I kicked off the month with ‘Night Shift’ another King re-read, and his first short story collection. A re-read. How many times now? I have no idea. I remember buying this copy at Blackwell’s book shop in Liverpool, near the Uni. I was always very careful with money, unless I saw a Stephen King book, or a Womens Press SF book in News from Nowhere. Anyway, this has been on the shelves for over forty years, but it’s a long time since I re-read it.
The outright misogyny of many of the stories hits me now, although to be fair the misogynistic men are always portrayed unsympathetically. The n word is used a time or two as well, which seems more shocking now, but, as with the misogyny, is being used to convey the character of the speaker.
We kick off with an introduction by John D MacDonald and a longer foreword by King himself. And then we hit the meat of it, the short stories.
‘Jerusalem’s Lot’ is set many years before ‘Salem’s Lot’ and is an interesting story that reaches across to the Cthulu mythos of Lovecraft’s New England coast and foreshadows ‘IT’ whilst setting the stage for ‘Salem’s Lot’.
‘Graveyard Shift’ is a straight out horror story about mutated ravenous rats, written and published several years before Herbert’s ‘The Rats’ took the horror world by storm.
‘Night Surf’ is set in the world of Captain Trips, a side journey from ‘The Stand’. I can’t remember if it makes it into the expanded version of the novel, but I’ll be finding out soon, because that’s my next King re-read. This story concerns a group of young people who have survived the superflu and are partying hard.
‘I am the Doorway’ is a very creepy sf horror about a retired astronaut and the burden he came home with.
‘The Mangler’ is a darkly funny story about a haunted laundry press and the misadventures of a couple of men who decide to exorcise it. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
‘The Boogeyman’ is probably one of King’s most chilling stories. An ineffectual blusterer goes to therapy to talk out his fears following the death of all three of his young children. He has something to confess …
‘Grey Matter’ is a straight out horror story that’ll put you off your beer.
‘Battleground’ is an excellent little story about a hitman who finds out that they don’t always know who is going to hit back. I will always love this story.
‘Trucks’ was made into a not much feted film, but I never saw it, so can still enjoy this story about a world where our creations turn on us without mercy.
‘Sometimes They Come Back’ is a tale of malign ghosts, a victim who fights back, and the inadvisability of dealing with demons.
‘Strawberry Spring’ somehow got into my vocabulary via this story, I’ve been using the phrase since the eighties, and wondering now and again where it came from. For some reason I always thought this story was called Springheel Jack, after the myth it’s based on. This is a nasty little tale, beautifully told.
‘The Ledge’ was filmed as part of the King anthology ‘Cat’s Eye’ and works as a non-supernatural story with a good helping of fear and a look into the depths that people can sink to.
‘The Lawnmower Man’ is a gloriously barmy story about a meeting between an old religion and a business opportunity.
‘Quitters Inc’ is a companion piece to ‘The Ledge’, in that it’s a non-supernatural horror story. It too was featured in ‘Cat’s Eye’ and looks at a novel and interesting way for a crime syndicate to make money and pursue the aims of their late leader.
‘I Know What You Need’ is a truly creepy story about a pretty girl and the boy who wants her. The roommate is a real hero in this story.
‘Children of the Corn’ is one of those stories that had to be written, and had to be written by King. A squabbling couple have a gruesome encounter whilst driving through the back roads of Nebraska. Things only get worse from that point. Don’t bother with the film.
‘The Last Rung on the Ladder’ is worth the price of the book all by itself. The visuals are amazing and the story is a heartbreaker. King does childhood well, and nostalgia for childhood even better.
‘The Man Who Loved Flowers’ is a creepy little story with a dirty secret. It’s beautifully told though.
‘One for the Road’ takes us back to Salem’s Lot, after the fire. It’s a great story and one to remember.
The collection ends with ‘The Woman in the Room’. Again, a non-supernatural tale, this time of the mundane horror of love and death.
My next book was John Scalzi’s ‘When The Moon Hits Your Eye’ which I borrowed from the library – many thanks to Lancashire Libraries.
I gave it five stars on Goodreads, but this could easily have been four stars, and then, damnit, Day 23 …
OK, this is essentially a silly book that has a huge big streak of humanity and humour running all the way through it. The moon has turned into cheese. The type is never specified, but it is basically one variety throughout. Obviously a moons weight of cheese isn’t going to be stable, and that lack of stability spells trouble – M O O N. (Sorry, I’m on the leadup to a reread of The Stand and I’m getting a bit overexcited about it.)
I enjoyed it. Thank you JS, but don’t ever, ever do a Day 23 on me again. My writers’ heart can’t take it.
Next, again with thanks to Lancashire Libraries, I got stuck into the Crescent City trilogy by Sarah J Maas. It had to be done.
House of Earth and Blood. Eight hundred pages. Yes, it could have been a lot shorter, but it wasn’t and I still enjoyed it.
This is science fiction. It’s a story of how a long ago alien invasion of Earth, or a very Earth like place, via portals from other planets, or maybe other dimensions, has led to an early 21st century youth culture vibe with mobile phones, large screen TVs, rock bands, drug dealers and nightclubs mixed with a traditional fantasy setting. The aliens are Fae, vampyr, angels, sprites, demons and all kind of different sentient creatures, and interestingly, many of them can interbreed with each other and humans. There’s quite a lot of that going on.
It’s a story of two beautiful, smart, damaged people and their fight against an unfair world.
It’s a story of love, and friendship, and family.
There’s a bit of deus ex machina at the end, but it’s been signalled enough, so I’m not complaining.
And it made me cry twice. I’ve not cried at a book in ages and ages and ages, and I’m not gonna spoiler it. But if it made you cry too, I’d be interested to know which scenes got you going.
And so to Maas’ ‘House of Sky and Breath’. Well, that felt like an eight hundred page book. I found myself reading it in fifty page segments, and it was slow through the middle segment. The secondary characters were engaging and fun, and I developed a real fondness for some of them, but Bryce got more insufferable with every new power up. I lost 10% of sympathy for her with every smirk, so it didn’t take long before I was longing for her to just explode already. Hunt … hell he’s dull in this book isn’t he? He could be an AI boyfriend considering his lack of personality outside being Bryce’s boyfriend.
But … it’s the middle book of three, and they’re always hard to write because there is so much plot and signalling and character development to squeeze in before book 3. So I’m willing to be patient.
In book 1, everything speeded up and got interesting in the last third of the book. In book 2, Maas waits until the last eighth of the book. And it got interesting, and ended on a real cliffhanger. I loved the ending.
I took a short break from Crescent City to read Belinda Bauer’s latest novel, ‘The Impossible Thing.’
A library book, and as an added bonus I’m the first reader, which is nice …
This is my third Bauer book, after Exit and Blacklands. This is very much more in the style of Exit, an easy read cosy crimeish book with some genuinely heartfelt moments. That poor bird.
So, we have four stories that cross over, starting just after WWI and ending in the present day. The plot revolves around a true thing, a collection of bright red guillemot eggs. The characters are fictional or loosely based on historical figures. The first story is about Celie, who is a small child when she steals her first egg and recognises its worth. Her partnership with the farm boy Robert is touching and real. The second story is about the egg broker who buys it from her, and enters into a contract with the family. We take a look at the egg collectors that he sells to, and the society that allows the trade. The third story concerns two young men who accidentally get involved with the drama and lies around the eggs. The fourth concerns a modern day egg thief, an utterly charming couple of egg guardians, a militant RSPB officer, and an obsessive curator of the national egg collection. Bauer draws the stories together with an expert hand.
And after all is finished, and the tale is done, I’m left with the image of a poor guillemot, resigned to the loss of every egg she ever laid. It’s a dirty trade, and a nasty crime.
And then, to finish off the month, Part 3 of Crescent City. ‘House of Flame and Shadow’ is a fun, fast paced and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. If you find yourself getting bogged down in book 2, I promise you it’s worth it and that Maas won’t let you down.
