I had an advance copy of this book, and finished it weeks ago, and so I’ve had time to think about it, and I’ve finally decided it’s one of the very best things Neil has ever done, and you should go get it, more or less right now, because I know it will make you happier, after it makes you sadder, and this is my whole point here today; and so thank you, enjoy your lunch, and be sure to try the shrimp.
-Stephen King (via howtedmethiswife)
How else do you explain Dumbledore, Snape, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Hedwig, and Dobby?
(via vikingplumb)
I just fucking lost my shit.
(via connor-sexonlegswithahat-temple)
(via bookoisseur)
Review: ‘N0S4A2’ by Joe Hill
Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.
Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”
Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.
REVIEW: ★★★★☆
First off, a confession: I’m not a big Stephen King fan, I’ve only read a few of his books and short stories. As for his son, Joe Hill, this is the first of his work I’ve tried out.
Another important side-note, this time about the book: This is not a ‘vampire book,’ for anyone that might assume so from the title. Though the main character does drain energy from his victims in a fashion, if you come into this expecting a play on the current vampire craze, you’ll get something different than what you expect. (This could be either good or bad depending on what you hope for.)
Now, onto the review:
NOS4A2 (or N0S4R2 in Europe) is really about Victoria McQueen’s discovery of her power and what it does to her as she goes through life. Charles Manx, our villain, is more of a background character until the last quarter of the book. It works out well this way, allowing Manx to provide the atmosphere and tension as we grow up with Victoria.
She learns at a young age that she has the power to call up an imaginary bridge into existence that allows her to travel anywhere she needs to go. She is not the only one with powers to travel using her imagination and learns as much when she meets a young woman, Maggie, who uses her own powers to give her a sort of psychic guidance using scrabble tiles. This is where Vic learns of Charlie Manx, his Rolls Royce Wraith, and Christmasland.
The story feels a bit slow at time, which is odd considering the handful of leaps through Victoria’s life and she grows up and has a family of her own. As an adult, she eventually convinces herself that so many of her memories were a delusion, a psychotic break from her own encounter with Manx in her teenage years, that ended up with his arrest. It’s only after the final ‘skip-ahead’ in her life, after Manx is again a threat to her and her son, that the story really picks up. That final act of the book feels like you are finally getting to the real story, and though the backstory had its place in building to that point, much of it felt padded.
The characters in the book are great. Watching Victoria grow up from innocent child to the dysfunctional adult through years of trying to make sense of the strange things she’s experienced, years of being tormented by Manx’s past victims, plus deal with her own crazy life is heartbreaking at times and felt like a fairly realistic way to address mixing the real world with the supernatural. No matter how much of a mess she’s made her life, the reader roots for her to do what needs to be done by the end. Her husband Lou, for his small role, is a very lovable character, even to those in the story, and it’s nice to see that, even though he wants to be the typical hero, to Vic he already has been by just being himself.
Charlie Manx and his assistant, Bing Partridge are both great villains. Manx obviously was the biggest danger of the book with supernatural powers, but the fact that I consistently pictured him as Gru from Despicable Me and his often goofy demeanor really didn’t make him feel like a true threat at times. When he did take action however, his cruel enjoyment about his actions worked to his favor. Personally, I found Bing to be much more frightening, being not quite all there mentally and going about his evil work so casually, there was a realistic serial killer feel to the character. Both of the villains had good ‘horror movie’ appearances, the creepy old man Charlie in his dapper clothing and old car and Bing in his old military uniform and gas mask. It made quite good imagery as you pictured these characters going about there ‘dispicable’ deeds.
BOTTOM LINE:
From the few Stephen King books I’ve read, Hill’s work read very similarly, so I would imagine that any King fan would enjoy this work and possibly rate it even higher than the 4/5 I gave it. Coming from fantasy, where you get so much information about a story chapter after chapter, NOS4A2 felt a bit slow at times, but it was still a very engaging read. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone out there looking to dive into a modern day horror story.
How every book’s map should be done.
![The Red Wedding
The latest episode of Game of Thrones has come to pass, The Rains of Castamere, and it left a lot of broken hearts in the world. Fans of the show have come to expect a bit of darkness, but the Red Wedding still took many by surprise. It was no different for those of us that read the books years ago.
Although we share your pain, the Red Wedding is what every reader has been waiting for, not just due to the desire to see the powerful scene on screen, but to see the reactions of Game of Thrones fans that haven’t read the books. If watching Ned Stark beheaded at the end of season one didn’t clue people into Game of Thrones being a different sort of fantasy story, then the Red Wedding certainly did.
With the death of two more Starks, a family many view as ‘the good guys,’ social networks were abuzz with fans crying in distress after the episode, with many claiming to be done with Game of Thrones. Martin himself has claimed the scene was one of the hardest he’s had to write in the books, in fact skipping over it and coming back to write it after he’d finished the rest of Storm of Swords, saying:
I try to make the readers feel they’ve lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend is killed, you should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care. If somebody dies and you just go get more popcorn, it’s a superficial experience isn’t it?
But what of the reactions? Sunday night wasn’t the first time he’s had to deal with upset fans, many of us were throwing our books across the room years ago at this, and many other, scenes from his ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series.
People read books for different reasons. I respect that. Some read for comfort. And some of my former readers have said their life is hard, their mother is sick, their dog died, and they read fiction to escape. They don’t want to get hit in the mouth with something horrible. And you read that certain kind of fiction where the guy will always get the girl and the good guys win and it reaffirms to you that life is fair. We all want that at times. There’s a certain vicarious release to that. So I’m not dismissive of people who want that. But that’s not the kind of fiction I write, in most cases. It’s certainly not what Ice and Fire is. It tries to be more realistic about what life is. It has joy, but it also had pain and fear. I think the best fiction captures life in all its light and darkness.
Why Kill Robb, though? Martin felt that Robb ‘had to die’ to subvert readers expectations.
I killed Ned [Stark] in the first book and it shocked a lot of people. I killed Ned because everybody thinks he’s the hero and that, sure, he’s going to get into trouble, but then he’ll somehow get out of it. The next predictable thing is to think his eldest son is going to rise up and avenge his father. And everybody is going to expect that. So immediately [killing Robb] became the next thing I had to do.
But if you approach it from within the story, Robb made his own bed, in my opinion. As much as a reader, or viewer, might be drawn to the idea of true love with his bride, the moment he made the decision to break his word was his downfall. This is a story of generations and Ned Stark may have died in long ago, but part of him lives on in his family. When Robb makes a decision Ned never would have, breaking his oath to Frey, he loses the respect of the north. It was that respect for Stark honor that brought the banner men to him, without it he was just a young man fighting a losing war. This story was written long ago, and no matter how much we might hate some of the events, they will come to pass regardless. So the real question becomes, how well did they pull off the epic scene? From Ned’s execution, to the battle of Blackwater, they have managed to bring justice to every climatic scene each season, and the Red Wedding was no exception. In the book, the event is told from the point of view of Catelyn (The “kings” never get their own POV chapters) making it an even more powerful scene, especially as she loses her mind watching, what she thinks is, her last son dying.
It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb… Robb…. please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting… The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved. Catelyn Stark raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown. Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed. “Mad,” someone said, “she’s lost her wits,” and someone else said, “Make and end,” and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she’d done with Jinglebell [ed note: it was Frey’s mentally ill son in the book, not his wife], and she thought, No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.
As difficult as it is to compete with a book’s ability to show you what happens in a characters mind, Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark) managed an amazing job of it. I felt my stomach drop with hers as the doors to the feast were closed and ‘The Rains of Castamere’ began playing. The subtle placement of Bolton’s arm on the table, with a small nod of his eyes, signaling her to look and find the chainmail under his clothing, was an excellent way to catch the attention of viewers that didn’t know what was coming.
A bonus, if you could call it that, for readers, was the addition of a pregnant Talisa to the wedding and feast. In the novels, she stayed behind as not to insult Frey further, but the show not only included her but offered a moment between her and Robb talking of naming their unborn child Ned if born a boy. The readers joined non-readers in shock and horror as one of the Frey boys stabbed her repeatedly in the stomach. But it was watching Fairley, playing Catelyn, in desperation try to plead for her son’s life. Her scream of horror as Bolton finishes him off is gut wrenching. She’s already dead, you can see it in her eyes. Readers might know she’s thinking, “don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair,” but it’s not a requirement to feel the pain as you watch her soul die. By the time the steel is at her throat, she’s already dead inside. It was one of the most raw moments of emotion I’ve ever felt from the show, and that’s saying a lot. What does the future hold for Game of Thrones? Martin himself has said many a time he anticipates a ‘bittersweet ending.’ But the line was already spoken best earlier this season when, as Theon is tortured, he’s told, “if you think this story has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/cd8e8b628ab6b273e373a173e8ce21bb/tumblr_mnwv8hO4Lb1qe5394o1_400.jpg)
With the death of two more Starks, a family many view as ‘the good guys,’ social networks were abuzz with fans crying in distress after the episode, with many claiming to be done with Game of Thrones. Martin himself has claimed the scene was one of the hardest he’s had to write in the books, in fact skipping over it and coming back to write it after he’d finished the rest of Storm of Swords, saying:
I try to make the readers feel they’ve lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend is killed, you should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care. If somebody dies and you just go get more popcorn, it’s a superficial experience isn’t it?
But what of the reactions? Sunday night wasn’t the first time he’s had to deal with upset fans, many of us were throwing our books across the room years ago at this, and many other, scenes from his ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series.
People read books for different reasons. I respect that. Some read for comfort. And some of my former readers have said their life is hard, their mother is sick, their dog died, and they read fiction to escape. They don’t want to get hit in the mouth with something horrible. And you read that certain kind of fiction where the guy will always get the girl and the good guys win and it reaffirms to you that life is fair. We all want that at times. There’s a certain vicarious release to that. So I’m not dismissive of people who want that. But that’s not the kind of fiction I write, in most cases. It’s certainly not what Ice and Fire is. It tries to be more realistic about what life is. It has joy, but it also had pain and fear. I think the best fiction captures life in all its light and darkness.
Why Kill Robb, though? Martin felt that Robb ‘had to die’ to subvert readers expectations.
I killed Ned [Stark] in the first book and it shocked a lot of people. I killed Ned because everybody thinks he’s the hero and that, sure, he’s going to get into trouble, but then he’ll somehow get out of it. The next predictable thing is to think his eldest son is going to rise up and avenge his father. And everybody is going to expect that. So immediately [killing Robb] became the next thing I had to do.
But if you approach it from within the story, Robb made his own bed, in my opinion. As much as a reader, or viewer, might be drawn to the idea of true love with his bride, the moment he made the
decision to break his word was his downfall. This is a story of generations and Ned Stark may have died in long ago, but part of him lives on in his family. When Robb makes a decision Ned never would have, breaking his oath to Frey, he loses the respect of the north. It was that respect for Stark honor that brought the banner men to him, without it he was just a young man fighting a losing war.
This story was written long ago, and no matter how much we might hate some of the events, they will come to pass regardless. So the real question becomes, how well did they pull off the epic scene? From Ned’s execution, to the battle of Blackwater, they have managed to bring justice to every climatic scene each season, and the Red Wedding was no exception.
In the book, the event is told from the point of view of Catelyn (The “kings” never get their own POV chapters) making it an even more powerful scene, especially as she loses her mind watching, what she thinks is, her last son dying.
It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb… Robb…. please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting… The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved. Catelyn Stark raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown. Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed. “Mad,” someone said, “she’s lost her wits,” and someone else said, “Make and end,” and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she’d done with Jinglebell [ed note: it was Frey’s mentally ill son in the book, not his wife], and she thought, No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.
As difficult as it is to compete with a book’s ability to show you what happens in a characters mind, Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark) managed an amazing job of it. I felt my stomach drop with hers as the doors to the feast were closed and ‘The Rains of Castamere’ began playing. The subtle placement of Bolton’s arm on the table, with a small nod of his eyes, signaling her to look and find the chainmail under his clothing, was an excellent way to catch the attention of viewers that didn’t know what was coming.
A bonus, if you could call it that, for readers, was the addition of a pregnant Talisa to the wedding and feast. In the novels, she stayed behind as not to insult Frey further, but the show not only included her but offered a moment between her and Robb talking of naming their unborn child Ned if born a boy. The readers joined non-readers in shock and horror as one of the Frey boys stabbed her repeatedly in the stomach.
But it was watching Fairley, playing Catelyn, in desperation try to plead for her son’s life. Her scream of horror as Bolton finishes him off is gut wrenching. She’s already dead, you can see it in her eyes. Readers might know she’s thinking, “don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair,” but it’s not a requirement to feel the pain as you watch her soul die. By the time the steel is at her throat, she’s already dead inside. It was one of the most raw moments of emotion I’ve ever felt from the show, and that’s saying a lot.
What does the future hold for Game of Thrones? Martin himself has said many a time he anticipates a ‘bittersweet ending.’ But the line was already spoken best earlier this season when, as Theon is tortured, he’s told, “if you think this story has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Now that I’m a “mature” person, an actual “adult”, not a kid anymore, I’ve found it difficult to make friends in the same natural and easy process as children do. Kids sort of drift into friendships by playing together, or following someone into groups or being followed into new activities Grownups need to try.
So far, most of the friendships I’ve made as a young adult - those that lasted - involved conversations, early on, about our shared love of books, and passionate discussions about our favorite ones.
Books really do equal magic.
(via fuckyeahreading)
(via bookoisseur)
Viral Website Started for Mira Grant’s Next Book: ‘Parasite’
Orbit has set up a viral (no pun intended, ok, maybe a little) website and twitter to promote the new book from Mira Grant (or Seanan McGuire if you prefer), due October 29th. I don’t see any way to embed the video, so head over to symbogen.net to check out the first trailer and sign up on the mailing list for the book.
Blurb:
A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease.
We owe our good health to a humble parasite - a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system - even secretes designer drugs. It’s been successful beyond the scientists’ wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.
But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives…
Comic Reading Log - May
Most all of my reviews will be as spoiler free as I can make them, so details may be vague or only a first portion of a plot might be discussed. I’ve also changed the way the reviews are laid out here, instead of dividing them up by publisher, I’ve decided to list them by order of rating, starting with the best.
Mind MGMT #11
The Wake #1
Suicide Risk #1
The Private Eye #2
Ten Grand #1
Shadowman #0
Hawkeye #10
X-Men #1
Harbinger #12
Daredevil #26
Jupiter’s Legacy #1
All New X-Men #11
Harbinger Wars #2
Thor God of Thunder #8
Superior Spider-man #10
Fatale #14
Archer & Armstrong #0
Red Sonja Unchained #2
The Massive #12
Star Wars #5
The Mice Templar v4 #2
Batman #20
Conan The Barbarian #16
The Walking Dead #110
The Blade Itself #2
The Dresden Files: Ghoul Goblin #4
Bloodshot #11
New Avengers #6
Age of Ultron # 7 & 8
Justice League #20
X #1
Avengers: Enemy Within #1
(via bookoisseur)
