Everything's Eventual by Stephen King

Fiction
Paperback
464 Pages
2002

Yes, that is right. All I am reading is Stephen King and Terry Pratchett. It is good stuff.

Continuing into my re-reads of Stephen King I found a good collection of King's stuff for cheap in a bookstore. My hey day of reading King was through the early 90's and this hadn't come out so I decided to try a new book.

This is a collection of short stories. King starts the book with an introduction on how the art of the short story is dying and that he enjoys them. These stories are a collection of things released over the last 20 years or so. I had only read one before, The Little Sisters of Elyria.

My favorites include: The Man in the Black Suit, a story about a old man telling a tale from his youth.  Everything's Eventual, A young man has the ability to kill people by writing them letters. He soon finds there are people willing to pay for an ability like that. That feeling, you can only say what it is in french,  A woman is on a car trip and starts having a distressing case deja vu. 1408,  Every writer has to have a story about a haunted hotel room, though I would argue he already did with The Shining. Riding the Bullet, A young man buys a painting at a garage sale and soon regrets his decision.

It is nice to be able to sit down and get an entire story in a short amount of time. They aren't all the greatest, but overall it was enjoyable. I have read other short story books by King and I would say I probably enjoyed the other a bit more overall, but this one was still worth my time.

2 Emotional/Intellectual - I admit a couple of the stories drew me in, but overall with short stories is hard to become invested.

4 Style/readability - King is easy author to read, but he doesn't dumb things down for us. It is often like having a storyteller right there for you.

2 Long Term Impact - King is one of the most famous writers of all time. Anything he writes will be influential for years to come. This will be one of his lesser read books.

8 out of 13. This feels right. Any fan would find this worth reading. If you are just trying king out I suggest some of his novels instead.

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Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

Fantasy Fiction
281 pages
Paperback
1988

I didn't read all these Pratchett books in a row, I am just catching up on my summer reading reviews. This book was released on a year after Mort and already the writing is improved.

We follow the actions of a coven of witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat, the young witch. The King is Dead and evil man has taken his place. The Kings ghost roams the castle trying to understand that he is really dead. The kingdom is upset. Not just the people in the kingdom, but the land itself. It rolls and grumbles, something isn't right. The Wyrd Sisters need to work to make things right.

This is the introduction to the witches story line that continues for many books. I had heard that this wasn't Pratchett's best work. Though, it may not be his best I really enjoyed it. Pratchett has a fun way of picking on people without coming off as mean.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - The witches are lovable and I am excited to read other things involving them.

3 Style/Readability - A good beginning to another Pratchett storyline. I look forward to more great writing.

4 Long Term -  I am not sure how many other books are in the series, but I know that the Witches are some of Pratchett's most loved characters. I am sure they will be loved for years to come.

10 out of 13. I think anyone looking for a light hearted fantasy read would enjoy this. Mandatory for a Pratchett fan.

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Mort by Terry Pratchett

Fiction

Around 300 pages

Paperback

1987

I am slowly, but surely reading through all of Pratchett's book. I have always enjoyed the random appearances of Death and thought this would be a good one to dive into. 

Sometimes even Death needs a break. This is why he decides to get an apprentice. Mort needs a job and after everyone else is taken to their new careers, he is left alone in the square. When Death shows up and offers him the job he decides it is better than nothing.

We follow Mort as he is learning the tricks of the trade and also see what Death might do if he had a day off.

2 Intellectual/Emotional - Death is the best character in a book and the humor is worthwhile.

3 Style/Readability - This is still early in Pratchett's career. There is still great writing here, but not quite the greatness of his later work.

2 Long Term Impact - This will be overshadowed by his other work, but still worth reading for Pratchett fans, which really should be everyone.

8 of 13. That is a little harsh. I would give it a bonus point, but it just didn't stick out in anyway.

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A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Non-Fiction

478 pages

Trade Paperback

2003

I had read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson in the past and really enjoyed it. My wife had suggested reading this one as well and I finally got around to making it happen. I admit that the book didn't seem all that appealing, I was pleasantly surprised.

The book is really a study of the history of science. It starts by looking at who and how we discovered what we know about the universe. From there it starts to look at the earth and how it developed. Then it starts to look at things smaller than the eye can see. It starts to look at the development of life and eventually how we as humans are a part of all of that.

I was very engrossed with the beginning of the book. Bryson has a way of writing that is both easy to read, but also makes clear somewhat hard to understand ideas. He does this mostly through making comparisons, such as relating the size of our solar system to the map that hangs on every elementary classroom wall. If we were to really have it as displayed in the classroom the map would have to go on for miles.

I won't say I was surprised, but there is a tremendous amount of our scientific history that I knew very little about. I read with intense interest through the first 3 parts of the book. The scientific advances in understanding the atom. Making comparisons involving the molecule, cells, particles, and all the other tiny things that we can see really opened up my eyes, as it were.

The end of the book that focused on the evolution of life on earth and then focusing on human evolution was not quite as interesting, but maybe that was because I had a better understanding of this already.

5 Intellectual/Emotional - Unless you have a doctorate in scientific history I imagine there is something for you to learn from this book.

3 Style/Readability - Bryson ability to translate in layman's terms is a skill that is needed in a book like this. But I did start to lose interest towards the end.

2 Long Term Impact - I would hope that this will influence others writing about ideas, but I sort of doubt it will. That said I imagine he will influence those in the future and the information will always be worth a read even as time goes on and some of the ideas are proven wrong.

10 out of 13. I really didn't expect to like the book as much as I did. If you are looking for something that might educate you a bit this is a great place to start. I think anyone knowing what they are getting into would find this to be worthwhile.

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On Deck: The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

428 Pages
Fiction
1979

I have gotten into a kick of rereading a bunch of old King stuff so I revisited this.

Johnny has a bad fall as a kid and picks of the ability to occasionally get ahead of things and predict what is going to happen. He gets in a bad car accident and suffers in a coma for 5 years. When he awakens his power of foresight is much more acute. After touching a person or object and can occasionally see things about them in great detail. He uses is powers to help some people, but is generally avoided as a fraud or a freak. Eventually, he has a vision that he decides he needs to do something about.

Stephen King has always had an ability to draw me in like no others. I find myself reading longer and more often when I am reading his books. He writes without a lot of flair, but is able to make each character into a person you feel you could meet on the street. The Dead Zone continues this great story telling.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - You really get to know and care about the characters.

4 Style/Readability - King delivers again. (Even though this is early in his career.)

4 Long Term Impact - King has millions of fans and everything he writes is a bestsellers. He already has influenced writers for years and will continue to do so for as long as he is writing. Dead Zone stands as one of his better books and will continue to entertain for a long time.

11 out of 13. Great Book. Others to check out if you are interested. The Stand and The Dark Tower Series.

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You Suck by Christopher Moore.

328 Pages

Fiction Humor Horror

2007

I have read a number of Moore's books now. I started reading the Bloodsucking Fiends trilogy and this is the second in the set. I'll talk about Bite Me the final book at the end.

In the first book Tommy has been put into service by the vampire Jody. In the second book Jody turns Tommy into a vampire as well. We follow their misadventures of getting another servant, looking for a new place to live and avoid the cops who want them out of town. 

I read through the whole thing in a couple days. Moore keeps things simple and to the point, It is a humorous look at the dark side of vampirism. In some ways it does come off as sophomoric. A big part of this is Abby. She is the servant thy get. She is presented as a Goth girl who just loves vampires and wants to serve. A part of the book is written as if it is her diary. I found those parts to be hard to get through because she writes like a Valley Girl talks and it was hard to enjoy.

2 Intellectual/ Emotional - I had a hard time caring about anyone except Tommy and he comes off a jerk sometimes too.

3 Style/Readabilty- Moore is easily digested and is pretty funny. I think sometime he pushes the limits without much success, such as the Blue Hooker that everybody wants because of latent Smurf fantasies from childhood. 

2 Long term impact - I don't see this breaking the scene much. It is a niche humor and that is wear it will stay.

1 bonus point for the humor.

9 out of 13.

I enjoyed the first two books in the series. I started reading the last book in the Trilogy Bite Me and I had to give up. As noted I thought Abby was the most annoying of the characters and it seems like a lot of the last book is from her point of view. After the 20th time of her using Kayso to start a paragraph I decided I couldn't be bothered with it anymore.

I suggest reading the first two and ignoring the last.

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The Well of Ascension and Hero of the Ages by Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension 781 pages Paperback
The Hero of Ages 580? Paperback
Fantasy Fiction
2007
2008

I was so drawn in by the first book in the series. I read the last two books in the trilogy soon after. We continue to following Vin as she develops her abilities and the other members of her crew start to learn what it is really like to be in a leadership role.

I enjoy Sanderson's writing. He has a handle on making politics play its role without dragging the story because of it. He has a fantastic sense of writing a battle that is able to be visualized. Often it is hard to understand exactly what is going on in a fight, but Sanderson makes it easy. His use of a magical world that has an understandable way that it works is also intriguing.

It has a been a little bit since I have read these.

I am going with 11 out of 13 for the series. It is really good and worth any fantasy fans time, you will be drawn in and surprised.

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The Truth by Terry Pratchett

348 pages
Paperback
Fantasy Fiction
2000

Terry Pratchett recently passed away. My wife and I are huge fans and have been diligently reading through his work. We had two copies of The Truth so we read it together; our own little book club.

The Truth is a stand alone book in the Disc World series, but it does have a lot of characters from some of the big story lines. The reader follows William De Worde, son of Lord De Worde. He goes from writing a small newsletter to nobility once a month; to creating Anhk-Morpork's first newspaper. He hires a group of dwarves, a vampire and Sacharissa Chrisplock. Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip are new in Ankh-Morpork. They have been brought in from out of town to take care of some business without involving the local Guild of Assassins. A rival "newspaper" crops up with "news" that is made up. The Patrician, Lord Vetinari, has been caught in attempted murder. De Worde vows to learn The Truth.

Pratchett is a master story teller. I found myself reading 30-50 pages at a time burning through the humor with a smile on my face. In this book he added a bunch of pop culture references to gangster movies like Pulp Fiction and Scarface. I imagine there were others that I missed, this seems to be different from his other books, but was fun to see.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - Pratchett's books are for entertainment, but always seem to have a bit of social commentary as well. One of the most appealing things is all the characters are endearing. Even the "bad guys" are people you care about.

5 Style/Readability - I love Pratchett. His books are so much fun and easy to tear through, but they are witty and unexpected. He is among my favorite authors.

3 Long Term Impact - Pratchett is quite famous in the UK. He has gained popularity in the US as well. I only see that rising as time passes.

11 out of 13. I find it hard to rank Pratchett's books. Almost all of them are above a certain level of greatness and I wouldn't want to have to sort them out. That said, this isn't the place to start reading his work, because a part of the story is seeing a bunch of characters from other books being pulled in as side characters of this book. I would start with Guards! Guards! or Going Postal.

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Salem's Lot by Stephen King

439 pages Hardcover

1975

Fiction

I recently recently re-read The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. It was the first book that I had ever read by him. After that I found myself in a used bookstore and they had an old copy of the hardcover of Salem's Lot. So I picked it up. I have read this before sometime as a teenager, but not sure exactly when. 

The story follows the main character, Ben Mears, as he tries to start a new novel in the town of Jerusalem's Lot. As a young man he stayed with his aunt in the small Maine town. He had a horrifying experience in the old Marsten Place and he's come to final rid himself of the old nightmares. He attempts to rent the old Marsten place only to find that it has recently been sold. Two men running an antique store take up residence  there and move into town.

Danny Glick and his brother take a short cut through the woods and after several hours Danny comes tumbling home having lost all knowledge of the previous few hours. His brother is searched for by everyone in town, but never found. Danny gets sick and falls deeper into a weakened state, until he dies.

Mark Petrie is visited late at night by an old friend, Danny Glick. 

The night is soon taken over by nightmares people only dreamed of in the past. Ben, Mark, Matt Burke the local English teacher, the local doctor James Cody, and Father Callahan team up to fight an evil older than they imagine.

Stephan King is fun to read. In this book more than some of his others I find his descriptions to be fantastic. One of the chapters describes the town in a few pages and it could stand as it own ode to small town America. Take this and add in a bit of scary creeping around the town and you get an enjoyable read that is easy to tear through.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - It is easy to get involved with the characters. You feel their fear and hope for their success.

4 Style/Readability - King hasn't sold millions of all of his books because he is a poor writer. I found Salem's Lot to be among his best.

4 Long Term Impact - Stephen King has been a bestseller for over 40 years. It is fair to say his books will be having impact for a long time to come. Salem's Lot is one of his best.

11 out of 13. A great read for anyone looking for a book with a spooky side. 

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Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

I first read Sanderson when he finished Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. He took a series that had gotten far out of control and bloated and pulled it all together and finished it well. Check out the review of that if you are interested. My wife gave my the trilogy as a Christmas gift and I quickly started into the first book.

In Mistborn we follow a young lady named Vin. She grew up on the streets and is of a lower caste known as Skaa. She gets involved with a thieving group lead by a man named Kelsier. She soon realizes that her power to influence people is something much more than good luck. She is a Mistborn, an allomancer, that can burn metals to gain magic powers. She can push and pull metal objects, influence people's emotions, gain super strength and with the rarest of metals see into the future.

The world that Vin inhabits is devastated. Almost no plants grow and those that do are stunted and weak. Great volcano like mountains almost constantly cover the land in repeated Ashfalls. The nobility live the high life as uncounted Skaa work as their slaves. At the pinnacle of this arrangement lives the immortal leader, the Lord Ruler.

Kelsier plan is to overthrow the empire and if possible kill the Lord Ruler.

I enjoy reading fantasy fiction. After tons of reading in my younger days, I started to get bored with "the hero goes on an adventure" books. I still seek out good fantasy and was pleased to read this book. 

The system of magic is different than anything else with reasoning and explanation for how things work. The lofty goal of a small band of people trying to overthrow an empire is not knew, but how they go about it, the limitations set by the world, and the unexpected results all made this stand out from your typical fantasy fare. The unique magic system combined with Sanderson's ability to describe battle scenes makes this really worthwhile.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - Vin and Kelsier are both very likable characters. I was invested in their success.

3 Style/Readability - Sanderson has a easy going writing style. I felt his combat scenes stuck with me and it was easy to imagine them in my head.

4 Long Term Impact - Sanderson has been gaining popularity. He pleased most of Jordan's readers and I hope that he surpasses him. I hope he sets a trend that inspires like work going forward.

10 out of 13. This is a solid score for a solid book. I really look forward to reading more in the series. I think anyone that likes fantasy or science fiction would find this worthwhile. The series is to be a trilogy of trilogies. That has one set in the past, one set in modern times and one set in the future. We'll see how it goes.

Fury by Salman Rushdie

Fiction

249 Pages Trade Paperback

2001

I have a goal of reading all of Rushdie's works at some point. I have read most of them and now I am starting to dive into some of his lesser known work. Since having read his memoir it adds a bit to the story knowing what Rushdie was going through while writing this book. There seem to be parallels between the main character, Malik and himself.

Malik Solanka has left his wife and child in Europe and relocated to New York. He does this in a way to protect his family as he has a deep anger that he isn't able to control. He has made a living off the creation of a puppet show titled and focused on its main character "Little Brain". He finds himself getting involved in a number of uncomfortable relationships which eventually lead him to confront his issues.

I found this to be the most disappointing Rushdie book I have read. I found Malik to be very unlikable. He comes off as selfish, melodramatic and weak. He relationship with the neighbor lady comes off as creepy and almost incestuous. I realize that the point is that he is dealing with the problems of the past, but if I can't find anything about the character to connect with than it is hard to care about him. 

I also found a lack of the beautiful phrasing and wordplay that I look for in Rushdie's writing. It isn't to say it was bad, it just lacked what I find most appealing about his work. 

2 Intellectual/Emotional -There is little intellectual interest and the only emotional connections I made was for his wife and child who were sideline to the main story.

3 Style/Readability -Rushdie does fine, but it doesn't have much of what I hope for from his work. 

2 Long Term Impact - This is still Rushdie and I imagine there is more here that I am giving it credit for, but so far I would suggest reading any of his work over this.

7 out of 13. Rushdie is one of my favorite authors. I love reading his books, but I have to be honest this was a let down. Read Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh, or the Satanic Verses.

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King

747 pages

Paperback

Fiction

1987

My adult reading started with Stephen King and The Tommyknockers. The first day I was able to check out non-children's books at my local library I got a brand new copy of The Tommyknockers. Four weeks later I had destroyed the book, because I had carried it around with me that entire time. I was hooked and went on to read many of King's other books. I was at the local Library Book Sale 25 years later and saw this sitting there. I decided it was time to see how it stood up after so many years.

Bobbi Anderson is an author of Western books and has settled for the last ten years outside the small town of Haven, Maine. She owns a large amount of land and likes to take her dog for walks out in the woods. On one of these walks she trips over an odd chunk of metal sticking out of the earth. She decides to dig it up and see what it is. 

Jim Gardener and Bobbi have been friends for a long time. Gardener is a poet and about to make the last reading of his life. After that he plans to tie one on and take a long walk off a short pier. While in the midst of attempting suicide and gets a feeling that Bobbi is in trouble. Well, he owes it to her. He can always kill himself another time.

Bobbi has found a ship in the Earth. Soon she starts to come up with inventions for things she never even considered before. She hooks up her water heater to run on batteries, she creates a typewriter that can type when she is asleep, she starts modifying her tractor to dig better than it does and she starts growing vegetables to put the local fair winners to shame. Gardener shows up and seems immune to the effects of the ship in the earth. Maybe because of the plate in his head from that skiing accident so many years ago. Soon the rest of the town starts to get new ideas too. Hopefully, they can "become" before the rest of the state figures out what is happening in their little town.

For me The Tommyknockers got better with age. A good portion of the book is getting inside of the character and seeing people's inner monologue. I know while reading this in my early teens I had know idea what a lot of the subject matter was dealing with. Menstruation, cheating on your spouse, murder and technologies beyond normal human capabilities must have really confused my impressionable young mind.

I enjoy Stephen King's writing. It is easy to get through the story as it is tense and exciting. You always want to keep turning pages to see what happens next. It was nice "going back to my roots" and I plan on reading some other of King's books that I haven't enjoyed in 20 years.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - I would say this would have been a 2 if it wasn't for the boy that invents the disappearing machine. When he makes his brother disappear, but can't get him back, I was emotionally sucked into the brother's world.

3 Style/Readability - King's writing is always easy to get through and entertaining but it doesn't grab me for the beauty of the prose.

3 Long Term Impact - Stephen King is one of the most prolific and most read authors of the last 50 years. He is known as "The Master of Horror", but really that isn't what his best work is about. He got famous for horror early in his career and has had that label ever since. Most of his work in the last 30 years has more to do with supernatural happenings and less to do with horror. Tommyknockers lies somewhere in the middle of that. It is more science fiction, with some bad things that happen, than horror. It isn't one of his super famous books, but I am sure it has and will influence writers into the future.