Book reviews

As a gift I got Stephen King’s Under the Dome, his latest mega-book* filled with a cast of thousands. This was the hardcover edition so it was heavy enough to double as a weapon to bludgeon with. It proved too unwieldy for my daily commute so I picked it up in ebook form and started in, hooked by the simple yet undeniable high concept of “What would happen if an essentially impenetrable invisible dome suddenly cut off a small town from the rest of the world?” If you guessed “very bad things” you would be correct!

King is adept at handling a large cast of characters and in Under the Dome he does a good job of giving the various characters distinct personalities that you will like, hate or just plain loathe. Especially loathe.

Spoilers ahead without spoiler tags. If you haven’t read the novel and plan to, read on at your peril!

Overall I liked it. For a big fat book the pace moves along quickly. In fact, the pace also seems too swift, with with everything in the quaint burg of Chester’s Mills going to hell in just a few days. I kept flipping back and forth between thinking it was unrealistic that civility and social norms would collapse so quickly and accepting that this is exactly what would happen. Shorter: people suck. King plays on that big time.

For the citizens of the town it doesn’t help that their corner of Maine is under the thumb of second selectman Jim Rennie, as vile a villain as King has ever written. At times almost cartoonishly evil, Rennie is perfectly rotten to the core and many a reader may find themselves distracted mulling over the horrible end King has in mind for him, because surely someone as evil as this man (who has gotten away with murdering his wife before the story begins and finds murdering people who get in his way kind of like eating a bag of Lay’s) is going to come to a fitting end.

Ah, the end, the bane of so many otherwise outstanding King stories. On the one hand the ending of Under the Dome works well enough and King certainly doesn’t try to pull a fast one on the reader. Quite to the contrary, the ending is heavily foreshadowed and is the ultimate Very Bad Thing that happens to the hapless people caught under the big bubble. But it also feels a bit like a cheat because it deliberately subverts and destroys nearly everything that has happened in the story up to that point. All of the machinations of Rennie and his cronies literally go up in smoke (and lots of fire), which is convenient in terms of bringing events to a conclusion but I am left wondering if the story would have been better served by letting the dome persist and have the battle between Rennie and his opponents play out over weeks or months rather than a mere four days.

Still, this is a case where the journey is still worth it even if the destination isn’t entirely to your taste. Some of the science is wonky and certain plot points are a inconsistent or little too convenient (people become very bad shots at the worst times) but none of this bothered me, not even Chester’s Mill–a town of less than 2,000–being home to the largest meth lab in the U.S. Hey, why not?

Under the Dome may have its flaws but it’s still an interesting, if depressing, take on how tenuous our civilized world is.

* distinct from his other books, which weigh less than four pounds

I recently read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (preferred text edition). I’ve never known any of the plot details of the book, reaching back to its debut in 2001 but the title alone, so simple yet evocative, has always intrigued me. In the years since the book’s release I’ve experienced assorted movies and stories by Gaiman, so I’ve became familiar with his work and style. When the ebook version of American Gods went on sale I snapped it up and dove in.

The preferred text edition adds about 11,000 words, which is a fair chunk, but having not read the book before, I have no idea what was added or changed. There didn’t seem to be any conspicuous padding, so I can tentatively declare the additions a success.

Overall I enjoyed it, though I was never fully engaged by the protagonist, Shadow. Even the reveal at the end didn’t quite make up for how glibly and readily he accepted all the weirdness suddenly appearing in his life. But maybe some people (especially in a world where gods literally walk the earth) are more adaptable than others.

Gaiman does his usual excellent work at weaving the fantastic and mundane together, something that works especially well with a backdrop that amounts to a road trip across America. The Lakeside scenes are especially good at capturing that quaint, almost mythical (ho ho) small town feeling.

There’s not much else to say, except that this edition includes a bizarrely exhaustive set of reading material at the end of the book, including classroom discussion topics, deleted scenes and more. The classroom stuff made me feel I was back in my grade 10 English class. I’m not altogether certain I liked that. 😛

This review was originally posted on Broken Forum.

I decided to take advantage of one of my e-reader’s main strengths by finally reading The Stand Complete and Uncut Edition. I bought the paperback of the original The Stand back in 1980 (I was 15), devoured it quickly and loved it – except for the deus ex machina which struck me as pretty dumb. In 1990 I bought the hardcover of the uncut edition. It’s over 1150 pages long and weighs four pounds. Picking it up to read felt like exercise and I didn’t exercise.

It stayed unread for 20 years.

But I noticed the book in the Kobo store for something like $9 and I thought, “Am I willing to add $9 to the $23 I already spent on the hardcover edition I bought and never read in 1990?” That $23 is what you call a sunk cost, so I put down the nine bucks and grabbed it. There is no danger of the e-book version of The Stand putting my back out when I pick it up and for this I am grateful.

Now the questions were: Would this story still resonate with me 33 years later? Would I even recognize the additions/changes in the uncut edition? The answer to both is yes!

Stephen King changed the time frame of the story from 1980 to 1990 when he added those 400 or so pages back to the text and updated some pop culture references to keep things in order. There are a few minor slips here and there and generally the novel still feels like it’s set in 1980. The 70s vibe resonates clearly, swipes at President Bush (the elder) notwithstanding, but in the end it’s not really a negative. Trying to rework the language and flavor of the story to make it better fit 1990 would have been a fool’s errand.

There’s also a certain level of amusement to be found in how King presents ‘old’ characters like Glen Bateman, a sociologist in his 50s (King was 27 or so when he wrote the book). Invariably they are slow, arthritic — physically enfeebled but usually wise. I’d almost forgotten that sense of immortality you have in your 20s. The world and time stretch out endlessly before you. People in their 50s? Almost dead!

The story itself holds up just fine. The massive sprawl of the uncut edition pulls off the impressive feat of never feeling flabby or excessive. King has fleshed out the characters by restoring scenes that don’t change the story but enrich it. Trashcan Man especially benefits from this, adding a layer of pathos to what was largely just a crazy firebug. I was surprised at how Flagg himself comes across (I realize he appears in The Dark Tower series but I’ve not read that, so I only know him from his appearance here) because I remember him being much scarier in the original. Despite having numerous magical abilities he seems strangely weak and unsure here. The new ending that puts him in charge of a primitive tribe on some remote tropic island is downright funny.

And what about that deus ex machina at the end? I remembered it vividly — the literal hand of God appears and blows up the nuclear warhead, vaporizing Las Vegas, ending the stand with a bang. I don’t know if it’s been changed in the uncut edition but in it the hand is never described as being exactly that. One character refers to it as such and the text offers that it did look like a hand but it feels like King hedges a bit by avoiding the precise phrasing that would state YES THIS IS ACTUALLY GOD’S HAND, PRETTY CLEVER EH? It also seems the hand doesn’t directly set off the bomb, it just pushes Flagg’s big ol’ electric spark into it, underlining how playing with fire (Trashy and Flagg alike) is very very bad. In all, the hand didn’t bother me this time.

If you’re looking for an end of the world story with a large cast of endearing/crazy characters (most of whom smoke a lot, something King himself must have been doing at the time because it felt like every character smoked because the author did) and you haven’t read The Stand, I can recommend the complete and uncut edition (the only one you’ll find new) unreservedly. It’s an often bleak but surprisingly brisk-paced ride.

Having already read Joe Hill’s short story collection 20th Century Ghosts and his second novel Horns, I felt it was time to check out his debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box.

This is a tale of revenge as delivered though a mean ghost inhabiting a haunted suit, a simple story, told directly and played out at a brisk pace. It’s lean to the point of having virtually nothing in the way of subplots but that’s okay because the core story is vividly drawn. The main character of aging heavy metal star Judas Coyne could have easily lapsed into cliche or stereotype (imagine Ozzy Osborne being cast in a movie adaptation) but Hill does a good job of making him feel genuine, turning the life or death struggle with the ghost into a chance for Coyne to redeem himself, at least in part, for past sins. Some may prefer the ending to be more Grimdark™ but I was pleasantly surprised and found it fun, even playful.

I can’t think of anything in the way of meaningful criticism toward the story. Perhaps Hill has gotten some of the details of life in a heavy metal band wrong. If so, I haven’t detected them. On the plus side, I especially like how Hill’s characters and Coyne in particular behave realistically and yet believably. There are no ‘walk into a dark room without turning on the lights’ moments. The characters may be vulnerable or out of their depth at times but they’re also smart and resourceful.

Recommended.

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons is a semi-autobiographical novel set in the rural Illinois town of Elm Haven in the summer of 1960. The ‘semi’ part is due to the use of fictional characters and unspeakable ancient evil featured throughout the story.

The edition I have is from 2011 and includes a new introduction by the author in which he underlines how much things have changed for kids since 1960, with the ‘safe’ distance they can travel from home being severely reduced and the preponderance of safety measures that act to stifle as much as protect. Like bike helmets or something. The whole thing comes off as a bit of a rant and worse, Simmons spoils a major part of the book without warning. If you happen to read Summer of Night (and as you’ll see I think it is very much worth doing so), skip the intro until after you’ve read the book.

The story begins with the end of school for the summer and the closing of the cavernous Old Central School that the half dozen boys of the self-named Bike Patrol attended. But the school happens to contain a wee bit of very old evil that wants out. The rest of the story sees the boys alternate between idyllic summer days spent playing baseball, swimming and hanging around and running for their lives to escape from the horrors slowly being visited upon their town. All the while they work to figure out what’s really going on and how (or if) they can stop it.

Simmons does a terrific job in capturing classic childhood fears–monsters in the closet (it’s true), things trying to grab you from under your bed (yep, true) and horrible monsters in the dark (true again, and it’s even worse than you imagined). There’s also an undercurrent of ‘teachers are evil’ that will probably delight many a school-aged kid reading this.

As with most horror novels there are a few things–notably a kid’s behavior here and there–that don’t make much sense when you start thinking about it, and the climax feels oddly rushed, as if Simmons was impatient to be done with the story or lost interest once it switched over from nostalgic reminisce to full-blown horror. I also didn’t care for the handful of blatant contrivances Simmons uses to help push the plot along (the smart kid’s father basically invents the telephone answering machine, as one example). Overall, though, it’s an enjoyable, albeit somewhat predictable ride. The recreation of small town America in the early 60s feels authentic as all get-out and the boys, parents and citizens of Elm Haven are all nicely drawn, whether they are upstanding and honest, unrepentant bullies or a bit undead.

You’ll also be glad to never set your eyes on a rendering truck.

Southern Gods is one of those books that can be glibly, though accurately, summed up with a trite phrase. In this case it would be “Cajun Cthulhu”. The title holds great promise on what turns out to be a strangely small scale adventure considering the subject matter of gods trying to destroy our world.

The story begins by following the lead of hired muscle “Bull” Ingram, a giant of a man who has been tasked by a DJ to track down a man he’s sent out to sell records to local radio stations. As Ingram journeys across the 1951 south he uncovers dark horrors that suggest the very world itself may be in peril due to malevolent and ancient gods trying to bust on through.

The early chapters are promising. Ingram is a rough but likable kind of lug and the mystery behind the pirate radio station that broadcasts music to go crazy by, along with Hastur, a devilish Blues musician, are set up nicely. Things start to come apart at the Ruby, a nightclub Ingram goes to in order to meet–and kill–Hastur. The scene is a literal orgy of violence that sets in motion the rest of the events and despite the author’s loving attention to every gory detail, the depiction fell flat for me. As I mentioned in the Broken Forum thread and in agreeing there with another poster, Drastic, when you’re openly invoking the Cthulhu mythos as Jacobs does here, sure you can bring your own take to the material but if you stray too far it’s no longer really Cthulhu anymore but its own thing. That in itself isn’t bad but reducing the Necronomicon to a book filled with grotesque imagery that makes you go crazy just looking at it, feels unconvincing. The angle with the music and singing, which struck me as far more interesting and original,  is largely forgotten once the bad books are uncovered, to the story’s detriment.

The ‘love’ interest may as well have come with lug nuts, it was so blatantly bolted onto the plot. The other leading protagonist, Sarah, seemed to switch between being weird and emotional to focused and strong more on the requirements of the story than through any natural character arc. I felt nothing in regards to the daughter Franny’s fate because for most of the book the character is tucked away in the background.

In the end, what started out as an intriguing take on the Cthulhu mythos ends up a disappointment that focuses on the wrong things. I also noticed a strangely high number of typos and grammatical errors in the book. Somewhere in the first half of this book is a great take on the Cthulhu setting but the second half squanders it for what is basically a protracted slugfest. Not exactly what I imagined in a ‘evil gods out to enslave humanity’ story.

I recently finished reading John Dies at the End by David Wong, editor of cracked.com*. This is not a long book but it took nigh-forever to finish reading because every reading session was started just late enough that I’d nod off within 30 minutes. This is not a knock against the book, it would have happened no matter what I was reading at the time.

This is a silly and plot-light tale that began as an Internet thing™ and eventually evolved into an actual book (which I bought via the Internet, thus completing the circle). It follows a pair of dopey guys in their mid-20s as they fight weird-ass (and I use the term literally) demons and other things that threaten to destroy the world as we know it. Apart from an ending that feels a bit like “Uh, how do I wrap this all up?” the journey is fast-paced, absurd and often very funny. The sub-genre of funny horror is ill-served so this is a welcome addition to it.

If you are a humorless monster (and I use the term literally) you may not find this to be a literary masterpiece but that’s okay. There’s already a sequel out for you to froth over. I’m not picking it up yet because it’s still out of my price range but I will eventually. Sorry, Mr. Wong–if that’s your real name (spoiler: it’s not).

* I still can’t decide if Cracked was an excellent alternative to Mad magazine or a shameless ripoff. Probably a little of both. The website is nothing like the magazine of yore, which is not a bad thing. It’s just a web thing.