If you haven't read it yet, read "Details" by China Mieville. Holy heck was that good! I'm prioritizing his novels immediately.Quoting D_Davis (view post)
I also read "The God of Dark Laughter" by Chabon, which a disappointment. Stumbled through an interesting premise and squandered some nice details along the way.
Nice - I'll read that Mieville story. I, too, plan on reading some of his novels next year. I tried reading his stuff about 8 years ago, but I couldn't get into it. I have a feeling I'll like him more now.
I re-read Cisco's "The Genius of Assassins" the other night. My god is it ever bleak and brutal. I had forgotten that about it - it's probably the darkest things he's done. Made me feel very uneasy, and just not good.
A great review of the story can be found here.
The Cisco is up next. Very excited. Then I'll move on to the Ligotti. From there, I'm either reading things from authors I recognize, or reading titles that intrigue me.
YYYYEEEESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Scarlet-Go...5JJG83BXS7SMV2
Mr. Davis, sorry I've had your Cisco for so long. I've actually been done for a couple of weeks. I like where the man is coming from, imaginatively. He's a fine storyteller, and I assume that as his books progress, his prose becomes a bit more confidently styled...? I was a little put off by his florid cliches. Lots of predictable turns of phrase and flat descriptors.
But as I said, the stories themselves had power. The Golem was better, but both burrowed deep in my brain, and I'd love to read more.
Nice, glad you enjoyed it.
And yes, his style get's much more refined and confident. He's almost an entirely different author now than he was when Divinity Student was written. I'd even go as far to say that DS reads like juvenilia when compared to The Great Lover and Celebrant.
What I love most about The Divinity Student is it's bold imagination, and sense of total other-worldliness.
Really good to hear. I'm definitely pumped. You're right, the other-worldliness was uncanny at points.
Deviated big time from my plan after getting totally sucked into Bird Box by Josh Malerman. It was recommended to me by the owner of an independent book shop in Petoskey, a place I take my family every year for vacation. The guy has never steered me wrong, and he proved reliable once again. Bird Box is one of the tensest reads I've experience in a while. Some mysterious global event is occurring, in which people see something and instantly lose their sanity, becoming violent to people around them and to themselves. No one still alive knows what exactly these people are seeing, as they can't describe it and all end up dead. The survivors are forced to live in boarded up houses, and when forced to go outside, they have to do so blindfolded, as even a glimpse of the outdoors can trigger the madness. Malerman is masterful at taking that conceit and using it to drive the reader to a maddening level of suspense and anxiety. The book is not without its flaws, for sure, but it is well worth reading, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a horror novel you can't put down. It's only about 260 pages, but I read it in almost 24 hours.
Final horror novel for the Halloween season was Pet Sematary. It took me this long because, frankly, it wasn't very good. King's sophomoric writing is just too much for me. His plotting might be excellent, but his turns of phrase are often so off-putting I can practically see him sitting at his typewriter grinning in satisfaction as he spins his latest ill-timed punch of humor or regurgitated song lyric in what should be a tense or terrifying moment. The folksy, rural atmosphere he establishes here is so fucking corny it reads like parody most of the time, and his juvenile pairing of sex and violence is embarrassing. The book was at its best when it was dealing with real trauma, like Pascow's emergence in the medical center and the chaos that ensues, and his retelling of Gage's accident and the handling of grief. Beyond that, everything here either fell flat, or actually made me want to stop reading. The last hundred pages or so are page-turning, but still not appropriately horrifying considering what is taking place on the page because his lack of nuance consistently derails the mood. I'm not a King hater, at least I didn't think I was, but the last few things I've read by him have been bad, and they've been some of his more revered work.
Dammit. I thought it was highly thought of, but between you here and meg giving it only 3 stars on Goodreads and a less than favorable review, perhaps I'm wrong? It was listed very highly by many sites as one of his scariest novels.
I like some of it, mainly the stuff between Louis and Jud (because I think King writes great male friendships, especially when using a mentor/apprentice trope), but I don't remember it ever being all that engaging. The part where they first walk into the woods is pretty cool, and there are some good moments, but it's not anywhere near my top 10 King, not even in my top 20.
Well, I might have still read it based on that writeup. Disagree on Jud, who I couldn't stand. He was the main target of my "folksy" complaint in my initial post. Didn't care much for Louis either. Just bland, corny character work.
I'm a huge fan of folksy writing, and so I really like King when he gets all folksy. At my core I'm a sentimental, sincere sap and a sucker for nostalgia and folksy charm.
I would hesitate to recommend much King to someone who doesn't like folksy writing; that's like recommending Lovecraft to someone who doesn't like purple prose.
I like King best when he gets real folksy, like in so much of the Dark Tower, especially in my favorite King novel The Wolves of the Calla.
That could be why the King that has wowed me the most was 'Salem's Lot, which I don't remember being folksy at all (though it's been years since I read it, so I could be wrong). That and the first three quarters of Gerald's Game.
Just googling "Stephen King folksy" yields a whole bunch of results. He's not always super folksy, but I would use that word to describe his style in general, and I think it's why he's appealed to so many readers, especially American readers. If he were a more intellectual writer, with a more intellectual style, I doubt he'd be so popular with the masses, but he'd probably be more popular with academia and the literati.
He's a modern, old-timey yarn spinner, with a dark streak and a mastery of poking at the fears and imagination of blue collar America.
I remember liking Pet Sematary for its emotional gut-punches, especially that ending, the last line of which I still remember vividly.
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Ughbudhgjh.
I don't know where it'd rank. Somewhere in the middle, with its last few chapters among King's more dreadfully impactful endings.
Sometimes I'm down with the folksiness, sometimes I find it unbearable. For whatever reason, I'm always a sucker for his proper-voiced God-fearing villains. When Wilkes says "cock-a-doodie," or when Big Jim Rennie talks about how someone recently deceased is "up in Heaven eating turkey and mashed potatoes with Jesus - with extra gravy!"
Extra gravy!
:lol:
All the times, but I wanted to outright kill Junior and Thibodeau.
First paragraph of chapter one:
"It was September 5, 1975 and summer was enjoying her final grand fling. The trees were bursting with green, the sky was a high soft blue and just over the Falmouth town line he saw two boys walking a road parallel to the expressway with fishing rods settled on their shoulders like carbines."
Yeah, folksier than I remember, but not the absurdly corny folksy that riddles most of Pet Sematary. Still, I have a feeling I would like 'Salem's Lot much less if I reread it now.
And I don't think it has anything to do with it not meeting some academic or high lit standard. It's just, well, corny. And repetitive. And phony.
And repetitive.
Hey ho, let's go.
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