the fairytale happy ending is probably what made him go the extra mile for a satisfying conclusion. And as a person who loves satisfying endings, and believes fiction doesn't deliver enough of them, that makes me happy.

Pretty cool book by Sai King. 4 1/2 stars.

Worth it. Totally worth it.

I'll tell you where Stephen King messed up. And it's a biggie. But the cool thing is I can just pretend he didn't. It's ambiguous enough to be left open to interpretation. But Richard Farris (R.F.) was originally designed to be one of Randall Flagg's MANY aliases. As this book came to pass King decided that because Farris needed to be on the side of The White after all, R.F. is just a meaningless coincidence.

It's like King doesn't understand his own damn canon.

"There are other worlds than these". The idea that there are levels of the Dark Tower where Randall Flagg / Walter O'Dim / Marten Broadcloak's Twinner is on the side of angels is built into the premise of Kingverse Multiverse! And it's a wonderful and interesting premise that King himself should have leapt at. Somewhere out there exists a GOOD Randall Flagg to balance out the bad one! It's a perfect idea, and just because King lacks the wisdom to use it, doesn't mean I won't pretend it's true. Nothing disproves the theory here, and in fact the hands without lines and Gwendy touching him feeling bad feeds into it.

I recently wrote an essay bemoaning how bad fan suggestions were. But we are HELLA good at Marvel No-Prize-level excuses / rationalizations for clear mistakes. Creators: Maybe don't listen to us for suggestions about future projects. But we're totally willing to clean up messes for you in hindsight. You don't even have to ask. Or pay us. We'll do it automatically and for free. Because fandom isn't ENTIRELY worthless.

I think my biggest damn objection to the book is that King's politics already feel dated, especially for a book set in 2026. I grant that Gwendy's Magic Feather and the pyramids things proves this doesn't exist on Keystone Earth. But the politics feel wrong for the age of Trump too. King has always been a well-meaning liberal, but his understanding of politics is very basic. Maine is a blue state at the state level. A MAGA Republican could not get elected Senator there in the 2010's. Granted Former Governor Paul LePage was pretty extreme, but he didn't win the majority of vote either time, and squeaked by twice solely due to a third party spoiler. I think King lives in a VERY conservative area of Maine which leads him to believe the state is redder than is. Yes Trump got one of Maine's electoral votes twice. But he still decisively lost the state based on vote percentages. Both times. I think King is under the mistaken impression he state is more Republican than it is. King should spend less time in diners chatting up folks in red hats and maybe look at the voter trends on 538.com.

Speaking of voting trends, King's political prognostication is poor on every level. He predicts that Trump's election was a conservative realignment instead of blip, but Democrats have won most of the major elections since then (outside of Virginia's governorship in 2021). He also suggests the Vice-President in 2026 is male, well-meaning, and stupid. I will concede it's possible (and maybe probable) that in 2026 the Vice-President will be one of those things (or worst case scenario two). Them being ALL of those things is freaking unlikely. Plus, remember the crazy president from Magic Feather? If Bill Clinton was never elected, it's possible Roe V Wade was already overturned, and Trump never could have gotten elected at ALL. King never seems to think about or plot out nuances like this when it comes to alternate universes and histories. His doomsday scenario in 11/22/63 sounds horrifying, but unlikely in the recent living memory of WWII and Hiroshima. Chizmar should know better about this stuff too.

I guess as someone on the left, I always am fascinated by how many of the people on my side of the aisle misread the cultural mood and get things wrong. I think we tend to believe we are always in worse shape than we actually are. I'm just saying it would be nice if the speculative politics or a book set in 2026 would seem credible back in 2023 when this book was released, much less 2024 when I wrote this review. I know political prognostication is tough work but it's hard to believe somebody is THIS far off even two years before it happens.

I guess the fact that this ISN'T Keystone Earth raises even MORE questions beside just the politics. If this isn't Keystone Earth (and it isn't) why does the Tet Corporation exist? Sombra too? I was never crazy that 11/22/63 retconned the idea that Derry was a healing town after the Loser killed IT for good in 1986 and suggested the two itself was perceived as gross and obscene by any outsider who visited. But I rolled with it because that bit WAS set in the early 1960's way before IT was truly vanquished. The clown supposedly still being around in 2026 suggests one of two things: Ben Hanscomb missed one of the eggs. I find the notion unlikely, although "Dreamcatcher" and "The Tommyknockers" lend SOME weight to the idea. More likely on this level of the Dark Tower, the Loser failed, IT killed them all, and never went away. That is both likelier and easier for me to accept. There was no part of IT's ending that was remotely acceptable. The idea that they didn't get Pennywise after all? Won't accept that retcon for a second.

Also sloppy is suggesting Gwendy's second Congressional term takes place in 2003. "Gwendy's Magic Feather" (which details her first term) takes place in the mid-1990's. Robin Furth should have caught this even though Magic Feather was written by Chizmar alone.

King Connections: "IT" and "The Dark Tower". Final book in the Gwendy trilogy. Dark Score Lake is from "Bag Of Bones". R.F. (Counting it Uncle Stevie, and you can't stop me). Castle Rock. Norris Ridgewick was introduced in "Needful Things". A lot of the Can-Tois' and the cars' backstory can be learned in "Low Men In Yellow Coats" and "From A Buick 8".

I love a book that I can both nitpick, and come up with alternate explanations for seeming mistakes. And Gwendy Peterson is SUCH an appealing character for me I'm willing to go that extra mile on her behalf. Not everything is gonna line up perfectly in my headcanon here. But for a LOT of it, I'm willing to move some stuff around. It's all clutter to me anyways. 4 1/2 stars.