Chris–Firestarter wrap-up

Normally, in a Stephen King story, the supernatural element is what is frightening, right?  There’s a ghost, or some vampires, or some crazy physic power that causes all sorts of problem.  Whatever it is, that is the aspect of the book that’s supposed to scare you.

This is not the case with Firestarter.

Charlie McGee, while she does have some heavy-duty abilities, isn’t someone to be afraid of.  She’s just a girl.  Like any other girl, except for that one difference.  And maybe this should be frightening–after all, no one knows just how much this power is going to grow.  Maybe she will be able to crack the planet in half.  But she’s no monster, and all we feel is sympathy for her and her dad.

No, the scary side of this book comes from the US Government.  Specially, the outfit known as “The Shop.”  Now we’ve met the Shop before–if you remember, they were behind the Captain Trips virus in The Stand, so we know that they are up to no good.  Well, here we get to see how bad they really are.  And they are terrifying.  There is nothing that they can’t do.  They can arrest you for no reason.  They can make you disappear.  They can threaten your family.  They can rip out your fingernails, break your dead, and leave your corpse shoved in a laundry room.  And they want Charlie, and will stop at nothing to get her.

What makes this so frightening is that it really doesn’t seem like that big of a stretch.  Sure, the firestarting stuff is out there, but the Government’s response to it?  Seems pretty much right on point.

Now that King’s done a sequel (Dr. Sleep, which shows up what happens to Danny Torrance years after The Shining), I would love for him to do another.  The open end of Firestarter does give you some hope that Charlie manages to settle down somewhere safe, but I would like to see where King thinks she ends up.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

I didn’t catch any obvious crosses with other books, other than The Shop, but there is something interesting here.  Andy’s plan to get them out is pretty solid.  They really had a good shot; however, Rainbird got a little lucky and figured things out.  So it’s not a total victory for the good guys.  In later books (like Mr. Mercedes), it’s the BAD GUYS that come up with the pretty good plans, only to have them foiled when the good guys stumble across something.  Maybe King is softening up?

I doubt it.

 

Chris–Night Shift wrap up

It’s a good thing that this isn’t a paying job, or I probably would have been fired by now…  Anyway, I finished up Night Shift last week, then put off writing about it until now…  so here we go.

There is a lot of stuff going on in this book.  King flips all around, using several different writing styles, templates, and voices.  The first story, “Jerusalem’s Lot” (yes, THAT Jerusalem’s Lot) is set way back in the day, and King writes in in like a Lovecraft/Poe style–an authentic gothic horror tale.

Later on, we get some stuff that is really literary junk food–it’s a lot of fun, but there isn’t much there.  “Battleground”, “The Ledge”, and “The Mangler” would all fall into this category for me.  I love all of these stories, but there isn’t a whole lot of depth.

At the opposite side of the spectrum, there are stories like “Sometimes They Come Back”.  This one was the first story in this collection that really made me stop and say “Whoa”.  This story and “The Last Rung on the Ladder” are the two most powerful.  There is some serious character development, which is especially impressive given that these are short stories.  Definitely the gems of this anthology.

Some things I really like about the other stories:

“The Boogeyman”–This one still scares me.  Although after I read it, I can’t help but wonder how the boogeyman hired a receptionist…

“Gray Matter”–I loved how everyone is all in.  They don’t know what’s happening, they just know that they’d better get over there and check things out.  So they go.

“Night Surf”–This is a tie-in to The Stand, and is a really good story.  Obviously not every survivor is joining up with Mother Abigail or Randy Flagg.  This story gives us a look at some of the others.

“I Am The Doorway”–Super creepy.  Alien “infection” tale, this is one of those stories that if this actually happened, we would never, ever know what exactly went down.  And that’s just how it’s written.

“Trucks” is sooooo much better than Maximum Overdrive.  And again, no one know why the trucks are now sentient, but they are, and they sure are pissed.

“Strawberry Spring” and “The Man Who Loved Flowers”–These two are sort of in the same vein.  Build up, build up, build up, SHOCKING!!!

“The Lawnmower Man”–When they made this into a movie (not really), It was originally called Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man.  Until King sued to have his name taken off.  There’s only one scene from the story that is in the film–the birdbath.  This story is super weird and awesome, and the movie sucks.

“I Know What You Need”–How creepy and stalkery is this story?

“Children Of The Corn”  OH MAN.  This story is great.  One, it captures the midwest pretty accurately.  I would not be terribly shocked to hear that something like this has actually happened.  Two, King perfectly pictures a couple who are in a serious crisis with their relationship.  In fact, that’s what gets them killed.  Three, no explanation.  SOMETHING happened in 1964, and SOMETHING lives out there in the corn…

“One For The Road”–another trip to ‘Salem’s Lot!  This is a super fast-paced, edge of your seat vampire tale.

“The Woman In The Room”.  This one was tough to read.  There are no monsters, no murderers, nothing like that.  There’s just a man, trying to deal with the fact that his mother is dying, and having to make a decision that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  Poignant, heartwrenching, and beautifully written.

“Graveyard Shift”–this is one of the first stories in the collection, but I kept it for last, because I have issues with it.  Don’t get me wrong–it’s still enjoyable and fun.  But I’ve said many times that what makes King great is that his characters have life, they seem to exist beyond the pages of his books.  I don’t get that with Hall.  He feels very, very flat, and I can’t understand him at all.  Why the hell does he seem so intent on going down into that sub-basement to be eaten alive by giant mutant rats?  I just don’t get it.

Overall, so far I think that Night Shift is King’s best short story collection.  Skeleton Crew and Everything’s Eventual both have great stories, and there is still The Bazaar of Bad Dreams to look forward to, but every story in Night Shift is a winner.

 

Chris–Done with The Stand!

Man oh man–that’s a big book.  Now, as I mentioned before, I have the unabridged version of this, which King re-edited and made some additional changes to.  It now takes place in 1990, Freddy Kruger is in the theaters, and some other minor items.  I would really like to go back and get a copy of the original 1978 manuscript and see how things are different.  But not right now…

This book really is fantastic, mostly because it doesn’t feel very far-fetched.  At all.  I could absolutely see something like this going down.  In fact, not too long ago there was a story about a government lab outside of DC where 6 long-lost-and-forgotten-about vials of SMALLPOX were re-discovered.  Hmmmm….

King again succeeds because while he wrote a story about the end of the world, it isn’t really about the end of the world.  It’s about the people who experienced the end of the world.  His characters are almost 3D.  Even with the background characters–like Gus, the parking attendant in Ongunquit–you get the feeling like they are fully fleshed out.  They all continue to exist, even beyond the boundaries of the cover.

The Stand really is a showdown between good and evil.  And like so often in life, people sometimes get wrapped up and follow the wrong person for the wrong reasons, and don’t really know why.  They don’t feel good about it, and yet they don’t do anything to stop it.  You don’t often sympathize with the “bad guys” in this book; it’s more like absolute frustration at their choices.  YOU KNOW THIS IS WRONG!!!!  WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE???

The last time I read this, I feel like I thought that there were almost two very distinct books–the end of the world, and then the rebuilding.  This time around, I didn’t think that at all.  It transitioned very smoothly, and I could see all of the connections as they were being made.  And while there are so many characters, and we need to be introduced to all of them (even the ones around for only a couple of pages) it doesn’t take much time to really get rolling.  Before we know it, the flu’s in town.

We also really get our first taste of what is going to be a consistent theme throughout King’s writing–the bad guy’s plans always go a little bit wrong.  Flagg had world domination on his mind, and he knew exactly how he was going to go through with it.  But then things started going just a little bit wrong here and there, ultimately leading to his defeat.  But the “good guys” certainly didn’t have a cakewalk.  There is very real loss, and sacrifice, and sadness.  King strikes a great balance, though, so even though the good guys win, it never feels like a sure thing.

This is a giant book, but it is such a good story.  And soon(ish) to be a major motion picture!  In two parts!!  The only cast news that I have seen so far was Matthew McConaughey as Randall Flagg, and that seems to be a great choice.  We’ll see how the rest of it goes…

There are a few connections here:

1.  The Shop.  This was the government organization that was either behind the whole Captain Trips virus, or they were the ones called in afterwards to try to contain it.  Either way–not the nicest folks around.  And even though they all died out in this book, we’ll see them again in Firestarter.

2.  The Black Man.  In Carrie, both Carrie and her mother referenced “The Black Man” when speaking about Satan.  Surprise–that’s also what Randal Flagg is called!  And we’ll see him again, as well!

3.  Mother Abagail.  Her grandmother had a touch of future sight, what she called “the shining of God’s lantern”, or just “the shine.”  Now that sounds familiar!

4.  Frannie’s pie.  When Fran gets the news about her mother, she’s thinking about responsibility:  “Responsibility is a pie.  Some of the responsibility goes with all the chartiy work she does, but you’re only kidding if you think you’re not going to have to cut a big, juicy, bitter piece for yourself.  And eat every bite.”  Now, that’s not a direct reference to anything specific, but keep that passage in mind when we get to Thinner, and then let me know what you think.

 

Chris–Perfect timing

So, I’ve cracked open The Stand and in a strange coincidence have also been felled by a terrible cold.

CAPTAIN TRIPS!!!

More sleeping than reading, unfortunately.