Jul 2023

Book Review: ‘Sleeping Beauties’ by Stephen and Owen King

31st Jul 2023Leave a comment

Stephen and Owen King’s ‘Sleeping Beauties’ is—checks notes—book twenty-eight of 2023.

This massive book slab took me quite a while to get through; I started it on one of the last days of my honeymoon. That does not mean the novel is slow or tedious. I wanted to give it the space to breathe. I’ve had a great time immersing myself in this dystopian world.

Reminiscent of his heyday (‘The Stand’, ‘It’), ‘Sleeping Beauties’ is classic King. It’s his old-school, multi-character, small-town America story. The setup is unique—all women, all over the world, are falling asleep. Once unconscious, the women grow a cocoon. If a foolhardy person disturbs the webbing, the women explode in a rabid attack.

For an older, straight, white, rich American, King is far more liberal than you’d expect him to be. Sure, some points could be a smidge more progressive, but at no point does King fumble the ball. The ‘Sleeping Beauties’ themes are on-point and relevant when taken alone. The story becomes even more extraordinary when considering the man who wrote it.

Each character is well-drawn and believable and contains the depth for which we all know King. Even insignificant side characters are multidimensional, and their motives are understandable. The story builds and escalates until it all collapses in a thrilling finale. Nobody does that ‘fate spiralling down towards its inevitable conclusion’ thing like him.

Oh, and the idea of father and son working together on a novel? It’s so wholesome, despite the bleak apocalyptic tale.

King is king.

Or should that be, the Kings are king?

Book Review: ‘Tomie’ by Junji Ito

20th Jul 2023Leave a comment

‘Tomie’ by Junji Ito is my ‘twenty-seventh’ read of the year and my first manga ever.

I’ve used quotations because I’ve been reading ‘Tomie’ for quite some time now. My good friend, Leander, gifted me ‘Tomie’ for Christmas about two years ago, if memory serves. Based on his recommendation, I read ‘Tomie’ in small bites. I alternated between a non-manga novel and a chapter of ‘Tomie’. (Each chapter tells a different story, for the most part. A few follow the previous story arc, but most are self-contained tales.) This way, it took me a while to get to the end, but boy, I enjoyed this way of digesting the material.

I don’t know how to summarise ‘Tomie’ other than it’s about a girl who has power over men. This power drives them mad and leads to them committing unspeakable acts of violence. They perform these deeds, more often than not, against Tomie herself. And herein lies the weird nature of this manga: Tomie cannot die. She returns and multiplies like the proliferation of a metastasized tumour. The twisted tales are pitch-black, the likes of which one rarely comes across in Western media.

I am a massive horror nerd and am okay with gross-out scenes and weird visuals. That might be why Leander gifted this tome—see what I did there?—to me. Ito’s art style is sublime. He shies away from nothing and gives the reader some horrific images. It’s a testament to his mastery that he somehow manages to achieve jump scares, even in the written form.

As someone who had never felt compelled to read a manga before, all I can say is: damn, I was missing out. I’ll check out more in the future—especially the other collections by Junji Ito. You might be like me and love everything creepy but have avoided mangas. If so, do yourself a favour and pick up ‘Tomie’; it’s a great place to start.

But here’s a fair warning: it’s not for the faint of heart.

Book Review: ‘Die Rache der unheimlichen Puppe’ by R. L. Stine

19th Jul 2023Leave a comment

R. L. Stine’s ‘Die Rache der unheimlichen Puppe’ is book twenty-six of the year.

I also read this on my honeymoon, along with a yet-to-be-finished King novel. If I want to keep progressing with my German language skills, I shouldn’t stop for a holiday!

The story follows Jessica and her friend. The pair aim to host children’s birthday parties for some much-needed cash. Meanwhile, Jessica’s younger twin sisters and their creepy ventriloquist dummy are causing havoc. And when a second dummy enters the picture, there’s no telling what will happen.

As with the previous Stine books, the threat is mild because the story is for children. Yet, there are some genuine scares, and the ending is quite a brilliant cliffhanger. Stine knows horror through and through, making him the master at aiming it at kids. It’s neither terrifying nor boring; a fine line to tread.

I’ll be reading another ‘Gänsehaut’ in German post haste!

Book Review: ‘Sphere’ by Michael Crichton

7th Jul 2023Leave a comment

For the final book I finished on my honeymoon, I read Michael Crichton’s ‘Sphere’.

Until now, I’d only ever read Crichton’s ‘Jurassic Park’ novels. But I’d seen ‘Sphere’ recommended in horror circles, particularly for water-based scares. Considering my wife and I were on our beach honeymoon, I wanted some oceanic terrors on the holiday.

The novel opens with a psychiatrist flying out to an isolated spot in the ocean. The navy has picked him up and flown him out without information. Our protagonist believes an aeroplane has crashed, and he needs to help the survivors. But it turns out that an alien craft rests on the ocean bed, and experts think it’s been there for 300 years.

The story races from there. In typical—from what I’ve read—Crichton fashion, there’s a lot of good science in the novel. Crichton is the master of the suspension of disbelief, and ‘Sphere’ is no different. The novel rockets past at breakneck speed, and the finale is breathtaking. I won’t spoil too much here, but the book met my marine horror expectations.

Crichton puts much research into his books, and I can’t wait to read more of his bibliography.

Given what I’ve read so far, I doubt he’ll disappoint.

Book Review: ‘Thinner’ by Stephen King

4th Jul 2023Leave a comment

So, I read Stephen King’s ‘Thinner’ for book four of our Santorini trip.

I’ve always had a copy of ‘Thinner’ but never got around to reading it. Other King premises, such as killer clowns, vampires, and apocalypses, drew me in better. Part of me reasoned that he wrote it under his Bachman pseudonym so that it would be worse than his ‘real’ novels. And the book follows a man with a gypsy curse to make him thinner. How scary can that be?

It turns out: very.

‘Thinner’ gets downright nasty at points, and quite a few plot developments shocked me. The story caught me off-guard in many places. And the ending? Beautiful in its ugliness. I cannot imagine how anyone read this—before the truth about Bachman came out—and didn’t know King had penned it. It’s got his fingerprints all over it.

Please don’t make the same mistake I made.

‘Thinner’ is a classic King novel that deserves your time.