Dreamcatcher: 4th Mar - 15th Aug 2014

It was nowhere near as bad as I expected. I found it a bit dull through the middle and found it easy to put to one side while I read half a dozen other books and a few comic series. It got a bit confusing in the middle, probably due to my lack of application and just not giving too much of a monkeys how things went.
In the end, as is usually the case, I steamed through the last third and got into it, but still didn't feel too much about it, one way or the other.
Rather than rattle on about it, I'll just say that I wouldn't advise avoiding Dreamcatcher, I'd just recommend blasting through it and not taking four months.

Black House is next. I thought The Talisman was a bit shit. Wish me luck.

On Writing: 26th Feb - 3rd Mar 2014

I wasn't exactly dying to read this. The last of King's non-fiction that I read, Danse Macabre, didn't set my world on fire. While I dig his conversational tone, it didn't take me long to lose interest and succumb to the desire to press on with the fiction.

Similarly as with The Plant, I was in two minds whether to bother reading it at all. Laura - Devouring Texts helped
sway me towards reading it with her positive review and position that anything that delayed moving on to Dreamcatcher is a good thing.

So, On Writing... It's nice and short, split into two parts (autobiographical highlights that may explain how he ended up being the type of writer he is and advice on how to be a better writer). As I
said earlier, his conversational tone is eminently readable and his advice makes sense. Having tried my hand at writing before now and giving it up, I wasn't approaching it with a 'yes!!! give me answers so I can be an awesome writer and get paid/laid'. It did convince me that
I'm not cut out for it though, which is helpful in a different way.  Quickly getting fed up of the sound of your own voice isn't a winning
attribute.

The section on editing gave me pause. I've written half a dozen or so short stories with the following process:
Longhand first draft, type up second draft/edit, let my wife read it and make any changes based on her comments. They were then 'published' in an online magazine and read by no one. After reading On Writing, I've considered giving them a proper edit using the -10%
rule and the approach King takes in the example extract. We'll have to see if I can be arsed though.

Dreamcatcher is next. I've heard almost nothing but bad things (also about the film). I know nothing about the book so am harbouring a secret hope that it's not that it's actually bad, but rather, it just isn't to everyone's taste and I'll be one of the few who love it. Don't worry, it's only a glimmer of a hope.

First things first, though, I'm reading Dan Rhodes' new book, When the Professor got Stuck in the Snow. I love him. I'm also still on with working through Joanne Harris' works. She's lovely.

The Plant: 9th Jan - 25th Feb 2014

What a surprise, I took my sweet time with a book, got distracted by others, lost momentum and ended up not caring for it all that much.

It didn't particularly help that, with it being unfinished, I was in two minds whether to bother reading it in the first place. My mind was made up after tweets from fellow Stephen King reader/blogger extraordinaire Laura, of Devouring Texts fame, where she offered the perspective that anything that gets in the way of reading Dreamcatcher must be worth a look.

I didn't dig it. I was so much more interested in embarking on a long overdue Joanne Harris binge and also finally got around to reading my favourite author, Dan Rhodes' last book This Is Life. I suck. On all fronts.
It's no that The Plant was shit. There were a few flashes of awesomeness, just not many.

The 'unfinished' element doesn't really bother me because it does stop at a logical point and I've read stories with intended endings that were much weaker than this.

So, smashing my way through On Writing is next, followed by Dreamcatcher, a book about which I've heard nothing but bad things. Exciting.

S is for Stephen King...

This blog makes me wish I'd kept up with learning Greek :'(
http://sfstephenking.blogspot.gr/

Hearts in Atlantis: 28th Aug 2013 - 8th Jan 2014

I really don't know what took me so long.  The first story (Low Men in Yellow Coats) didn't really grab me but I made my way through it and just sort of stalled halfway through the second (Hearts in Atlantis).

Considering that this was around two-thirds of the way through the book as a whole, you'd have thought I'd just power on and get through it. But no...I'll just read a few comics...oh and maybe a series of novels too. Oh, and then I spent a few weeks catching up on Dexter, wrote and rough-recorded some acoustic tunes. Altogether, no real excuse. It just didn't set my world on fire.

Next up is The Plant. The fact that it's unfinished sways me towards thinking it's probably a bit shit. I almost want it to be, as it would be easier to deal with the lack if conclusion. Let's find out.

I'm still on with Hearts in Atlantis, I promise.

As is customary, I'm on a periodic go slow with one of books. But, I assure you, I haven't given it up, I'm just crawling my way through Hearts in Atlantis.

Hiram - See The Thing Within The Thing: Not a review

Earlier this year, Hiram released their second album, See The Thing Within The Thing. It's tremendous.

It has been met with a varied critical reception, from the negatively indifferent to the voraciously gushing. That's all well and good and, considering the nature, tone and delivery of the music along with the expansive song structures and durations, to be expected. I'm not much of a fan of music reviewing, particularly the reliance on comparisons with other bands and how a good review is generally based on the reviewer's opinion of the bands they discern as influences/reference points and how well the songs fit the preconceived template of the style of music they see them as aiming for. I'm being overly harsh towards music reviewers and criticism as a discipline, but their part in providing some kind of official validation of a band and the way bands so unashamedly chase them and subsequently hold aloft good reviews and waft them in our faces with greater enthusiasm than they play the music is a bit gross.

While I know it's all part of the game and the established step in garnering wider listenership and interest for a band, it saddened me to see Hiram pushing for and then reacting to reviews, particularly negative ones or the few that seemed to have missed the point entirely, with disappointment and a little indignation. So, with the intention of explaining why it saddened me and what I think of Hiram and their album See The Thing Within The Thing, here's my non-review.

Hiram are not a typical band. They've been going for a long time (8-10 years?) and almost exclusively under the radar. During this time, they have been consistently practicing, writing and recording material. To me, they exemplify musicians as artists whose craft is the beginning and the end and the all. It is not a career in music, it is not a leg-up to a big gig, a tour or label deal, it is a lifelong artistic endeavour. It is a desire to create a body of work as complex, meaningful and worthwhile as the ideas, beliefs and convictions that inspire it.

From my vantage point, counting members of the band as my closest friends, I'd say they're successful in that goal.  Their work is inspiring in its ambition and execution. There are elements that don't do a great deal for me but their work thrills me. That is the crux of it. Art is something to be lived through, to be experienced. It connects with you on a personal level. It should, by its very nature, resist judgements of good or bad and instead offer only the question: does it thrill me?

I'm totally aware that I may have been fooled by an illusion of artisans toiling in obscurity to create art for their own edification and in satisfaction; when in truth, they were constantly chasing popular approval and the standard definition of making it, but were just too shit to get picked up. But I doubt it.

This album is the next evolutionary step for a band that, for me, are encapsulated by a single performance that will stay with me for a very long time. Earlier this year, they played at West Street Live in Sheffield.  The gig setup gives three/four bands an equal set time of 30 minutes.  We're talking local bands playing a pub in the centre of Sheffield, with no door charge on a Sunday night. And they opted to play a single, 30-minute song: Love's Lock. You can listen to it here - http://hiram.bandcamp.com/album/2011-loves-lock - to see what I'm talking about. It was outstanding. They took me somewhere and I came out the other end a different person. For a large part, the audacity of playing this single song, where the vocals don't come in until around the twelve minute mark and the last ten minutes are world's end crush and cacophony, swept me up and floored me. I remember giggling to myself at the balls of it. Here was a band marching only to the beat of their own drum and delivering exactly the performance they wanted to give. No pretences, no bullshit, just a potentially alienating 30-minute opus of claustrophobic, unsettling build-up, bleak rage and wisdom, tied up with devastatingly heavy riffs.

The album continues that evolution through further developed musicianship and ability, and the desire and consummate capability to paint yet more shades of heaviness into their thoroughly metal canvas.

There's little point in further attempts to try to describe their sound when you can just as easily listen to it for free and download for whatever price you like here - http://hiram.bandcamp.com/album/2013-see-the-thing-within-the-thing 

In my, admittedly short-sighted, idealised and completely untenable world, there would be no need for Hiram to submit their music for review because all reviews are meaningless and only detract and divert from the art, but I get it. I've probably shit where I eat in writing this but I couldn't resist showing my brothers some love.

Run, do not walk to http://hiram.bandcamp.com and furnish yourself with their entire back catalogue for the price that suits you.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: 20th - 27th Aug 2013

It seems as though every other post includes a moan about the often bloated length of the books,  so you think I'd have had a giant book boner for a nice, short, tightly-focused 300 pager. I was hoping it would work that way, but it just didn't.

In typical fashion, I haven't got much of a reason why or a list of criticisms to bring to it. I just didn't dig it all that much.

Weak. I know. Hearts in Atlantis is next, but not before I finish Jason Aaron's Scalped and bash through Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man.

Bag of Bones: 1st - 19th Aug 2013

Good. Very good.

I know I keep repeating that these posts aren't meant as literary reviews - even a cursory reading makes that quite evident - but I still get that initial sinking feeling of thinking that's what I should be doing, especially when I buzzed off a book and want to say why. And then it passes when I realise I can write any old bollocks I care to. It's a blog. Who cares?

Right. Bag of Bones. It's a good read. I know that's an inane statement but, at this point, it counts for a lot. When you're reading book after book by the same author it helps maintain momentum, not just for the next book, but half a dozen down the line.  'A good read' also translates as saying it's well written, but I'm not going to claim the critical acumen to back up such a claim. What a fanny.

While it's an overtly supernatural tale, it's the human detail that makes it for me. There are glimmers of goodness (Mattie and her daughter are gorgeous - I'm really looking forward to seeing how the very lovely Melissa George does with the part), it mainly hit me as a study in the depths of shittiness of which we're capable and consistently willing to plumb, both personally and as a community.  A somewhat pessimistic reaction to King's handling of facing his worst fears (losing his wife and writers block) perhaps, but there you go.

This is good King. 

                     

Danse Macabre: 28th Nov 2010 - 13th Aug 2013

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Nearly three years to read a book.  Once again...hahahahahahaha.

Anyway, Danse Macabre.  I thought it was pretty boss to start with. King's conversational tone is part of what makes his fiction so eminently readable, but - as evidenced by my initial stalling in this reading, and subsequent halting limp through the remainder - it just wasn't enough to keep me enthralled. I eventually got hold of the audiobook version and things looked up. But, as time wore on, I just became less and less interested.

I imagine that most people reading Danse Macabre would find it a great springboard to influential and contemporary works.  Dude knows his stuff. Being in the midst of reading King's full bibliography, though, I can ill afford to add to my "to read" pile (It's actually hurts to so roundly deflect all manner of awesomeness from my life!) so, in the end, it acted more as a increasingly tiresome distraction from the main mission.

That aside, my interest in a deconstruction of the horror genre also waned heavily as things progressed.  I'm not sure how well visceral art lends itself to be disassembled and explained. It takes a lot of the magic out of it (something King puts a lot of importance in as the special ingredient), a little like being shown how an illusion is actually performed. Seeing what's behind the curtain isn't for everyone. Shitty metaphors aside, some people have no problem with appreciating art purely on the technical ability and execution.  I'm less inclined towards this.  Similarly with music. Virtuoso instrumentalists and muso-wankers bore me senseless.

But, I digress.

The length of time it took me to get through it, multiplied by a desire to crack on with other books, sucks a lot of the weight out of my reaction and its worth (especially to me).

Read it if you want an approachable version of how the engine works. If you just like to drive, don't.

Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower V - 18th March - 1st August 2013

How embarrassing. Four and a half months to read a book. In my defence, it's a big book and it isn't very good. Due to the latter, I found it hard to hammer it. And obviously didn't.

The worst thing is probably that I chose to read two of Joe Hill's books instead of charging onward. Don't tell him. Please. Nah, fuck it, you can. I don't think he'd mind too much to know someone really likes his son's work.

So, am I now a massive Dark Tower fan and totally excited by the picture that is developing of this series and its world as underpinning and encapsulating his entire oeuvre (in a fashion, at a stretch and with selective reasoning)? What do you think?

I don't really dig it at all. But I'm happy for him to be doing it. An artist should be doing whatever the fuck he wants, for himself and no one else. Whether I like it, is the least important thing. I'm just glad I'm done with this chapter of it.

Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower IV - 18th Mar 2013

I really, really want to love The Dark Tower.  Really I do.  As it happens, I didn't care too much for The Gunslinger, loved The Drawing of the Three and found The Wastelands veered too heavily between being totally compelling and rambling into the wasteland of abject boredom.

I think part of my problem is that fantasy lit. requires a level of reader engagement beyond your average popular fiction. You've got to take your suspension of disbelief to a whole other plane before you even start. I'm aware how lazy and ignorant I sound, I'm just explaining the shit my brain makes me deal with when I read. That I'm on a mission to devour these books as rapidly as time and commitment allow (partly because I'm feeling the pull towards eventually reading something other than King for a change) doesn't help getting in the mindset of full mental application. Having actually typed that, I'm realising I'm wrong, that's exactly what I need to do. I've probably already made the same point in an earlier post, so I'm obviously not bothered about making myself look daft.

Anyway, onward! Please be awesome.

Six Stories: 12th-17th Mar 2013

Considering this is out of print, was limited to 1100 copies, isn't available for Kindle and all the stories appear in later collections, let's pretend I haven't read it.

The Green Mile (film) - 3rd Mar 2013

So good.  So, so good.  It's nice when you don't have to watch a Stephen King adaptation and constantly make excuses for the quality and convince yourself that it's at least worth watching for the story and revisiting the novel or short-story.
If you haven't seen it, you should.  The ending is utterly crushing, no matter how many times you've seen it.

The Regulators: 4th - 11th Mar 2013

So, it turns out there was a much greater connection between The Regulators and Desperation than I expected.  I'd got the impression that the links were more or less nominal, but it turns out that some of the characters (Johnny, Steve and Cynthia at least) were pretty much the same people. Oh, and it's the same Tak, his possession is just a bit different.

Overall, the book's a bit daft.  Crushingly insightful criticism, I know.  But it's all I've got.  I agree with Laura @devouringtexts.blogspot.co.uk that The Regulators feels designed to offer Johnny redemption for being such a bell-end in Desperation.
The violent deaths and dismemberments were pretty arresting/cool this time around.
I recently read a comment on a message board in answer to the question of whether one should read Desperation or The Regulators first. The guy suggested that one would be better taking both books, putting them in the bin and forgetting all about them. Dude had a point.

p.s. Apart from Cynthia. I could have used more Cynthia.

Desperation (TV mini-series) 11th Mar 2013

Seriously now, WHY?  This was terrible.  Ron Perlman was about the best thing in
it.  The smugness of the 'god is good/terrible/great' thing was nauseating.  I
really need to stop watching these.  I won't.  I'm an idiot.

Dolan's Cadillac (film) - 21st Feb 2013

Why? Seriously, though. Why?

Why do I read Stephen King novels/stories and then watch film adaptations? I know there are some exceptions that don't need to be listed here, but there are so many more that just didn't need to be made. Maybe that's not entirely true. Some of them work well enough on their own, when compared to other films of their quality and production value. For example, I've seen Dolan's Cadillac likened to an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and other stories described as perfect for The Outer Limits. Now, that's all well and good. It's just, when you read Stephen King, you don't ascribe the movie in your mind with the production value of a 70's TV mini-series. That's being a little unfair towards Dolan's Cadillac as it's a pretty good looking film and, while Christian Slater and Wes Bentley are no longer the big hitters they once were (moreso Slater), they're not shit.

And neither is Dolan's Cadillac shit. It's not great and, as a fan of the story and Slater (yep, you heard), I really hoped it would be. One thing that threw me was that, having heard Slater was in it and looking no further into the film until it came through my letterbox, courtesy of Lovefilm, I'd assumed Slater played the part of Robinson. So fully formed was this assumption - made before I'd even read the story - that I read it with Slater in mind. I'd got him looking all harried, sweaty and balding like he did in the film He Was A Quiet Man. Error on my part. Or maybe theirs.

Stephen King film adaptations are a bit like when you go out to eat and have something that blows your mind. Then you have a go at making the dish yourself and it may range from a passable imitation to an inedible mess or on those rare occasions, you nail it or make something not quite the same, but due to the quality of the ingredients and the skill/luck of adaptation it's just as mind blowing. Most of the time, it just won't be as good and you'll realise that you'll never equal the restaurant version and should just save that dish for when you eat out and know that the chef will nail it.

All that said, you know I'm still going to watch all of them. Idiot.

Desperation: 4th - 27th Feb 2013

I had such high hopes for Desperation.  It totally grabbed me by the scrote within the first few pages. For a Stephen King novel (at least so far in my chronological reading) it's not all that common. Sure, he posits ideas that that are immediately intriguing, but he rarely hits the ground running in such a forceful way as he does here in Desperation. I had chills within minutes. Needless to say, I was very excited.

As things progressed and the cast of characters was assembled in opposition to the evil adversary, I got echoes of The Stand. Not so much Captain Trips, but the classic battle of good* versus evil and the character of Johnny Marinville reminded me of Larry Underwood. King certainly likes his washed-up artists.

*Unfortunately, for me, this "good" is here represented by the plainest Christian representation of god, not only as a focus of faith and hope, but a direct agent of action and influence. I say unfortunately, but I don't suppose it's totally impossible to regard it as a literary device based on the tradition of other great works of fiction. That some people don't realise that they are works of propaganda and fiction is another, more troublesome, matter entirely.

While The Stand didn't light my fire in the way I'd hoped, particularly considering its almost universal acclaim among King's fans, I was hopeful and very willing, considering how well it started, to love Desperation. As I wrote in my opening post for the book, even at the halfway stage, I wasn't disappointed. Somehow, though, things went awry as I hit a lull, both in the narrative and my momentum. I'm not sure to what extent spending a good week catching up on about fifty issues of The Walking Dead comic was a cause or effect of this lack of motivation, but it was a welcome relief.

I eventually stopped farting about and went back and finished the book. It pains me to say that my liking of the book steadily decreased throughout the second half. I just stopped caring. And this was in spite of the inclusion of Cynthia from Rose Madder. I was inordinately happy about her inclusion in the book and actually rather liked the fact that she didn't have the largest of roles, she was just there - at about the same level as she was in Rose Madder.

I hadn't really paid much attention to or recognised the fact that King's endings tend to be somewhat hurried and almost anticlimactic - I'm obviously not the most involved or perceptive of readers. Maybe it's that he doesn't signpost his transition into the third act as clearly as I need him to. I'm dumb.

Alright, that's enough. I wanted to like it a lot and, for the first half, I really did. Then I started liking it less and less until I thought it was just OK and can't imagine I'll ever read it again to see if I was wrong. On the plus side, it stands out as the book that got right inside my mind and put a knot in my belly within minutes. So there's that.

The Regulators - 2nd Mar 2013

Right then. I'm in two minds going into this one. On the one hand, I'm eager to find out how the book ties in with Desperation, even though I've been told it's not that much. Having gotten all sloppy over Cynthia from Rose Madder showing up in Desperation, it's a bit gutting that in The Regulators, the names will all be familiar, but the characters are all different. I'm sure I'll get over it.

The other vibe I've got for The Regulators from the internets is that it just isn't very good. Exciting.

In my post for The Green Mile I talked about whether I had become numb to graphic descriptions of the horrors of physical violence. While Desperation didn't really get under my skin in this regard, a story told in The Walking Dead comic last week did. One of the characters talked of a guy that, before the rise of the dead, had sucked out and eaten the eyes of his four year old son. Fuck.

So I'm not totally dead inside.

Desperation - 4th Feb 2013

I didn't know the first thing about this book other than that the next one in line, The Regulators, was published under the Richard Bachman name and acts as a sort of companion piece.

As I write this, I'm already more than halfway through Desperation and have read a little about The Regulators, so know that any assumptions I had about the relationship between the two books is completely wrong.

I'd imagined the two books being two perspectives on the same story and highly anticipated seeing how King would handle this approach. While it turns out that it's completely unrelated, I'm still going to bluster ahead with a recommendation of Lucas Belvaux's 'La Trilogie' - three films with interlocking plots and characters that are played out in different genres - Cavale/On the Run (thriller), Un couple épatant/An Amazing Couple (romantic comedy/farce) and Après la vie/After the Life (melodrama).  They're not perfect films either individually, or even as a whole, but they're mightily impressive and very powerful.

Now I've got that out of my system, I'll get back to reading Desperation, as it's treating me very well so far.  There are some echoes of The Stand, except I'm actually enjoying it and hammering my way through it.  Sweet.