Tag: Stephen King

Book Reviews, Novels, Short Stories

Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight (1990)

t. michael

Four Past Midnight is a wonderful collection of four ‘short’ novels Stephen King wrote in the late ’80s. They include the Langoliers, a light-hearted adventure romp that revels in its own ridiculousness; Secret Window, Secret Garden, the closing of a thematic trilogy King wrote about the power of storytelling; the Library Policeman, in which a man is haunted by his childhood fears, traumas, and a monster feeding on the emotional turmoil of children; and the Sun Dog, a lead-in to Castle Rock’s final moments in Needful Things, and in which a demonic monster works its way across dimensions through a Polaroid camera.

Most of the four novels are wonderful, among my favorite work from Stephen King even under the weight of their own cheesiness and fluff, particularly…

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Book Reviews, Novels

Stephen King’s the Dark Tower (1982-2012) — a reflection

t. michael
a series of seven, sometimes eight, novels

[ ranking | review ]

Tackling the Dark Tower over this last year has been both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment. It’s awakened a love for Stephen King’s writing I never felt before, but it’s also been a constant reminder of all the issues I’ve taken with his work since first picking up Carrie (1974) at 13 years old.

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Book Reviews, Novels

Stephen King’s the Dark Tower (1982-2012) — a ranking

t. michael
a series of seven, sometimes eight, novels

[ ranking | review ]

The Dark Tower, as a series, was defined by its ups and downs. An addictive yarn though it was, it was easy to find myself both adoring each page to seething in rage at cheesy turns. Perhaps this prevents the series from reaching a place alongside the Lord of the Rings or the Book of the New Sun as a definitive fantasy, but it doesn’t mean the series isn’t a classic. (The Chronicles of Narnia is heavily impaired by its frequent downs — and gross religious dogma, racism, and misogyny — as well, and still remains required reading.)

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Graphic Novels, Novels, Random

dendrobiblio’s Top 10 Reads of 2016

t. michael

10. Stephen King’s the Dark Tower I : IV (1982 : 1997)

A somewhat difficult one to include, Stephen King’s writing, while always entertaining, is similarly always bothersome. The King-isms build and bug me. The Dark Tower series has been no different so far, with the Drawing of the Three and the Waste Lands, in particular, being hampered by bloated writing and awkward pacing. Wizard and Glass, the fourth of an eight-part series (including #4.5), and the last I read this year, was an absolutely engrossing and addictive fantasy yarn. The horror and post-apocalyptic settings were mostly removed in favor of straight fantasy in an extended flashback story — which was worrisome — but Roland’s tale was so focused and wonderfully-told that it alone puts this series on the list. I hope 2017 lets me finish the the final four books.

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Book Reviews, Novels

Stephen King’s Misery (1987)

t. michael

King draws a love-hate relationship from me, and he tends to evoke both a numbing rage and blissful joy at every plot juncture. Misery‘s fantastic. It doesn’t get drowned out with the ‘King-isms’ that tend to crowd his plots with cockadoodie savant children, classic rock-quoting writers, nonsensical endings full of deus ex machinas and left-field twists, and hallucinated comedic relief — with jokes so unfunny and drawn-out their inclusion is the scariest part.

Misery dips into this, but it’s contained enough and focused enough to keep cool. It’s a story of a man and a woman, set mostly in one room. The lady holds complete power over this man, and the extent of her strength is well-developed and frightening. Really frightening.

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