Tag: Writing

Stephen King: #30 – The Long Walk

On By Luke FlorenceIn Books, Lists, Stephen King, Uncategorized, WritingLeave a comment

#30 – The Long Walk

Plot

On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for an event known throughout the country as The Long Walk. If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is terrifying.

Review

We talked earlier about how The Running Man could easily have been made into an episode of Black Mirror.  King slows it down with The Long Walk, but the idea remains the same – this novel would have made for an excellent Black Mirror episode.  

There is nothing complicated about this premise.  100 boys start walking – if they stop, they die.  Last man standing wins.  The prize?  Anything they want.  A bountiful of riches, or maybe a lifetime of horrors.  

The Long Walk cracks the top-half of this list because of that simple – and yet incredibly powerful – premise.  King also executes with excellent character development on an extremely high level.  The Long Walk isn’t tremendously suspenseful, but King will enlist your empathy – and disdain – for those that are competing.  

Typically, I let endings resonate before reading reviews online, but I immediately looked for explanations of the final sequences because I was not 100% sure how to interpret the last few pages.  

Details

Pages: 370

Dates Read: June – July 2019

Quote: “Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”

Best Part: Charley horses are horrible – but this takes it to another level.

Hint for #29: King had to change the year in this novel from 2020 to 2019 due to COVID-19.

 

Until next time, peace be the journey.

Stephen King: #31 – Misery

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#31 – Misery

Plot

Novelist Paul Sheldon has plans to make the difficult transition from writing historical romances featuring heroine Misery Chastain to publishing literary fiction. Annie Wilkes, Sheldon’s number one fan, rescues the author from the scene of a car accident. The former nurse takes care of him in her remote house but becomes irate when she discovers that the author has killed Misery off in his latest book. Annie keeps Sheldon prisoner while forcing him to write a book that brings Misery back to life. 

Review

As I mentioned previously, I do my best to not have any idea what a book or a movie or a tv show is about before I consume it. I’ve found that not having any expectations on where I think the story should be headed has allowed me to experience art with a clearer and more open mind.

Unfortunately, there are times where this can be unavoidable. Misery falls into this category as – despite never watching the movie starring Kathy Bates – I knew the general premise prior to reading the book. But man, do I wish I had a blank canvas because Misery is a great read. The sheer amount of psychological warfare that was being exhibited by Annie was extraordinary.

Knowing the premise is one thing, but not having a clue how everything was executed was another. King had his audience in mind – not only because of the centered relationship between fan and artist, but also because Misery puts you right into Paul’s shoes – and what helpless soles they are.

It’s hard not to read Misery and ask yourself what King was really trying to say to his Constant Readers. He published Misery soon after The Eyes of The Dragon (yet to be named on this list) and received some backlash from his supporters because it was so much different than his previous works. As for me – I’m here because King is a great writer – regardless of genre, and Misery is an excellent example of that.

Details

Pages: 368

Dates Read: October – November 2020

Quote: “I am your number one fan.”

Best Part: It’s difficult to look at a riding lawnmower the same way after reading Misery.

Hint for #30: My dog Lucy and I would often go on these when she was younger. Now, she’s tired after a lap around the neighborhood.

 

Until next time, peace be the journey.

Stephen King: #32 – The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

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#32 – The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Plot

While pursuing his quest for the Dark Tower through a world that is a nightmarishly distorted mirror image of our own, Roland, the last gunslinger, encounters three mysterious doorways on the beach. Each one enters the life of a different person living in contemporary New York. Here he links forces with the defiant young Eddie Dean and the beautiful, brilliant, and brave Odetta Holmes, in a savage struggle against underworld evil and otherworldly enemies.

Review

The second book in The Dark Tower series opens with a fantastic sequence on the beach involving monster lobsters. It then quickly transpires into setting up the foundation for the rest of this epic series, as we learn the identities of Roland’s crew – or ka-tet.

From a straight story and character developing perspective, this novel brings the action. I was blown away by King’s creativity ability and was very quickly drawn to all of the characters involved. My personal favorite was Eddie Dean as I was enthralled with both his struggle – and ultimately – his redemption.

My two knocks from The Drawing of the Three is the love story that begins to fester at the end didn’t feel deserved and the writing can be a little uneven at times. King introduces a character by the name of Susannah Deah, who was born out of her split personalities of Odetta and Detta. The way King describes the interactions between those differing personalities was often confusing and made for some slow reading.

Details

Pages: 463

Dates Read: Pre-2012

Quote: “What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common.”

Best Part: Roland opens the third – and final – door.

Hint for #31: The only movie from a Stephen King adaptation to win an Academy Award.

 

Until next time, peace be the journey.

Stephen King: #33 – The Running Man

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#33 – The Running Man

Plot

The Running Man is set within a dystopian future in which the poor are seen more by the government as worrisome rodents than actual human beings. The protagonist of The Running Man, Ben Richards, is quick to realize this as he watches his daughter, Cathy, grow sicker by the day and tread closer and closer to death. Desperate for money to pay Cathy’s medical bills, Ben enlists himself in a true reality style game show where the objective is to merely stay alive.

Review

The Running Man is straight out of the Black Mirror Netflix show – as it involves game-show contestants trying to evade their death in order to win a boatload of cash. America tunes in to be entertained by the hunt. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if Black Mirror’s episode titled Fifteen Million Merits was indirectly inspired by this novel.

Stephen King – who published this novel under the Richard Bachman pseudonym – says he wrote this book in one week, and it shows. The Running Man is an action-packed novel that makes it difficult for readers to catch their breath. Not heavy into building too much character, but more focused on continuing plot, The Running Man is an easy read.

Had King written this later in his career it likely would have raced up this ranking list, but you can easily tell that King was still developing his craft when he wrote this novel. The dialogue isn’t incredibly sharp, and the scene-setting leaves a little to be desired. Those are complete nitpicks, as I would completely recommend The Running Man to anyone who enjoys great premises that immediately race to the finish line.

Details

Pages: 317

Dates Read: April – May 2020

Quote: “In the year 2025, the best men don’t run for president, they run for their lives.”

Best Part: Everything that happened on the plane was riveting – with the initial phone call leading the way.

Hint for #32: We meet Roland’s ka-tet for the first time.

Until next time, peace be the journey.

Stephen King: #34 – It

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#34 – It

Plot

To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry Maine was just their hometown: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live. It was the children who saw – and felt – what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one’s deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing.

Review

Trying to properly summarize my feelings on a book with nearly half-a-million words in a couple of bullet points is an incredibly difficult task. I guess I should start by saying I was very excited to read this novel, which felt like a brick in my hand – but in a good way. I had heard about the clown (Pennywise) but had no idea about the overall plot details.

It encapsulates so much of what I enjoy about King novels. He is able to masterfully tell two different stories at the same time and weave his way back and forth effortlessly. On one side you have a group of children terribly frightened of a clown in a sewer and on the other side, you have the same group of children all grown up and terribly frightened of going back to face Pennywise. Incredibly structured and every character is fully developed (which should hopefully be a given considering how much paper King had at his disposal).

However, this book does struggle in parts (which again, should be expected) – but there is one scene that knocked It down to the middle of the pack.  Granted, I know this book is largely about the end of childhood and sex is a big part of that transition, but how King chose to portray this did not sit well with me.

Maybe it’s because I have a child and imagined him being involved in this scene, or maybe it’s because it was a ridiculous way to move the plot – and characters – forward. Either way, it’s one of my lasting memories from this novel, and that’s a shame.

Details

Pages: 1,156

Dates Read: July 30 – September 7, 2020

Quote: “We all float down here!”

Best Part: Many memorable moments – and scenes – in this novel, but my favorite is the opener.

Hint for #33: Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as the main character in a 1987 film loosely based off this book.

 

Until next time, peace be the journey.