Mr. Mercedes

Stephen King never fails to keep me guessing.  Mr. Mercedes is not at all what I thought it was going to be about, however, I am much happier with what it was than what I thought it was going to be.

Retired detective Bill Hodges is settling in to his life of leisure by allowing himself the slow, sedentary death of television and junk food until his passion for life is reignited by a taunt from a killer he never caught.  The Mercedes Killer mowed down a bunch of people in line for a job fair with a stolen Mercedes.  He was never apprehended, but the lady to whom the Mercedes was stolen eventually commits suicide.  Upon receiving a letter from Mr. Mercedes Bill is prompted not to kill himself, but to find this a-hole and keep him from hurting anyone else.  The cast of characters is relatively short, Bill, neighbor boy Jerome, and family of the owner of the Mercedes, mostly.

What is different about this Stephen King novel is it reads more like a James Patterson.  In fact, it reads just like a James Patterson, and I mean that in a good way.  This is pure suspense, crime with no supernatural or science fiction that can sometimes turn people off from SK.  I though it read quickly and kept my interest right up until the last page.  I also enjoy SK’s shout out to his son, novelist Joe Hill, by having someone wear a Judas Coyne T-shirt, Coyne being the main character and rock star into all things macabre in Hill’s The Heart-Shaped Box.

Doctor Sleep

I knew that Mr. King’s new book, sequel to The Shining, was good when I was getting the creeps while reading this novel at home, by myself, at night.  I’ll say it until the end of time, the reason Stephen King scares us witless is because he deftly includes enough realism to keep the whole story familiar.  You think, I have done this, thought that, known that person…the situations resonate with your own life…and then Wham!  Creepy, scary stuff happens.  The genius is the characters he writes about tend to react like “everyman” would in these sometimes bizarre, but always thrilling, circumstances.

Doctor Sleep picks up with Danny Torrance years after the fateful fire at the seriously creepy Overlook Hotel.  He has found himself a pretty serious alcoholic and not a very nice person.  We find out that he kept right on seeing the ghosts from the Overlook and although he had some help in learning how to deal with them, he basically uses booze.

In, what turns out to not really be a total coincidence, Dan finally finds a place to settle, a job he’s good at, and sobriety.  Life goes on until he meets a little girl who needs help much in the same way (if not exactly!) he did all those years ago.

Some seriously evil vampire-types are out to get her and have her “shining” for themselves.

 

Ps. Love the references to NOS4A2 by Joe Hill!

Under The Dome

The planned 13 week summer series, Under the Dome, based on the book by Stephen King premiered last night.  I really enjoyed it.  I loved this book, and was happy to see the strongest characters and themes from the book represented.  Mr. King is a producer of the series, so I’m sure that keeps the integrity intact even when changes are made. 

Imagine a clear dome coming down over a mid-size town of Chester’s Mills.  (big enough for a hospital, small enough everyone knows your business)  Cellular, television, and power are all cut off.  Only signals generated inside the dome are functioning, anything in the path of the dome when it came down was bisected.  Touching it caused a short of shock, but only the first time.  Although a lot of people have generators (it is in Maine, they do have wicked storms!) eventually, if this lasts, people are going to start to run out of necessities.  What then?  Who will lead them?  How will things be provided?  Divided? 

Outside the dome, the military has showed up it seeing what they can do, but so far, no one knows where this thing came from and how to get rid of it.  In the meantime, some strange seizures have been happening to some people…muttering something about stars. 

Also, it seems being in too close a proximity to the dome seems to cause a malfunction in pacemakers and possibly other devices which transmit. 

I can’t wait to keep watching this!

For example!  The cow that got sliced in half length-wise was probably the best thing I have ever seen on network television!  In the book this was a woodchuck, which was great, but definitely would not have been as great as impact on tv.  I especially loved the casting of Big Jim Rennie, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris, he has that good ‘ole boy feel down pat!  Rachelle Lefevre is great as Julia Shumway, inquisitive with an outsider feel. 

Eyes of the Dragon

I just read in my new Publishers Weekly (because, yes, I am that dorky) that The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King will be made into a TV movie or miniseries by SyFy channel.  I am so excited for this…TEOTD is probably my all-time favorite book.  And before you haters start telling me that you don’t like Stephen King, he’s too weird, etc.  This book was written for his children and is a fairy tale and it is magical.  If his name wasn’t on the cover, you would never-in-a-million-years peg SK as the author.  If you haven’t, read it, if you have, excitedly anticipate the movie like me! 🙂

11/22/63

Boy do I love myself some Stephen King!  Although his latest mind-bending saga comes in at 849 pages (including the afterword) it flies by.  Local high school teacher Jake Epping is just an average dude, typical of many of Stephen King’s characters.  After a meal at his favorite greasy spoon Jake returns the next day to find the owner/proprietor, Al, in astonishingly deteriorated condition.  Al begins to tell Jake of what is really happening in his diner.  Apparently there is a “rabbit-hole” in his store room.  This rabbit hole allows Al to transport back in time to 11:58am, September 9, 1958.  No matter how long Al stays in the past, upon returning through the rabbit hole, only two minutes has passed.  He however has aged chronologically for the total amount of time.  Al has supplemented his business by buying 1958 priced meat and bringing it back to present to sell.  He also has made himself a handy cheat sheet for betting purposes on major sporting events.

Al has decided Jake Epping is the man to finish his life’s work.  After much though and a little experimentation Al decided he would go to the past and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  He figures if this event did not occur the course of history would change for the better.  This event is also a biggest thing happen in and around the time he is taken back to, since he continues to age it has to be something within a man’s life.  However when he is diagnosed with lung cancer, he knows he cannot complete the mission.  Jake however, is young, divorced with no children.  Al has done the leg work and knows the whereabouts of Kennedy’s killer Lee Harvey Oswald leading up the the assassination, but wants to be 100% positive the Oswald was the killer.  If he kills him and Oswald was not the shooter or had a partner the assassination could still happen and all of the time spend in the past would be for naught.

One important law of the time travelling Al discovered is going back in the past does indeed change the future, but each time he goes back into the past, all is reset.  For example there is a little girl who was crippled by a wayward bullet from a hunter.  Al went back and stopped this from happening.  However each time he we back to 1958 to buy his meat he had to redo this act of kindness or history was reset to its default of crippling the girl.

Naturally Jake accepts this mission to stop Oswald after a test trip to the past.  He has a score of his own he wants to settle, a drunk man who kills his own family, except one son who he scars and maims.  Jake wants to stop this,  which takes him to Derry for a short time.  (with regards to Pennywise)  Then he figures he should probably save the girl from the hunting accident before setting about to make sure Oswald acted alone and then stop him.  Since Kennedy’s assassination is in 1963, Jake has four years to pass.  In present day he is a teacher, so he becomes one in the past too.  In fact he creates a whole life for himself…possibly one he doesn’t want to leave.  He also struggles with what the future will look like if the past does get changed so dramatically… will it be for the better for worse?

King’s word spill from the page and I couldn’t read them fast enough.  Part science fiction (and I am by no means a scifi kinda girl) part revisionist history…the tone is set perfectly by calm Jake and his decidedly unflowery though process.  There’s even a bit of a love story…1960s-style.

I’ll leave out references to the ending for those who will read this and just say that I agree with Mr. King, the past is obdurate.

Full Dark, No Stars

Finished the new Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars late last night.  Really enjoyable.  Comprised of four novellas, the first being fairly lengthy, while the other three range from around 40 pages to 100.  The first, 1922, follows a Midwestern farmer in a tale of greed and murder.  King takes apart how guilt can work the human mind and takes basic human characters and shows their inner workings.  Written as a suicide not of sorts, this tale is creepy and sad.

Next is Big Driver.  Writer of old lady books, Tess, finds herself in big trouble when her car gets a flat tire in the middle of nowhere.  When a giant of a man stops to help her she finds herself in a situation any woman can relate to.  Here, what is fascinating is what this mild mannered middle-aged woman becomes to survive.  Also playing against this depiction is what Big Driver’s mother does to protect her family.  Scary and interesting.

The third story I found to be fun.  Maybe that is because I have a little bit of a macabre sense of humor.  Fair Extension follows a man who is drying of cancer.  When he meets a man, Elvid, on the side of a deserted street selling extensions.  In his case its a life extension.  All he has to give in exchange is 15% of his income each year he lives and the name of someone he hates.  He offers up the name of his “best friend” since childhood.  No matter what he does his so-called best friend outdoes him.  However since his extension his friend’s fate is increasingly negative, not just for him, but his family too.  Another story of greed?  Don’t let it pass you by the the seller of Fair Extension’s name can be rearranged to spell Devil!

Lastly in A Good Marriage, King lets us peek in on a seemingly lovely married couple.  That is, until the wife finds out a dark secret about her husband.  Torn between protecting her family and herself and giving her husband the punishment he deserves.  She eventually does both.

 

As always King is a master at taking normal relate-able circumstances and taking them to the nth creepiest degree.  He does it here in four entertaining stories.  I was not disappointed.

Blockade Billy

Stephen King always takes a little bit of something completely normal and then gives it a twist. In his newest novella, Blockade Billy, the story of a young baseball player called up to the majors, this is just what happens. William Blakely is the best baseball player from the majors that no one knows about. He only played for 23 games, but was on his way to breaking all the records until everything changed. Although, he always seemed a little bit off.

In this tale, King himself is interviewing Granny, the former 3rd base coach of the New Jersey team that Billy played for. The book is meant to be a transcript of this interview as the narrator often speaks directly to “Mr. King” who is interviewing him. Weighing in at only 122 pages (including lots of white space on the pages and some black and white drawings) this slim book will only take an hour or so of your time.

All in all, a cool story, but only the great SF could get it published as a stand-a-lone project.

It Grows on You

The audio CD short story collection It Grows on You by Stephen King was a pleasure to listen to.  I didn’t love every story, but it was well worth it anyway.

The first story, and the titular one, is about a house which seems to have a life of its own.  Sort of a very basic Rose Red.  It is read by the author and while it doesn’t have a spookiest feel, it is engaging.

The Fifth Quarter follows a man out to seek revenge for his friends death and at the same time piece together a treasure map, which was the cause of his friend untimely end anyway.  Gary Sinise reads and does a great job.  He has just enough grittiness in his voice and a great sense of timing.

My favorite story of the bunch was You Know They Got a Hell of a Band, read by Grace Slick.  Slick’s voice is lovely to listen to and her slightly androgynous tones work perfectly.  This story follows a married couple, who are lost in Oregon, and of course the husband will not turn around but insists on trying to find his own way.  As the road they are traveling on gets smaller and smaller, and finally is nothing more the a faint path, the sense of fear grows.  Unexpectedly they come upon a idyllic town.  A banner proclaiming “Free Concert Tonight” is strung over the road.  The little town does, in fact, have a hell of a band, but the really price of hearing it is far too much. To me this story seems so Stephen King, ifI didn’t know he was the author, I would attribute it to him.

Lastly, Frank Muller reads The Night Flier.  I couldn’t help thinking that this vampire story was meant to capitalize on one of the biggest trends right now, but it is no Twilight.  When a reporter for a sketchy tabloid magazine pursues some evidence of a killer who believes himself a vampire, he becomes obsessed with getting the money shot for his magazine.  At all costs he needs to prove that he was able to find this guy himself.  The urgency of his thoughts really moves you along in this one as the action gets faster.  I was reminded of The Mist in the ending, but not for any obvious reason.

Any fan of Stephen King will not want to miss this collection, and at only 5 cds it doesn’t require the time of a lot of his works.

Under the Dome

I couldn’t get enough of Stephen King’s latest examination of the human species!  I stayed up way too late, nearly was late to work, and begged out on social engagements in the name of getting through this hefty novel.  Coming in at 1074 pages, its nothing to scoff at–Uncle Stevie even makes light of that himself by having a woman who considered being an author concede that if you wrote your 1000 page masterpiece and no one liked it that that would suck.  (I’m paraphrasing here!).

So the plot basically is this, a clear but impenetrable dome comes down on a town in Maine one fine fall Saturday (Dome Day).  Cut off from outside help, resources, and order, the residents begin to self destruct.  Local dirty politician, Big Jim Rennie is right involved in the power plays as he has set himself up to run the figure-head leaders.  What seems an idyllic small town has some major issues going on just under the surface. Living under this dome, where no weather conditions are happening, but the sun is causing it to warm up, while the people there are using up all their resources causes frightened people to go to the extremes.

Think part small-town in a snowglobe, very normal people in an odd situation (I’m reminded of It, here), the human struggle turn Lord of the Flies (think The Mist, as everyone is in the grocery store) with very Ray Bradbury type cultural warnings.  King gives us his usual pop culture references which make the work all the more real, and includes warnings (or at least thought provoking commentary) on social issues such Meth, global warning, free speech, greed, and righteousness.

What’s more is he does it while never giving his Constant Reader any lag time.  From page 1 you are drawn in and the ride never slows down until the end.  How someone can take 1000+ pages and have it all be dramatic is amazing to me.  I wish I had that talent.  There are a ton of people and personalities here but they are so vivid and different (while being someone you KNOW in real life) you aren’t left searching your memory as to what this person has previously done.

One of King’s best in years.  I don’t know that I’d say the BEST ever, but its on my shortlist!

I made it!

Earlier today I finished the 1074 page behemoth that is Stephen King’s new novel Under the Dome. Needless to say, I will post a full review tomorrow, but its a rave!