Cell : 15th Sep - 17th Oct 2015

I'm in two minds about Cell. On the one hand, I just didn't get on board with the overall conceit of a brain rebooting pulse that turns mobile phone users into 'zombies'. It's a shallow metaphor for the benign influence of mobile phones - and, considering our ever increasing enslavement to the smartphone - wholly accurate, but I'm not sure it's strong enough to hold up 400-500 pages. Telepathy loses my attention a bit too.

On the other, I welcomed a return to the familiar King territor of a band of survivors embarking on an adventure and taking on the bad guy (without all the trappings of The Dark Tower - I still have some unresolved feelings about the series, that i'll be working through. Don't worry, it's less weird than it sounds.)

I know how soft and cosseted it makes me sound to find comfort - and relief? in the familiar and formulaic, instead of hankering for King's ongoing creative evolution and waving the flag for his writing whatever he feels like writing, but in order to keep up what little momentum I have in this mission, I was happy for a 'standard-King'.

Lisey's Story is next. I didn't know a thing about it, but I've recently heard good things.

The Colorado Kid - 10th - 14th Sep 2015

I really should have read this in one go as it's a short mystery novel. As it happened, I had a busy weekend flying to Atlanta, driving to Tennessee, running a half marathon before driving back and flying home.

The Colorado Kid was a cool little book that has acted as both a palate cleanser and a springboard to get cracking and power on through the back nine of the bibliography. It's becoming too common a final word in these posts but, we'll see.

Reaching the Dark Tower - Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower: Apr- Sep 15

So, I went and finished the Dark Tower series. I haven't got the energy to write about the two books individually, and I'm not one for lengthy criticism, so I'll just close out the series with a few thoughts.

It's King's self-professed magnum opus. It didn't hit me the way I'd expected or maybe hoped. Overall, I could say I wouldn't have really minded missing the whole thing out. At the same time, there were sections that really got me, specifically the evolution of Jake and Roland's relationship and the death of one of the characters was like a knife. I read the section while walking home from work and after a couple of great wracking sobs burst out of me, I had to put the book away until I got in the house. 

The biggest thing for me, though, was that I didn't care how things turned out. Apart from the particularly moving passages, the rest was just a story passing by.

Now, I read with interest the introductions to the books where King says that he received letters from people who were dissatisfied with the way he ended one book and other plot decisions he made. Who are these dickweasels that take it upon themselves to write to an author and tell them they shouldn't have written this or that? Your options as a reader are limited to read or don't. That's it. It's not for you. It's mere coincidence if you like it. Jesus.

My final thought is that I'm inclined to find the audiobook series and give it all another go. We'll see.

Wolves of the Calla - The Dark Tower V : Feb - Apr 15

This big bugger didn't take me all that long, all things considered. I finally managed to find some reading discipline and forced my way through.
I suppose using the word 'forced' there says a lot. I wasn't rushing to pick the book up every night, desperate to see what would happen next, but soldiered through it.
I'm still not a Dark Tower convert, but still holding on that everything will fall into place and the scales will fall from my eyes. Or not. Either way, there are worse ways to spend your time.

From a Buick 8: 22nd Jan - 2nd Feb 2015

That's better. 400 and a few pages in little over a week.

I'll kick off by saying I liked From a Buick 8 a lot. It isn't a brilliant book, but I had a good time reading it. It had the feeling of coming home to me. Coming home to the style of Stephen King that I fell in love with all those years whenever when. Eminently readable, head far from up its own arse but still able to grab you by the throat, punch you in the gut or compel you to lay the book down and smile with a faraway look and say "shit, he nailed it."

The Stephen King I love always feels real, even though his stories take you further and further into the unreal. He's someone whose stories can be read without an overt, critical dissection of the themes and subtexts because there's enough satisfaction in just reading the fucking thing. The subtexts and themes come through and sink in without being mined in fear of having missed something because the book was so dry or listless.

As I said, the book isn't brilliant. Nowhere near his best, but it got me revved up. (I actually got a couple of sentences on before I came back to apologise for that pun). There were bits I had to force myself to keep reading (the autopsy being one) because the dread was rising.

Long story short, fun and satisfying.

Black House: 16th Aug 2014 - 21st Jan 2015

Hahahaha, 5 months. Pitiful. I'll list my excuses/distractions at the end.

On the plus side, as Laura of Devouring Texts fame promised, it was way better that expected. Still not awesome, but as I say almost every time these days, it would probably have gone a lot better for me if I'd have just charged through it.

Part of me got excited by the Dark Tower references (probably because it's nice to feel part of the in-crowd) but the other part wished I gave much of a toss about The Dark Tower series. Up to now, I really don't. I'm still looking forward to the three upcoming installments of the series I have coming up after From a Buick 8 and Everything's Eventual.

Anyway, Black House. Early on, it was really obvious who was writing. I found Straub's exposition dreary and could tell when King took over with his crackling prose and irreverence. After a while, I didn't notice it as much. I think it stood out at first because I came at the book expecting not to like it (The Talisman didn't thrill me at all - http://thekinglongread.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/talisman-8th-may-19th-august-2011.html), so, like a dick, it was easy to latch on to this as confirmation that it was going to be cack. As it turns out, it wasn't cack. It made me want to revisit The Talisman. Based on how things are going, that might not be for another 5-10 years, so we'll see.

Distractions:
My rekindled love of American Football, heroically enabled by the NFL GamePass app for iPad. So good.

I've also been catching up on some TV with Netflix/Amazon Prime

Sons of Anarchy - bit of a guilty pleasure.
Justified - love it and looking forward to diving headlong into Elmore Leonard's bibiliography at some point
American Horror Story
- only series 1 so far, not 100% but with so many genuinely creepy moments, I'll go back for the rest.
The League - my wife has an aversion to it because my hooting and belly laughing gets on her nerves
Community - only on series 1 and so much of it falls flat, I wonder whether to keep going, but then there are some great bits that keep me pressing the 'play next episode' button.

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.