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[anythingstephenking]

6 Years Later

Welp here we are. 6.5 years after picking up Carrie in April of 2016, I finished 75 King novels. Honestly, the whole thing feels a little anticlimactic? Maybe it’s because I thought I could finish in a year or two, maybe it’s because we’ve been through a Donald Trump presidency and a global pandemic and finishing 75 books seems pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things?

Whether I threw myself a party or not (I didn’t) it was still a SUPER fun ride and WTF do I do now until Holly comes out next year? 

Lets break it down. Despite it seeming like my King reading was a little all over the place, looking back at the data, I was actually pretty consistent YoY, reading an average of 10-14 books of his a year. That’s nothing to sneeze at right? Obviously 2020 is an outlier, as I spent the majority of Covid Year One face down in a bucket of wine, only surfacing occasionally to eat bread and cheese.

It’s so hard to pick my favorites but I am going to try anyway. I think at the end of the day, my most favorites were the character, world building, million pages adventures that felt like a big hug. This would include the entirety of The Dark Tower, Fairy Tale, The Talisman and The Stand. Traveling to other worlds (or our own in the middle of the dumbestly named virus ever, Captain Tripps) was my favorite escape.

But we came here for the scary, so which ones scared the poop out of me? Legit nightmares from The Stand (made me scared to sneeze), The Shining, Cujo, Pet Semetary and IT. The passage of Luis on his way to the burial ground with Church will haunt my dreams forever. 

All around favies? Misery was pure agony in the best way possible. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that makes you feel addiction in such a visceral way. 11/22/63 - Jake and Sadie are the couple I didn’t know I needed in my life. Plus time travel, which is always fun. The Talisman was the first of King’s fantasy that I literally couldn’t put down, I just only wish Black House hadn’t been such a let down. And Revival really knocked my socks off with that ending - I recommended it to my dad who promptly texted me “What the hell was that??” when he finished.

I remember hating Under The Dome on my first read (I blame The Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher for making me wary of King’s aliens), but I loved it on a revisit, then got angry remembering how badly CBS botched that show.

Least favies? Listen, all King’s have their merit but I’m not shy in saying how much I hated all the Bachmans (save The Long Walk). So dark. Especially Rage. What a turd. I also didn’t much care for Bill Hodges, but that’s not cause they weren’t ok books but because I hated Bill Hodges so friggin’ much, I did not want to spend my free time with him. Do NOT put my gal Holly in danger Bill. I hate you.

My only other gripe was the “women endure torture” years which were exceptionally difficult to get through, one after another. Gerald’s Game, Dolores Claiborne and Rose Madder right after each other was REAL ROUGH. 

Ok, I’m done being sour.

Looking back, I am most ashamed of my writeup of Needful Things, which I definitely took too literally and not for the nonsensical black comedy it was. Shame on me.

My most surprising read was Duma Key, which I had never heard of but enjoyed immensely. I wrote this one up over a year after I read it, so my summary is, uh, terrible, but I remember really enjoying the ghost pirate ships so yay for Duma Key.

It was also joyful getting to see so many King adaptations I had never seen; from Cat’s Eye to Doctor Sleep to The Mist to Idiris Elba as Roland, just a lot of good and so so much bad. And why so many 6 hours miniseries??? Bad 1990s CBS executives, bad bad.

Seeing books I read as a child (seriously, how did my parents let me read SO MUCH KING when I was a kid) through a new lens as an adult was fun too. I remembered Pennywise from IT, but I did not remember the kid orgy and junkyard blowies. File that under repressed memories to discuss with my therapist.

And now, after 6.5 years, I can finally stop saying “I am reading…” and start saying “I have read all his novels*” but I guess I still gotta asterisk it till I read the non-fiction.

I’ll be back next year for my gal Holls. 

[anythingstephenking]

Fun Times with Fairy Tales

This is it. The last King in my journey. Released just 3 months ago in September of 2022, I just love love loved this book. 

King said in interviews that he wanted to write something fun during lockdown, because there was so little fun happening. This novel is an absolute perfection of good-vs-evil, a la one of my personal favorites, The Talisman, before it. We’ve got a magical world! We’ve got a 4-legged companion! We’ve got evil kings! Guys, did I say this book was fun? It was just so much fun.

Our hero this go-round is Charlie Reede, a 17-year-old wise beyond his years due to his mother’s untimely passing and his father’s resulting alcoholism. You quite often forget Charlie’s only a kid; he’s not wasting his time on TikTok.

Charlie saves an old man, Howard Bowditch, with whom he develops a really lovely caregiver role for. Unbeknownst to Charlie, Howard’s shed in the back is a portal to another world, one where an evil king and his troll rule like real dillholes, and their magical pollution is turning the world’s inhabitants into stonemen of Volantis. No bueno.

Charlie and Oy, I mean Radar (Bowditch’s German Sheppard), set out to save the day. The are threads and parallels of other fairy tales throughout, from Rumplestiltskin to Jack and the Beanstalk. Charlie solves 1 problem then encounters 4 more, and you can’t stop turning the pages to see what happens next. We learn to love the characters, everyone from Leah the exiled princess with no mouth, to Snab, the giant cricket who rules over all small things. 

King is king of world-building, and he knocks it out the park here. He said he wrote it while seeing a mental image of “a vast deserted city – deserted but alive … the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street … a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds”. 

A whole new Oz.

I almost believed we wouldn’t get our happy ending. But it’s called Fairy Tale, so I really shouldn’t have been too worried.

9/10

First Line: I’m sure I can tell this story. 

Last Line: And when they are small, and wonder is all they know, I will read them the old stories, the ones that start once upon a time.

Adaptations: Paul Greengrass got this one, which seems odd but sure, let’s Bournify Charlie Reede and kick some booty.

[anythingstephenking]

Goodbye Gwendy

You know what I thought I’d never read? A Stephen King book that takes place on the International Space Station. But here we are, with our final installment of the Gwendy trilogy, throwing that damn box into outer space. Does that sound silly? Yes. Is it silly? Not really.

I did read Gwendy’s Magic Feather before this, published solely by Chizmar in 2019. Gwendy’s now married and working as a senator from Maine, and also a popular published author. Ding ding ding! 

We pick up in Final Task - it’s 2026, Gwendy is in her 60s and the box is back. Dun dun dun. She also has early onset Alzheimer’s, its very sad, and Richard Farris is back with the box. See Gwendy’s the only one that’s ever taken good care of the box. Sure she caused Jonestown, but the person before her caused COVID by pressing the Asia button, so not as bad by comparison. Farris is sick and needs Gwendy to get rid of the box by launching it into outer space. Cool.

Somehow it’s written believably that Gwendy could secure herself a spot on a flight out to the ISS, and gets to space somehow as her brain disintegrates in her skull. 

If Farris is from The Tower universe, some version of The Man in Black and/or Randall Flagg, what does it mean that he’s dying? If pressing the black button destroys the Tower, why is this version of Flagg working so hard to protect it?

Maybe I’m just too dumb to connect all the dots, but The Dark Tower was all over this (there’s Low Men, TET Corp etc). WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Anywho, a decent and emotional end to Gwendy’s great quest to protect the world from grave danger. If only she had gotten the box back before the dumbass pressed the COVID button.

7/10

First Line: It’s a beautiful April day in Playalinda, Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral. 

Last Line: Sitting there, staring up at the infinite darkness, he thinks they are easy words to believe. 

Adaptations: MIKE FLANNIGAN IS MAKING THE DARK TOWER UNIVERSE CONTENT! WE ARE NOT WORTHY.

Alright, not Gwendy but adjacent and I just read about this last week and literally couldn’t be more excited. Veruca Salt voice: I WANT IT NOW.

[anythingstephenking]

Barry and Dexter’s Love Child

It’s the homestretch y’all! Actually, spoiler alert, as I write this I have already finished Gwendy’s Final Task and Fairy Tale, and I’m formally done with my King adventure. It’s wild to think I’ve finally caught ‘em all but I’ll save my euphoria for another post. I’m behind on my blog posts so lets catch a mf-er up.

King sure can write a cat-and-mouse chase storyline, and Billy Summers is true to that form. Can you believe King is in his 70s and just still knocking through novels like nothing? I think a lot of Constant Readers feel this newer stuff isn’t as strong as coke-king-of-days-past, but I disagree. Save the Bill Hodges books (UGH), I have really enjoyed 2010s+ King, including Revival, The Outsider and The Institute. 

Billy Summers is a fast-paced crime thriller I tore through pretty quickly. All I could think was that our titular character Billy was a cross between Bill Hader’s Barry and Michael C. Hall’s Dexter. Maybe I just liked picturing Bill Hader while reading because I consider him to be this world’s most perfect man. I will accept no questions at this time.

See, Billy’s an ex-marine sniper turned hitman. But he only takes jobs where the mark is a bad guy. Turns out there’s a lot of bad guys in this book. 

Billy’s a pretty bright guy, but plays dumb for his hitman role. He’s hired for “one last job” and seriously, hasn’t he ever seen a movie? You can’t make it out of that last job Billy. 

Despite the lingering sense of dread, it’s fun to watch Billy pretend to be a dumdum, while carefully unraveling that his anonymous boss definitely means to murder him once the job is complete. King world-builds as well as ever, as Billy settles into the suburbs waiting to carry out the hit. And because we’re in a Stephen King novel, Billy’s cover is that he’s a writer. Obviously. He takes his cover seriously and writes his own memoir, where we learn of his tragic backstory. It makes sense he kills people for a living.

As with Bag of Bones before it, Billy has a questionable quasi-romance with a young damsel in distress. Per usual, I did not much care for it, and as it was written in the post Me-Too era, could have been handled differently. Yes she’s in love with him. Because he saved her life, then assaulted her rapist by sticking an immersion blender up his bumhole. Yeah you read that right. 

Questionably motivated female characters aside, Billy Summers is a twisty-turny crime novel paced well and was tons of fun. We even got to visit Sidewinder! Always a connection in the King-o-verse.

7/10

First Line: Billy Summers sits in the hotel lobby, waiting for his ride.

Last Line: She is found

Adaptations: Another one bought by JJ Abrams; we’ll see!

[anythingstephenking]

You See Dead People

Let’s have some fun with kids that see dead people! A skill that isn’t exclusive to Haley Joel Osment, ok? Mentioned somewhat defended-ly a few times throughout Later, yes this is like the Sixth Sense. No it is not the same. Deal with it.

I’m a fan of King’s Hard Case Crime books. I do think Joyland was my fav, but The Colorado Kid was great too. Sometimes you want to dig into 1,200 pages of conflict; sometimes you just want a fun story with teenagers and some spooky shit. Get a man that can do both ladies, and Mr. King sure can.

Not to make this all about me, but I often do. The wild thing about Later to me was the casual first-person storytelling that was more stream of conscious than coherent. Lots of pauses halfway through sentences (with notes made in parens). It is the exact same way I write this blog. “Blah blah blah (side note: 80’s reference, lol).” Since Later is in the perspective of a boy aged 6 thru 15, I really should be embarrassed. But because I am an insane person, I thought “hey look, Steve’s writing like me! I write like Stephen King. I am awesome!” Suck on that Baby Boomers, you gave us all the trophies and now we think we’re the bees knees.

It’s different than “standard King”, but more than 70 novels deep, dude can write in any narrative style that he chooses. 

In Later we follow Jamie, a snazzy young man who lives in the big apple with his mom and sometimes sees people after they’ve died. He can converse with them, and turns out dead people can’t lie? They also know they’re dead, so no Bruce Willis types here. See, I told you it was different from the Sixth Sense. 

I got through this is just 2 nights time; I was truly loving the story. Jamie and his mom Tia were fleshed out enough characters that you were rooting for; there was a baddie who was up to no good. The deadlights showed up, and there is a Ritual of Chud! Jamie fights the evil in 2013, which just happens to be in the ballpark of when Pennwise would have returned after the giant spider nonsense. Maybe we just got IT Part Duex.

THEN literally in the last 5 pages this story just goes BONKERS. Like WTF off-the-rails (my opinions are mine alone). Spoilers, but Jamie learns (by asking questions to unable-to-lie dead folks) that his UNCLE is his FATHER. His mother’s brother is his dad. Like. Huh.

There’s this whole passage about how incest really isn’t that big a deal for birth defects - I literally never want that to be a part of my Google history so I’ll take it at face value. But like. What. His dad could have been Danny Torrence. His dad could have been fucking Pennywise for all I care, why the uncle? There’s literally no hint to this ever being a possibility. Brick dropped. Then the book is over? Ok.

Are we left to believe Jamie’s powers are due to his familiar relationship (gross), an unrelated gene mutation, a kiss from god himself? Who knows. Jamie’s just like “that’s how I found out my uncle is my dad. It’s ok, I had webbed fingers as a baby but other that that I am fine. The End.” Don’t ever let that kid sign up for Ancestry.com, his family tree will look like the fucking Targaryen’s. 

Me: “What? Why? How? Huh? No.”

Truly the craziest out-of-left-field ending I have experienced in a long time. Remember when King told us to stop reading when Roland got to the tower? Stop reading this guy at Chapter 67 and skip the incest.

7/10

First Line: I was coming home from school with my mother.

Last Line: Later.

[anythingstephenking]

No Cats Here

Guys why is there a cat of the cover of If It Bleeds? There are no cats in these stories! False advertising! I demand Church or another reanimated feline stat.

(JFC, I just looked at the cover art while I was prepping the title image here and the cat’s nose is a fucking rat! I’m a GD idiot.)

I adore a King novella. They arguably produce the best film adaptations (see: The Body, Shawshank, Green Mile, The Mist) and save for Apt Pupil (UGHHHHHHHH) I have enjoyed them all. If It Bleeds took less than a week to get through and had plenty of fun surprises.

If It Bleeds is dedicated to Russ Dorr, King’s longtime research assistant. I’ve never thought much about Russ, but was familiar with his name enough because King has thanked him a million times in his Author’s Notes. I always assumed Russ was a skinny pock-faced college student, following King around with a little notepad and pouring over webpages into the wee hours of the night to dig up some obscure fact. Turns out Russ was a retired physician who treated King’s kids and picked up research as a retirement hobby. 

Russ is thanked extensively in Under The Dome and 11/22/63, which I can’t even imagine the hours that were poured into those two alone. Imagine your grandpa being Stephen King’s research assistant. My grandpa mostly golfed and said mildly racist things in his retirement. Russ passed away in 2019, and you can feel King’s pain of his lost friend in the dedication and notes. I hope Russ found joy in helping bring these stories to life and I didn’t know him, but will miss him now all the same. 

Ok sorry that was heavy and sad. Let’s talk about the book. Imma cover adaptations in each story.

Mr Harrigan’s Phone

An ornery old man dies and answers phone calls from beyond the graaaaaave. Spooky. 

Really that’s about what this story has. It’s fun. We’ve got a May-December friendship between a young boy and an old man, who has lots of money but very few friends. After his passing, he can receive voicemails and murder people on suggestion, which might be too much power for a young boy?

There’s an adaptation coming to Netflix next month from Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy. Guys, what is going on with Ryan Murphy right now, does the man sleep? In a 4 week period, he’s releasing Dahmer (which gave me nightmares for a week), a new season of AHS, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone and The Watcher. If you want to know what Evan Peter’s buttocks look like, pick out a Ryan Murphy production and your wish shall come true.

Life of Chuck

The oddest of the 4 stories here, Life of Chuck is told in 3 acts, backwards. We start in an apocalyptic America, where sinkholes swallow cars and the internet is gone. There are billboards everywhere, celebrating “39 great years!” of Chuck, but no one has any idea who the hell Chuck is. 

We meet Chuck as a middle-aged man in Act II, dancing on the streets of Boston in his business suit and revealing in his normal life. In Act I, we learn Chuck was raised by his grandparents, who’s locked attic foretold the future, showing Chuck as a dying man in a hospital room. 

While the narrative is out of order and it is therefore a little disorienting, the conclusion is (at least as I drew it) that our universe in Act I is one designed by Chuck; when he ceases, the world flickers out. Goodbye Chuck, you had 39 great years. 

“The universe is large, he thought. It contains multitudes. It also contains me, and in this moment I am wonderful. I have a right to be wonderful.”

Darren Aronofsky optioned this. “In development” limbo.

If It Bleeds

Ok so I really don’t pay attention to new publication chatter; when I have been perpetually 20 years behind, I can’t be bothered to know what’s happening in real-time. So I had no idea that If It Bleeds titular story was going to star HOLLY FRACKIN GIBNEY! I was literally so excited to see her. It brings me joy that Holly seems to have wormed her way into King’s brain. She’s obviously still there, with Holly announced for publication in 2023, and I hope he’s got many more Holly stories left. Any character that continually uses the word “poopy” in place of “shitty” (or even “crappy”) is my favorite.

Holly��s found and chases another Outsider. There’s nothing new here, but it’s warm and comforting and no good guys die. Hurray!

Maybe HBO picks this up for a second season of The Outsider. A girl can dream.

Rat

I guess Rat is as close as we get to the cat on the cover? This guy reminded me of (oh dear god what was the story where the guy met that other guy on the airport access road and got good luck by wishing poor luck on his loved ones??). 

Anywho, we follow an English professor/struggling writer who retreats to his family’s cabin in some Maine TR, struggles to write his novel, meets a talking rat, makes a deal, it ends unfairly, writer is mad, rat does not care. A tale as old as time, amirite?

Ben Stiller optioned this one, with plans to write, direct and star. If you watched Severance this year, you can’t help but be excited by something new from Stiller. How one makes a talking rat compelling, I am not sure.

8/10

Only 5 more left! It’s time for Later, so, later.

[anythingstephenking]

Firestarter for a New Generation

The Institute is a big hug of King Classics (tm) in the best way possible. Kids with special psychic abilities? Check. Nefarious government organizations? Check. Battle of good vs. evil? Check.

It’s been 8 years since I last visited Firestarter, but my mind kept drifting to the themes of Charlie McGee’s adventures as I plowed through The Institute. Our hero, Luke Ellis is a 12-year-old boy swept away into some massively secret government organization. Unlike Charlie, he’s forced to navigate without his parents, but that’s ok cause he’s like, really smart.

Let’s back up a bit. On the surface (or summary from the book’s dust jacket) we’re stepping into The Institute - a secluded building in rural Maine (duh) where kids with special powers are experimented on for unknown reasons. An interesting premise for sure, but not one that King hasn’t explored before.

(Side Note: with all the references to rural Maine, I feel like I really understand the TR system for naming unincorporated townships and wonder how many exciting things can happen in the middle of nowhere??)

We don’t start at The Institute tho, we start with Tim Jamieson, a rugged a lost man wandering the southern United States before settling in small town SC. Tim’s not even kinda sorta close to Maine, how dare he?? We spend a hundred or so pages getting on Tim’s side as he settles his nomadic self, and we’re cozy and not really even thinking about kids with telekinesis. 

Boom, we leave Tim without so much as a farewell, and the story jumps us to Minnesota. ALSO NOT MAINE! What is happening? Here we meet Luke, who at 12 is ready to double enroll in Emerson and MIT. These colleges are in Boston. Getting warmer but still not there quite yet.

Luke’s got a big brain, and can also sometimes move things with his mind. It’s pretty inconsequential to Luke, he’s more worried about being like wicked smaht. But The Institute cares that he can push shit around without his hands, so he’s kidnapped in the middle of the night and flown to, finally… Maine.

Like any story with kids being abused (this sure does happen a lot with King) we love the kids of this story. Tiny little peanut people being slapped and tased by adults? Fuck right off adults, y’all suck. The Institute kids are endearing and delightful and unless you’re a total monster, you root for them. 

I was worried The Institute would turn into a “been there, done that”; having read 69 King novels thus far, none of the themes of this book seemed remotely new. But the story manages to remain a fresh page turner, cheering on Luke’s crew of rag-tag kiddos, waiting for Tim to return and whooping with excitement when you realize how the two storylines will merge. 

Spoiler alert: good mostly wins, with some heartbreaking losses. King Classic (tm) through and through.

It’s super weird to be in relative real-time after so many years in the past. Cultural references to Trump and American partisan politics pepper the story and I have to remind myself I am reading a book that was released in the third year of Trumps term. I only have 5 novels left.

8/10

First Line: Half an hour after Time Jamieson’s Delta flight was scheduled to leave Tampa for the bright lights and tall buildings of New York, it was still parked at the gate.

Last Line: Better to save some for later.

Adaptations:

 David E. Kelley and Jack Bender announced mini-series plans in 2019 but it’s still in development. Not sure if that’s Hollywood code for “dead”.

[anythingstephenking]

Like Up, but with Bodies

Elevation, what a cute tiny little baby book! Novella I guess? 146 pocket sized pages, this is a single sitting read.

Dedicated to Richard Matheson, it’s Matheson’s novel The Shrinking Man that inspired the story. The Shrinking Man’s main character, Scott Carey, gets sprayed by radiation and doesn’t turn into Spiderman, he just keeps getting shorter and shorter until he’s battling a giant black widow spider in his basement. No, not the animatronic spider at the end of IT.

I guess this came out right before Halloween 2018 and therefore expected to be spooooooky. It is not.

King names our lead the same, but in his story Scott Carey is getting lighter. His body still reflects that of a tubby middle-aged computer programer, but when he steps on the scale he weighs less. And less. And less.

Eventually Scott’s weight drops so low he’s kinda like a human balloon. It’s a fun mental image and just terrible for Scott.

There’s not a ton to chew on here given the length, but we are back in Castle Rock, and a few Constant Reader references never hurt anyone. 

Scott makes friends with a rag-tag group of locals, including two women that are MARRIED. Gasp. I guess it’s hard to make it in small town America as lesbians. Color me surprised. 

At the end of the day, it’s about Scott’s last minute efforts to make connections with other humans, help them before he goes, and leave whatever small positive footprint he can on Castle Rock. For a town that’s seen Cujo and Leland Gaunt, it’s not that hard of a task.

Elevation could have been collected elsewhere, but fine by me to knock off another installment in an evening.

6/10

First Line: Scott Carey knocked on the door of the Ellis condo unit, and Bob Ellis (everyone in Highland Acres still called him Doctor Bob, although he was 5 years retired) let him in.

Last Line: Scott Carey continued to gain elevation, rising above the earth’s mortal grip with his face turned toward the stars.

Adaptations:

None yet. Jack Bender of LOST fame, who is no stranger to King (he had his hands in Mr. Mercedes and Under the Dome) has said in interviews he’s got a screenplay for a film adaptation, but nothing other than chatter. Bender is also working on a miniseries adaptation of The Institute, so I’d guess that’ll come first. That’s what she said.

There is a movie for The Shrinking Man (Hollywood changed it to The Incredible Shrinking Man because of course they did).

[anythingstephenking]

I’m Here for Holly

Holly’s back, tell a friend! Jason Bateman is kinda a part of it! Fun for the whole family.

I haven’t read King at such a breakneck pace in a while, and I’m pretty stoked to be back in the swing of things, if not for the sole reason I’m so close to the finish line.

Non-book related personal anecdotes; therapy is really helpful y’all. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately and while I know I’ll eventually drag myself out of it, I rarely know where to start. My therapist is A++ at helping me set reasonable goals. This go-round the depression-sun, I decided it was all my phones fault. It’s not, but I like to have something to blame. 

I’ve committed myself to 1 goal; no tv + aimless scrolling. You know how it goes; you turn the boob tube on, pick up your phone, dick around on Reddit, and boom! 4 hours of your life is gone, lost to subreddits about idiot drivers and people asking if they’re the asshole. 

The best way to stay off my phone is to pick up a book. Eventually I will want to clean the house and work on projects but this is good enough for now. So thanks to my main man Steve for writing stories so interesting I don’t miss spending my evenings getting enraged by random shit pricks post on the internet.

Ace Ventura says alrighty then! Let’s get to what we came here for, and that is the delightful return of Holly Gibney and things that go bump in the night.

King pulled his inspiration for this novel from the Poe short story, William Wilson, which is referenced several times in the story. I kinda miss the early days when you googled why King wrote a story and the answer is “someone said a junkyard dog didn’t like his face.” As B*Witched once said, c’est la vie.

The Outsider’s basic premise is this: what would happen if someone could be in two places at once? How could someone both commit and not commit a heinous crime? Are doppelgängers real? Is anything real?

Terry Maitland is your regular ol’ boring suburban dad. He coaches football and little league in small town America. A young boy is found murdered (in the most AWFUL way possible y’all) and Terry is literally all over the crime. Prints, DNA, eyewitnesses; if it was an episode of Dateline it would be a quick one, not one of those two-hour mystery specials where there’s a ton of twists and turns but then it was just the husband all along? It’s always the husband.

Not this time tho! Terry’s case is not so simple. Because Terry didn’t do it, someone wearing his face did? Is this a 90’s blockbuster staring John Travolta and Nicholas Cage? 

Things unravel from there. I think I’ll skip a full plot summary this time, but needless to say it’s an endlessly captivating tale. My only gripe is Holly doesn’t show up early enough - the first 200 pages or so I was yelling “you promised me Holly!” to my book until she finally showed up being the best endearing weirdo in only a way she can.

I truly did not enjoy the Bill Hodges Trilogy (save Finder’s Keepers where there was minimal Bill to annoy me) but I lurve Holly Gibney. I hoped after finishing End Of Watch that she’d get a romantic arc in this one; she doesn’t, but she has earned the titular spot in King’s upcoming Holly, so I will remain hopeful. But really, Holly don’t need no man.

The Outsider was a couple things to me. 

Firstly, a study on the power of ignorance and what lurks when people fail to believe in what is possible. What was imitating Terry Maitland’s was, surprise, not of this world, allowing this creature to travel, feed, frame, feed some more, rinse and repeat. For how long? No one knows but probably a long time. What would you say if someone’s bloody fingerprints and semen was found at the site of a child murder? We all have watched enough Forensic Files to know what that means. A world that doesn’t understand can’t fathom another outcome.

Holly almost died taking down Brady Hartsfield and his magical off-brand iPads, so she believes, and thank goodness she does because, per usual, she saves the day.

Secondly, a slight on the criminal justice system and incarcerated innocent individuals. This one ….might…. be a stretch. But there’s enough dumb cops being irrational and innocent people getting the death penalty to make a case. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s a demon from another world wearing her skin for clothes.

All in all, a delightful page turner with countless twists and turns, your good guys and bad guys, your supernatural creature defeated in a pretty innocuous way. All the fixings for a solid King. He’s still got it y’all.

8/10

First Line: It was an unmarked car, just some nondescript American sedan a few years old, but the blackwall tires and the three men inside gave it away for what it was.

Last Line: That was good.

Adaptations

I have been WAITING so hard for this! My unwritten rules to myself are that I do not watch adaptations without first reading the source material. The miniseries aired in 2020 on HBO and it killed me to sit it out. 

I actually watched this as I read, not breaking my own rules per-se, walking that fine line. I’d check the episode summary on IMDB, make sure I was squarely past those plot points on the novel, and watch an episode or two a night. 

I adored this miniseries. Holly was perfect (obvs). I also appreciate the casting of a black actress, so all the “I’m not a racist” idiots on the internet pissing and moaning that Holly is white would reveal themselves. Cynthia Erivo played Holly to a T. I just wish Jason Bateman was around longer; credited for 4 episodes, he’s only really in 2. We all need more Bateman in our lives.

I also enjoyed that Paddy Considine was here, playing a meth-addict-turned-straight strip bar bouncer, while he’s also kicking around on my HBO screen playing King of the Annals and the First Men Viserys Targaryen on House of the Dragon. Man’s got range.

Holly DOES get her relationship arc on the screen and I was so happy for her until the final shootout where I offhandedly said to myself “if they kill Andy I will scream” then they did, and I did. 

They leaned hard into the supernatural aspect, which I’m pleased they didn’t tip toe around. People moaned that the monster was too easily defeated, but I’m not sure what Battle of the Bastards epic level fight these people were expecting. Holly and a middle aged cop in a cave doesn’t exactly scream that a Battle Royale is coming.

I’m done with Elevation and onto The Institute next. 6 books left!

[anythingstephenking]

Disney Princess Metaphors Galore

It’s been over a year since I picked up a King novel. Over the course of that year, I sat with Sleeping Beauties on my coffee table, bookmark neatly tucked in at around the 200 page mark, daring me to pick it up, mocking me as I didn’t. 

Sleeping Beauties was a slog, to put it nicely. I didn’t dislike it per-se, but having to literally force yourself to pick up a book after a year on the sidelines is never a great start. 

Co-penned by King and his son Owen, this novel has all the fixings for a strong King. We’ve got a small town. They’re isolated. There’s lots of characters of varying degrees of badness. A mysterious illness and force has infiltrated this small town and shit goes sideways. If these fixings of dough, sauce, meat and cheese came together to make a pizza in The Stand and Under The Dome, in Sleeping Beauties, these ingredients make a calzone. Not bad, just not pizza. And unless you’re Ben Wyatt, pizza is better than a calzone.

I’m on a diet, can you tell?

Alright, let’s get into it. Steve and Owen decided to write a novel together, which is fun if your dad is Stephen King. I believe it was the pretty standard collab of “I write some then your write some”, rinse and repeat until there’s over 700 pages for The Constant Reader. The cast of players is bulleted out on the pages before you get started, and man, is the list long. Really only 4 or 5 folks are of any consequence to the story though, which is a great example of calzone-not-pizza happening here.

So women across the world are falling asleep and once they are out, their faces and bodies grow cocoons. They’re still breathing and seem fine, just catching some ZZ’s. The unidentified growth is nicknamed Aurora, for the titular character in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. We know we’re in a King story though, because these gals don’t need a prince’s kiss. In fact, if you tear open their sheaths, they will literally bite your head off. Many men die early trying to awake their maidens, not realizing they are in an episode of The Walking Dead, not in a 50s cartoon.

It’s not an uninteresting premise, and I do understand where they were going with it. It’s a gender study for the 21st century, using metaphor after metaphor from women’s movements over the centuries. I get it. Perhaps I am struggling because it was written by two men. Side question; what does Naomi King do? The rest of the family are all writers; I might feel better if she wrote this with her dad. Mental note to google her.

Because in Sleeping Beauties, men BAD, women GOOD. As a staunch feminist, this shouldn’t bother me? It does. I feel like Steve and Owen swung the pendulum too far in favor of the female sex. Listen, I am one. We’re not always a walk in the park. Just sayin.

The women are primarily pretty saintly here. The town sheriff, Lila, stays awake as long as she can, protecting her town, as do other female policewomen, mothers and prison guards. Cause yes, our little town is home to, of all things, a women’s prison. 

As women fall asleep, the world erupts into pure chaos. This I believe. Men riot, burn shit, there’s rumors of nuclear explosions, the whole 9 yards. It takes like literally 48 hours for the world to go to hell in a hand basket. Who’s going to cook food and wash laundry?? Better storm the Capital. (The irony of Jan 6th happening after this book was written is not lost on me).

Lila’s husband Clint is the least-worst of all the dudes. The on-staff shrink at the prison, he is trying to keep the prison from erupting into chaos (spoiler it doesn’t, because its a women’s prison, and women GOOD) and keeping an eye on their new prisoner, Eve, who, after killing 2 meth heads (men), is sent to a holding cell. Here Eve sleeps without cocooning, and talks to rats, and sometimes hundreds of moths fly out her mouth? Cool.

Aside from Clint, there are some real shitheads here. Men who burn their wives, men who try to rape cocooned women, men who make jokes like “What is this, the worlds worst PMS?” and say shit like “women are either sluts or frigid”. Cool. I’m not gunna talk about any of the supporting players of douchery, because for the most part they end up dead. Men BAD.

About halfway through, we learn when the women sleep in our world, they have awoken in some kind of bizarro-world. It’s their town of Dooling, but time is different (faster) and it’s pretty post apocalyptic. But because women GOOD, they console each other, consider their circumstances together, and then get the fuck to work. While only a few days have passed in the real world, in Women’s World months pass. The women rebuild society together, with very few obstacles to overcome. I mean in theory, if you told me I could go to sleep and awaken in a women’s-only Upside Down, I’d be very tempted to escape there. But I don’t think I’d expect a utopia. I mean I’ve watched the first season of Yellowjackets at least 3 times now; I’m not sure it would be so easy.

Women’s World just seems too easy. Sure it’s post-apocalyptic there, but there’s vegetables, roaming deer, and at least the remains of an infrastructure for the women to start from. They get the electric going thanks to solar panels, water flowing again thanks to a broken down but fixable water plant, stuff like that. The obstacles are small in Women’s World, for example, they have very bad coffee there. I would never survive. But the women thrive without men. Men decidedly do not thrive without women. The most literal extreme in both places.

Eve is the puppet pulling the strings here, and the story is much more interesting when she is around. Unfortunately she’s not around enough for my liking. And while she survives act 3’s assault, she loses her cause when the women of Dooling choose to return to the real world, leaving behind utopia for the boys back at home.

The final chapter or two are ultimately the most interesting. The women have returned and life is “back to normal” although nothing is normal ever again. Have women regained the upper hand, knowing that the globe’s male population now understands their importance? Seemingly hopeful ending? My cynical self says give it a generation or two and Eve may be back to try her experiment again.

If anything, this book left me pondering not its outcome, but reminding me that I am due for a rewatch of The Leftovers.

6/10

First Line: Ree asked Jeanette if she ever watched the square of light from the window.

Last Line: A moth flutters from the branch of the old oak tree and settles on her hand.

Adaptations:

There has been a part or two of a comic adaptation released. AMC owns the TV rights, purchased in 2019, although I couldn’t find any movement on an actual pilot. In COVID and #MeToo times, I would think this gender based plague-esque story would be ripe for picking, but per usual, no one asked my opinion. 

More Holly Gibbney next in The Outsider, and an HBO series I’ve been sitting on for two and a half years. Yay!

[anythingstephenking]

Buttons You Press, Not The Ones On Your Coat

Who would be a fun person to switch lives with? Richard Chizmar, that’s who.

It’s been a long time since I’ve researched the backstory behind the story, mostly because newer King doesn’t have fun stories like “the character gets nosebleeds cause Steve was doing so much cocaine when he was writing.” Bad example. I love sober Steve.

But this is a fun one, to me at least. So Rich Chizmar writes horror, and is a King Superfan. He runs stephenkingrevisited.com, which I referenced a lot starting out on my King journey. Dude can write. My reviews of King are like “CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW SCARY CUJO IS?!?! Lol” Here’s an excerpt from his Cujo synopsis:

“On that historic night, I remember staring over at the shadow-draped wardrobe for what felt like hours. Watching. Waiting. Until I finally heard it — the creak of the wardrobe door opening; just a crack at first, but then swinging all the way open, so she could emerge from the darkness within: the witch.”

Damn bro.

Ok, so Rich somehow becomes pals with Steve. 

I still imagine all these horror dudes get together and discuss potential plotlines over games of cribbage and you can not convince me otherwise. 

One day King, sitting on an unfinished version of Gwendy’s Button Box, mails it out to Rich and says “Do what you want with it.” The story needed an ending, and he just tossed it over the fence. Can you even imagine getting a half finished story from STEPHEN FRICKIN KING asking you to help? My entire body is filled with jealous bones.

So they colab, and finish the story up together, and another lovely, beautiful and endearing King bromance is born. Because Gwendy’s story was perfect and I loved it.

Here we go. Guys. We’ve got Castle Rock! We’ve got Dark Tower References! We’ve got an item of magical powers! And last but not least, we’ve got a compact 166 pages that I was able to read on a Sunday morning, finishing the novella before I finished my coffee.

Our heroine, Gwendy (great name BTW), is a 12 year old girl living in 1970’s Castle Rock. We’re pre Frank Dodd and Cujo, but Castle Rock’s still a creepy place with a creepy history. A man wearing a hat, named Richard Farris (A Randall Flagg pseudonym if I ever heard one) and invites her palaver. A PALAVER Y’ALL.

He gives her a box with 8 buttons on it. While reading I was 100% convinced the colors of the buttons matched those of Maerlyn’s Rainbow, which they don’t, but the box dispenses chocolates that sometime match the shapes of beam guardians, and whatever, it’s all Dark Tower nonsense and I loved it.

Side note. It took me until halfway through the story to realize the buttons on the box were like push-buttons, not decorative clothing buttons. I’m an idiot.

Anywho, Gwendy is tasked to protect the box. Each button represents a different continent, with the red button and black button being available for ad-hoc requests and also “mass destruction”. Gwendy protects the box, with her brief curiosity causing Jonestown (Kool-Aid Man says “oooooh yeah/ooops”), but mostly she protects the box at all costs, preventing unknown catastrophes, at least on our level of the tower. She’s rewarded by getting skinny (Jesus Christ, is that all that women have) and excelling at school. At the end of the day, the box saves her, and she returns it to Flagg, I mean Farris, and goes about her life.

Chizmar wrote a follow up, Gwendy’s Magic Feather, which I will gladly read before Gwendy’s Final Task, due out in 2022. I already put my faith, love and respect far deeper into Gwendy’s story than I ever invested in Bill Hodges, and for that, I am NOT SORRY.

8/10

First Line: There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs.

Last Line: Then she laughs and puts it in her pocket.

Adaptations:

None, yet, but I’m sure one’s coming.

[anythingstephenking]

Bye Bye Mr. Manager

It’s time to say Sayonara to Bill Hodges. And I am… relieved? Sorry Bill.

Not that I didn’t enjoy the Bill Hodges Trilogy because I didn’t mind it. As I sit here, I am trying to convince myself I liked them. But you know what? I didn’t. So there. Were these books fun, fast paced detective novels? Sure. Was Bill Hodges infuriating up to the very end? Oh most definitely.

I figured End Of Watch would close the loop with the conclusion of the Brady Hartsfield show, and I was right. The means in which Brady becomes, shall we say, reanimated, was exhausting.

I love some supernatural shit. Charlie McGee lighting people on fire was the best. I loved Christine coming to life. I’m not above suspension of disbelief. But Brady using a low-rent iPad game demo screen to transfix folks into doing his bidding? Pretty lame.

I just couldn’t get on board with the premise and not being on board with the premise made this book a real chore.

Were Jerome and Holly there? Yup. Were they as charming and endearing as usual? Sure thing they were! Did that make up for me screaming at the pages of a novel due to my annoyance with Bill’s poor decision making? No.

The last act of this book was painful. Bill, dying of cancer, drags Holly to a remote location where a psychopath is sitting in wait? Bill, god damn it, stop putting Holly is these shit situations. In the first book he almost killed her by having a heart attack and leaving her alone - now he’s trying to stop a killer with a gun (not to mention a super spoooooooooky iPad) while his insides turn to fire and liquify inside of him? Bill. Stop.

Side note: I do hope Holly gets a romantic arc in The Outsider. Girl deserves some lovin.

I just. Don’t know what else to say. See you at The Outsider y’all.

3/10

First line: It’s always darkest before the dawn.

Last line: They leave Fairlawn and walk back out into the world together.

Adaptations:

After S1 of Mr. Mercedes, I vowed to watch no more. I stand by that decision.

[anythingstephenking]

Hitting and Missing

Writing short-ish stories seem to be one of King’s favorite pastimes. He says the ideas come in a flash. He furiously writes them down before they leave him, and that’s that. For every King short story that has ended either in a magazine or collected for mass-market publishing, there are 25 more stories, sitting in a box somewhere in one of his many homes.

Listen, I don’t love King’s short story collections. I know this makes me a bad fan and Constant Reader. I can’t be sorry about it. I probably would have sat on The Bazaar of Bad Dreams for a lot longer, but I see the light at the end of my proverbial King tunnel. I have 8 books left. I can finish this year. Get er done.

All that negativity out of the way, I did enjoy a fair amount of the stories here. I’d put this collection in the same bucket as Nightmares & Dreamscapes. King’s short fiction in Bazaar is decidedly more mature (and less cocaine fueled) that the earlier (but more popular) Night Shift & Skeleton Crew.

If It Bleeds will be my last currently published short story collection, but most likely not my last.

I say this every time I write up collections, and will say it again here; it is desperately impossible to summarize 20 stories with any sort of brevity. If I enjoyed them enough I would write up each story individually, but even after reading this book only over the course of about a week, a cursory glance of the Wikipedia page, I have already forgotten the plot of many of them.

I originally planned to discuss some of my favorites here, but I’ll just leave it be. I finished this collected 2 months ago and since I haven’t wanted to write about them, I probably won’t ever. Tata.

6/10

[anythingstephenking]

Mr. Manager, Part Duex

I wasn’t really a super fan of the Bill Hodges character in Mr. Mercedes, mostly due to his overall aura of gaslighting and being gross but still pulling hot tail. I wrote a term paper in college about sitcom husbands that suck but still somehow have great wives (Kevin James anyone), so if you’re wondering if I earned that liberal arts degree, you bet your bippy I did. Bill Hodges, not a fan. Win me over bro, I dare you.

PS - Kevin Can Fuck Himself on AMC is great and everyone should be watching it.

“Why am I married to this schmuck?”

That said:

Me starting this book: I’m not sure I can read two more books with Bill Hodges….

Me 150 pages into this book: where the fuck are Bill are Holly????

Because Bill is non-existent for a while, Finders Keepers gives us a slew of new characters, that eventually come back into the fold with everyone from Mr. Mercedes. Let’s go.

Morris Bellamy is our bad guy here. He killed an author a few decades ago to get his hands on his unpublished work. So we’re really in Lisey’s Story: The Homicide Squad territory here. Bellamy’s a real shit-for-brains, and of course, a racist. And a blackout drunk. That last one is the one that gets him in trouble.

Did you read Catcher in the Rye in middle school like I did? Did you think Holden Caulfield was the bees-knees? I spent a handful of years toting around my dogeared copy of Salinger, day dreaming about living in Holden’s world, proudly calling it my favorite book. When I decided to revisit it in my 20s I realized that Holden Caulfield was a real shithead and I cringe thinking about how important that book was to me as a 13 year old living in upper middle class America.

In Finders Keepers, the author’s name is John Rothstein and he is Salinger by proxy. Just imagine JD Salinger wrote three Holden Caulfield books, but in the last one Holden got married and moved to the suburbs and got a job in advertising. LOL. Every incel that idolized his angst would be so so very pissed. And so, what transpires with Morris and Rothstein is believable, in that Morris is a manchild obsessed with a fictional character and Rothstein is an author that just wants to take a nap.

Turns out Rothstein (Salinger) has been living in seclusion, and has written two more Caulfield books and keeps them in his study safe. Morris my-preciouses all over them, and kills Rothstein to get his hands on them. But mister dingle-dong hides them, gets drunk, rapes a woman in an alley (ugh) and ends up in jail for a long ass time. Good riddance, ya assmunch.

We then meet Peter Saubers, a very nice young man who loves his family and hates it when his parents fight. He calls them the “arky-barkeys” and if that’s not the cutest nickname for arguments I don’t know what is.

Lil peanut Peter happens across the buried treasure from Rothstein’s safe. Lil Peter’s little sister is friends with Barbara Robinson, sister of Jerome. And here comes Bill.

The cat-and-mouse chase resumes, and with Bill taking more of a fatherly type role than a lover in this one, I found Finders Keepers more enjoyable that Mr. Mercedes. The plot pacing is about the same, with Morris finally released from jail and off to murder a child to see his prized unpublished novels returned to him. The real victim here is Rothstein, who just wanted to be a hermit and be left alone. I feel that deeply.

Of course Bill, Holly and Jerome prevail, but like Mr. Mercedes before it, its WAY closer than it really needs to be. It’s a detective novel, all you can ask for is a fun ride.

We also get a lil Brady Hartsfield, who is mostly braindead but also now a telekinetic? Will we get a murderous version of Charlie McGee in End of Watch? Time will tell.

7/10

First Line: “Wake up, genius.”

Last Line: Clack

[anythingstephenking]

Don’t Get Old Dummies

Alt. Title: Religion is Complicated

I have a complicated relationship with King stories where God plays a central role. We know King believes in a higher power, but a cursory Google search tells me he doesn’t practice any particular faith. And while many (ahem, most) of King’s stories follow the good vs. evil dichotomy, a smaller grouping take organized religion head on. This is one of those books.

Reviews of Revival were mixed but I really enjoyed it.

Hiding beneath the guise of “special electricity” (eyeroll) creating Frankenstein monsters, it’s one of King’s more human novels. It’s 2014, King is pushing 70 and starting to really ruminate on what’s next. Listen, we’re not any strangers to King’s fascination with death. If Lisey’s Story taught us anything, it’s to not watch the Apple+ series. Oh, also that life is pretty precious and no one here knows what’s next.

Let’s back up a bit. Revival is the life story of Jamie Morton. We meet him as a child, playing on the dirt road of his rural Maine home. Jamie first encounters Charles Jacobs in his youth, where Charles and his adorable little family have relocated to pastor the local Methodist church. King was raise Methodist BTW. In the vein of some of King’s most successful storytelling, Jamie gets a real lovely coming of age story. He joins a band, meets a girl, and dreams of a life outside of the Maine woods. Sound familiar? Ayup.

When we’re with Jamie, we’re happy; even when Jamie is strung out on H and sleeping in bed bug ridden motel rooms. He’ll turn his life around, we know it. And he does, with the help of his very own Dr. Frankenstein, Charles Jacobs.

Jacobs falls from God’s grace when his wife and son die tragically and he tells the lord to kindly fuck right off. It’s cool Charlie, I get it. He doesn’t fall into the drug trap like Jamie, but instead becomes some sort of electricity magician, doing cheap parlor tricks that seem innocuous but are actually pretty dangerous.

Anywho, Jamie and Charlie cross paths every few decades, with Jamie pulling himself away from drugs with the help of some electricity therapy from Charlie. It’s a cheap way to write off a major addiction, but we readers are just so happy for Jamie that we can’t be bothered with the process. Charlie is so obsessed with where his wife and son went, and with his faith gone he’s determined to use science to determine what’s in the afterlife.

Wonder what his beautiful wife and young son are up to after they died? Well don’t forget we’re in a Stephen King story, so, uh, it’s not great. Turns out the afterlife is just giant ant overloads torturing humans? The ending of this story is very giant-spider-at-the-end-of-IT, and while it shouldn’t work, it totally does. Criticism for this novel generally falls on the ending coming out of left field, but I ask these critics, have any of you read Stephen King before? Pick up Gerald’s Game and call me in the morning.

At the end of the day, we’re looking at god, faith, the afterlife and the fragility of human life. Like I said up top, King’s pushing 70 and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand that the time has come for him for him to reflect back on his years here on earth and what’s waiting for us. The moral of the story is; don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. More literally, don’t harness god’s power of lightning to awaken the ant overlords? Death is coming for all of us; maybe just enjoy the ride and don’t dig too deep and don’t bury humans at the Mimac burial grounds.

Revival is a page turner, although in somewhat of a cheap way if I am being honest with myself. There’s a lot of chapter breaks that end with nonsense like “if I had only known what happened next I would have turned around”. Reading you’re all WHAT HAPPENS NEXT JAMIE, and while the payoff is satisfying, being exhausted the next day because I couldn’t bring myself to put the book down at midnight the night before made me mega crabby.

All that aside, if you can suspend enough disbelief to not question the weird electricity shit, it’s quote a lovely tale of little moments that add up to a life well lived. Until the ants show up, of course.

8/10

First Line: In one way, at least, our lives really are like movies.

Last Line: I will come to Mother.

Adaptations

TLDR: My guy Mike Flannigan was slated to direct this story but got shut down because he didn’t have the budget to make the ants scary enough.

[anythingstephenking]

Mr. Manager

We made it to the Bill Hodges trilogy yo! I’ve been looking forward to these, mostly because they seem to be the most popular of this century’s King. I understand why; these books seem to be Stephen King writes John Grisham novels, and who(’s grandpa) doesn’t love a Grisham?

King calls this his first “hard-boiled detective” book, and I suppose that’s true, although both his Hard Case Crime books come close, falling short by having “normies” solve those cases.

I didn’t expect anything that goes bump-in-the-night here, but for what it lacks in the supernatural it makes up for in positively disgusting incest and racism.

Rant break: We’re in 2014. I’ve cringed through a lot of overt racism in King’s earlier work, and was cautiously hopeful we’d turned the corner here. I was wrong; there’s racism AND homophobia here, and I know it exists to distinguish between the good guys (the ones that DON’T use the n-word) and the bad guys (the ones that do) but c’mon man. We know the serial killer is a bad guy. He has sex with his mom! And killed a bunch of people! We don’t need him to be racist to know he’s a douche. I just don’t like it.

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, let’s discuss. There’s really not a ton to unpack here honestly. Bill Hodges is a recently retired detective and if you’ve ever seen a single cop movie you know they’re no good at being retired. Listless and bored, he gains 30 pounds and considers killing himself. Until a letter arrives from the perpetrator of his most publicized cold case - the Mercedes Killer. Mr. Mercedes wants Bill to kill himself. And Bill’s all “nuhuh, I say when I kill myself ya fucker” and it’s off to the races.

Sidenote: I just about peed myself when Derry Public Radio said that Mr. Mercedes reminded them of the Mr. Manager gag on Arrested Development, thus the title of this entry was born.

Back when he was investigating the killing spree, Hodges was real shitty to Olivia Trelawny, the owner of car that was stolen to run over a bunch of people (including a baby). Can you imagine if you came out of your house in the morning, your car was gone, then you learn the person that stole it used it to murder a bunch of people. And then YOU got blamed for negligence? Seriously, fuck that logic.

So Bill is on the case, now motivated somehow to not kill himself but find Mr. Manager. He starts with Janelle, Olivia’s sister, who inherited her estate after she KILLED HERSELF BECAUSE SHE GOT BLAMED FOR SOMETHING SHE HAD NO PART OF. Janey is foxy (of course she is) and described as being “striking for 44″. Excuse me sir??? Fuck right off with that shit.

Janey is kind to Bill, even from the get-go, and I’m all “huh?” cause ya know the dead sister stuff. Turns out Olivia was getting letters from Mr. Manager too, and Janey hires Bill to find out who he is. Bill’s all “sure I was gunna do it anyway, but it’ll be more fun with a hot piece of ass like you”. Do you like my imagined dialogue?

Bill’s a fat retired cop and Janey is a hot tamale with a cool 7 mil in the bank, but they fall for each other anyway. He describes her body as “hard against his flab” when they finally hook up. It’s written in a believable way, but like still, yuck. Maybe because I’ll be 44 soon and I don’t want to fall in love with a retired cop in his 60s? Always all about me.

The story really gets fun as Bill picks up steam and a merry band of crimefighting misfits along the way. Jerome, his 17 year old neighbor becomes IT support; Janey’s cousin Holly becomes… somehow also IT support? They’re all so adorable and their witty banter made me giggle more than once.

Meanwhile, Mr. Manager, whose name is Brady, is running around, taunting Bill and planning his next big ka-powey. Oh and also getting handys from his mom. No more gross handys Stephen King! Enough is enough.

The clock ticks down to LITERALLY the last second as the merry misfits chase down Brady. I honestly thought they were all gunna die. Because Janey does. I skipped that part, but yeah, she gets blown up. Major bummer.

Bill, for some reason, does not inform any single person of authority about what is happening, as a deranged mommy-lover is packing four pounds of explosives into a boy band concert. WHAT. And then he has a heart attack! Like there’s 4,000 people’s lives on the line bro, call for help and maybe don’t leave it all on the line while quite literally chasing a murderer carrying 30 extra lbs. Just a thought. If Holly and Jerome hadn’t saved the day, Bill would certainly be transported to jail from the hospital. But the tension is high and I couldn’t put the book down, so all this poor decision making proves for strong storytelling.

We do get a great cliffhanger at the end, and… duh duh duh…. We haven’t seen the last of Mr. Manager. I’m glad the core gang made it through and I assume they will all be back in Finder’s Keepers. I hear Holly runs through to The Outsider, so I can breathe a sigh of relief that she’s safe for now.

By the end I didn’t hate Bill as much, but I really hope there’s no more May-December romances in the next ones.

7/10

First Line: Augie Odenkirk had a 1997 Datsun that still ran in spite of high mileage, but gas was expensive, especially for a man with no job, and City Center was on the far side of town, so he decided to take the last bus of the night.

Last Line: “He says he has a headache. And he’s asking for his mother.”

Adaptations:

Another adaptation I was excited for and let down by. Great streak on enjoying books, terrible streak on enjoying adaptations.

The series Mr. Mercedes is well reviewed and rated, so I could be in the wrong here, but in the age of prestige crime dramas, this didn’t hold it’s weight for me. I have also watched literally every crime drama (most European) available on streaming services so I have a high bar for excellence. They know how to tell a good detective story in Sweden, just saying.

Anywho, King’s said he wrote Bill Hodges with Brendan Gleeson in mind, and here he is, playing the role. That’s what’s called “putting it into the universe.” I know Brendan Gleeson has a long, illustrious career, but if you can listen to him talk without hearing “it tastes like goblin piss” in Mad-Eyed Moody’s voice, you are a better person than me.

Mary Louise-Parker is TOO HOT FOR BRENDAN GLEESON. Gah, I know I am a broken record but C’mon.

At least in the series they decided to have Bill ask the cops for help before he keels over with a heart attack, so that was good.

I’ll skip seasons 2 & 3, assuming they follow the plots of Finders Keepers and End of Watch. No more goblin piss for me. I’m watching The Killing now as a palate cleanser. I’m weird.

[anythingstephenking]

Tony! Toni! Toné! has done it again

Did you know that Tony! Toni! Toné! has over a million monthly listeners on Spotify? Not bad for a band that hasn’t put out an album since 1996. Can you name a Tony! Toni! Toné! song that isn’t “Feels Good”? I can’t. Can you think of another band with three exclamation points in their name? I can’t. Do you remember when Panic(!) at the Disco removed the exclamation point from their name? I do. Do you remember when Ke$ha removed the dollar sign from her name? I definitely do.

The tangent to end all tangents, but we’re back with Danny (or more matured “Dan”) Torrance and his pal Tony with Doctor Sleep! I was so excited when this novel was coming out I pre-ordered my copy when it was announced. Then never read it. Whoops.

Since I started my King journey, I haven’t let myself watch any new King adaptations of source material I haven’t read, so I got to watch the movie for the first time too! Someday I will finally get to watch The Outsider. I’m actually on a bit of a roll - 5 books in the last month or so.

I ONLY HAVE 12 BOOKS LEFT! PRAISE BE.

King said that a lot of folks would ask him at book signings “What happened to Danny Torrence”? If I was King I’d probably says “I dunno man, he’s not a real person” so I guess that’s why I have no imagination. Instead of sparking annoyance with the insatiable requests of his Constant Readers, it sparked creativity, and that’s why King is king.

Alright, lets actually talk about the book. We’re back with the Torrance family, and for an extremely traumatized family unit, they’re doing ok after Jack’s demise. I mean, the ghost lady from room 217 shows up in the bathtub every now and again, but that’s to be expected right?? The Torrances are living in Florida, stating that there’s no snow in Florida. But they know there’s like, a lot of resorts in Florida right? Presumably haunted by a lot of old biddies sending their food back to the kitchen and tipping their ghost waiters 2%.

There’s a little bit with Wendy, a young Danny and Dick, who’s still around and helping Danny manage his shine. Dick helps Danny lock away the lingering remnants of The Overlook by quite literally locking them in boxes in his mind. Ok sure, I guess?

But we’re not here to find out how Danny’s awkward middle school years were, and so we skip past the braces and straight into the alcoholism. Because of course. Like many flawed-but-heroic King characters, a grown up Dan Torrance has an alcohol problem. Given who his dad was, I can’t say I’m surprised. Dan says it’s a crutch to dim his shine. Genetics and quieting your clairvoyance - the top two causes of alcoholism in the United States.

Dan’s character isn’t any more interesting than the other alcoholics in King’s novels unfortunately. He’s fine; standard “I wanna get better” bullshit. To his credit, he does turn his life around, joining AA, getting a sponsor and settling down in one place for more than 10 minutes. He does shitty things but feels IMENSE guilt afterwards. I suppose remorse is a character strength.

Turns out Dan isn’t really the star of the show here, it’s Abra, a young gal with a very powerful shine who has never even had a sip of whiskey. We’re introduced to Abra as a baby in a terrifying passage about her abilities. As a baby, she starts crying and wakes both her parents from powerful nightmares that include the numbers 11 and 175. Her parents can’t soothe her and it gets so bad they take her to the hospital, where she wails until just shortly after 9:30am. It was September 11, 2001, and the numbers the family had nightmares about were the flight numbers of the terrorist planes. An infant, warning her parents through dreams. I mean, girl’s got it.

Abra grows up and does a bunch of other stuff that can mostly be considered fancy party tricks. She makes small connections with Dan’s mind here and there, but things heat up when we meet The True Knot.

So The True Knot are vampires that aren’t vampires. Because they don’t drink blood, they drink “steam” which is emitted from those that shine while they are tortured. Cool. It’s a new and refreshing take on typical vampire tropes, and they’re decent, other-worldly baddies.

Here’s where things go a little sideways for me. Abra manages to catch the interest of the True Knot’s leader Rose, and you can tell the remainder of the book will be a cat and mouse between the good guys and the bad. We learn that the True Knot has gathered much wealth and resources (as the undead tend to do with all the time in the universe) and they have footholds all throughout the US, including Jerusalem’s Lot and Sidewinder. Yes, the Sidewinder where the Overlook once stood. So how, in gods green earth, did these folks not latch onto a young Danny? His shine was powerful enough for a friggin’ building to attack him, but he somehow slipped past The True.  Someone asks this question in the book and I was not satisfied with the answer.

Plot holes aside, the relationship that Dan and Abra develop is quite charming, and because Dan’s a recovering alcoholic and Abra is 13, this is a romance free story. They team up, and the cat and mouse is amped up because we’re not just chasing The True through the streets but through their minds, with Abra and Rose popping in and out of each others brains like it’s nothing. It’s accelerated even further by the True catching measles from one of their victims. Now, I am looking at you, American Horror Story Season 5, for using this exact same plotline in Hotel two years later.

In the end, Dan gets his redemption arc, a new home, a career, 15 years of sobriety, a family. Abra gets… to live a normal life as a teen? I suppose this is the most important thing when you’re 13.

While a fun, page turning story (I think it took me 3 nights to plow through) there’s really not much to chew on here outside of the fast paced plot. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It feels to me highly personal retelling of the recovering alcoholic, with Dan fully duking it out with his demons and coming through on the other side. I’d imagine that the parallels with King’s own demons is not all that dissimilar. At times it does feel like reading an advertisement for AA.

At the end of the day, The Shining was a story of alcohol and isolation; Doctor Sleep is a story of sobriety and companionship. One ends well; one does not.

6/10

First Line: On the second day of December in a year when a Georgia peanut farmer was doing business in the White House, one of Colorado’s great resort hotels burned to the ground.

Last Line: “Until you sleep”, he said.

Adaptations:

I feel more and more letdown with every modern King adaptation I’ve consumed recently.

The new Stand miniseries? Hated it.

1922? Hated it.

The new Pet Semetary? HATED IT.

Lisey’s Story? Currently watching and hating it.

Dark Tower? COME FREAKING ON.

I’m trying to remember the last King adaptation that didn’t make me go “meh”. I suppose IT: Chapter One? Gerald’s Game was good too I guess. I absolutely adore Castle Rock, but Hulu cancelled it because they’re stupid heads.

I actually miss the “so bad it’s good” movies of the early years - I’d rather watch Cat’s Eye 20 times than have to sit through 1922 again.

I was anxious for Doctor Sleep because I love love love Mike Flanagan movies and he did a decent job with Gerald’s Game. Oculus and Hush are two of my favorite modern horror movies, and if you ever want me to jabber on for hours on end, ask me about The Haunting Netflix series.

Unfortunately, I filed Doctor Sleep into the “meh” column. It’s a hard adaptation; remember that the Overlook exploded in the book, but was still standing at the end of the movie. Dick dies in the movie, but he’s still kicking it in the book. The list of inconsistencies go on and on.

It’s like how David Yates had to clean up the whole patronuses-are-actually-animals thing after Alfonso Cuaron’s creative decisions in Prisoner of Azkaban. If you get that reference, you win today’s nerd award (TM).

So Flanagan had his work cut out for him and he does well at marrying the two parallel universe storylines. The most infuriating plot-hole in the movie was the fact that they let The Overlook rot after the Torrance family left? I mean, Grady killed his wife, two girls and himself, and the owners decided to keep on keepin’ on, but sure, they decided to pack their money-filled suitcases and close up shop when Jack Torrance bites it by freezing to death in the hedge maze? Sure thing.

But it wasn’t bad. It was just fine. It’s ok.

Would I recommend this movie to someone? Sure?