Film Review: The Long Walk

Brutal, harrowing, and an incredible film that plumbs the depths of violence, despair, and friendship. (Spoiler free)

I read The Long Walk novel a few months ago in anticipation of the movie coming out, so I knew what I was getting into with this. But seeing it the same week in America that multiple acts of gun violence were committed, it was hard. Really hard. I considered rescheduling, actually, given that I wasn't sure I could handle even more violence on screen. 

The film revolves around a dystopian battle royale-type contest: Young adults in an alternate America volunteer for the Long Walk and are drawn by lottery to participate. The last man still walking takes away the prize — untold riches and whatever your heart wishes. If you stop walking below 3 m.p.h., however, you're shot after three warnings by a slowly moving military vehicle that has rifles trained on everyone. 

So, yes, it's like The Hunger Games and Squid Game, in that young people are forced to outlast each other to the death in the face of unspeakable fear and callous violence. But both of those movies feel more removed from our current-day environment, while The Long Walk seems much more realistic in that there's no futuristic capital city, no high-tech arena with sponsored gifts. 

The main characters are walking on screen for the entirety of the film, and as the miles pile up, you can feel their exhaustion, dread, and fear. The first half-marathon's length doesn't seem so bad. Just a long walk, right? But there's no stopping. For anything. Watching the participants begin to stumble is gut-wrenching. When one character gets diarrhea, you see it happen in real time, along with what happens to him when he can't recover. The first death is incredibly graphic, and that's on purpose. I saw in an interview that Stephen King mentioned that he had one condition for making the movie: The deaths had to be shown. Why? To make sure that the audience knew that this wasn't just entertainment, and to show the pointless, absurd violence of the march. After that first death scene, I started looking away. It was too hard for me to watch again and again.

As night begins to fall on the first day, you start physically feeling the tiredness and exhaustion of the young men. No matter what, you can't stop, even if your shoe starts filling up with blood from blisters or you twist your ankle. The fear of being brutally shot reverberates through their young bodies as they march on. Sleep is stolen in small bits while hanging on to the person next to you. Every moment, you're reminded that you will either win the entire thing or you will die. There is no other option. There is no second place.

What prevents The Long Walk from just being torture porn, however, is the incredible performances of the actors who are along for the journey. Much like the bonds and alliances that are made in The Hunger Games, the friendships in this film are its heart, and they're truly impressive. In between moments of heart-shattering violence and long-distance-induced body horror injuries, you have a core group of characters that are slowly but surely making their sacrifices count. When they're not running for their lives, they're talking, laughing, and trying to make sense of the world and how they got to be on the Long Walk. Every few minutes, they experience trauma after trauma as they watch their companions fall. Similarly, every few minutes, I would think about how tired they are, how in pain they must be. Imagine walking as far as you'd ever walked before, then having to keep walking indefinitely or else face death.

Ray Garraty and Peter McVries, our two main characters, quickly become fast friends while walking, and their relationship is truly touching to watch as they traverse hundreds of miles across rural Maine backroads. 

When I mentioned earlier that consuming this movie is hard, I wasn't joking. I'm not sure what to take away from it. The message that violence is wrong is very clear. But I think what I'll take away personally from it is the power of support during periods of intense, overwhelming fear. You're with these characters in essentially a locked room (except the room is always a small piece of tarmac), faced with the certainty that all but one will die. No matter how it ends, it's going to be tragic for nearly everyone. 

I always thought the folks who go on reality shows and say "I'm not here to make friends" were being silly. Of course you're not, you're there to win money. But on the Long Walk, despite offering untold riches, it practically demands friendship to ignite. Why? Because their humanity is at stake. These are young men scared out of their minds, and the other kids aren't the enemy. The enemy is a dystopian system that made them think they had no other choice at a future than to participate in a state-sanctioned murder lottery game. Stephen King wrote the first draft of this story when he was just 19. For context, this was the late 1960s, and it's easy to see the comparisons of the violence in the story to the Vietnam War and the draft. While that was almost 60 years ago, the theme still resonates in the modern era as we face needless violence in other ways. 

I'm not sure I'll watch The Long Walk again, but if I do, it will be to revisit these incredible performances and the story that gives you a little bit of hope in a tale full of death. 

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Baseline Score: 8/10

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

Film Review: The Life of Chuck

Dancing and Dreaming as the world comes to an end

As a writer and as a critic, there are times I wonder what the point of writing and critiquing is when [gestures vaguely at the world] is on the march, with no sign of abating. Writing stories and reviews in the hopes that someone will enjoy them, or take something away from them that is beneficial, can feel like you’re a member of the dance band on the Titanic, plucking and thrumming away while everything around you is sinking ever more quickly, right before you drown and your corpse is crushed by the water pressure. To quote an old meme, we had the misfortune of living in the one apocalypse where we still have to go to work. The fact that I drove to the theater to see The Life of Chuck in a massive rainstorm that seemed to appear out of nowhere only heightened the mood. This film is based on the namesake novella by Stephen King, and directed by Mike Flanagan.

There are three interrelated portions of this film. The first is about the slow end of the world, an exaggerated version of the existential dread felt by those of us who follow the news (and also a solid piece of evidence in favor of the idea that ignorance is in fact bliss). The second is about an accountant who, while in another town on a business trip, decides spontaneously to dance to the music produced by a busking drummer in a public square. The last is the coming-of-age of a boy who loses his parents in a freak car crash, grows up with his paternal grandparents in a home where he is absolutely forbidden from entering the uppermost room, all the while learning how to dance. Running through all these is the story of Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz, the axle around which the wheel of this film spins.

The first section, the one involving the end of the world, is one that is equal parts completely unnerving and deeply relatable (and a good chunk very, very funny) by how familiar it is. It is, to quote a Bluesky post from around the time of the Los Angeles fires, selfies taken in disaster areas closer and closer to you until you are the one taking the selfie. The characters in this segment are on some level resigned to the whole thing, the casting away of the accoutrements of quotidian society feeling almost inevitable, for we have all planned for it, fantasized about it, dreamed of it even, as we try to numb ourselves from reality. The first thing that heralds apocalypse is the loss of the internet. There’s one particular scene, where two men commiserate about how they no longer have access to PornHub, that filled me with an emotion that I have a hard time describing (but I’m certain there’s a seventeen-syllable German word for it). It’s the humor that arises when you see that people will always be like this, but also despair at how we will never change.

The second part is a celebration of human joy and spontaneity. The businessman, for no reason that even he can ascertain (and he himself admits this), starts dancing to drums in public. He puts down his briefcase, but doesn’t change his shoes (I can attest to you that dancing in business shoes is a massive mistake - he would be sore for a week afterward, if his experience is anything like mine), and he just starts going at it. He is joined by a young woman whose boyfriend has just dumped her via text, and had the brazenness to ask if they could still be friends afterwards. They both are jolted out of day-to-day numbness, or worse, and in their wild, raucous, jubilant dance, they bring a similar jolt to the drummer, and to the crowd that is watching them. It likewise brought a jolt to me, for reasons I will explain soon.

The third part is the most meaty. This boy, who grows to be a young man over the course of years, spends his time asking ‘why?’ He asks it of his grandmother, his grandfather, his teachers, his crush, and of the world. Some of it is asking questions about injustice, some of interpretation, others arbitrariness. This kid has seen a lot, starting with losing his parents and his sister-to-be in his mother’s womb. He is also struggling with questions that his grandparents refuse to answer. Who is Henry Peterson? Who is the Jeffries boy? And why is he not allowed in the cupola of his own home? In the light of all of these, he pushes on, trying to make something of himself, trying to find joy. He finds joy in a dance program after school, and it gives him the strength to carry on in spite of loss and mystery.

I’d like to take a bit of a detour and talk about how the film portrays the act of dancing. Since college, I have been an avid ballroom and swing dancer. I credit learning to dance these dances as being the thing that dragged me out of the purposelessness and depression of my high school and early college years. Without dance, the world was cold and gray and joyless to me. With dance, life was warm and full of color. As such, my heart surged when I saw the two characters in the second part dance with such aplomb, such buoyancy, to those drums that filled a town square. My heart soared when I recognized their steps as coming from cha-cha and from lindy hop.

My heart absolutely leapt out of my body in the final section when this boy was being taught in his class by a teacher who proudly calls herself the ‘dance monster.’ She taught them cha-cha with steps that I recognized, and then she said words that are inscribed on my heart, a simple “rock step, triple step, triple step.” That is the way of counting the basic steps of six-count lindy hop. Those are the first steps any swing dancer learns, and they unlock a world of excitement, a world of joy, for those who persist in following that route. Those words are not simply steps to me; they are my second heartbeat. I swear to you, I cried when I heard them, and saw this kid inelegantly repeat them, his teacher drilling them, but doing so very accurately.

I have been deliberately coy about the actual supernatural element of this film, but I assure you it is there. The first part is the most obviously supernatural; it uses that supernatural conceit to make you very nervous, absolutely on edge, by virtue of not giving you a single explanation for it (one can detect a tonal similarity to the more cosmic, existential SCP articles). The world is ending! There is a mysterious man on a billboard! His image keeps appearing on a variety of surfaces! All of this culminates in an otherworldly scene that I am almost absolutely certain Stephen King cribbed from Arthur C. Clarke’s story The Nine Billion Names of God. This whole film absolutely feels like a Stephen King story, where the bizarre, the strange, and the otherworldly are found hiding in plain sight, poking around among the everyday as if it were always there, waiting to be found by someone in thrall to the mundane.

The end result is a film that is unabashedly humanist and unashamedly existentialist. It reminded me of Kevin Brockmeier’s novel The Illumination, which likewise has a deeply strange alteration to the world, and asks us to find meaning in it. The man who dances to the drums in the second part of the movie says that that particular incident is why God put him on this Earth. In light of the cruelty, the arbitrariness, and the despair that have ensnared us, the movie tells us to make our own beauty, our own meaning, our own light, because those are what make life worth living. It tells us to push on, to keep fighting and to keep dreaming and to keep dancing and to keep creating, as that is the beauty of the whole thing to begin with. As odd as it is to say about a film based on a Stephen King story, it’s beautiful.

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POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy.

Review: The Monkey

A darkly funny adaptation of the classic Stephen King short story about a demonic toy—from the director who you brought you Longlegs

One of the all-time classic horror tropes is haunted or cursed objects—from the classic 1902 short story The Monkey's Paw to my personal favorite as a child, R.L. Stine's Goosebumps classic Say Cheese and Die.

Osgood Perkins, fresh off of last year's delightfully disturbing Longlegs, is trying his hand at the cursed object trope, and has adapted The Monkey, a classic Stephen King short story about a cymbal-clanging, demonic toy monkey that brings death wherever it goes.

His take on it, however, is less foreboding and more darkly absurd—and at times rip-roaringly funny. I say this, of course, as a dyed-in-the-wool horror fan, so I realize my gallows-humor take may not be representative of the average person. I laughed A LOT throughout its tight hour-and-a-half runtime, as did most of the audience on the sneak-preview Thursday night pre-premiere showing in Atlanta.

The Monkey is not like Annabelle, which offers a different take on an evil toy, and instead is more akin to the entries in the Final Destination franchise with its shockingly horrific deaths. The story centers on two twin brothers who experience a lifetime of tragically random deaths because of the monkey's presence. Whenever its key gets wound up, within a matter of hours someone close to it will die—horribly, grotesquely, and painfully. There's not too much plot to speak of, mostly just our hero trying to stop people from turning said key.

The pleasure in watching comes from the shocking kill scenes, which are extremely creative and a master class in depicting truly messed-up ways to perish. It's gory, but in an over-the-top sort of way, like the final fight scene in Kill Bill Volume One. I never squirmed or got grossed out, and if you need recent comparison, it's got maybe 5% of the gore of The Substance, which is nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Do with this information what you will.

Overall, it's a fun ride that scratches the itch of missing spooky season. I always love a good trip up to Maine in a Stephen King adaptation, and the set and production design is fantastic. There's also some great cameos—we get brief comedic performances from Adam Scott, Elijah Wood, and Tatiana Maslany. The tone may not work for a lot of people, but folks who like their horror with their tongue planted firmly in cheek will enjoy it.

Baseline Score: 7/10.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, new NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

Review: Salem's Lot (2024)

This movie rushes through its vampire-infested, small Maine town, eschewing exposition in favor of trying desperately to come off as a Mike Flanagan project

Spooky season is upon us! And Max has finally released its modern retelling of Stephen King's classic vampire novel. Interestingly, this movie was shot in 2021, but it's only just now being released. Something definitely happened in the interim, as there are glaringly huge holes in the storytelling—release the 3-hour director's cut now, cowards! After all, the novel on which Salem's Lot is based is incredibly dense, and the 1979 TV-movie version (directed by Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre) was 2 episodes long and 183 total minutes.

The plot

Ben Sears, a famous writer, has returned to his hometown in Maine to get inspiration for a new book—specifically the old spooky Marsten House. Vampires start showing up, however, and quickly the locals all begin to get turned into bloodsucking, ghoulish creatures of the night. Ben teams up with a shockingly competent child, a local woman, a doctor, and a high school teacher, and together they battle the undead and try to convince the cops to do something.

What works

This movie is slick, and it definitely has some very cool practical effects re: vampire faces. The overall vibe is fun and spooky, and the way crosses light up when vampires are near is very cool. Lewis Pullman—most recognizable as Bob from Top Gun: Maverick—anchors the film very well. Fun note: While watching, I was like, "Man, he looks like Bill Pullman! Wait...Pullman..." then I checked Wikipedia and sure enough, Lewis is his son!

What doesn't

Unfortunately, this new retelling is almost all style and no substance. It wants desperately to be as engaging as any one of the recent Mike Flanagan Netflix shows—think Haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor, and Fall of the House of Usher—but it doesn't quite hit the mark.

The main issue with this movie is that when you adapt a Stephen King novel, you have to spend some time with characters. King creates characters not out of thin air, but out of pages upon pages of fully realized backstory. Either you love it or hate it, of course, but you'll never be able to say that he doesn't make a fully lived-in feeling in his worlds. The parts they do keep tend to be King's rather dated, somewhat clunky dialogue. They should have updated that, too, since they changed other parts.

Salem's Lot (2024) doesn't do this. The film sacrifices tons of much-needed exposition for basically just spooky vampire moments. And even though I hadn't read the book in a few years, I could tell that missing links between characters were just glossed over. Ben and his romantic interest, Susan, have maybe one date and then they're just together. (Interestingly, I was transfixed by the actress who played her, Makenzie Leigh, because she has the most intense case of iPhone Face I've ever seen. (What's iPhone Face, you ask? It's when a modern actor looks a little too modern—as if you're unable to believe they've never not seen a smartphone and are thus out of place in films set in more analog times. The exact of opposite of iPhone Face? Jon Hamm, Eva Green, Keira Knightly).

Reader, even national treasure Alfre Woodard (with a Maine accent) couldn't save this movie.

It's not horrible—you'll have fun on a cool October night if you just want some spooky vibes. But don't expect a lot of backstory or depth. Think surface-level vampire frights that won't keep you up at night.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal is a lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 new and forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Bujold, Louis McMaster. Penric's Travels [Baen]

Publisher's Description:

Tales of a new hero in fantasy from Lois McMaster Bujold, together for the first time!  Including Penric’s Mission, Mira’s Last Dance, and The Prisoner of Limnos. He does it his way!

Penric’s Mission: Learned Penric, a sorcerer and divine of the Bastard’s Order, has faced danger and intrigue many times before. Now, he finds himself on his first covert diplomatic mission. Penric must travel across the sea to Cedona in an attempt to secure the services of the Cedonia General Arisaydia for the Duke of Adria. But nothing is as it seems. No sooner than he has arrived, Penric finds himself tossed into a dungeon. If Penric is to survive, he’ll have to navigate treacherous politics—and his own feelings for the young widowed sister of the General.

Mira’s Last Dance: Penric, suffering from injuries attained while escaping from the Cedonian dungeon in which he was imprisoned, must now guide General Arisaydia and his widowed sister, Nikys, across the last hundred miles of hostile Cedonia to safety in the Duchy of Orbas. In the town of Sosie, the fugitive party encounters unexpected delays, and even more unexpected opportunities and hazards, as the courtesan Mira of Adria, one of the ten dead women whose imprints make up the personality of the chaos demon Desdemona, comes to the fore with her own special expertise.

The Prisoner of Limnos: Penric and Nikys have reached safety in the Duchy of Orbas when a secret letter from a friend brings frightening news: Nikys's mother has been taken hostage by her brother's enemies at the Cedonian imperial court and confined in a precarious island sanctuary.

Now, Nikys, Penric, and Desdemona must infiltrate the hostile country once more, finding along the way that family relationships can be as unexpectedly challenging as any rescue scheme.

Why We Want It: While not a new novella from Lois McMaster Bujold, this second Penric and Desdemona collection is essential reading for fans of Bujold who may have missed the novellas the first time around or just wants them all in one place.

Collins, Suzanne. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes [Scholastic]

Publisher's Description:

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

 The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined - every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute...and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.  

Why We Want It: While many have been looking forward to a potential Hunger Games prequel novel, I'm not sure anyone really wanted a Young President Snow novel. The rise of a dictator is less interesting than other stories that can be told - but with that said, we trust Suzanne Collins to tell a good story.

Johnson, Alaya Dawn. Trouble the Saints [Tor]

Publisher's Description:

The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson's timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II.

Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.

Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.

Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?

Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.

Why We Want It: I've read some of Alaya Dawn Johnson's short fiction years ago, but haven't kept up with her novel length work. It's certainly possible that The Night Circus meets The Underground Railroad is overselling Trouble the Saints, but it's also one hell of a recommendation and I want to see if Trouble the Saints rises to the billing. If so, this will be incredible.

King, Stephen. If It Bleeds [Scribner]

Publisher's Description

From #1 New York Times bestselling author, legendary storyteller, and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas—Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds—each pulling you into intriguing and frightening places.

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, including “The Body” (Stand By Me) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (Shawshank Redemption). Like Four Past Midnight, Different Seasons, and most recently Full Dark, No Stars, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

Why We Want It: Some of Stephen King's strongest work is at novella length and while we're always excited for new Stephen King - we're often more excited when it is a collection of shorter works. While many of his most famous novellas were published decades ago, King is still doing strong work and pushing himself in directions we'd never have expected from a younger Stephen King. We *are* excited to check out this collection of four novellas.

Kress, Nancy. The Eleventh Gate [Baen]

Publisher's Description

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE ELEVENTH GATE...

Despite economic and territorial tensions, no one wants the city-states of the Eight Worlds to repeat the Terran Collapse by going to war. But when war accidentally happens, everyone seeks ways to exploit it for gain.  The Landry and Peregoy ruling dynasties see opportunities to grab territory, increase profits, and settle old scores.  Exploited underclasses use war to fuel rebellion.  Ambitious heirs can finally topple their elders’ regimes—or try to.

But the unexpected key to either victory or peace lies with two persons uninterested in conquest, profits, or power.   Philip Anderson seeks only the transcendent meaning of the physics underlying the universe.  Tara Landry, spoiled and defiant youngest granddaughter of dynasty head Rachel Landry, accidentally discovers an eleventh star-jump gate, with a fabulous find on the planet behind it.  Her discovery, and Philip’s use of it, alter everything for the Eight Worlds.

Why We Want It: Nancy Kress's bibliography is extensive and while there is plenty more to read, we know that a new Nancy Kress novel will be imaginative science fiction. While most of her more recent novels have been near future science fiction, Kress's return to space opera is something to look forward to.

Wells, Martha. Network Effect [Tor.com Publishing]

Publisher's Description

Murderbot returns in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel, Network Effect.

You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.

Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.

I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.

When Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

Why We Want It: New Murderbot. Okay, let me rephrase that. After four excellent novellas, Network effect is the first full length Murderbot novel!

POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

LET'S FRIGHTEN CHILDREN! Books Under Bedsheets

Much of the genesis for this series came to me when my daughter asked if I would take her to see the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie. Those three original Alvin Schwartz books (with their oozing, teeth-filled illustrations by Stephen Gammell) were a staple of my childhood, and while Christopher Pike, R.L. Stine, and a couple other authors were working in the middle-grade horror space (although I'm not sure if Goosebumps itself was a thing yet), I wound up giving those a miss and leaping straight to Stephen King at a pretty young age.

I think the first Stephen King book I read was Christine, because I dug old cars. But relatively quickly, I found myself immersed in what was at the time the Dark Tower trilogy. There are things I read when I was 12 that still stick with me. "Go then, there are other worlds than these," is a line and moment that has never been far from me since. The Eyes of the Dragon was another pivotal King novel for me, because it was my introduction to fantasy. By the time I read it, I had friends that were big into Lord of the Rings, but that series and world had never interested me before. After reading Eyes of the Dragon, however, I quickly scooped up a copy of The Hobbit in the next convenient book sale.

I've spent most of my time in this series talking about movies because that's really my area of relative expertise, but reading scary stories was a huge part of my own, youthful indoctrination. So I reached out to the rest of the NoaF flock to see what their experiences with horror were as young readers, and if there were any noteworthy titles we could pass along.

Gateway Books

Like they were for me, the series of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books and the novels of Stephen King were the gateway to horror for many of our writers who got into the genre at a young age.

Dean made the interesting recommendation of Roald Dahl, who I wouldn't have thought of, but it's a very astute suggestion. I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my kids many times, as well as The Fantastic Mr. Fox (big fans of the movie in my house), but it wasn't until I was reading them The Witches, when I caught myself thinking, "Wait...this is waaaay dark." Dean also recommended A Series of Unfortunate Events, which skews more creepy and sinister than outright horrific, but is certainly in the same neighborhood that we're discussing.

Adri writes, "Maybe the single biggest horror influence in my young life was Robin Jarvis, especially the Deptford Mice trilogy, which was about a group of anthropomorphic mice struggling against the influence of an all-powerful evil cat god. Horror highlights included the trip to the countryside with a series of murders descending into scenes of creepy ritual in the middle book, and one character whose final fate is to get banished outside of the main timestream so he experiences the world an instant behind all other living things. The worldbuilding was dense and bizarre, the story was totally cool with killing off characters (the first book literally opens with the father of the main family getting eaten by the god-cat), and I sincerely hope they still hold up today because in my memory they were amazing."

In addition to another vote for Scary Stories..., Chloe offers this: "As the former child who at age 4 watched Aliens so much she wrecked the VHS and whose 8-year-old sick day reading was The Stand, my suggestions for what children can handle is, um, skewed. But — Goosebumps, Coraline, a lot of Robert Westall's stories (more for 10+ ages), and Something Wicked This Way Comes." I was very pleased to see this one show up on her list. Something Wicked... is probably my favorite Bradbury novel, for what it's worth.





Rites of Passage

There is, to be sure, a certain solitary pleasure in horror. A musician friend of mine, who is one of the most amazing drummers I know of, she recently shared the unattributed quote, "Sometimes the fear won't go away, so you'll just have to do it afraid." And that stuck with me.

As much fun as it was to read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark with friends and enact the jump-scares built into those books, most of our true fears are quiet, and private. And while there is magic in watching a scary movie among friends (here I recall my 15th birthday, spent as a sleepover with an all-night marathon of movies like Silence of the Lambs and Mario Bava's Black Sabbath) or even among strangers in a theater, so too is there a sense of growing up, of the passing of rites, in huddling under bedclothes with a flashlight and a scary book, and walking through the fire by oneself. The flames may resemble ghosts, or goblins, or dead friends or uncanny versions of relatives, rabid dogs or haunted cars, terrifying lands full of magic or mystery, or a carnival come to town. However they shake, and whatever shadows they cast, eventually we must each face the flames on our own.

This is, to me, the great gift of horror, and why I have thought so much about passing it on to my kids. No matter what movies I watch with them, there will be scarier ones out there. Just like no matter what challenges in life I attempt to prepare them for, there will yet be greater ones ahead, entirely unlooked-for. No matter how I try to cushion the blow that ultimately lets them know there is profound, inexplicable evil in this world, I know that blow will always fall. The best I can do is lay the groundwork for the next, more frightening movie, or the next, more frightening revelation, and hope that, however feebly, I have helped them to cultivate the tools necessary to confront it.

Now, then. Let’s frighten children.

Posted by Vance K — cult film reviewer and co-editor of nerds of a feather since 2012. Late-night, white-knuckled page-turner since...approximately...the man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Bennis, Robyn. By Fire Above [Tor]
Publisher's Description

By Fire Above is the rip-roaring new adventure in Robyn Bennis's Signal Airship military fantasy series that Patricia Briggs hails as “full of sass and terrific characters.” 

"All's fair in love and war," according to airship captain Josette Dupre, until her hometown of Durum becomes occupied by the enemy and her mother a prisoner of war. Then it becomes, "Nothing's fair except bombing those Vins to high hell."

Before she can rescue her town, however, Josette must maneuver her way through the nest of overstuffed vipers that make up Garnia's military and royal leaders in order to drum up support. The foppish and mostly tolerated Mistral crew member Lord Bernat steps in to advise her, along with his very attractive older brother.

Between noble scheming, under-trained recruits, and supply shortages, Josette and the crew of the Mistral figure out a way to return to Durum—only to discover that when the homefront turns into the frontlines, things are more dangerous than they seem. 

Why We Want It: Shana said The Guns Above was "pure flintlock awesomeness" and we completely agree. The other thing Shana noted was that "The Guns Above reads like the first episode in a series you wish you could binge watch all weekend" and as such, we're super excited for By Fire Above. The first book was so much damned fun that we can't wait for the second. Luckily, we don't have to wait much longer.

Donnelly, Lara Elena. Armistice [Tor]
Publisher's Description

Armistice returns to Donnelly’s ravishing 1930s Art Deco-tinged fantasy world of the Nebula Award-nominated Amberlough with a decadent, tumultuous mixture of sex, politics, and spies 

“A hefty novel full of fascinating characters exploring oversized topics such as sexuality, music, culture, fascism, nationalism, class wars, revolution and love.” —Shelf Awareness 

In a tropical country where shadowy political affairs lurk behind the scenes of its glamorous film industry, three people maneuver inside a high stakes game of statecraft and espionage:

Lillian, a reluctant diplomat serving a fascist nation,

Aristide, an expatriate film director running from lost love and a criminal past,

—and Cordelia, a former cabaret stripper turned legendary revolutionary.

Each one harbors dangerous knowledge that can upturn a nation. When their fates collide, machinations are put into play, unexpected alliances are built, and long-held secrets are exposed. Everything is barreling towards an international revolt...and only the wiliest ones will be prepared for what comes next. 

Why We Want It: Donnelly attempted to rip my heart straight from my chest with Amberlough and I was not ready for that book to end, though it did so perfectly. If you haven't read Amberlough yet, go now. If you have, you know why I need this book in my life,

Feist, Raymond E. King of Ashes [Harper Voyager]
Publisher's Description

The first volume in legendary master and New York Times bestselling author Raymond E. Feist’s epic heroic fantasy series, The Firemane Saga—an electrifying tale of two young men whose choices will determine a world’s destiny.

For centuries, the five greatest kingdoms of North and South Tembria, twin continents on the world of Garn, have coexisted in peace. But the balance of power is destroyed when four of the kingdoms violate an ancient covenant and betray the fifth: Ithrace, the Kingdom of Flames, ruled by Steveren Langene, known as "the Firemane" for his brilliant red hair. As war engulfs the world, Ithrace is destroyed and the Greater Realms of Tembria are thrust into a dangerous struggle for supremacy. 

Why We Want It: "The storm has broken." Those were the first words to Magician, the novel that put Raymond Feist on the fantasy map. I've long used "Pug" as one of my online handles bag in the halcyon days of message boards. I read and re-read those early novels of Riftwar so much the covers tattered and fell off. I may have been far less enchanted with the series by the end, but there's still a little bit of magic in the idea of the first novel in a new series by one of my favorite fantasists from when I was a teenager. I don't know if i have full and proper hope, but I want to believe.

Griffith, Nicola. So Lucky [FSG Originals]
Publisher's Description

From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical novel about a woman facing down a formidable foe

So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new novel by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Mara Tagarelli is, professionally, the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation; personally, she is a committed martial artist. But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can’t rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away—they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you’ve been told, the story you’ve told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can’t trust your body? Who can you rely on if those around you don’t have your best interests at heart, and the systems designed to help do more harm than good? Mara makes a decision and acts, but her actions unleash monsters aimed squarely at the heart of her new community.

This is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of America’s treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. But So Lucky also blazes with hope and a ferocious love of self, of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies. 

Why We Want It: I'm at the point that I'm going to read any novel written by Nicola Griffith. Whether it is Ammonite, Slow River, or Hild, Griffith has more than earned an automatic spot on my reading list. But, So Lucky appears to be a vital, powerful novel that demand to be read.

King, Stephen. The Outsider [Scribner]
Publisher's Description

An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can. 

Why We Want It: New Stephen King. Though, as a father, I have a harder time reading certain things that I used to have no trouble with and the description here has me a little concerned.

McClellan, Brian. Wrath of Empire [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

The country is in turmoil. With the capital city occupied, half a million refugees are on the march, looking for safety on the frontier, accompanied by Lady Flint’s soldiers. But escaping war is never easy, and soon the battle may find them, whether they are prepared or not.

Back in the capital, Michel Bravis smuggles even more refugees out of the city. But internal forces are working against him. With enemies on all sides, Michel may be forced to find help with the very occupiers he’s trying to undermine.

Meanwhile, Ben Styke is building his own army. He and his mad lancers are gathering every able body they can find and searching for an ancient artifact that may have the power to turn the tides of war in their favor. But what they find may not be what they’re looking for. 

Why We Want It: I'm still one novel behind, but I loved McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy and I'm excited to see where he goes with this follow up series. I just need to read Sins of Empire first. I'm going to get right back into this series once I make some progress with my Hugo Award reading, but more Powder Mage is exactly what I want.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan. 

Stranger Things: A New Dramatic Animal?

Within two days of Stranger Things appearing on Netflix, I had three separate friends reach out to tell me they'd binge-watched it and I had to see it. That I would love it.

So I did. And I did. But...

I want to be very clear at the outset and say this isn't a review. I'm not going to say bad things about Stranger Things, and I'm going to try to avoid spoilers. What I'm really interested in is more of a formal analysis.

One of the biggest appeals of Stranger Things is its retro-80s vibe. I mean, just look at this poster! It's amazing. 

And that font, which looked out at me from the cover of so many Stephen King paperbacks as a kid gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies. By the end of the first episode, I was hooked. But I turned to my wife and said, "If Hopper winds up in the Black Lodge at the end of this thing, I'm going to be pissed."

See, Stranger Things doesn't just have a retro poster and a retro vibe, it actually seems to be made up of Lego bricks taken from 80s and early-90s touchstones. It's really not enough to say that it's "inspired" by E.T., Twin Peaks, Akira, The X-Files, and the music of John Carpenter. It appears to actually be constructed of those things. There are moments lifted directly from E.T., dynamics transposed whole cloth from Twin Peaks, a key character and plotline from Akira, and at one point there was a scene so reminiscent of Stephen King's It that I was able to tell my wife what was going to happen before it played out onscreen. 

I love all of those movies and stories. Seeing them all in one place was pretty cool. But I felt an odd pull I've never experienced before — part of me felt that warm, familiar nerd glow of spotting references from beloved hallmarks I grew up with, but I felt a difference between spotting the posters for Evil Dead and The Thing on the walls in characters' rooms, and saying "oh, this scene is from..."

Now here, to me, is the really interesting thing: this is a Netflix show, and with the exception of Akira, every other work I've mentioned here has been available for streaming on Netflix. Netflix was very clear when it launched House of Cards, its first original, scripted show, that its programming decisions were based on user viewing patterns. So it's probably safe to assume that people are watching the hell out of E.T., The X-Files, and Twin Peaks on Netflix. And maybe Netflix's development team said, "Can we get a show that's just all of those things, but a mini-series?"

This could be a one-off thing, or it could be a harbinger of a new phenomenon that is a direct result of the time we're living in. With viewership metrics available on a level like nothing we've ever seen before,  the slow demise of the traditional network television model, and a trend toward limited series, rather than 22-episode-per-season non-serialized dramas or comedies, there is a very real possibility that Stranger Things is something like a new narrative form. The G referred to it in conversation as a bricolage, which may be correct. Or a four-dimensional version of Picasso's early experiments with collage. 

I suppose part of me is fighting the urge to be dismissive about a work that in some ways lacks originality, but the fact that I really enjoyed it is telling. I think it will be interesting to see where this goes. I argued in 2013 that Breaking Bad was the signature show of our time not just because of its content and narrative qualities, but because of the way it used streaming services and social media to expand its audience and change viewing patterns. Maybe something similar is happening right now.

Maybe we'll have a Western to look forward to where a Civil War veteran with deep hatred of the Comanche (The Searchers) gets wind of a coming confrontation, and when he can't get anyone in town to stand with him (High Noon), he must confront his racism out of desperation and recruit a team of seven Comanche braves to help him defend the town (Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven). Who knows? 

Also, I'm available for meetings, if anybody wants to talk about setting up that project...

Posted by Vance K - co-editor and cult film reviewer at nerds of a feather since 2012. Netflix subscriber since 2004.

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Artist Unknown

Arnason, Eleanor. Hwarhath Stories [Aqueduct Press, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens collects a dozen Hwarhath tales with commentary by their translator. As the translator notes, "Humanity has encountered only one other species able to travel among the stars. This species, who call themselves the hwarhath, or 'people,' are also the only intelligent species so far encountered. Of course, we interest and puzzle and disturb each other... The stories in this collection were written after the hwarhath learned enough about humanity to realize how similar (and different) we are. Our existence has called into question many ideas about life and morality that most hwarhath would have called certain a century ago..."

Why We Want It: When Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton praise the collection as perhaps being "the best story collection of the year" and that it collects "some of the best stories published by anybody during the last two decades", you have to pay attention.

Cover Art by Erik Mohr

Ashby, Madeline. Company Town [Tor, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.

Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig--making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city's stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa's front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to be--but now, the danger is personal.

A brilliant, twisted mystery, as one woman must evaluate saving the people of a town that can't be saved, or saving herself.

Why We Want It: A look at a dirty, gritty post-human future with the last "natural" human dealing with serial killers and navigating a future she doesn't quite belong in. Straight up - this sounds like a fascinating novel in a way that just isn't done very often and the buzz has been incredible for Company Town.

Artist Unknown

Baxter, Stephen and Alastair Reynolds. The Medusa Chronicles [Saga, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

A sequel to Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Nebula Award–winning novella “A Meeting with Medusa,” this novel continues the thrilling adventure of astronaut Howard Falcon, humanity’s first explorer of Jupiter from two modern science fiction masters.

Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter—and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead, he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.

With permission from the Clarke Estate, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds continue this beloved writer’s enduring vision and have created a fresh story for new readers. The Medusa Chronicles charts Falcon’s journey through the centuries granted by his new body, but always back to mysteries of Jupiter and the changing interaction between humanity and the universe. A compelling read full of incredible action right from the beginning, this is a modern classic in the spirit of 2001 and The Martian.

Why We Want It: While we may not be too familiar with Clarke's "A Meeting with Medusa" (winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1972), but the combination of Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds is an all-star pairing that cannot be missed.

Cover Art and Design by Jaya Miceli and Sam Weber

King, Stephen. End of Watch [Scribner, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

The spectacular finale to the New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with Mr. Mercedes (winner of the Edgar Award) and Finders Keepers—In End of Watch, the diabolical “Mercedes Killer” drives his enemies to suicide, and if Bill Hodges and Holly Gibney don’t figure out a way to stop him, they’ll be victims themselves.

In Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, something has awakened. Something evil. Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre, where eight people were killed and many more were badly injured, has been in the clinic for five years, in a vegetative state. According to his doctors, anything approaching a complete recovery is unlikely. But behind the drool and stare, Brady is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney—the woman who delivered the blow to Hartsfield’s head that put him on the brain injury ward. When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.

In End of Watch, Stephen King brings the Hodges trilogy to a sublimely terrifying conclusion, combining the detective fiction of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers with the heart-pounding, supernatural suspense that has been his bestselling trademark. The result is an unnerving look at human vulnerability and chilling suspense. No one does it better than King.

Why We Want It: Even though Stephen King has published something like three hundred novels and one million short stories, each new book still feels like an event. The first two novels in the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers) were very good and as good as anything King has written. I don't really think of these as a trilogy, but rather a three novels which happen to share characters. They seem more contained then a trilogy.

In House Design by Saga Press

Valentine, Genevieve. Icon [Saga, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

Suyana Sapaki survived an assassination attempt and has risen far higher than her opponents ever expected. Now she has to keep her friends close and her enemies closer as she walks a deadly tightrope—and one misstep could mean death, or worse—in this smart, fast-paced sequel to the critically acclaimed Persona.

A year ago, International Assembly delegate Suyana Sapaki barely survived an attempt on her life. Now she’s climbing the social ranks, dating the American Face, and poised for greatness. She has everything she wants, but the secret that drives her can’t stay hidden forever. When she quickly saves herself from a life-threatening political scandal, she gains a new enemy: the public eye.

Daniel Park was hoping for the story of a lifetime. And he got her. He’s been following Suyana for a year. But what do you do when this person you thought you knew has vanished inside the shell, and dangers are building all around you? How much will Daniel risk when his job is to break the story? And how far will he go for a cause that isn’t his?

Why We Want It: Because we'll read anything that Valentine writes. Icon is the sequel to Persona, a fast paced thriller where publicity is diplomacy and intrigue is everywhere.

Cover Design by Peter Lutjens

Wallace, Matt. Pride's Spell [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

The team at Sin du Jour—New York’s exclusive caterers-to-the-damned—find themselves up against their toughest challenge, yet when they’re lured out west to prepare a feast in the most forbidding place in America: Hollywood, where false gods rule supreme.

Meanwhile, back at home, Ritter is attacked at home by the strangest hit-squad the world has ever seen, and the team must pull out all the stops if they’re to prevent themselves from being offered up as the main course in a feast they normally provide

Starring: The Prince of Lies, Lena Tarr, Darren Vargas. With Byron Luck. Introducing: the Easter Bunny.

Pride's Spell is the third installment in Matt Wallace's Sin du Jour series.

Why We Want It: Have you read the first two Sin du Jour novellas? You have not? Well, go read those right now and then come back. You'll thank me. To quote myself, "Matt Wallace's Sin du Jour novellas are two of the most whacked out, amazing, balls and ovaries to the wall, freakishly imaginative, gloriously wonderful stories I've read. They're friggin delights, people. You should read them." Of course we're looking forward to Pride's Spell.




POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.

Microreview [book]: The Dead Zone by Stephen King

King, Stephen. The Dead Zone [Viking, 1979]

After reading my second Stephen King book in a month, I think I know why he’s popular. It’s not the horror thing, or at least, not only. Rather, it’s the way he uses horror as a device to tell coming-of-age stories, and to take a nostalgic yet sanguine look at the zeitgeists of yesterday. The Dead Zone does all these things, and does them very well. Yet for some reason, I just didn’t love it. Liked it, surely. But love? Not quite.

This is the story of John Smith, he of the awesomely bland name. John has an accident as a kid, which does something weird to him but (just as weirdly) no one seems to remember the accident—even his parents. Then he goes to a carnival, wins a boatload of cash playing roulette and gets into a car accident that puts him in a coma no one figures he’ll ever come out of. Years pass—his girlfriend marries; his Dad tries to move on (but can’t). Then, five years later, he wakes! With psychic powers!

I won’t reveal anymore, but suffice to say the book is both about Johnny’s attempt to cope with a changed world and about dark things happening in that world—criminal and political. The Dead Zone is definitely thought provoking, which explains why it’s always near the top of the “best of” lists compiled by King’s fans and admirers. If you like your King, and you like your King political, this is a good one for you. It also might be a good one for a non-horror person to start with, given that the horror elements are subtle and more creepy than scary. There’s depth to the characters and a lot more to enjoy too.

So why didn’t I love it? I don’t know—as much as I liked the general mood and feel of The Dead Zone, I also found it pulled its punches. The political story could have been more than it was and the criminal story, well, it just sort of ends. The whole book, in fact, has a sort of melancholic listlessness to it. Now, I appreciate that the slow pace is a big part of the book’s charm, but that languid feel ultimately makes The Dead Zone more mood piece than pageturner. Is that a bad thing? I guess my answer is that it is and it isn’t.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for the being so atmospheric.

Penalties: -1 for pacing issues; -1 for not quite developing the political story as much as I wanted.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10. "Enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore."

Read about our scoring system here.

Microreview [book]: Joyland by Stephen King

King, Stephen. Joyland [Hard Case Crime, 2013]

The Meat

Usually when I like a book, it's for specific reasons--it's well-written, it has great characters or a gripping plot, or it's full of big ideas and emotional heft. Every once in a while, though, a book comes along that I really do like, but can't quite put my finger on why. Joyland is one of those books.

The prose is plain, the characters underdeveloped, the plot barely existent and I can't really point you to anything resembling a big idea or repository of emotional heft. Instead, it's a fairly ordinary boy-becomes-virile-man story set in a 1970s amusement park that features some rudimentary (and barely explored) horror elements. Not sure if that sounds interesting to you, but it sounds pretty fucking boring to me. Yet for some reason, the book is nearly impossible to put down.

Exasperated by my failure to locate the source of what compelled me to read on, I began to question my skills as a critic and began contemplating a new career as one of those old dudes who brings a metal detector to the beach. Until, that is, I learned to stop worrying and just embrace the fact that Joyland is fun. Not fun the way the average blockbuster is fun, but the way quirky independent comedies that mine the same territory, like Adventureland or Ping Pong Playa, are fun. But films are a two hour or so time commitment; not so a book. So it's a testament to King's unique talent that he can keep your attention without much in the way of a hook.

Joyland will appeal to readers who actually remember places like the eponymous fictional independent amusement park. It will also appeal to those fascinated by carnival and carny culture, as well as anyone who--in a fit of humor or madness--has invoked the famous Carny Code. King sprinkles a heavy dose of carny history, lingo and cultural values throughout the book. I have no idea if these are historically accurate or not, but they had the ring of authenticity to them (which, of course, may just be a reflection of good world-building). The effect is to lend the book a richness that it would otherwise be lacking.

The actual ghost story is, at most, ancillary to the main plot, a way to get protagonist Devin Jones working full time at Joyland and over his lovesickness for college sweetheart Wendy. I guess it works well enough in that respect, but anyone going in looking for serious horror is going to be disappointed.

In the end, Joyland is a very likable book and one that most people should enjoy reading. However, it probably won't leave much of an impression once it's done. Is that a bad thing? Maybe in wintertime, but it's summer and the beach calls for books like this. Let all the hangups go and just enjoy the ride.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for being impossible to put down, despite not having a hook; +1 for 'tis the season for books like this.

Penalties: -1 for you call this a ghost story, Mr. King?

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10. "A mostly enjoyable experience."