Reviews

Book review: The Illustrated Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft

The Illustrated Complete Works of H.P. LovecraftThe Illustrated Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read most of Lovecraft’s fiction back when I was a teen, initially drawn to his work not by his reputation or fame but by the lurid Michael Whelan cover art found on the 1981 paperback editions published by Del Rey. The art is fantastically creepy, even if it doesn’t particularly relate to Lovecraft’s stories. You can see the two pieces (chopped up to span seven paperbacks) at Whelan’s site here and here.

I picked up this particular collection because it assembles all of Lovecraft’s stories in chronological order, allowing the reader to experience both the growing skill of Lovecraft as a writer and the expansion and iteration of his favorite themes, settings and tentacles. The included illustrations are merely serviceable but given the price of the volume, that’s a non-issue.

I read the collection over the course of many months, usually taking in a story or two between novels. Not to get all up in the puns, but this is probably the sanest way to read his work. Lovecraft wrote some frightful horror but most of it is delivered in the form of dense, baroque prose that feels as antiquarian as the tombs and ruins his narrators stumble upon. His characters are also strangely mute, with little in the way of spoken dialogue–but this turns out to be a good thing, because as elaborate as Lovecraft’s phrasing could get, he had an undeniable style and facility with language that was completely absent when he presented characters talking to each other. No actual person would ever speak the way a Lovecraft character does. It’s like watching an early rehearsal of a high school play in 1915. A bad high school play.

But if you tackle his body of work with some restraint there are some great stories in here, and any horror buff would be remiss in not sampling at least the better-known works, ranging from the mythos-establishing “The Call of Cthulhu” to the short novel “At the Mountains of Madness,” which eschews most of Lovecraft’s excessive flourishes and in turn stands as one of his most chilling stories, as an expedition explores and uncovers the horrors found in ancient cyclopean ruins deep in the Antarctic.

Lovecraft is at his best when he paints surreal landscapes, often literal dream worlds that his protagonists wander through, sometimes emerging mad, sometimes not emerging at all. Conversely, he is at his worst when his racism and classism comes through, with villains typically described as “swarthy,” “thick-lipped” or otherwise not white and more specifically, not English. You could argue that he lived in a less-enlightened time but that’s really no excuse.

And don’t ask about the cat*.

Still, his influence and unique voice make him one of the essential horror authors and this collection allows one to experience his growth, if not as a person, then as a storyteller.

* the cat in his 1924 story “The Rats in the Walls” is named Nigger Man, after a cat Lovecraft himself owned

View all my reviews

Book review: Hell House

Hell HouseHell House by Richard Matheson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although Hell House may take its inspiration from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, mainly in the broad premise of a group of people investigating a haunted house, it departs from the relatively mild chills of Jackson’s tale and goes straight for the throat–and every other body part. The ghosts in Hell House are nasty things that mean to injure and even kill those daring to solve the home’s decades-old mysteries.

Matheson, perhaps best-known for his contributions to the original Twilight Zone TV series (“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” among others) has written a ghost story that leaves the reader wondering who is right–Florence Tanner, a medium brought to the house with three others to help uncover and perhaps banish whatever malefic force dwells within–or Lionel Barrett, a physicist who theorizes that ghostly doings are nothing more than residual energy that can be neutralized by a “reversor,” a large contraption covered with dials, buttons, switches and filled with vacuum tubes. You know, like a typical computer from 1970 (when the story takes place).

Tanner and Barret are joined by Barrett’s wife, Edith, and another medium, Ben Fischer, who as a teenager had been part of a disastrous attempt to clean the house in 1940, an attempt that left everyone but Fischer dead.

Promised loads of money by the house’s current owner if they can wrap up their investigation of life after death in a week, the foursome quickly discovers that the house is primed for a party in which everyone is invited…to die! Exploiting personal weaknesses of the four, the house’s spirits move quickly and violently to divide and conquer.

Matheson does a terrific job balancing tensions both between the four and between the sides of spiritualism and science. Also to his credit, there are no eyeball-rolling moments where characters do stupid things in order to advance the plot. There is a battle here between the living and the not-so-living and Matheson lets it play out in as believable a manner as you are likely to get in a story about a haunted house.

For a novel published in 1971, Hell House is surprisingly timeless. Apart from the above-mentioned “reversor” it could be updated to the present day without any substantial change, a testament to Matheson’s straightforward, character-driven approach. If you want a ghost story that is more than people wandering around the dark and hearing a few odd noises (ie. every limp ghost-hunting show ever), Hell House’s bricked-over windows, profane chapel and steam(ed to death) room will serve you well.

View all my reviews

Grandpa music

Some of the music I jog to is over 50 years old. Does that seem weird?

If someone in 1940 could have jogged to music, would they have jogged to music from 1890? Did they even have music back then? Maybe they just beat sticks on rocks or rocks on other rocks. Perhaps these rocks sometimes rolled away, leading to the birth of rock and roll.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I have largely entered the phase of life where nostalgia and seeking comfort in things from olden times begins to dominate, and this is reflected in my recent music purchases. I will point out I have at least moved from purchasing my music on 8-track cassette to digital format. Here are my last three purchases, the newest of which was released 28 years ago, predating the birth of some of my co-workers.

Breakfast in America – Supertramp (1979). My defense is I never previously owned a Supertramp album, this one is considered a classic, and there’s something about the sweep of the Wurlitzer electric piano and guitar in the chorus of “The Logical Song” that I find especially groovy. But yes, the album is 36 years old. Carter was still president.

Kick – INXS (1987). My defense is I never previously owned an INXS album. I never particularly wanted to, either, but Kick is one of those albums where a band, through some combination of luck, circumstance and talent, manages to put together a collection of songs that are nearly perfect in achieving what the band wanted. The album is loaded with pop gems and is a lot smarter than you’d expect from such a slick bunch of songs. The videos, most of them recorded in Prague, are just as confidently-shot as the music was produced.

In the Eye of the Storm – Roger Hodgson (1984). The first solo album from Supertramp co-founder and co-lead singer. The album and lead single “Had a Dream” were both hits in Canada and the single is what drove me to pick up the album. The whole album is quite good and feels like Supertramp with some of the art rock sensibilities sprinkled back in. “Had a Dream” builds through a long effects-laden intro and is as cynical as it is catchy. The video ponderously delivers its message, perilously toeing the line between “serious” and accidental self-parody. At one point a fetus is floating in space, 2001-esque, and then, matching Hodgson’s scream on the song, there’s a flash of lightning and the baby suddenly becomes Hodgson, floating naked and screaming in space. It’s possibly even worse than it sounds. Other parts of the video feature Hodgson fake-running while wearing nothing but a loincloth. I don’t know, either. Maybe it was a dream he had.

Review: In the Tall Grass (short story)

In the Tall GrassIn the Tall Grass by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Buyer’s note: This is a long short story, not a full novel (or even a novella). Consider this before spending your $4.99. I used a gift card because I was curious to see how the second King/Hill effort shook out. Plus the title is just plain interesting. What could be in the tall grass? The mind boggles at the endless list of awful things that could be there.

Spoiler note: I’m spoiling the story. If you want a quick take, read the rest of this paragraph then skip the rest: “In the Tall Grass” is much like the other father/son collaboration King and Hill did (“Throttle”) in that it’s a solid, entertaining read, but nothing more than that. There is no re-inventing the wheel, no characters that will stay with you for days or weeks after reading. It’s a tight horror story that preys on a fear most of us have: getting lost.

Specifically, the people in the story get lost in a huge field of tall grass that grows next to a creepy church somewhere out in Kansas. Brother and sister Cal and Becky are driving cross-country so Becky can carry her giving-up-for-adoption baby to term with at their aunt and uncle’s home. The journey is unremarkable until they approach the grass and hear a boy calling out for help. Being good sorts of people, they park and separately enter the grass to find the boy. For a time they hear what may be the boy’s mother warning them to stay away but of course it is too late by then, for the mother and, well, everyone.

The field and the grass seem to shift, creating an ever-changing maze where escape can be only feet away yet still impossible. Eventually Cal is found by the boy, who leads him to a strange, large rock in a clearing. Touch the rock and you suddenly know your way out but never want to leave because that rock is crazy and it loves spreading the crazy around.

It all ends horribly for everyone and the postscript has an RV full of potheads (the pot aspect is emphasized to a strange and almost absurd degree, maybe for comedic effect?) being lured in like Cal and Becky, suggesting the grass will continue to feed for some time to come. Or at least until winter, because a lush field of tall grass in the middle of a Nebraska winter is bound to draw a little attention from people maybe not so willing to dive in feet-first.

Oh, and don’t ask what happens after Becky gives birth in the field to her three-month premature baby. You don’t want to know, especially if you’re pregnant. Or eating. Or sane.

“In the Tall Grass” does a nice job of playing on a fear many might have–wading into a large field of grass or some other maze-like structure, becoming lost, and realizing we have no reliable way to navigate out. Then comes the crazy and cannibalism. Well, or maybe you just use your cell phone to call for help–except that doesn’t work, of course. And other than being decent but not compelling, that’s probably my only other nitpick with the story. Everything that might help the doomed siblings is waved away. Of course the cell phone loses its signal. Of course they immediately separate instead of heading into the grass together. It’s convenient but feels a little lazy. I’m not asking for Cal to have loaded a flamethrower in the trunk of his Mazda. I suppose I’m just not fond of watching helpless victims be helpless as they march to their inevitable demise. It’s more depressing than horrifying.

Well, except for the baby. That was definitely horrifying.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend dropping five bucks on “In the Tall Grass” but if it shows up in a collection it will make a fine addition. It’s a classic horror tale, just one that does nothing new or extraordinary.

View all my reviews

Book review: The Gate at Lake Drive

The Gate at Lake DriveThe Gate at Lake Drive by Shaun Meeks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One of the benefits of this kooky ebook thing is how it’s made it easier than ever for new authors to get their work out before the public. What was once a terrifying trip on roads filled with insane drivers, followed by navigating the madding crowds at the mall before arriving at your favorite bookstore outlet to look for and purchase a new book–hopefully they had it in stock if you didn’t call ahead–is now just a couple of clicks on a website. You can do the entire thing with one hand, even, like so many other fun activities.

The ease of getting books out there and the much more variable pricing–many new authors opt to discount their books well below what typical bestsellers go for as enticement–means the reader has a greater selection of choices than ever before.

All of this can be summed up as: sometimes I see a book by an author I’m unfamiliar with and the price is low enough that I am fine with taking the risk that the book will be a stinker.

The good news is that the eminently affordable The Gate at Lake Drive is not a stinker. The less-than-good-news is that author Shaun Meeks would have benefited from a sharper editor and another pass to strengthen recurring problems with the writing, primarily the use of unnecessary modifiers that serve to sap the strength from the prose. Told in the first person by monster hunter Dillon, the writing is often weakened by unneeded verbiage. I’m not saying adverbs are a prime evil as Stephen King would have you think, nor do I believe that every story needs to be written with a Hemingway-level obsession with being lean to the point of minimalist, but The Gate at Lake Drive is filled with equivocation, describing things as slightly this or somewhat that, giving the prose a mushy feel. Sometimes it’s better to just be direct and not worry that your writing will come off as spartan.

The Gate at Lake Drive is set to be the first of a series of books featuring monster hunter Dillon, who brands himself as a monster detective. His rationale is presented thusly: “And calling myself a monster detective beats the hell out of monster exterminator or buster or whatever else you want to call it. A detective seems slightly more serious in my opinion.” But he then adds “I called my site Monster Dick, knowing that eventually people will run a search on it and then BOOM, there I am in front of you.” The contradiction here–wanting to appear “serious” then using the terrible pun of “monster dick” to lure in potential customers (do people seeking large male members online often have monster problems?) feels less like a character quirk and more something the author thought was funny and simply determined to make work.

Now, with this pun being so prominent, I expected the story to be presented in a light, funny manner. And it is, sort of. The tone is light, with Dillon making regular sarcastic asides, but the humor never feels fully committed to. And that may be my biggest issue with the book. On the one hand, Dillon is a veritable dervish with his daggers and magical demon-fighting equipment, slicing and dicing and dispatching monsters with ease, yet he is also a paunchy virgin who somehow attracts a burlesque performer and instantly they fall for each other because who knows why? All of this is great material for an absurd, over-the-top story, but it never really takes off and the main reason is the way the character of Dillon tells the story. He is a cipher (there’s a twist) but also kind of bland. Meeks doesn’t exploit the the conflict between his bad ass monster-fighting and his allegedly awkward way around women. Instead, there’s an instant romance, sex (mercifully not described) and none of it connects because there’s no work done to connect it. It just happens.

A stronger editor would have helped, too. As someone who regularly bumbles through his own rewrites and misses things that are glaringly obvious, I can appreciate the fresh eyes of a skilled editor to see things an author doesn’t. There are numerous typos and other errors, problems with continuity–Dillon dons gloves at the beginning of one scene then mysteriously doesn’t have them on later in the same scene–that should have been caught and corrected.

The Gate at Lake Drive has the ingredients to be a fun romp but the different pieces never fit together as well as they should. The romance is the very definition of tacked-on. It almost feels like an entire subplot is missing. It’s obvious Meeks enjoys the character of Dillon, though, and with a stronger editor, I’m certain his next entry in the series will be an improvement.

View all my reviews

Book review: Idiot America

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the FreeIdiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Idiot America is a book filled with little that will surprise anyone who has been watching the devolution of U.S. politics, debate and public thought over the last forty (or more) years.

Pierce uses a series of events–the war in Iraq, the Terry Schiavo life-support battle, efforts to give “intelligent design” (creationism) equal footing in public schools–and couples them with observations and actions regarding the necessity of intelligent government and an informed, educated populace from the founders of America to paint a bleak picture of the current state for what passes for discussion (he argues there is little to no actual debate) in the current U.S. landscape. It is a relentlessly bleak picture, punctuated by the occasional triumph that shines like a diamond in a bin of coal.

Pierce presents his premise as such: intellect and expertise have somehow become regarded as undesirable qualities, things to be mistrusted or rejected outright. It is more important to have a president you’re comfortable having a beer with than one who can make nuance, evidence-based decisions on matters of foreign and domestic policy. The soundbite is better than the essay, hair is more important than the brain that resides beneath it.

Pierce argues that the gut (or Gut, as he calls it) has come to dominate thinking, with emotion displacing rationality and logic, where cranks who once had an audience no larger than the people passing by listening to them exhort their conspiracy theories on a street corner now have the wide reach of cable television and the instant access of the Internet to project their lunacy. At times caustically funny and by turns surprisingly lyrical, painting scenes with the care of a novelist, Pierce offers example after example of how idiocy has become ascendant.

As I read the book I found myself alternating between a sense of frustration and outright anger. The length to which people–who should be intelligent adults–fully and completely reject intelligent thought for ridiculous, easily-debunked hokum, is at times astonishing. If some fabrication is repeated often enough, Pierce says, it takes on the patina of truth. If enough people believe and believe fervently enough, it becomes indisputable fact. Actual facts no longer have any effect on these believers. People simply stop listening. There is no debate, there is no reaching out, there are only sides yelling at each other over who is right.

This is a depressing but important book. As I said at the beginning, there are no real surprises here, but Pierce catalogs the problems and hammers his points home. Given the circus that is the current group running for the Republican nomination for president, and given the wholesale manufacture of fiction in the guise of endless reality TV shows, it’s hard to believe that the situation is improving, but perhaps we can draw some hope that it can hardly get worse.

View all my reviews

Book review: Legion

LegionLegion by William Peter Blatty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In 1983, twelve years after The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty wrote Legion, a sequel of sorts that switches focus away from Regan MacNeil to the rumpled, philosophical and schmaltz-loving police detective William Kinderman as he investigates a series of gruesome murders in Georgetown. The novel presents the possibility that the supposedly deceased serial killer known as The Gemini Killer (modeled after the real-life Zodiac killer) has somehow started murdering again. As Kinderman investigates he begins to see signs that tie the new killings to the events surrounding the exorcism of Regan more than a decade earlier.

Kinderman is a character Blatty obviously loves writing about and it shows throughout Legion. The detective goes from long ruminations on the nature of evil to complaining about a live carp his mother-in-law is keeping in his bathtub (she likes her fish fresh). As the body count rises and Kinderman heads into the psych ward of a hospital looking for leads, things turn increasingly dark before coming to a head when it seems no one is truly safe from the killer or killers. Blatty has characters fighting to determine what is real and what isn’t as the demonic influence strengthens. Although I never found the novel especially scary, it is unnerving and the suspense toward the end is well-executed (pardon the pun). The prose often has a lyrical, dream-like quality to it, most obviously when Kinderman or others muse about life, the universe and other suitably cosmic topics.

Legion manages to retain many of the same strengths The Exorcist had while standing apart as something more than just a sequel. If you’ve read The Exorcist and enjoyed the character of Kinderman, Legion is easy to recommend.

View all my reviews

Book review: Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits

Futuristic Violence and Fancy SuitsFuturistic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m actually having a difficult time articulating my opinion of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. On the positive side, David Wong (aka Jason Pargin) continues his breezy, effortlessly sarcastic way of writing that for me is the equivalent of a belly rub for a dog. Okay, that analogy was a little labored. Let me try again. I like the way Wong writes. His characters are smart and funny, the situations he puts them in are equally silly and dangerous and somehow all the gonzo stuff he throws together manages to work.

In this novel he shifts to third person to tell the story of Zoey Ashe, a young woman in the near(ish) future who inherits the estate of a father she never saw or liked much, along with technology that can turn an ordinary person into an unstoppable force of destruction (ie. a supervillain). The setting is a designed city in the Utah desert called Tabula Ra$a, a largely lawless place peopled by dozens of millionaires and those who work for, prey on and gawk at them.

So far, so zany. My first stumbling block is Zoey. She’s presented as tough and independent, but also makes some very (unbelievably) stupid decisions, usually in service to moving the plot forward. I really dislike characters doing things solely to keep the plot rolling. King was right–story is good, plot is bad. Wong does this a number of times throughout, using coincidences, slip-ups and kooky hijinks to make sure the plot continues from A to B to C.

On the other hand, the novel is less about the clever machinations of the characters and more reveling in the excesses of this future world that takes the smartphone/always-connected thing to its ludicrous conclusion, where everyone has a video camera, a live feed and the insatiable need to draw an audience, whether through quirky or homicidal means.

Tone is another issue here. As the title promises, there is violence aplenty and much of it is graphic. While many of the characters are cartoonish, some are genuinely repugnant in their actions (even as they are simultaneously ridiculous in presentation). The main villain, Molech, is a self-obsessed diva who brutalizes Zoey repeatedly, all of it depicted in vivid detail. It feels a bit at odds with the sillier parts of the story, but maybe it’s just edgy and I have insufficient hipness left to appreciate it, given that I am mere years away from wearing suspenders and inexplicably hiking my pants up to my nipples (which is to say, getting older). None of this was enough to keep me from wanting to see how it all turned out, but it did lessen the experience a bit. Maybe I just don’t like reading (in detail) about terrible physical violence being inflicted on people.

The big finale also felt a bit thrown together and was anti-climactic, but wasn’t actually bad. I mean, we’re talking barely registering on the It-o-meter for bad endings. Still, it could have been better.

If you liked Wong’s two previous novels, you’ll almost certainly like Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. In the end it’s a goofy, gory, gross ride whose strengths overcome its weaknesses. It’s not as good as This Book is Full of Spiders but it’s still a fun read, with more than a few laughs tucked in among the copious flying bullets, severed heads and talking toilets.

View all my reviews

Book review: The Library at Mount Char

The Library at Mount CharThe Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t read a lot of fantasy because I prefer my absurd story scenarios to be horror-flavored but The Library at Mount Char had been recommended and has surfaced on a few “Best of 2015” lists so I figured, what the heck, it’s not like it was going to be elves and dwarves arguing with each other.

Instead, The Library at Mount Char tells the story of how an ancient uber-being who may or may not be human has fended off his enemies for thousands of years (maybe longer) while maintaining The Library, a collection of books, scrolls and bric a brac that essentially allows him to rule and shape our universe. He is aided by twelves children he kidnaps at the beginning of the story, using them as apprentices, with each studying a different discipline. One of them is Carolyn, the protagonist, and the story that unfolds deals mainly with her plotting to usurp her “Father” and also how she learns to become human again, sort of, after turning into an emotionless monster for several decades due to aforementioned plotting.

There’s always a goofy plumber/thief named Steve she conscripts for various tasks and an ex-military man named Earwin who is pretty much your typical possibly-crazy-but-smart ex-military guy.

Several times when explaining the various impossible things happening, Carolyn tells Steve “It’s not magic” but it’s magic. Some lip service is paid to “seventh dimensions” and such but if you’re expecting plausible, scientific explanations for everything, you won’t find them here–nor should you, despite the overall realistic tone the story takes.

What you will find is a generally light, sometimes funny and often gruesome tale of long-brewing revenge, world-destroying (rather than building) wrapped up in a modern fantasy shell with a little life lesson tucked in at the end.

And talking lions. And deer. And zombies. And people who love baking brownies.

The general inhumanity of the children (who are in their thirties for most of the story) means you won’t particularly identify with or feel empathy for them, but Steve the plumber serves as a reference point to the reader, a likable doofus who gets in way over his head.

I liked The Library at Mount Char overall, though at times I felt author Scott Hawkins might have committed more fully to a specific tone, as the story swings a bit uneasily at times from Very Serious High Stakes Stuff to irreverence and silliness. But that’s more a personal preference on my part more than it is a significant failing of the book.

As I mentioned up top, I don’t read a lot of fantasy so I have no idea how The Library at Mount Char compares to similar work. It’s a well-written and tightly-plotted novel, though, and taken on its own, I enjoyed the journey of Steve and Carolyn through the woods and bombs and gunfire and weird other dimensional places.

View all my reviews

Book review: On Writing

On Writing: A Memoir of the CraftOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This time I took notes.

With a few weeks to go before I dive into my seventh National Novel Writing Month competition, I cast about for an inspirational book to read, to get me pumped up while I flail about for an idea for my novel. Getting pumped up reduces the chance of injury when flailing about, you see.

This is the third time I’ve read On Writing and perhaps surprisingly–given how often King’s books come out in revised editions–the text remains unchanged from the book’s original publication in 2000. This is not a complaint, mind you, as my five-star rating will attest.

What is it about On Writing that makes it work so well? Is it the best book to cover the nuts and bolts of writing? No. Is it the best autobiography of a writer? No. Is the best book to offer inspiration and advice to new writers? No.

But what it does so well is cover everything King sets out to tackle, which is all of the above. King fuses together a solid how-to book on writing with solid (if common sense) advice and tosses in a dramatic curriculum vitae in which the author’s life at one point actually hangs by a thread. More than anything, King has written an entertaining volume that appeals far beyond his usual horror milieu.

If you want his tips in super-condensed form, here they are (remember, this time I took notes):

– read a lot (he claims he is a slow reader and reads 70-90 books a year)
– write a lot (he writes 2,000 words seven days a week but suggests 1,000 words six days a week)
– don’t watch a lot of TV
– passive voice is the worst thing ever
– adverbs come a close second
– cut out unnecessary words (King is admittedly not so great on this score)
– story is important, plot not so much
– write what you know but do so as broadly and inclusively as possible
– research when needed but remember where backstory goes (in the back)
– write what interests you, not what you think will sell or what you think people want
– write two drafts and a polish (the polish may be a third draft)
– take 2-3 days off writing when done with the first draft
– don’t revisit your writing until at least six weeks later
– don’t have others critique or offer feedback on your work until after the second draft (it’s not ready till then)

Don’t let my list dissuade you from reading On Writing, though. As I said above, this is pretty common sense advice, but King makes the list entertaining as hell, maybe even a little magical.

View all my reviews

Book review: Dreamcatcher

DreamcatcherDreamcatcher by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Going in, I knew a few things about this novel:

– a lot of it took place in or around snowy woods
– they made a big budget movie of it
– something something shit weasels
– it is regarded as perhaps not Stephen King’s finest hour

Having now read the book I can confirm all four of the above are accurate. That said, lesser King is never truly awful and the ending of Dreamcatcher is still a lot better than It or a half dozen of his other novels.

If you’ve never read the book, imagine Alien taking place on Earth but with way more farting. We’re talking apocalyptic levels of farting here, all in the name (and really ripe stench) of otherworldly being proliferation.

Four high school buddies, along with one of King’s favorite archetypes, the magical mentally challenged man, form a kind of psychic bond and then find themselves in the middle of what turns out to be a clumsy alien invasion. They puzzle and struggle and flee and fight as the military moves in to seal off an area of Maine known as the Jefferson Tract. Said military is led by a man named Kurtz. Here King eats his cake and has it, too, directly drawing comparisons to Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, playing the “Is he crazy or just acting crazy?” card before making it clear that this Kurtz is pretty much like the other one.

This was the first book King wrote after being hit and nearly killed by a van in 1999 and he transposes the physical anguish of his injuries and subsequent recovery onto one of the main characters here. As an application of writing what you know, the pain and suffering is understandably authentic. The characters are vivid and colorful, as one expects in a King novel, but the story suffers from horror elements that are more cartoonish than chilling (the aforementioned shit weasels, alien thingies that explode from people’s butts after a gestation period, preceded by bouts of extreme flatulence) and science fiction aspects that teeter on the line between deliberately hokey and plausible. It’s an odd combination that is carried along primarily by King’s strengths with character.

I would probably say this one is a safe pass for people not set on being King completists. It’s not outright bad but is brought down by the uneven tone and sillier elements. If you want to read King, there are a lot of other books of his to recommend over Dreamcatcher.

View all my reviews

Movie review: The Martian

I don’t review movies much anymore but I’m offering a quick one for The Martian:

Go see it.

Based on the self-published book of the same name, this is a smart, funny and even touching movie that is grounded in believable science, telling the story of an astronaut stranded on Mars and the effort to rescue him. The cast is diverse and enjoyable, the script respects the intelligence of the audience and the visuals are as lush as you’d expect in a Ridley Scott film.

I can now forgive Scott for Prometheus.