Chris–Cycle of the Werewolf wrap up

Ok, so I meant it when I said that this was a short book.  Clocks in at 127 pages, but the text doesn’t start until page 13, and there are like 5 pages without text each chapter, with 12 chapters, so really only about 55 pages of story.  And honestly, that’s a bit unsatisfying.  As part of a short-story collection, this would be fine.  On it’s own?  Not so much.

I have some problems with this, aside from it’s length.  First off, it’s written in present tense.  And that feels weird.  I never really felt that I was immersed in the story–this really felt more like watching from a distance, disjointed.  It also seemed inconsistent to me.  In the same paragraph, we go from “And here it is, New Year’s Eve,” to “but Uncle Al arrived up around eight.”  Seems to me that that just doesn’t fit with the rest of the tense.  It just has a clunky feel to it.

Second thing was that King tells us that it’s a werewolf really on the second page of the story.  So there’s no build-up, no suspense.  Just BAM!  WEREWOLF!!

Along those lines, it becomes apparent who the wolf is very, very early on.  I won’t say when, but you can figure it out.  So really, there are zero surprises in here.  King is usually a great short story writer, but this ones falls a bit short for me.

King does revisit this later on, transforming it into the screenplay for “Silver Bullet”, which if I remember correctly start Corey Haim.  That’s about all I remember about the movie, so obviously it impressed me about as much as the book…

Meh.

 

Chris–Up next… Cycle of the Werewolf

Cycle of the Werewolf is a bit odd.  It’s an illustrated novella–well, personally I think “novella” is a stretch.  This is a REALLY SHORT BOOK.  Like seriously a short story.  But it’s got some wonderful illustrations, the chapters are named for the months, and somebody died on page 3.  So here we go.

That is the moon in that picture, by the way.  Didn’t quite turn out how I was hoping–really needed a super moon…

 

Chris–Thinner wrap up

OK, so… Thinner.

This is the first of the “Richard Bachman” books in our list; although, it was not the first Bachman book to be published.  That would be Rage–Thinner is Bachman #5.  However, Rage is out of print, and the other early Bachman’s are fairly difficult to find (at least in early printings), plus they have been conveniently compiled into a collection (appropriately named The Bachman Books), so we’ll hit those up later on.

In the late 70s, King adopted an alter-ego, and wrote a few novels under this persona.  I’m not sure why–there is an author’s note in my copy of The Bachman Books that explains it, I think, so I may find out.  Like I mentioned, my copy of Thinner has an author portrait, which really adds some depth to the deception.

The basic run-down (that’s a pun–you’ll get it in a minute) of Thinner is this:  respectable lawyer runs down old Gypsy woman, local “law” whitewashes the whole thing, lawyer gets off scot-free.  So the Gypsies enact their own brand of justice.  Pretty simple story line, and that’s the way that King (I mean Bachman) keeps it.  Doesn’t get all bogged down in side details and plot points.  Just focuses on one man who has been seriously cursed and his attempts at dealing with it.

And since the plot is fairly simple and straightforward, we really get some good characterization.  Billy Halleck truly is a respectable guy.  He’s got a good relationship with his wife, he’s just been made partner at the firm, his daughter loves him.  All of that ends when he hits the old woman with his car.  And yet, thanks to his pals–the police chief and the judge–he pretty much gets a second chance.  The leader of the Gypsies sees this, and puts a stop to it.  But really, even before the curse really hits, you can see that Billy really isn’t OK with getting away with this.  And maybe that’s why the curse worked so well.  Billy has tried to set part of himself aside, to try to ignore the guilt and his conscience.  And as he does that, he starts getting… thinner.

I love this book, but it sort of falls apart for me near the end.  I understand that Billy is mad at Heidi.  After all, she definitely had a hand in the accident (that’s another pun!), but the punishment lands squarely on him.  And as he is forced to watch himself die a little more each day, he gets angrier and angrier.  I understand that.  And when he explains to Heidi that it’s a curse, and she thinks he’s flipped his lid, he gets angrier.  I understand that.  Then she has him committed in absentia.  And he gets angrier.  And I understand that.  BUT THEN HE TRIES TO KILL HER?  And kill her in a horrible manner?  That I can’t understand.  That seems like a stretch.  Like a means to get to the end of the story–which really is awesome.  But it doesn’t seem to flow logically for me.

Although Richard Bachman’s name is on the cover, you can feel King in here.  If I had read this before he was outed, I would have thought “Yep, that makes sense.  Not really surprised.”  Even when Bachman call King out–he has a character mention how all this Gypsy curse stuff sounds a bit like Stephen King–he doesn’t really separate himself from King’s style.  A majority of the story even takes place in Maine.  I kept expecting Herbert Tarrytoons to get mentioned.

Anyway, great book, tons of fun, excellent twist ending (even if I don’t agree with how we got there).

 

Chris–Back! And on to Thinner!

So, vacation was nice.  Read a lot of non-Stephen King stuff: Armada by Ernest Cline, The Affinities from Robert Charles Wilson, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and Starbound from Joe Haldeman.  But now, back at it.

Up next is Thinner, and our first meeting with Richard Bachman, King’s alter-ego.  He really was more than just a pen name.  In my copy of Thinner, there’s a dedication to his wife, Claudia Inez Bachman, and even an author portrait.  He looks a little like Johnny Cash…

Anyway, Thinner is about a man who finds himself on the wrong side of a Gypsy curse, and keeps getting… thinner.

I’m about halfway through it now, so we’ll discuss shortly!