Category: Book review

 Ah Stephen King, the man synonymous with the horror of every 80’s and 90’s kids childhood. I know plenty of King fans that haven’t read a single one of his books because all of the film representations of his work there are. Some are good, some are great, some suck balls, and some are just meh but if you are a hardcore King movie fan and you don’t have the patience to sit down and bust out a 1300 page novel, then Night Shift is the King book for you: a book of very well known short stories, many of which have been turned into movies directly like Graveyard Shift, Sometimes they come back, and Children of the Corn, and some like Quitters Inc., Trucks, and Lawnmower Man have found there way out into the world indirectly. Almost all twenty of these stories I found enjoyable, even a couple genuinely brought on a gasp like Children of the Corn or a low “damn” like the Man who loved flowers. Every story I found well paced and different (because I’ve seen some off short story collections in my day.) So I highly recommend this book for the beginner King fan that doesn’t read much or doesn’t have much time to devote to reading and as always may the gaming gods bring you glory.

“The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.” It has to be one of the greatest opening lines to a book ever, simple yet epic. With the movie coming out today, I thought it would be appropriate to cover the book that started it all. Now, to clarify, the movie, though it shares the same title, is not an adaptation of the first book but almost a sequel to the last book.

Book One begins with the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, venturing after a mysterious Man in Black through the deserts of a world that moved on. When we first meet him, he finds a man named Brown living miles away from Tull, the last town the Gunslinger tracked the Man to. At first, Roland is weary of Brown and his raven Zoltan, but decides he isn’t a threat. He tells him the story of his time in Tull. Tull was a small town full of worn people that looked upon Roland with either fear or disdain; he gets in close with Allie who runs the town’s saloon. She tells Roland the Man came weeks before and he resurrected a man from the dead for no reason other than he could. Roland stays with Allie for his time in Tull, trying to see what trap the Man in Black has laid out for him; eventually the trap springs and suddenly the whole town tries to kill The Gunslinger. In one of the best action scenes I’ve ever read, Roland mows down everyone in Tull, including Allie tragically, but all Roland could do is move on. After leaving Brown, Roland is left wandering through the desert, dehydrated and exhausted. He passes out near an old Way Station; Jake Chambers is there when he wakes up, a young boy not of that world. For the rest of the book, Roland and Jake trek through the mountains, where a demon tries to rape Jake. After the demon, they are forced to follow the Man in Black through the perilous mountains, where the Slow Mutants live and where there is no light and a lot of falls. Then Roland is faced with a choice, let Jake die or lose the Man in Black and the Dark Tower forever; “there are other worlds than these” are Jake’s last words before falling into the dark. The finale brings us to Walter, the Man in Black, where he reveals the purpose and future of Roland and the Dark Tower that connects all reality…

So I’m going to say this book inspired me more than I think any other book ever has. Roland Deschain is a strong, stoic, bad ass anti-hero. Walter is a cool villain that at the very end doesn’t feel so much like a villain, which was cool. There is alluring foreshadowing and a non-linear story that really works. I love the setting, that is both dreamlike but has feelings of either the old west or a post apocalypse, which makes our world Jake comes from look alien by comparison. The only downfall I can sight is that there are differences between prints of the book; the older editions are much more vague, solitary, and makes Roland more of a heartless anti-hero. The updated version has more references to the rest of the series, a change in dialect to match the much later stories, and tries to make Roland a little more heroic. I personally like the earlier version myself but it’s a great story either way and definitely deserves to be read and experienced.

Ah welcome to best and worst of Vampires part 2 (see my Dracula and Twilight reviews for part 1.) So as I said in my Cujo review, I was going to be covering a little more Stephen King and since the Dark Tower movie approaches, I thought this would be a great time to hit up Salem’s Lot, which comes into play towards the end of the series with Don Callahan, one of our main characters.

Salem’s Lot was Stephen King’s second novel after his huge success with Carrie, about how the quiet town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine is quietly taken over by a Vampire named Kurt Barlow and his assistant Straker who move into the “haunted” Marsten House. You notice how I kind of emphasized the word quiet? Well, Salem’s Lot is a quiet book. Do not read this if you are expecting a bloodbath, rich emo kids that sparkle, or vampires that turn into giant bat creatures and fight werewolves for the fate of the universe or some shit like that. Hell, King’s vampires in this are pretty typical. Pale, fangs, lure you to let them in, crosses, holy water, sunlight, and only come out at night- the classic vampire mold. And that’s not a bad thing, because we are given relatable characters and a simple setting many of us either live in or can picture and how it can be creepy or unsettling.

The story centers around Ben Mears, a famous writer who grew up in the lot and returned to it after twenty five years to write about the Marsten House that scared him as a kid. He becomes friends with old Matt Burke, a teacher, and gets the hots for Susan Norton, a young college grad who’s a fan of his. Ben finds out a man named Barlow bought the old Marsten house for his antique furniture business but no one has seen him, just his partner Richard Straker. Not soon after, people start disappearing and others start dying but don’t stay that way. Soon it’s up to Ben, Matt, Sue, young Mark Petrie, Dr. Jim Cody, and struggling father Don Callahan to ban together and finish the undead crisis weeping through quiet little Jerusalem’s Lot before they become next in Barlow’s horde.

Movies have been made about this book and/ or mini series but you’re better off just reading it. It’s a decent vampire story that’s well written, has some genuine chills in it. If you want a decent adaptation that frankly ain’t a adaptation, I recommend checking out the anime Shiki. Both are pretty damn similar but Shiki gives you some darker pathos and a six episode slaughter-fest at the end, but as one of my favorite high school teachers used to say, I digress. Definately check out Salem’s Lot if you’re a Stephen King fan or want a good classic vampire story without the goth romance tropes that have become commonplace in vampire fiction (and anime fans, check out Shiki).

 So this is a weird one, friends. Lord of Flies is a book that is both strange and deep, much like Animal Farm, showcasing the the evils that can spawn in the hearts of man without the threat of society’s consequence. During the dawn of WW2, a plane full of English boys crash lands on a island in the middle of nowhere. They are the only human inhabitants. Our character is Ralph, a carefree young lad transfixed with the promise of no grown ups and a island to explore. Soon he meets Piggy, a fat, asthmatic boy in glasses who acts as a thread to rationality to the story. Together they find a conch shell in the sand; Ralph blows on it to summon the others. Others come forth, including a band of black clad choir group led by Jack Merridew. Ralph and Jack, two of the oldest, old a vote to see who leads the group. Ralph is voted chief, while Jack takes point of leading hunters for food. The goal is simple: build and maintain a fire on top of the island and survive. Ralph quickly discovers the hardships of chiefdom- the fire isn’t easy to keep up, fear spreads among the little ones of a monster that lives on the island eating the children, and ultimately his tumultuous clashing with Jack, who slowly falls into madness and overthrows Ralph by violent force.

By itself Lord of the Flies is a hard book to classify; it exhibits pieces of psychological horror, parable like animal farm, and straight up adventure epic. It’s a very slow burn, but like many good stories of this kind, once the eerie and dark parts begin it escalates nicely. My favorite aspect is Jack’s slow descent into madness and how he throws away much of morality behind clay paint he wears, feeling disconnected enough not to be affected by the blood he starts enjoying spilling. I enjoy the grim look at man’s action without consequence. My only gripe is yes this is a slow ass burn and not even a big book. A lot of detail goes into the scenery and setting, much like the novel for The Shining which is fine but sometimes, ok more than sometimes, hurts the pacing. Absolutely worth a read if you ever wondered what a cross between Children of the Corn and Gilligan’s Island would be like.