Melody Writes

The last remaining post from my long-defunct "Stephen King in Order" project.    Original review written March 7, 2015: This one is a re-read you guys. I read this book years ago and my memories consisted of "depressing". After a reread I can safely say that "depressing" is right. What inspired this reread? Why my recent reads of Battle Royale and Hunger Games. The first place my brain went to was Stephen King. I guess that's kind of where it always goes when it comes to books. He has two books that can loosely fit into this sort of genre of competition until everyone is dead but one (if it is a genre): The Long Walk and The Running Man, but by King-as-Bachman. I just started reading the Running Man and will post about that probably later this week Brief Synopsis: **Interesting Fact: This was the first book King ever wrote, even though Carrie was the first book he published.** The Long Walk - Every year 100 boys compete in the Long Walk. They go...

Another post from my old "Read Stephen King in Order project":   Original review written December 18, 2014: There is an old joke I've heard plenty of times - that Stephen King just picks a random object and then writes about it being scary. It's not a very funny one and I think it's supposed to imply that he's formulaic, but I never really understood it until now after just finishing Night Shift. I had not read any of these stories before and I can't say I was overly enthralled by most of them. A good number of the stories here fit "what if this normal thing was suddenly scary?" premise including items such as trucks, toy soldiers, a ledge, corn, and a lawnmower. The truck story and the one about the lawnmower are especially bizarre. A nice feature of the book is three stories that tie into some of King's other works - the two that bookend 'Salem's Lot and another that offers a little taste of the world The Stand. I liked the foll...