I've never been overly keen on short stories. I can see the merits of them of course, it's just that they're not for me. I struggle to stick with a collection of short stories because I can't keep my interest up. I like novels. I like the way we gradually begin to know and care for the characters. I like following the story arc and reaching the climax, and I love a book that lasts me a while, a nice thick tome that you get to know by carrying it around with you everywhere for a week or more. Short stories are more like bite-sized chunks to read in one sitting, and as such I just can't get on with them in the same way I can a novel.
But, as this was one of books on my personal Stephen King-a-thon challenge, I had to persevere, stick with it to the end. I didn't want to give up, miss it out of my challenge. It would have been failing at the first hurdle. Anyway, I really enjoyed a few of the stories and yet now that I closed the book and put it aside a few days ago, I can't seem to properly recall more than one or two of them. That's the problem with short stories for me, they don't capture my imagination enough that I'll remember them several years down the line.
However, if you're a fan of Stephen King or the horror genre in general, and you can tolerate the short story format, I'd recommend you give this a go.
3/5
“When you're five and you hurt, you make a big noise in the world. At ten you whimper. But by the time you make fifteen you begin to eat the poisoned apples that grow on your own inner tree of pain.”
'Rage' was the first novel published by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It's a deviation from his typical Horror novels but that doesn't make it any less horrifying. Published in 1977, it was withdrawn from publication by Stephen King in the late 1990s due to it's connection to a number of real High School shootings, 'Rage' recounts the story of Charlie Decker, a teenage boy pushed to the limits by his father and society itself and shoots two teachers before taking a classroom full of students hostage.
But 'Rage' is more than just the story of a High School shooting. It is an examination of society, of teenage culture. While Charlie holds his school friends hostage, we get a glimpse at the ennui of teenage life, and as they sit in the classroom, waiting for Charlie to let them go or take their lives (we are never quite certain in which direction Charlie will go), they take turns at analyzing their lives, the things they have done, wish they hadn't done. They pick apart their connections to each other, the childhood experiences that made them who they are. And it becomes apparent that perhaps Charlie Decker isn't as crazy as he might seem, that this isn't simply a murder spree. Instead, this forced coming together of a group of teenagers who might otherwise fail to give one another the time of day is a teaching exercise. Charlie is showing these angst-ridden teenagers that it's not too late to take control, to right the wrongs done to them by others.
This novel is fairly philosophical, it raises a lot of questions and doesn't pose too many answers. It's a shame that it is no longer in print as I think it's a pretty enlightening piece of fiction. Although I can understand why it was withdrawn from sale. If you do want to read the book, it can be found in the Amazon.co.uk marketplace for a couple of pound as part of the Bachman Books collection.
3/5
This is the third novel in my personal Stephen-King-a-thon challenge. I first read this novel when I was fifteen years old. It was also the first Stephen King novel I ever read. I came back to this book to re-read it as a twenty-seven year old excited and convinced I would gain more from the book as an adult. And I was right. What was simply a horror story about a haunted hotel when I was a teenager became much more as an adult. The horror was still there but so was the haunting psychological terror of the ghosts of our pasts invading our presents, the torture of memories we think we can escape and the people we hope we'll never become.
Danny Torrence is five years old. He knows things that no child should have access to. He knows his parents were considering Divorce, that his father has a drink problem. And he knows that there's something horrifying behind the beautiful facade of The Overlook Hotel. Danny's father, Jack has got a job as winter caretaker of The Overlook. He needs this job - his last one didn't end so well - plus the distance from the real world will give him plenty of time to finish the play he's been working on. And so he packs up his wife and kid and drives high up into the Colorado mountains where once the snow comes, there's no going back. They will be stuck there until the snows thaw.
But five year old Danny has the 'shining', a rare ability to sense things, to read minds, to see the dark images that play out in The Overlook. His vivid dreams and psychic trances reveal the dark secrets The Overlook has kept hidden for decades. Who is the creepy dead woman in Room 217? What is that blood stain on the wall of the presidential suite? Who is riding up and down in the elevator at night? And just how do those topiary animals move around on their own?
'The Shining' is a chilling read, not overtly scary but it definitely raises the hairs on your arms. It has much more substance than most horror novels out there and really defines Stephen King as the forerunner of the genre.
5/5
I love Vampires. I'll read pretty much any novel that features those creepy blood-sucking monsters that sneak around at night and feast on helpless virgins. But, I have to admit I do prefer the traditional Stoker-esque Vampire to the sparkle-in-the-sun Twilight version. Which is probably why ''Salem's Lot' by Stephen King is one of my all-time favourite reads.
'Salem's Lot has never really been the quiet, peaceful town passers by would think it to be. There is a hint of darkness behind the town's picturesque facade. There is the mother who beats her baby and lies to her husband about how the injuries were sustained, there's the gossips who listen in on other's phone-calls and spy on their neighbours with much-used binoculars. There is the decidedly twisted school bus driver who likes to leave kids stranded four miles from home and the school bully who presides over the school yard like some crazy dictator. But the biggest darkness that hangs over 'Salem's Lot is the Marsten House, the crumbling un-inhabitable Mansion that watches over the town, whose tale is a ghost story to scare children with. The Marsten House was the scene of a murder-suicide that the town has never fully recovered from and that eveyone has a story about.
Ben Mears, disillusioned writer and ex-Salem's Lot inhabitant has his own story about the Marsten House, his own childhood memory that haunts his adult dreams. After the death of his girlfriend, he finds himself returning to the town he lived in as a child, hoping that something there will spark his creativity and help him write his next best-seller. But he finds more than he expected.
Around the same time that Ben arrives in 'Salem's Lot, so do Barlow and Straker, antiques dealers who have taken over an empty store to set up business and also, bizarrely, have bought the old Marsten House. Antique dealers are harmless, right? But it's a strange coincidence that not long after their arrival in town, one young boy goes missing and his brother dies of anaemia. And that's just the start of Salem's Lot's unraveling.
As more and more of 'Salem's Lot's citizens begin to suffer strange flu-like symptoms before dying several days later, Ben bands together with several other unlikely heroes - an aging English teacher, an alcoholic Priest, a doctor and a 12 year old schoolboy - to solve the mystery of the Marsten House's new owners and just what exactly they are doing to their town.
I adore this novel, I really do. The characters are so real, so believable. And it's just creepy enough that it stays in your thoughts when you're no longer reading it. It's typical Stephen King in the sense that it shifts from point of view to point of view (most fascinatingly in this particular novel, the perspective of the town itself). He builds the atmosphere and tension slowly and steadily, creeping to a startling crescendo, giving you time to identify with the characters and really begin to care for them before he puts their lives in peril. And you know, Stephen King takes that whole "kill your darlings" adage seriously, which is probably another reason I love his novels so much - he's not afraid. He does what's necessary. He's a cruel and unjust god to the creatures of his imagination. And it makes him a much better writer than those who aren't.
This book is up there with Dracula as a must-read for anybody who thinks they know the Vampire canon. King taps into the old mythologies and even references Stoker's work in his own. A fantastic, creepy, thrill of a read. I'd recommend it to everyone.
5/5
I'm probably one of the few people in the world who has never seen the 1976 film version of 'Carrie'. But I'm not naive enough that I'm not aware of the story. Everyone knows that the menstrual euphemism "taking Carrie to the Prom" is a reference to a blood-soaked Sissy Spacek. And yeah, I had a pretty good idea of how the plot ends. 'Carrie' is such a huge piece of pop-culture that it's hard to avoid it. So basically, I came to this novel with some prior knowledge and yet I was still floored by the book.
I think that's probably Stephen King's major talent. His novels are never simple, they always have some substance to them. I think what really surprised me when reading 'Carrie' is how much of Stephen King's voice and story-telling technique is present in his first published novel. I was expecting it to stand out a bit, to be a little less polished, a little less, well Stephen King-ish. The narrative was suitably dis-jointed, jumping from one Point of View to another, interspersed with articles from magazines and extracts from scholarly books. The way that King presents Carrie White's story, it's easy to believe that this girl really did exist, that the terrible events at the Prom and afterwards really did happen. And that's what I love about Stephen King and this novel especially, you never have cause to question the reality of his supernatural elements. They simply are.
Carrie White dreams of going to the Prom. She just wants to be your average teenager. But with a religion-obsessed mother and no friends, she is lonely, vulnerable and the perfect target for the school bullies. Her classmates, her teachers, even her Mother, all beat Carrie down. And those that don't are blind to the events, to the hatred and the acts of violence going on around them.
But quiet, mousy Carrie can't be your average teenager because she's no average girl. She hides a terrible secret. She has the power of telekinesis. She can make things happen with the power of her mind. And the more the bullies try to weaken Carrie's reserves, the more her power builds inside her. Until, as the bullying reaches a horrifying climax so does her inner strength and she unleashes her telekinetic power on those who caused her pain.
This is a liberating novel. For anybody who has been bullied, Carrie's explosion on Prom night is kind of like the daydreams you'd hold close to your heart as the taunts rained down on you. Who hasn't wanted to destroy those who try to destroy them? And that's one of the most endearing things about this novel. We've all been in Carrie White's shoes. We've all experienced the horror of repression, of people trying to hold us back. Deep down we all just want to be accepted, to fit in, to be loved. We all have our own version of Prom Night, that thing we're yearning for and feel we'll never get to experience. Carrie gives substance to our own teenage experiences. She embodies our own morbid fears.
And that is probably what I love most about Stephen King - his ability to write characters that get under your skin and stay there. I wish I'd been exposed to this novel as a meek, vulnerable teenager who needed validation, who needed somebody to identify. I think I would have seen something of poor Carrie in myself. And it would have let me dream.
Rating - 4/5
I have always been a bit of a horror fiend. As a child my favourite books were collections of ghost stories, vampire novels and R.L Stine's Goosebumps series (remember those?). When I hit my teenage years I started reading the Point Horror books and any other teen horror I could get my hands on. Eventually, aged 15 I read my first Stephen King novel - 'The Shining' and was hooked.
Since then, I've read several of his novels and loved them all. And this week I decided to set myself a fun little challenge - to read every Stephen King book in the order in which they were published. I know it's going to take a year or two but I don't care. I'm excited at the prospect of working through the world of Stephen King's books in order, seeing the connections between characters and places, the little things that he works into a lot of his novels like the number 19 and the character of Randall Flagg.
I've started my "King-a-thon" already with his first novel, 'Carrie'. I'm planning on blogging about my journey through King's back catalogue. I may start a separate blog for it, or I may just use this one, incorporating it into my 'What I've Been Reading series. What do you guys think? Would you be interested in reading my thoughts on King's novels?
Have any of you ever set yourself a similar kind of reading challenge? I'd love to hear about it.
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