Iggy's Book Nook

[Abraham Smashington]

Castaways is the only book by him I just can't finish.

[IggytheBorg]

Richard Laymon might be worth a look, if you want to stay w/ the horror theme. High litt-ra-chure it is NOT, but so blatantly, unabashedly exploitative that it's laughably good (what I've read of it, anyway). That is, of course, if you haven't already checked out the Ketchum. And if you haven't, shame on you. Do it NAO!!!

If on the other hand, you want to leave horror fo awhile, Again assuming you haven't already had the pleasure, howzabout John D. MacDonald, the Travis McGee series in particular? Popular as they are w/ them in the know, they still always seem underrated to me.

[IggytheBorg]

Finished Stephen King's "Storm of the Century' a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how I feel about this. He seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel in his search for new villains to terrorize his charcters with. It wasn't particularly scary or innovative in the way King's best work is. But as usual, I couldn't put it down, and I really wanted to see where he was going w/ this story. It was written as a screenplay & not a book. I assume it reads a bit more like a book than your average screenplay, but as I haven't read another all the way thru, I'm not really sure. There was also a HUGE, gaping flaw in the internal logic of the story, and it would have been simple enough to address ("thousands" could have been changed to "hundreds" & had almost as much impact & still made sense). Fot the King completist, really. I doubt anyone else would need to read this.

[IggytheBorg]

I also read the 1st Best New Horror anthology (from 1989, I believe). This is the series that eventually mutated into The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. I am ahuge fan of the series, but acknowledge it's had some lame entries, where it was hard to fiind a standout story. Amazingly, this 1st volume was such a case. I suppose one has to put it in context, and realize that at the time, there was no other series of its kind to showcase the short story on a regular basis. At least, not on that scale. Series like "Shadows" (& its contemporaries, Fears, Horors, Terrors, Nightmares and the After Midnight books edited by Charles L. Grant being a notable exception), but these were comparatively slim volumes & did not have a regular publishing schedule to my knowledge. BNH has been annual since its inception, & has gotten bigger & better over time. It's hard to objectively see if I'm giving this book's entries a fair shake, given that I've read mmost of the later (& IMO, better) anthologies in the series 1st. I'm just DAMNED glad the publisher thought it was a wiorthy enough experiment to keep it alive & allow it to grow int the institution it's become. I'm reading last year's entry, Vol XXI, now. And it shows signs of being better than average entry. Long live Stephen Jones!

[IggytheBorg]

Finished Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Vol XXI a few days ago. Delightful. One of the better entries to come along in years. It started strong w/ one of the ebsts tories in the book, a collaboration between Stephen King & his son Joe Hill called "Throttle", and ended with an equally strong, albeit very short entry by Michael Kelly called "Princess of the Night". IN between were such gems as "The Game of Bear" (an unfinished M R James manuscript w/ an ending by Reggie Oliver so seamlessly grafted on, I couldn't tell where it began), "What Happens When You Wake in the Night" (a really creepy childhood fear based tale by Michael Marshall Smith, who seems to have a disporportionate share of standout stories in this series), "Granny's Grinning" by Robert Shearman (which managed to layer itself like a troll - or an onion - into cool and creepy on several different levels), and "After the Ape" by Stephen Volk (dissecting some aspects of the aftermath of Kong's NYC rampage). A most worthy entry in the series.

[IggytheBorg]

Just finished "Carter Beats the Devil" by Glen David Gold. I read the "Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" a little while ago, at a friend's recommendation. I told him afterward I liked it a lot, & he recommended I read "Carter". The two are often mentioned in the same breath. I can kind of see the comparison; they're both sweeping narratives, but K & C is on a slightly - I think - grander scale. Still, "Carter Beats the Devil" was a really nifty book. The plot was intricate, but never hard to follow. And as the protagonist, Carter the Great, master stage magician, is in the business of illusion & misdirection, you could rarely be sure of what you were "seeing" as you read this book. Carter gets involved in an unlikely conspiracy centered around the invention of television & the death of president Harding. Here was a really likeable character, noble & tragic while being somehow funny and lighthearted. Confident, even brash in some things (like his magic) but humble and clumsy in others (like finance & romance), but always resourceful & witty. I had a hard time putting this book down, particularly for the last 100 or so pages (it's 650 pages long, all told). I really enjoyed being immersed in Carter's world, set in pre-depression America. The best part was reading the afterword, & discovering there really was a Charles Carter, magician, & looking him up on Wiki. While "Beats the Devil" is surely a fictionalized account, The Wiki entry is vague enough that you wonder how much was real, how much was exaggerated, & how much an outright fabrication. I'd recommend this book to just about anyone, as it appeals to a broad spectrum of tastes. Stage magic and the tarnished glitz of the vaudeville stage, romance, adventure, and intrigue all are represented here. I think if I had been alive in this era, I'd have wanted to see a Carter the Great show. Has anyone else had the pleasure? What did you think of this book?

[Martin]

Never heard of that before.

[Lisa]

Finished Stephen King's "Storm of the Century' a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how I feel about this. He seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel in his search for new villains to terrorize his charcters with. It wasn't particularly scary or innovative in the way King's best work is. But as usual, I couldn't put it down, and I really wanted to see where he was going w/ this story. It was written as a screenplay & not a book. I assume it reads a bit more like a book than your average screenplay, but as I haven't read another all the way thru, I'm not really sure. There was also a HUGE, gaping flaw in the internal logic of the story, and it would have been simple enough to address ("thousands" could have been changed to "hundreds" & had almost as much impact & still made sense). Fot the King completist, really. I doubt anyone else would need to read this.

I'm late to the game, but wow, I freaking LOVED "Storm of The Century". It's not as great as his early stuff like "Salem's Lot" or "The Stand", but I think it's a great story. That ending is a heartbreaker. Plus, there's the whole "the needs of one do not outweigh the needs of the many" - or do they? How does that apply when you're talking about YOUR kid?

Finally, the thing I really enjoyed about it was that he made it extremely readable for a screenplay. He still had plenty of the "King" elements and that awesome descriptiveness that just grabs you, despite it being in script form. As I've made no secret, one of my huge issues with King's books being translated onto the screen is that they very rarely get it right. How to solve that problem? Have King write the book as screenplay to begin with. It still translates once it's brought onto film (and it was one of his better TV movie translations), and again, it's very readable. It also gives us a fun sort of "sneak peek" as to how it's going to be brought to film that his other books don't have.

This is actually one of my favorite King books - it was nice to see him get his mojo back after sucking wind for most of the early to mid-90s.

[IggytheBorg]

I'll have to check the movie out, but honestly this story didn't light my fire enough to make it a hi priority.

[Lisa]

I guess it was because it was such a simple solution to the problem of bringing his books to screen without losing anything that I was thrilled, that was part of it. But I really did love the story.

[IggytheBorg]

In the past, having him write the screenplay has been disastrous (see, for example, Sleepwalkers & Maximum Overdrive). If this one's good it's despite his involvement, not because of it.

[Bobby Bear]

Bit of a strange question for your Nook, Ig, but I am compelled to ask it nonetheless: are either of the adaptations of Salem's Lot worth checking out? I don't want to be overcome with irrational anger if they screw up Mark Petrie.

[Lisa]

Bit of a strange question for your Nook, Ig, but I am compelled to ask it nonetheless: are either of the adaptations of Salem's Lot worth checking out? I don't want to be overcome with irrational anger if they screw up Mark Petrie.

You won't be happy with the newer one. I mean, okay, "Salem's Lot" is my favorite King book, so I'm even more possessive about that than any of the others. The first one with David Soul was chopped up to bits, but they did a decent job with it. Not great, but I do have the DVD, and it's not bad. You'd like Lance Kerwin as Mark Petrie. Of course MY favorite character, Dr. Jimmy Cody, got chopped to bits. You know how sometimes for timing sake in King movies, they combine characters? Well, in the first version, they combine Susan's father with Jimmy Cody, and he basically becomes a very short-lived throwaway character. Pissed me off, man, I loved Jimmy Cody, he's probably one of my favorite King characters.

The 2006 remake with Rob Lowe was just a jumble. The acting wasn't terrible, but rather than shorten the movie, they kept the length just about right. HOWEVER - in giving it more time, they put stuff in there that never happened in the book, ever! Just crazy shit! You're worried about how Mark Petrie is characterized, Bobby? You'd HAAATE what they did to him in the new version. And Father Callahan - just really bad stuff. Plus, my beloved Jimmy Cody is a sleazy adulterer who gives in to being blackmailed, and it just really is not fun. I mean, with a longer running time, you'd think they'd just go ahead and be faithful to the book, but they put in stuff that never took place on paper.

The way they handled Susan Norton in both versions is dumb, just really dumb. Susan's final moments in the book was really one of the most beautifully written parts of any King book - it was visual, it was beautiful, it was terrifying, and it was heartbreaking. Her character deserved better, and she didn't get it in either version.

So, while neither one is perfect, I'd say you're better off with the old David Soul version. Check out the newer Rob Lowe version if only to see how badly it was done, too - you should really see them both if you're a big "Salem's Lot" fan.

[IggytheBorg]

I ahven't read the book in probably close to 30 years, and haven't seen the TV miniseries in almost as long. But I recall liking it (although Lisa's analysis is probably far more reliable than mine, given how recent it is). I wasn't actually aware there WAS a new version w/ Rob Lowe. kind of not sorry I missed it.

[Lisa]

It's out there on DVD, Ig - it wasn't good, but it's worth seeing it for comparison to both the book and the first movie.