“Ugly fuckers”
A much needed renaissance for the alien from space as a creature of evil and corruption, rather than a cuddly saviour from the stars. Though not a fav among critics it has one of my favourite King characters, Jim Gardner. Reminiscient of The Bodysnatchers but the subtext is about nuclear power here, rather than communism.
“Come on back and we’ll see if you can remember the simplest thing of all: how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark.”
Probably the greatest horror novel to be written in the 20th century. A rich book in every regard. Stories within stories withing stories, and then some, but without a trace of pretentiousness. Sometimes provocative, always fascinating, absolutely wonderful.
“Do you love?”
More short stories, very varied in theme and length. From the epic novella The Mist to the short poem Paranoid: a chant, it spans every aspect of human emotion, focusing, of course, on fear. My favourites include Nona, The Raft and Survivor Type, and the non-horror The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.
King’s second collaboration with Berni Wrightson. Originallt intended as an almanac, with short texts by King and drawings by Wrightson, it grew into a short novel. No masterpiece but interesting as an experiment and nice to look at. Was poorly filmed as Silver Bullet.
“Han satte sig pa en av stolarna”
Bachman’s most horrific (Kingish?) story. A gypsy curse sends Billy Halleck on a quest for the one person he thinks can remove it. Along the way some interesting questions are asked, but Thinner offers no easy answers and definitely no sigh of relief at the end. Dark, dark, dark, and then some.
An interesting and perhaps somewhat disappointing fact is that King instead of genuine Romani chose to use incoherent sentences in Swedish for the gypsies lines. From what I’ve heard, these sentences where plucked from a Swedish translation of a King story.
“Where?”
“West,” Speedy said. “From this ocean to the other.”
Peter Straub, another excellent writer of sometimes horror, is a longtime friend of Stephen King. In The Talisman, they collaborated on a horror-fantasy epic, sometimes writing together, writing other parts alone, imitating each other’s styles and creating a book that feels as if one person had created it. Not only that, it’s a captivating, strange and often beautiful story. Many have tried to guess who wrote which parts, but Straub has made it clear in his postings to alt.books.peter-straub that, with perhaps one example, they’re wrong. And that’s how it should be, for after all: It is the tale, not he who tells it.
“His single-ended purpose. His unending fury.”
Definitely not bad (i think King is literarily incapable of writing bad fiction), but perhaps one of King’s least challenging books. The story of another high school loser, Arnie Cunningham, and a car that’s his ticket out of loserdom and into something worse.
“Death was a vague idea; the Pet Sematary was real.”
Perhaps the darkest story King has ever told. It is not entertainment, nor uplifting. The “problem” with King is that his characters are so real and likeable that when they get into trouble, it really hurts to read it, and here you have Trouble. If you’re looking for a pleasant roller-coster ride type of fear, this is not it.
“The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.”
King’s most ambitious work starts out in a manner that almost seems intended to put some readers off. The first book, which introduces The Gunslinger and his mysterious mission, is rather short and offers more questions than answers. Our main character proves capable not only of mass slaughter but of surprising acts of betrayal (if that is the word). Hypnotically strange and very poetic, though. I’ve grown to love this book, but please don’t give up on the series if the start fails to grab you. There’s more to the tower than depressing deserts.
The Gunslinger has now also been released in a revised version.
Written in a mindboggling 72 hours, this short novel is an entertaining thriller about a world where death is a natural part of tv entertainment. No intellectual challenge, but energetic, imaginative storytelling with a serious core.
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