Book Review: The Institute by Stephen King

Photo Credit: The Hardcover's Cover, from Goodreads

I've got all of King's books, and I've been writing that his stuff lately is okay, but that we need to accept that the genius is...resting. Producing, but resting. I've been writing that his stuff is "compulsively readable" for so long now, I can't remember when that wasn't the best that I had to say. REVIVAL was a rare exception, but for a long time before that, and now for a long time after, "compulsively readable," and that I read his newest book in X number days, were the best I could say. But then I read that The New York Times, and that Kirkus, had given THE INSTITUTE rave reviews. They said he was back to form, that he hadn't written about kids this well since IT (but with the release of IT Part 2, what else would they say?), and that this novel was extremely well structured--all rare positive review bits, especially from the NYT and Kirkus, who are not always enamored with King's stuff. So I bought it, as I would've anyway, because I own all of his books in hardcover, and because I knew I'd read it swiftly (check) and that I'd at least find it compulsively readable. But this time--THIS TIME!!!--I felt confident I'd have more positive things to say.

And, well...I read THE INSTITUTE's 561 pages in about 2 1/2 days. And...it's compulsively readable.

It isn't IT, and he doesn't write about kids as well in this as he did in IT. It's possible that this is the best he's written about them since IT, but how many of his recent books have only been about kids? Maybe, none of them---since IT.

The book starts off with a drifter, and a small town, and how the drifter ingratiates himself in this small town...but King has done that millions of times, and can possibly write that now in his sleep. (Which he possibly did, here.) Then it switches rather abruptly to The Institute, which seems suspiciously like The Shop, from FIRESTARTER. But this ain't FIRESTARTER, and the baddies from The Shop are much more so than the ones here. (There are similarities, too. There's a John Rainbird character here, of the opposite gender, but Rainbird was a badass that nobody here approaches.) Nobody here is Charlie McGee, either. Those were better written characters than anyone here. I mean that in the kindest of all positive ways.

This book is really about Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil." The whole book, in fact, could've been from the point of view of those who work for The Institute, and maybe that would've been a better book. (Sounds like a helluva good idea to me.) Here, there's a cleaning lady who could've been fleshed out better, and at the end there's an 81-year old woman who seemed very interesting. Why did she stick around, and with such gusto? THE INSTITUTE tries to go there, but mostly doesn't, which is a shame. The baddest badass of them all gets short shrift at the end, to the extent that King himself suddenly seems to give up on her, and all she gets is the other characters calling her "the queen bitch." She was badder than that, and deserved better, if you know what I mean. She could've been this book's Rainbird. The one who gets that honor doesn't deserve it, and in fact seems kind of lame. At the end, you won't care too much what happens to him.

In the meantime, the kids are drawn out well enough, and you will care about what happens to them. But, A) they're kids, so that's maybe automatic, and B) it's really their book, so they get the most airtime. Still, you get caught up in the going's-on, and it is compelling in a slow-moving train kind of way. It'll pass the time, and it is compulsively readable.

But it could've been so much more. The people who work at The Institute have their reasons for doing so, and King strongly insinuates that these reasons are compelling--but never appropriate, of course. The ends don't justify the means, here, and that's really the point of the book. But why do such people work for such banal evil? Many of them are obviously deranged, but some are maybe almost good people, or those who could've been. This book could've been essentially the same story, with that theme been better pondered and shown. It's never answered, not even close, but King seems like he wants to go there, that he wants to try and answer it--but then just drops it.

And so ultimately it's a good read. 561 pages in just short of 3 days means the book is good on some level. Yet maybe this is what's lacking in King's work now. The why. The big themes. King was never "deep," per se, which he takes pride in, and on some levels he's right. He wants to entertain more than he wants to instruct (he could've stayed on as an English teacher if that's all he'd wanted), but the fact remains that THE SHINING, CARRIE, IT and many others had more depth to them, more heft, without ever sacrificing story. Lately his stuff is about 95% story, to the exclusion of perhaps all else, and that's why they seem lesser. CARRIE, for example, never tried to explain how religious mania could screw up a family and a kid, but it sure did show it very well. THE SHINING showed how a very, very flawed man could redeem himself to save his wife and son. THE SHINING therefore had a hefty thing to say about personal redemption. I could go on...

King's stuff now frankly just lacks this heft. It's all story, all the time, and it doesn't have too much to show, or to say, about things that it could, and should, show and say about. In this case, Arendt's "banality of evil." That's too bad, because it could've easily gone there, and it would've made this book a lot better. It's not as bad as the Bill Hodges fiascoes, but...you won't want to read this one again. It'll sit in my bookcase with all the others, but...it probably won't come out of it again.

Too bad. THE INSTITUTE is okay, but it could've been one of his better ones in a long, long time.

Get Out -- A Movie Review, Part 2

Note: This is Part 2 of the movie review for Get Out. Yesterday's Part 1 is here.

Photo: from the movie's Wikipedia page. This is what white people like me, whatever that means, thought racists were when I saw this movie in 1988. Turns out, it's a lot more complicated than that. By the way, this movie has more relevance now than it should, so see it if you haven't. And don't expect factual accuracy. It's a depiction, a cinematic dramatization in broad strokes. It's not a documentary.

Yet Get Out says that the awareness of the...nervousness, or political-correctness, or even the awareness of the awareness of a biracial couple...is in fact part of the problem. Which of course it is. Maybe someday we'll live in a country where a biracial couple simply doesn't raise any eyebrows, anywhere, in any kind of person, pro or con, friend or foe. That isn't going to happen soon, since we've taken two steps back in this country, but we'll see.

But you can see maybe why this was such a ballsy movie to make. Especially today. Now, cynics that we usually are, we'd expect this movie to maybe--or maybe not--do okay its first weekend, maybe for interest or shock value, and then disappear once blockbusters like Kong and Logan are released at the same time. 

But I'm happy, and a little surprised, to say that it hasn't happened. It's hanging in there, in third place, right with those films. It's grossed over $100 million--on a budget barely over $4 million. Considering that, it's so far been more of a financial hit than Kong: Skull Island or Logan. That's saying something.

And it should be. It is (uncomfortably) funny--but it won't be for those who don't think biracial couples, or the reaction they can elicit from others, is funny. Frankly, if you're racist, you're not going to like this film. But I suspect racists know that, and are staying far away. I've seen shockingly scant mention of it from them in the news and on the internet, but then I'm not an internet crawler. Also, it's a good horror flick, once you get by the horror premise, which you're not really supposed to take seriously to begin with. There is actual unease and tension and suspense. Strangely so, for me, and it wasn't scary, exactly, for me, like other horror films have been. Like, The Exorcist, or The Silence of the Lambs.

So it's a ballsy film, and it's a good film, and it's doing really well, which means it's hit a nerve somewhere, and found a niche. You can expect to see more films like this now, perhaps not as good.

I will leave you with some positive reviews of the movie, which are written more succinctly than this one. They're all taken from the movie's Wikipedia page, which you can click on here.

Richard Roeper gave the film 3.5/4 stars, saying, "[T]he real star of the film is writer-director Jordan Peele, who has created a work that addresses the myriad levels of racism, pays homage to some great horror films, carves out its own creative path, has a distinctive visual style — and is flat-out funny as well." Keith Phipps of Uproxx praised the cast and Peele's direction, noting: "That he brings the technical skill of a practiced horror master is more of a surprise. The final thrill of Get Out — beyond the slow-building sense of danger, the unsettling atmosphere, and the twisty revelation of what’s really going on — is that Peele’s just getting started." Mike Rougeau of IGN gave the film 9/10, and wrote: Get Out's whole journey, through every tense conversation, A-plus punchline and shocking act of violence, feels totally earned. And the conclusion is worth each uncomfortable chuckle and moment of doubt." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated Get Out a 3.5/4, and called it: "[A] jolt-a-minute horrorshow laced with racial tension and stinging satirical wit." Scott Mendelson of Forbes praised how the film captures the current zeitgeist called it a "modern American horror classic".

So if this sounds good, or if you like horror/comedies, go see it.

Get Out -- A Movie Review

Photo: from the movie's Wikipedia website


Get Out was a ballsy movie to make, considering our present climes. It's a horror movie with a good horror movie ending, but this is no horror movie. It's also a comedy with a message about racism that doesn't hit you over the head, or preach at you. This makes it even more effective. This movie tries to do for racism what Rosemary's Baby and Stepford Wives did for sexism, and it largely succeeds because Jordan Peele, Get Out's producer/director, was aware of those two movies. There's a bit of Kubrick's (and not King's) The Shining in there at the end, too, but luckily that guy doesn't end up like Scatman Crothers did.

I saw this with my better half, and we're both white. (I'm as boring, suburban white as Wonder Bread, but not as fluffy or as wholesome.) We sat next to a bi-racial couple, one white and one black, which is pretty rare for my suburban-hell neck of the woods. (See the movie juxtaposition I made there?) Normally this would not be relevant, but, unfortunately, for this review, and for this movie, it is. Just a sign o' the times.

A quick review of the movie: After a quick prologue of a young black man getting kidnapped, another young black man (the main character) and his pretty white girlfriend are off to a rural home to introduce him to her family. She hasn't told them he's black, by the way, which you know is not going to turn out well.

So the racial theme comes and it's played for laughs. This is ingenious, and if you think Peele is only playing it for laughs, then you don't know what kind of serious cultural change laughs can do. Like, All in the Family and Richard Pryor changed some views in the 70s and 80s. The point works because it's played funny. And in the funny, we feel the tension and disquiet, and realize it's not funny. This is a good movie for a collegiate class about film, comedy and horror. I'm going to let the following critic of The Guardian tell it, because I'm just fumbling here:

Lanre Bakare of The Guardian commented on this, saying, "The villains here aren't southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'alt-right'. They're middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joe's, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could. Good people. Nice people. Your parents, probably. The thing Get Out does so well – and the thing that will rankle with some viewers – is to show how, however unintentionally, these same people can make life so hard and uncomfortable for black people. It exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. It's an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous."

In other words, the target audience was, in some ways, people like me, who like to think they're racially aware, and who like to think they're helping the cause, in whatever way they can. Now, I'm not liberal like this passage, thank God, but I do donate to the ACLU and I would've voted for Obama again. I don't shop at Trader Joe's. (In fact, I don't do the food shopping at all, because I'd buy just cereal, bananas, apples, blueberries, and green olives.) But it's also true that I don't know how to relate to someone who's a victim of racism. For example, I realized in my last movie review that I didn't even see why Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness was racist itself (an irony, since it effectively shows how racism is a [see title]) until I read Chinua Achebe's speech about it. (Achebe was kinda right, kinda not, but more right than not. And, by the way, who am I to speak about racism?)

This is the point of the movie, which is hidden in trappings of comedy and horror. I can speak of racism only in the sense that I've seen it; I've written and spoken against it; I don't know what the hell it's all about; I don't know why so many people deny it exists; I don't get why people don't understand why African-Americans and other minorities are angry; I don't get why Samuel L. Jackson says Daniel Kaluuya, the main actor, isn't "black enough," and I don't get why I don't get that, because I get what such people think it means; and I also realize that I don't know enough about it to criticize Samuel L. Jackson, which I also realize isn't a smart thing to do to begin with, about anything at all, because he's scary. I used to think that racists only lived in the South, in a Mississippi Burning kind of way, but now I see that it's everywhere, including in the recent court decision about how Texas unconstitutionally re-districted itself to disillusion minority voters; about how voting ID laws in many states--including those as far north as PA and North Carolina--were purposely passed by Republicans to make it harder for the poor (reads: Democrat) to vote. I see that racism exists, or used to, in zoning laws, for God's sake, around here.

And in truth, Get Out is probably a more realistic depiction of racism than Mississippi Burning ever was. Maybe. Who am I to say?

This movie review of Get Out concludes tomorrow...

The Voices -- A Very Short Book Review

Photo: The hardcover's cover

This one's a bit of a downer at the end, but you won't be surprised at the conclusion. It didn't really have any other place to go. The main character is a guy who creates movie scores, who gets told that a movie in production, Star Wars, is a sure bomb and not one he wants to score. (That was a rare amusing moment in this book.) Anyway, he's fallen on hard times in a Victorian home, and when he suddenly gets voices (some sinister) on his tape, he sees it as a cash cow--voices from the dead as part of a movie score! That either sits okay with you, or it doesn't, and that will mandate how much of this book you can take.

It's written well enough, by Frank Tallis, better known for his Liebermann Papers books, which take place in Freud's Vienna of 1902 or so. This one takes place in the 1970s in England, where Tallis actually lives. The atmosphere is okay, and the creeps are okay, though you may need a little imagination to get the full effect.

It's better than the film White Noise, which was really terrible, actually. Parts of it also reminded me a little of The Shining (which was better than this book), especially when Jack Torrance accuses his wife of being hysterical and purposely trying to ruin his creative career. Also similar is that it all takes place in a house that is obviously haunted, and obviously a danger to everyone, especially the child. Unlike The Shining, this one ends, well...I won't spoil it, I guess. But if you rejoiced when Danny lived in The Shining, you'll be disappointed here. Consider yourself warned.

That's my biggest problem with this book, and it's not really Tallis's fault, I guess. But I was also watching the latest (and worst) Paranormal film last night, and they both had the same huge problem: Freekin' stupid and careless parents who ignore the obvious danger to their child because of their own ignorance and selfishness. The film was so bad that I wanted to openly strike the stupid, self-centered, self-obsessed parents, and I almost felt as strongly with the parents in this book: the husband selfishly put everyone in obvious danger, especially his infant. And the wife was too weak and self-obsessed to pick up the daughter and get the hell out of there.

As I said, the latest Paranormal movie was much worse, and even included a priest who said that 6 a.m. on June 6th was an obvious 666 mark of Satan (6th hour of the 6th day of the 6th month--Get it?!?), which is possibly the worst writing I've ever seen in any movie of any kind, ever, and an insult to priests everywhere. (Your avergae priest knows that the 666 of Revelations is an obscure symbology that certainly doesn't mean anything like this movie says, especially since a completely different calendar was used by the writer, era and part of the world of The New Testament's origins.) And I'd already harbored extreme ill-resentment towards the parents in this movie.

Anyway, this book's parents are more realistically drawn, but still came under my ire. And the ending...Well, I saw it coming, and you probably will too, so it didn't effect me as much as it could have. If you can handle that kind of an ending--and there's no judgment on my part if you can't, but this ending represents the tragedy of human self-centeredness and weakness, see?--then this will be an effectively creepy book for you. If you can't, if headlines of that sort bother you too much, then that's certainly understandable and you should skip this.

My Book Sacrifice

I've been tagged by a blogger friend and a vlogger friend--that'd be a person who makes videos as a blog, rather than a written blog like this; such a blog is usually on YouTube--to do an entry based on the following 4 scenarios:

1) An Over-Hyped book: Let's start this off with a Zombie Apocalypse! Let's say you're in a book store, just browsing, when BAM! ZOMBIE ATTACK. An announcement comes over the PA System saying that the military has discovered that the zombies' only weakness is over-hyped books. What book that everyone else says is amazing but you really hated do you start chucking at the zombies knowing that it will count as an over-hyped book and successfully wipe them out?!

2) A Sequel: Let's say you've just left the salon with a SMASHING new haircut and BOOM: Torrential downpour. What sequel are you willing to use as an umbrella to protect yourself? 

3) A Classic: Let's say you're in a lecture and your English teacher is going on and on about how this classic changed the world, how it revolutionized literature and you get so sick of it that you chuck the classic right at his face because you know what? This classic is stupid and it's worth detention just to show everyone how you feel! What Classic did you chuck?

4) Your least favourite book of life!: Let's say that you're hanging out at the library when BAM global warming explodes and the world outside becomes a frozen wasteland. You're trapped and your only chance for survival is to burn a book. What is the book you first run to, your least favourite book of all life, what book do you not fully regret lighting?

These four scenarios originated on YouTube by Ariel Bissette, and she explains it way better than I could. Watch that video here: http://youtu.be/Z_2UxYi8fOA.

So, the disclaimer: These are just my opinions. Can I say that again? These are just my opinions! (I was gonna put that all in caps, but that's rude.) One of the coolest things about books is that people get very, very, very serious about them. They will get offended by the opinions of others. Books can be so personal! So I get that. And I dig that. But that's why my opinions are strongly felt, too. You don't have to agree with them! That's the point!

If you disagree or if you agree, let me know. Feel free to answer these in a comment, or in your own blog.

And I gotta add: I was so PISSED at the following vlog that I almost left a comment! The vlog is from a usually-amusing and creative and smart, and always energetic vlogger named Christine Riccio. She has a vlog about books, where she talks a lot about a book, and reviews it and rates it, and she really gets into what she's read. Anyway, in her Book Sacrifice, she said that the classic she thought was terrible was The Catcher in the Rye, and she slams it. This book was Mark David Chapman's favorite (he shot John Lennon, if you're too young to know), but so what? Lots of religious books are the faves of killers past and present, so don't make me go there. Anyway, the specific vlog of hers referenced here is at this site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pEK25Z7PPs so you should see it. And I didn't leave a comment because, well, have you read the negative comments that losers leave on internet articles and YouTube videos? I mean, are you kidding me?!? Why do these people not have anything else better to do? Anger and bitterness are nasty, nasty things!

My answers:

photo: from the book's Wikipedia page

1. An over-hyped book I'd clobber a zombie with? (Does that mean it has to be big enough to be used as a weapon?) Well, where do I start? I have to say...Just about any John Green book. Great philosophical ideas and themes, so-so writing. And often books based on philosophical concepts (which most of his are) do not translate well into print, because you have to create a plot for them. Doing that for philosophical concepts can be slippery and metaphysical. Like, you can't touch it. Example: The Fault in our Stars. Two teens with life-threatening diseases are trying to keep it real, and are looking for the meaning of life, or just plain Meaning in general. They find it in the seemingly-real work of an author who turns out to be a boozing butthole, who is not his persona, who does not keep it real, who is in fact just a real jerk. Okay, except...can two teens with these diseases and cancer really travel that far? And don't get me started on Looking for Alaska. I know John Green is huge in the YA and teen world, and that's very cool. Keep reading him! (Just don't ask me to.) I'd throw other YA titles here, like any of the Twilight (You don't fall in love with vampires! You kill them! They're evil! They're not good for dates, or to introduce to your parents, or to take to Sunday dinner!) or Divergent series. And any Nick Sparks book.

photo: from the book's Wikipedia page

2. The worst sequel of all time is Doctor Sleep, the awful, shitty, boring, badly-written travesty of a sequel to the pitch-perfect classic The Shining. I can't tell you how angry this book made me. It sucked! Danny of The Shining turned out to be this?!? Are you shitting me? And Jack Torrance turning up at the end to push her off the cliff? And she screams "F--- you" as she falls? How...base! ARGH! I normally love Stephen King books. I've read them all and I still have them all. But when he's bad, Oh My Lord...

A close runner-up here would be the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird. This manuscript was sent to the publisher by Harper Lee's money-grubbing agent, and she found it in Harper Lee's sister's safety deposit box. Harper Lee had had a stroke and late-onset dementia when she signed the papers to publish this. I'm thinking she had no idea of what she was signing. She infamously published that one book, despite offers of millions of dollars to publish others. Would she not publish for over 50 years and then do so on her deathbed? And the iconic, peace-making Atticus Finch as an old, angry racist?!? Are you shittin' me?!? And why was this found in Harper Lee's sister's safety deposit box? The murder / mystery fan in me thinks it was because her sister thought she'd publish it and make millions if Harper Lee died first...but she didn't! I'll bet Harper Lee had no idea where this manuscript was, that it was long gone and long lost. It's actually the book that was going to be Mockingbird, but the publisher thought it was too negative and suggested she write something else, so she wrote what became Mockingbird. So it's actually just an early draft! That a publisher allowed this to be made and tarnish the genius of her actual, only published book. A TRAVESTY!!! I haven't read it, and never will. I know someone who's an English teacher, and she's married to a lawyer, and they named their son Atticus (yes), and even she refuses to read this. Luckily for her son, most people will never associate his name with the guy from this book!!!

photo: Charles Dickens, from his Wikipedia page

3. The worst classic? I couldn't finish The Lord of the Rings until I saw the movies first. Tried a great many times. But a lot of it was good. I stalled at the Tom O'Bedlam part, or whatever he was called. Never even appeared in the movies. Anything by Charles Dickens. I've tried to get through A Christmas Carol. Still can't do it. I tried reading all of A Tale of Two Cities. Still can't do it. The sentences are just too damn long. Great individual paragraphs--notably the first and last, a classic example of bookending--and the last scenes are classics. That's how we should read Dickens today--just the classic scenes. 

Why so many words? 

Because he originally published his novels as serials in magazines. 

And he owned the magazines. 

And he paid by the word.

photo: from the book's Wikipedia page

4. My least favorite book of all time? See #2. Throw Rose Madder there, too. I stopped reading that one when this woman sat on the bad guy and peed on him. Yes. Books that were so bad they made me actually angry. Like, strike someone across the face angry. I'm an angry bitter little man and I don't care. I once read a mystery / cop novel, when I first started the 20th draft of Cursing the Darkness, I forget the title now--::tries remembering title, even keywords to Google it, but can't--and it was sooooooooo bad. Sentences like: "I got the call to go to the murder site. But I first finished my dinner. Funny how these always happen during dinner. And the dead aren't going anywhere." Are you f---in' sh---in' me?!? I mean, how bad does writing have to be to be published, anyway?!? So laughable I couldn't get angry because it was just sooooooooo bad!!!

So, those are my answers. What say you? Comment, or email, or write your own blog--whatever!

No matter what, keep reading!

Thanks for reading my blog! Bye! 

End of Watch -- by Stephen King

Photo: First Edition book cover, from the book's Wikipedia page

Another compulsively readable story from King, who again shows here that he's more of a natural storyteller than a writer, which adds to the feeling of compulsive reading, rather than detracts. My guess is that if he were to worry more about fantastic writing, and less about fantastically-compulsive storytelling, his books would sell a lot less than they do. At this stage of his career, that's not likely to happen.

You don't have to read the first or second in the trilogy to read and get through this one, and I'm not quite sure how I take that. Good for sales, I think, but this does detract from the journey you're supposed to feel you've been on with these people over the last three books. I didn't feel like I'd been on the road with these guys, and when it all ends, it's in a this happens, then this happens, then this happens--and then these things stop happening kind of way. The storytelling just stops, but there's no...verisimilitude. There's no feeling of loss, exactly, or of the curtain closing. It just ends. That's it.

The way it's written adds to this lack of feeling. I'm rarely a fan of third-person omniscient present-tense, and I wasn't thrilled with it here. This is best when the writer needs a gritty, you are there kind of feel. That isn't needed here, which is a good thing, because it doesn't happen. The after-effect of this, though, is that it distances the narrator from the story and reader. You get a sense of detachment--not good, if you want that present-tense to pack a punch. Probably it was a decision for pure storytelling sake; again, this happens, then this happens, then this...but there's a lack of resonance with this choice. It's hard to feel anything for anyone with this kind of distance.

The story itself probably isn't anything you haven't seen before, even in a bad movie. Essentially this is Chucky, who moved from doll to person to doll to person, and so on. Brady's the doll here, and a crappy, vintage game is the method (rather than a chant or spell), but really it's all the same. There's a bit of psychobabble about herd mentality here, as well. I'm not sure it's wrong, exactly--at my job, I see herd mentality all the time--but I'm not so sure it's as pat and automatic as it's presented here. You'll have to decide that for yourself. But it's an interesting, anti-puppet message.

That's minor, though. The story here is, well, the real story, and you're either going to go with it or you're not. It's not even a matter of liking it or disliking it, really. It's a pleasant enough ride while you're on it. When the ride ended, I wasn't regretting the ride, but nor was I hoping it would continue forever. The ride is the ride, and it's not really about liking it or not, or even judging it. The ending for such a long book may be a downer. As usual, there's an ending after an ending here (I've written about this in King's books before), and if you're a Constant Reader as I am, you'll see it coming. King pulls no punches; he lets the cat out of the bag rather early here. (And, well, see the title?) In the 1st end, there wasn't much more than an old body with Chucky in him, after all, and an old human body is still just an old human body. That's pretty much the message for the second ending as well, but in a different way.

This one is probably the best of the three. The second was the worst for me, and parts of the first were grating. Nothing grating here, but it's not The Stand or The Shining, either. I do feel his overall mojo is gone. I wrote somewhere recently that I thought there had been too much of the Tower in his writings before, sort of a forced Purpose. But now I miss that, because in his most recent stuff, there doesn't seem to be purpose enough. Reading his work now passes the time, but it's possible you may ask yourself why you're doing it, rather than that other important thing you should be doing. But perhaps that's what reading is, anyway: escape from what you should be doing.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that Revival (especially the ending) is the best of King's work lately, with Joyland being a pleasant distraction, but without the scares you'd expect to be there. Looking back at all his books now, I'm seeing that the last work of his to really wow me was Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower--and that was 19 books ago. (11/22/63 was overall very good, but there were some blocks that dragged a bit.) Anyway, an old body is an old body, and it is what it is.

Quick Jots 2.21.16

Just a few quick things before dinner:

--I saw The Witch today. Excellent movie, not at all as insinuating as Blair Witch, though--like Blair Witch--you'll either really like it, or really not. It is slow-moving, but in a good build-up kind of way. I'll write a review soon, but suffice it to say that it's The Crucible meets The Shining, with a healthy dose of The Village and Blair Witch thrown in. This movie is strangely audacious and in-your-face at the end, and it's got things to say about feminism, out-of-control religious conservatism, and blame. If you've ever been creeped out by a walk in the woods, then see this, but beware that it takes its time and you have to be patient with it to enjoy it--just like a long, pleasant walk in the woods.

--Goodbye, Jeb. We hardly even knew ya--and that's not a bad thing, either.

--Bush lost for two reasons, equally: his last name, and his lousy stage presence as a performer.

--The latter of which says something very potentially dangerous about this year's crop, by the way. A performer performs, and his actions on stage are a performance. Remember that when you vote.

--People I trust--all of whom have seen politics play out far longer than I have--all say that Cruz is far more dangerous than Trump. The reason? Cruz is quiet, and he says and does very offensive things very quietly. Trump is so in-your-face, they say, that he won't be secretive about anything and therefore won't get away with anything.

--But Trump still scares the hell out of me. Mostly because I don't trust my contemporary American society, or the typical voter. Just throwin' it out there. My state votes so Democratic for presidents that Trump won't matter here. But I've been proven wrong before.

--I'm reading that Trump is the Republicans' worst nightmare as well. I don't think November will be as much of a slam dunk for Hillary or for Bernie as I'm reading and hearing it will be. But I've been proven wrong before.

--I like Bernie Sanders, by the way, but I would never vote for him. I'd have a cool drink and conversation with him, but he's too wayyyyyyy out there for me, and too old. This will become an issue when he says who his running mate will be. Whoever it is, that person will be much younger, that's for sure.

--Speaking of the whole political scene, I don't really like anybody out there right now. It looks like I'll again be voting for somebody not because I like that person, but because I feel strongly about voting against somebody else. And it looks like that Somebody Else will be Trump.

--Great Britain, by the way, is currently trying to ban Trump. Permanently.

--Everyone in New England, take heart: Spring Training started this past weekend. Even if you're not a baseball fan, doesn't that just make you feel good?

AHS: Hotel

My thoughts about the first few episodes of AHS: Hotel so far:

This is from "Episode 2--Chutes and Ladders"

1. Whenever I see a scene like the blonde getting a cloud of white powder fluffed on her once she died, I think, "Now there's a sinus infection waiting to happen."  That's how often I get those.

2. Kudos to Falchuck and Company for referencing House of Cards, which isn't a Fox show.

3. I'm guessing that once someone violates one of the Ten Commandments, they're stuck in the Hotel Cortez.  Again, "...prisoners of our own demise."

4. Of course, Holden and the other kids were kidnapped, not sinful.  (And a thousand kudos to the show for the Holden / Catcher in the Rye reference when he was kidnapped on top of the angry horse on the carousel.  That horse was straight from the book's cover.  As is the name Holden itself.)

5. The Shining reference #12 or so: Rotting bodies in the shower.  Same green and brown splotches.

6. Saw the chutes.  Where are the ladders?

7. Ah, there.  In the bar.

8. The little girl wanders off during the fashion show and takes a public bus alone.  Great parenting.

9. Little kids acting in a show this adult is a tiny bit unnerving.

10. Ah.  I was waiting for the Hotel Cortez origin story.


Extra: The guy who built the Hotel Cortez is modeled after the very real H.H. Holmes, the butcher of the 1893 Chicago Expedition / World's Fair.  He built a house there with hallways that went nowhere, rooms to nothing, torture chambers, furnaces.  If you're into serial killers and the creepy, Google him.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Photo: from the book's Goodreads page.  (Yes, I review there as well.  Feel free them up.)

After finishing this book, which was essentially a good book and an okay way to pass the reading time of three days (in my case, anyway), I am nonetheless compelled to write the following:

Things That Have Annoyed Me in Stephen King's Latest Novels:

--His tendency to focus almost exclusively, at least for the first half, on the character normally considered to be the antagonist.  In this case, Morris Bellamy, who kills John Rothstein (a thinly-disguised combination of J.D. Salinger and John Updike) and steals his money and notebooks.  This is not ruining anything, by the way, because the inside flap tells you this faster than I just did.

Anyway, there are problems with doing this.  As I've mentioned in other recent reviews of King's work, the tendency to do this insinuates to the reader (again, at least this one) that King finds his antagonists more interesting than his protagonists.  (Or, at least, that he feels his readers will.)  This reminds me of actors who say they prefer playing the bad guy because he's usually more interesting than the bland good guy.  If this is the case, the answer here is to simply make the protagonist more convincing, or less bland, or whatever.  Often, an interesting protagonist will come to mirror the antagonist, thereby creating some depth.  (Hopefully this is what happens in my with-beta-readers-WIP).  King has done this focus-on-the-character-who's-normally-the-antagonist thing so frequently lately that it has to be by design.

The other problem with this is that it creates a cartoonish novel.  This novel will be compulsively-readable--which this one certainly is, as I finished it in a few days--but that doesn't mean it's satisfying.  I mentioned in a recent King review that his books have satisfied me less and less even though I'm reading them as quickly--if not more quickly--than ever.  I don't mean this as a snotty criticism, but I do mean it with seriousness.  By starting off with the antagonist, and by staying with him for so long, it creates the mirage (or, not, if you're strict about this sort of semantic thing) that the antagonist is actually the protagonist, and the protagonist, who's out to stop the bad-guy protagonist from doing bad things, is actually the antagonist, by definition.  This is how the old Tom & Jerry cartoons worked.

And it sucks, because it feels fake.  Because, really, it's backstory made into story, and you compulsively read it because it's there and that's all there is, but...it's not satisfying.  There's something wrong.  I'm not critical because it's not literature (somebody hit me upside the head if I ever get that snotty); I'm critical because it's not story.  Though story is what happens, and maybe why it happens, there's something more that story's supposed to be.  Something more real.  More weighty, perhaps, but that's entering Elitist Land, maybe.  But really it's just like watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon, which I tired of in my teens.  And I've tired of it here.

I'm sure King has done this purposely lately because it also falsely creates momentary cliffhangers at the end of every section.  And that's not done with realness, either.  It works like this: Protagonist, who's doing bad things that you want to read because we all want to see the dead body under the sheet at the car accident (King's frequently-used comparison, not mine), does bad things but comes upon some roadblock that stops him and allows the writer to introduce the protagonist--who's actually the antagonist here, by definition, because he's trying to stop the main character.  (Morris Bellamy, book advertising aside, is the main character here.  The cop from Mr. Mercedes, who's advertised as the main character and the star of this trilogy, does not appear in this one until literally half-way through.  And he's got remarkably little to do.  He really could be any retired cop from anywhere, from any novel from any writer.)  In this case, that roadblock is jail time.  Bellamy gets out and the game's afoot.  He does something.  Bill Hodges, the retired cop, does something, and catches up a little with the program.  In the meantime, other characters become more important and do more important things than Hodges does, and do so right until the end.  In this case, Pete Saubers is the other main character here.  Hodges is maybe third or fourth in line.  Anyway, the sections get shorter (yet another fake way to create tension: James Patterson-like short chapters or sections--and lots of them) and the back-and-forth gets more frequent and creates tension even when the story itself doesn't.

Fakery, I tell you.

If you've read King's books before, especially the recent ones, there's never any doubt about what's going to happen.  If you've read Misery, there's never any doubt about how it's going to happen.  And the little ironic twist in the last 5% of the book, that part about where the notebooks were after all--well, it made me roll my eyes.  Let me know if it did the same for you.

Bleh.  Compulsively readable bleh, but bleh nonetheless.

You expect something more.  And maybe that's part of the problem.  Maybe we shouldn't be expecting more from him anymore.  Can I say that out loud?

The other thing that needs to be said out loud: His stuff isn't scary anymore.  It's not even chilly.  (The ending of Revival is a blessed exception here.)  The only part of the novel that does that is the very, very end--an ending with a character that was in this book for .01% of it--and never in a relevant to this story kind of way.  That part--smack!--is the only even closely resembling creepy part of this whole thing.

That's what we want from King, right?  If I'm not going to get the real-life creeps and genius of "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," "The Body" or even Misery, than I want the creepiness of The Shining and IT.  The stuff he's giving us lately is nothing more than bad Dean Koontz.  This was especially true of Mr. Sleep, which was so bad I literally got angry.  (And was reminded of Dorothy Parker's quip, about another bad book, that it wasn't something to be put aside--but should instead be thrown with great force.)  But I don't want the back-and-forth of guns and robbers and that stuff.  I want little boys crawling underneath the snow, being chased by an unseen something that sticks its hand out of the snow, very suddenly.  I want he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.  This is TV show crap we're getting now, since Under the Dome did so well (in the ratings, during the summer, anyway), and I don't want it.  (Under the Dome is a classic example of King focusing almost-exclusively on the character who normally would be the antagonist, but isn't because of King's POV focus on him.  And the "protagonist" of Under the Dome was surely a bore--Steven Seagall in Under Seige.  A special-op hiding out, in retirement or not, as a cook.)

Anyway, this wasn't scary.  It wasn't intense.  It wasn't creepy.  It wasn't memorable.  It was compulsively readable--but I could say the same about my journal entries and even my shopping list.

And I'm still optimistic enough to want more out of Stephen King than this.  But maybe I shouldn't be.

Free Contest and Pics--The Zombie's Lament in Black Chaos II

 

On page 65 of Black Chaos II, edited by Bill Olver and published by Big Pulp Publications, you'll find my short story, "The Zombie's Lament." 

 

The cover looks great: bright colors, cool image from a known artist--Ken Knudtsen, who has worked on Wolverine for Marvel Comics, and on projects for David Geffen. 

 

I've been very lucky with covers of magazines and books for my short stories.  "Hide the Weird" was in an issue of Space and Time Magazine.  That cover was really cool, too.  Not too nerdy, very bright and colorful, and a skeleton is laying back, chilling out on the beach, having a drink--as the nuclear apocalypse mushrooms in the distance.  What else can you ask for?

 

The book's print is in good shape.  The ink is solid and it doesn't look unprofessional or cheap.  The author bio came out great.  There aren't any typos anywhere, and the book as a whole just looks good.

 

Anyway, the ISBN for Black Chaos II: More Tales of the Zombie, is 978-0-9896812-2-3.  It's available via bookstores, both brick-and-mortar and online.  The stories and poems are about zombies in relationships, zombies in the circus, zombies in a Christmas special, a mother-in-law zombie, and pissed-off zombies.  In short, if you like your zombies a little bit different, you'll like this book.

 

So, now, the contest!

 

On my published works blog (just click the tab above), you'll find "Everything's Connected" and "So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season."  These stories were written by me and purchased and published by OverMyDeadBody.com and OnThePremises.com.  And they're free!  The first one is a very short, light detective piece and the latter is a very short (and, IMO, very funny--yet very not) slice-of-life piece about a writer coming home to a failing marriage and a houseload of people on Christmas Eve.  Jack Nicholson in full The Shining mode makes a brief appearance in that one.

 

Anyway, to enter the contest, all you have to do is go to my Published Works page, choose one of those two free stories, click the link, read it, and leave a thought or two about the story as a comment on my Published Works blog beneath that story.  Read both stories and comment on each and you get entered into the contest twice!  The winner gets a free copy of Black Chaos II: More Tales of the Zombie.  You don't pay for the book and you don't pay for the postage.

 

The contest will run until the end of June.  I'll notify the winner via email and get the mailing address at that time.  And because I have many readers outside the U.S., I'll leave the contest open to anyone in the world who wants to enter!

 

Thanks very much for doing so, and good luck!

 

And, by the way, if you've read "The Zombie's Lament," and you've found this blog entry from my author bio in the book, please feel free to leave a comment here and let me know what you thought of the story.  Please and thank you, and thanks for reading my work! 

Do Not Write Like This!!! A List of Tired Plots.

Photo: One of the banners from www.strangehorizons.com.


This is a partial list of plot elements seen way too often in the business, from Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine.  Click the link to see the whole list, which I'll blog in partials.  (Strange Horizons allows this list to be published, in case you were wondering about copyrights.) 

After every story of this genre I write, I check out this list (of 51 things, most of them sub-headed, which will, as I said, be blogged about later as separate blog entries) and make sure that none of my stories in any way comes close to matching any of these.  You would think that this would be difficult, right?  Surely there's something in my story that has to match one of these.  Actually, no.  And stop calling me Shirley.  Sorry.  Anyway, upon a close inspection, I see that time and again, my stories do not match any of these main plot elements.  This doesn't mean my story is any good, of course, but it at least means that it won't get rejected solely for being one of these things.

If you've read as much of this genre as I have, or if you've watched as many movies or shows in this genre as I have, a few of these may remind you of one of the stories, books, shows or movies that you already think of as one of the worst you've ever come across.  I've read a lot of amateurish stuff--much of it self-published--that fit quite a few of these.  And they were all very, very bad.

And so I offer these to you, should you ever want to write and publish in this genre.  How many of them do you recognize in something truly awful?  (Not that you would ever do this, but comparisons to my published writing will earn an immediate delete when I moderate the comments!)

P.S.--2a sounds familiar, especially in lots of Stephen King's works, but I would argue that it's not the main plot element.  Jack Torrance in The Shining, for example, definitely has writer's block, but it's due to the evil of the Overlook messing with him, plus a healthy dose of the recovering man's blues.  Besides that, he was able to type "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" several thousands of times, sometimes in poetic form.

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
2. Creative person is having trouble creating.
   1. Writer has writer's block.
   2. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
   3. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
   4. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
   5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
3. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
   1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist's attempts to explain local rules, is punished.
4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
   1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
   2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
   3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
   4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we've seen are part of the novel.
5. An AI gets loose on the Net, but the author doesn't have a clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the Net." (For example, the computer it was on may not be connected to the Net.)
6. Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless.
   1. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
   2. All technology is shown to be soulless; in contrast, anything "natural" is by definition good. For example, living in a weather-controlled environment is bad, because it's artificial, while dying of pneumonia is good, because it's natural.
   3. The future is utopian and is considered by some or many to be perfect, but perfection turns out to be boring and stagnant and soul-deadening; it turns out that only through imperfection, pain, misery, and nature can life actually be good.
   4. In the future, all learning is soulless and electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
   5. In the future, everything is soulless and electronic, until protagonist (usually a kid) is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.
7. Protagonist is a bad person. [We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.]
   1. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they "deserve," which ends up being something bad.
   2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
   3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed. (But reading about the awfulness is so awful that we never get to the end to see the redemption.)
8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.
9. A "surprise" twist ending occurs. [Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we've seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.]
   1. The characters' actions are described in a way meant to fool the reader into thinking they're humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans, as would have been obvious to anyone looking at them.
   2. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.
   3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. [This can be done well, but rarely is.]
   4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.
   5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
   6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"
   7. A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story, when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness. [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the mysteriousness annoying.]
   8. In the future, an official government permit is required in order to do some particular ordinary thing, but the specific thing a permit is required for isn't (usually) revealed until the end of the story.
   9. Characters speculate (usually jokingly): "What if X were true of the universe?" (For example: "What if the universe is a simulation?") At the end, something happens that implies that X is true.
   10. Characters in the story (usually in the far future and/or on an alien planet) use phrases that are phonetic respellings or variations of modern English words or phrases, such as "Hyoo Manz" or "Pleja Legions," which the reader isn't intended to notice; in the end, a surprise twist reveals that there's a connection to 20th/21st-century English speakers.
10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
    1. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
    2. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
    3. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.

Bag of Bones--Epilogue

A few quick notes, having finished it a few nights ago, with not much more to add to the previous post:

--The writing itself--not the creepiness, or the scary things that happened, or any of the plot, just the writing itself--was inspired and inspiring, making the book as a whole worthy of its many awards that year.  More than usual, he just chose the right words.

--Interesting about the leukemia that Devore's daughter had.  No reason for it, really, except that I think King very much wanted Devore himself to be the one at the end, in her body, and the best way for her to look like him, and to be him, would be to lose her hair.  Which she would do, with leukemia.  I'm reminded of the really creepy Roland DeBay, long dead, who was seen to be driving Christine at the end, rather than Arnie.

--Character names and how they fit:

Max Devore: What does he do to everyone and everything thought to be in his way?  He devours them.  Chews them up and spits them out.  He can do so with money, power, or setting fires.  For more obvious character names and how they fit, see Leland Gaunt (Needful Things), Jack Sawyer (The Talisman), Jack and Danny Torrance (How do they feel the shining?  In waves, or torrents.)

Stephen King's Bag of Bones--Book and Film

photo: Cover of Bag of Bones, from its Wikipedia page

Some quick thoughts after having seen Stephen King's Bag of Bones (or, Stephen King's Bag of Bones) on A&E last night, while I'm presently reading it (and had read it when it first came out):

--First, let's start off by saying that the movie was really bad, okay?  Especially as compared to the book, which, in some spots, is among his best.  I just finished the part now where he had the fever and the triple dream of being with Jo, Mattie and Sara Tidwell at the same time.  The feelings, the descriptions, the skeletons and corpses described, especially those in NYC with his agent...good, perhaps great, stuff, that nothing in the movie matched.  I know that books are better than movies for just this reason--because of the details, the images you can produce on paper that you can't produce on film (especially on a commercial channel like A&E)--but the huge difference in quality and image go beyond the normal book to movie difference here.

--Pierce Brosnan looked just plain creepy when he smiled, didn't he?  Didn't his smile look more like a carnival clown's grimace?  He didn't do it for me in this role.

--The movie didn't, or couldn't, go into the vagaries of small-town life or the internal thoughts and fears of Mike Noonan--both things that make up 90% of the book.

--When I first finished the book, I remember thinking, "That's Stephen King doing Peter Straub."  High praise.

--Stephen King's internal dialogue is perhaps the best in the business.  His vocal dialogue is, of course, excellent as well.  The movie took large helpings of dialogue straight from the book.  I'm talking verbatim.  Stanley Kubrick famously did the same with The Shining.

--Despite the violence and gore (excessive by my prudish standards for a commercial channel like A&E), the movie was not scary at all.  The book is.  The movie did do a good job, though, of the gory creepy.  (I'm still seeing the ugly woman's jaw-dropping dying silent scream after getting stabbed in the neck.)  But a pruny and green and grimy dead thing looks like a pruny and green and grimy dead thing, and there's only so many times you can see that before it's not scary anymore.  Stanley Kubrick didn't understand this for The Shining, either; nor did the makers of The Shining miniseries.

--The ending of the movie, I'll say again, was effective, but way too violent for A&E.  He even told the little girl to look away before he stabbed the woman in the neck with the thin scissors, before the gouts of dark blood sputtered out.  But the little girl had not looked away, as the viewer wouldn't, either.

--The beginning of the movie--not in the book--has Mike at a book signing.  A fan comes up and says "I'm your number one fan."  Before I could say, "Annie Wilkes," or "Misery," to someone I was watching it with, Mike's wife leans over and says "Have fun with Annie Wilkes."  This overt nod to Stephen King didn't work for me, and, loathe as I am to say it, newer (and younger) Stephen King fans won't know who Annie Wilkes is.

--The pickup truck blowing-up scene was an almost-hilarious sendup of every car-hits-something, however slowly, and blows up scene ever made for a parody.  When your film is an unintentional parody, that is not a good thing.

--I have to assume that if a Stephen King film isn't released in the theatres, then it isn't going to be good.  If the producers thought it would be great, they would've released it theatrically, where the big bucks are.  And who doesn't think of big bucks when they think of Stephen King?

--Some of the movie's dialogue (not taken from the book) and scenes were simply not realistic.  Some of them laughably so.  For example, the man in the senior facility at the end hadn't told a soul his dirty little secret for over 50 years, but it takes just 50 seconds for Mike to get it out of him.  The book does not contain one scene, or one piece of dialogue, like that.  Not one.  Garris just doesn't understand the genre.  The scene in the book, where Mike stands on the stairs in the dark, and communicates with one or more ghosts as they knock on the boards below his feet (once for yes, two for no), was eerily effective and could've easily been done in the film.

--The book, simply enough, was in the hands of a master.  And the movie wasn't.  Surprising, I think, as Mick Garris co-wrote, produced and directed it.  Hasn't he done good things before?  I've heard the name.  Be right back...

--Of course!  He directed The Sleepwalkers; The Stand; and the aforementioned Shining miniseries.  He wrote *batteries not included, which was very good, but the aforementioned tv fare, which was not.  And his The Fly II was simply awful, but a guilty pleasure if you like gory flicks.  He directed Psycho IV, which I actually liked. I haven't seen Hocus Pocus, but it's very popular and well-received.

--Whoever sang the songs Sara Tidwell sang did a very good job.  The song repeated throughout was well-done, jazzy, memorable and creepy, all at the same time.  The woman who played Sara Tidwell did a great job in an odd role.  (If she also sang the music, I doubly applaud her.)  Melissa George did a very good job, too, in a brief and thankless role.

--I hate it when the name-selling appears as part of the title, like Stephen King's Bag of Bones, as the movie is actually called.  I assure you, that mess was more Mick Garris' Bag of Bones.  John Carpenter does this for his movies, too.  Woody Allen doesn't.  Hate that.  The piece either stands on its own merit, or it doesn't.  If it doesn't, don't make it.  If it does, you don't need the name to sell it.

--Someone mentioned earlier that the writer must okay all material made from his written works.  He can't, and he doesn't.  Once you sell the copyrights, you're all done with it.  The moviemakers could include you in on things, but they don't have to, no matter how big a deal you are.  I think it's telling that Stephen King didn't make a cameo appearance in this film, as is his trademark.  Then again, he didn't in Shawshank Redemption, or The Shining, either, so never mind.

--That cabin in the woods was more like a mansion in the woods.

--Read the book and save your DVR space for something else, like American Pickers.

Four More Straub

Ghost Story

My favorite Straub.  Rivals anything King has done, including The Shining, The Stand, It, etc.  One of the few books, like The Shining, to actually and literally give me the chills.  Great read as a mystery, as horror, as literature, as, well, as anything!  A must-read for any fan of any genre.  And brilliantly constructed, from the very first sentence.

Houses Without Doors

Good compilation of stuff, uneven when combined, well-written individually.  Contains stories of men who go crazy, partly because they read too much.  Uh-oh...

In the Night Room

Solid, creepy, and well-stylized.  Straub's just a good writer, no matter what the genre.  He could've written in any genre.

The Throat

So well-written that I read all 600 pages or so in about three days.  Straub is simply a good writer.  Good story; characterization; mood; setting.  All coalesce to an effective creepiness.