Category: Book review

I find that reading can be my little pleasure in life when things get shitty; my dad, Duke, always told me who cares how long a book is as long as it’s good. Stephen King is known for his massive books; I previously covered 5 short King reads so today we do the opposites. I’m going to focus on books that go past the 800 page mark, in no particular order, starting with..

 1. Dark Tower 5: Wolves of the Calla / Dark Tower 7: The Dark Tower –  I’m giving the 5th and final entries in King’s Dark Tower series the first slot. The 5th book totals roughly at about 900 pages while the final book is just about 1,000. For a while it was the longest book I’d ever read.

 2. Insomnia- I admit to have the book but not having read it. I know it’s considered one of his best and I can tell you it’s a massive book at almost 800 pages.

 3. It- whether you’re a fan of It (1990) or It (2017) and you decide to dive into the book, keep in mind it floats at around 1,260 some pages.

 4. Under the dome- Ok, I have a hard love/hate relationship with this long ass King tale of a small town trapped under a mysterious dome but I can tell you it’s well over 1,100 pages. I’ll be getting to this someday…

  5. The Stand (uncut)- Besides the dark tower series, this maybe my favorite of King’s works. Standing at nearly 1,400 pages its a juggernaut but is well worth the time.

If I’m going to add a few honorable mentions I’d include Christine, Sleeping Beauties, 11/22/63, Dreamcatcher,  and Talisman and Black House with Peter Straub. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

So the other night during a “staff meeting” for Saviorgaming (we played Titan Fall 2 (PS4) ) and Savior told me a reason he doesn’t read much of King’s work because of the sheer size of most of his work and how sometimes they take a long time to really get into. This is a common complaint I hear. So I want to give a list of King books under 500 pages for those who don’t have the patience for giant novels, so in no particular order let’s begin with..

1.  Carrie – King’s 1st major novel and a totally powerful first hit for the future legend. Around 200 pages, I couldn’t put it down.

 2. Salem’s Lot – One of the better vampire stories out there, King’s 2nd major story is a little over 400 pages and it’s a slower read but suspenseful read.

 3. The Gunslinger: the Dark Tower , The Drawing of the Three: Dark Tower 2 , Dark Tower 3: the Wastelands – I’m counting the first 3 books in the series in this slot. They are my favorites of the series; the first book is roughly 200 pages and books 2 and 3 are around 400 each. A must read for King fans.

 4.  Pet Sematary – My first intro to King and one of the rare movies that never stopped creeping me out. The book is somewhere 300 pages and is just as creepy as the movie.

 5. Cujo – Another one of my favorites, this story of a good dog gone bad stacks up with about 350 pages and moves pretty fast as the bloodthirsty fiend himself.

I hope you enjoyed my list. This time I do have a few honorable mentions including Misery , Dark Tower 6: Song of Susannah , Revival, and Cycle of the werewolf . May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Here’s a book many don’t really talk about; most of us are more familiar with it’s film counterpart, Silver Bullet, more. I can also say this right now, if you want to read King but you’re put off by the fact a majority of his work is so thick, this is probably the shortest book you’ll find from him. I read it in one day back when I hardly read. Cycle of the Werewolf is about a reign of terror a werewolf goes on over a year ( I believe), every chapter being a different month. About half through we meet our protagonist,  a boy confined to a wheelchair who encounters the beast and survives and afterwards tries to discover who it really is.

I’ve got to be honest, while the shortest King book I’ve read, it’s one of my least favorites. The illustrations are great and actually pretty badass. The boy was a fair enough character and so’s the main antagonist, but I feel like more could’ve been done. That’s what I  feel hurt the book the most to me, it feels like the skeleton of a what could be a good book. If you want anything other than a quick, bloody read I wouldn’t really recommend it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

So with Let the Right One In I basically concluded my best part of this little best/worst of vampires segment. So with worsts including Twilight , New Moon , and Eclipse it’s damn obvious the final segment would of course be Breaking Dawn (or Breaking Dump as I used to call it). Well, in one fell swoop, Breaking Damn killed my fandom and freed me to better things, but why the hate?

So basically Bella and Edward are getting married and there happy ever ending is just around the corner. The wedding comes and all the background characters  you barely remember and pretty much meant jack shit to the series gather, except Jacob who shows up to dance with Bella, be emo, and go away. So Edward takes Bella to a tropical island the Cullens own for there honeymoon (sure, why not.) They finally get freaky and Edward damn near breaks her in half, but she’s still into it. Well, somehow, though Edward has been dead for about a century, he somehow knocks up Bella with a freak, psychic hybrid baby that is killing her. She wants this baby, even though she has to drink blood to feed the kid in her stomach. The werewolves see this act as treachery to the pact with the Cullens and so they decide to forcefully attack them so they can kill Bella; Jacob ain’t about this shit so he splits with a couple friends and makes his own pack. After a whole lot of waiting for nothing, Bella gives birth to daughter ReneeEsme and Edward makes her a vampire. Instead of something dark and interesting, Bella is able to just ignore her kill instincts and just crunch on animals, she’s able to keep her family near and no one notices she sparkles and has red eyes now  cuz that’s a thing. But hey, the Volturi are coming to kill the baby because it’s an abomination- an abomination Jacob imprints on and falls eternally in love with (eww) and so Bella has to gather witnesses to prove the kid ain’t dangerous and master the lamest power of all time just to talk to these bastards the end!

Normally I’m against spoiling but damn this book. It’s around 800 pages and essentially there’s no gravity as a last installment of a already weightless series. By now, you know no one’s life is really at stake and literally most of this book is nothing but talk. The characters are just as dumb as before, only this time there’s a lot of logic gaps and padding. I actually threw the book at the window after I finished it. I avoided the movies like the plague and I hope Twilight 5 never comes to fruition. May the gaming gods bring you glory and may you never experience the boring horror of Breaking Dawn.

 

So, it’s been forever since my last edition of my best/ worst of vampires; the previous three entries for the best were Dracula , Salem’s Lot , and Hellsing Ultimate and here we get to the fourth entry on the list. Savior covered the American adaptation of the movie, Let Me In (2010) so I’m basically going to stick to the book.

Oskar is a lonely kid. His parents are divorced, there’s only one person he can loosely call a friend, he’s chubby, and he get’s bullied a lot. He has a morbid fascination with murder and killers to a unhealthy degree. One late night, he slips out of his house to a peculiar site. A little pale girl, barely clothed for winter alone with a Rubix cube. This quiet girl is Eli (pronounced E-lee), who moved into the apartment complex with her “dad” next to Oskar. Life becomes interesting for Oskar, as he becomes fascinated and close to Eli though she pushes him away because she’s “sick” and it just so happens a brutal killer is running around town, draining there victims of blood. Oskar realizes Eli doesn’t go out in the day, her appearance changes in correspondence to the killings, and her “dad” looks nothing like her. Part of a darker set of truths about Eli is she is a vampire; can Oskar accept Eli, even if it puts them both in danger?

This is perhaps one of, if not my favorite vampire story. This story was unusual in a lot of different ways and pretty refreshing. Being a vampire in this world is pretty torturous and I was able to feel the character’s pain which is a rare feat for me in literature. There’s a lot of twists that come I don’t want to spoil regarding Eli’s identity but I can say it adds to what this book does best, introduce some really dark real life topics with fictional making them feel more real. If you want a real down to earth and gritty vampire story that also says volumes on real friendship, I’d seriously recommend this book. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

A couple of years ago, I had no idea Fight Club was originally a book. After loving the book, I was kind of surprised learning writer, Chuck Palahniuk had written a really acclaimed horror story. Curiosity got the better of me and I had to check out Haunted. Haunted is a strange book to talk about, but I can say I haven’t read many like it if any. The core premise is simple: a group of weirdos is drawn to a three month long writer’s retreat by a rich old guy named Whittier and they are told to bring what matters most to them. They are brought to a secluded place, locked away with a limited supply of food and no kind of contact with the outside world. What ensues is a catalog of desperation becoming madness as they run out of food, become deprived of sleep, water and utter sanity as they create their own stories that gives us a window into the lives of our “victims”. These stories are, excuse my language, are fascinating as they are fucked up. There is a story of a dude who lost part of his small intestine in a pool filter, a professional foot fetishist, a woman who named her cat after her dead cat, and a dude who told some real nasty lies about a former child star to name a few. I warn you, do not read this book if you have weak constitutions or get freaked out easy, don’t read this book.

While I didn’t love every single short story or every free form poem, this maybe one of the best books I’ve ever read. By the end, I legitimately felt different then when I started and that maybe the best compliment I can give. The overall story is disturbing but relate-able as are many of the short stories. Palahniuk’s writing style is a lot easier to get into this time around then Fight Club; in fact I was pretty engulfed by how well everything flowed. Haunted is a great read I highly recommend if you want to read something really different but really deep. May the gaming gods bring you glory.