THINNER WRITTEN BY STEPHEN KING WRITING AS RICHARD BACHMAN

Thinner by Richard Bachman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Some guys-- a lot of guys---don't believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they eat or drink or think or believe. Me, I don't believe in God. But if I saw him, I would. I wouldn't just go around saying 'Jesus, that was a great special effect.' The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing. And you can quote me.”
Richie “The Hammer” Ginelli



William Halleck is a damn fine lawyer, a rising star in his firm, and well liked by judges and police officers. His life was coming together nicely and without too much extrapolation he could probably anticipate the continuing arc of his success. There was really only one thing that he was fighting against on a daily basis...his weight. The scales were not his friend. He was a stress eater, a man who would rather have two Big Macs peeking out of their wrappers than the goosepimple naked Coors Twins cooing his name.

He is 6’4” and weighs 251 pounds, which isn’t exactly fat if you are a professional football player bristling with heavy musculature, but if you are a white collar worker who doesn’t exercise and eats high calorie, high carb meals from breakfast until bed, the weight gain is going to settle right around your bread basket. I’m 6’4” and weigh 200-205. If I were to put on 50 pounds, I would be obese according to all the BMI charts. Given the fact that I’m retired from any form of athletics except shooting a few hoops in the driveway and going for walks, that 50 pounds would be the worst kind of weight gain, and I would be looking for new pants several sizes larger. Some reviewers/readers have questioned whether Halleck at 6’4” and 251 pounds was actually obese, which might say something about the current state of the American waistline. A nation floating down the river deNILE.

Halleck was a chubby checker, unable to see his feet when he was standing upright on a scale. Pissing was simply an act of faith because for Halleck to see willie perform, he would need to put mirrored tiles on his bathroom floor and walls.

Libido is usually the first to go when people become overweight. Their desires and lusts are exchanged for french fries, strawberry pie, and milkshakes, but Halleck didn’t have that problem. In fact, at the moment that his life was about to go off course, he was almost ready to cross off a bucket list item right up until the time he…

hit a woman with his car.

His wife, Heidi, out of the wild blue decides to be spontaneous. She’s not a prude, but she has never given any indication that she was uninhibited enough to go searching for Billy’s fishing tackle while he was steering a moving vehicle.

Now, he didn’t just hit any woman. Oh no, to completely screw up your life you have to hit a gypsy with a vengeful father. Taduz Lemke is a gypsy patriarch who might be anywhere between 106-120 years old. He knows things that the rest of the world has forgotten.


Robert John Burke stars in the 1996 film version.

When he touches Halleck’s cheek and whispers the word…thinner, William starts to lose weight at an alarming rate.

He has been cursed, not just cursed, but gypsy cursed.

“You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel for a while there.”

Wait, what was that about Stephen King?

Back in the late 1970s and through the mid-1980s, Stephen King was writing more books than could be published. In those days publishers believed that an author could only publish one book a year successfully. King decided to create a pseudonym as Richard Bachman so he could publish more than just one book a year. He was also having doubts about his own success. Had he just gotten lucky? Could he produce a best selling book without Stephen King emblazoned on the cover? The Bachman books were doing ok, but they did a lot better after a bookseller named Steve Brown in Washington D.C. thought the style shown by Bachman was very similar to the writing style of Stephen King.


Meet Mr. Richard Bachman. The actual subject of the photo is Richard Manuel, the insurance agent of Kirby McCauley, who was King's literary agent.

The truth was out, and Thinner became a bestseller. Brown showed a lot of class. He went to the publisher first to show what he had discovered and asked what he should do. King called him and asked him if he would like to do an interview to tell the world how he made his discovery. For those interested, here is a link to Brown’s discussion of the discovery: http://www.liljas-library.com/bachman...

So the reference to himself that he put in Thinner was a tongue in cheek, knee slapping moment of poking fun at himself.


Stephen King and Tom Holland (director of the film) on the set. King had a cameo role as Dr. Banger.

Halleck is now losing two to three pounds a day, and that is with eating as much food as he can stuff into his stomach. He is desperately searching for the gypsy caravan so he can convince the prehistoric gypsy to take the curse off, but the flame of vengeance still burns in the heart and soul of Taduz Lemke.

He is going to need some convincing.

Halleck knows just the guy.

Richie “The Hammer” Ginelli, an Italian mobster whom Halleck helped defend in court, is a man with a code regarding helping friends in need. Out of all the people Halleck has tried to explain his situation to Ginelli is the only one who believes him.

Ginelli is a terrific character. He is certainly someone you will not forget. I thought that Stephen King, erhh Richard Bachman, put real flesh on the bones of all the characters. The plot is taut like a quarter bouncing off a nubile bottom and crackles like a corn crib on fire. In my opinion, one of the best Stephen King, erhhh Richard Bachman, books I’ve ever read.

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Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke

Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Sour Candy, Kealan Patrick Burke weaves a dread inducing psychological horror novella that seriously wreaks mayhem with your sanity.

Phil Pendleton was more than willing to pay a visit to Wal-Mart to restock on chocolate sex rewards, the memory of Lori in pink silk undies (with leather paddle and ball gag, fun times) and hot shagging fresh in his mind. When the kid screamed like a banshee and shattered his love lust euphoria.

An unsettling scream queen style screech from a boy no less and something strange is about to take place. A mind fuck of phantasmagoric and inexplicable proportion starts in the Sour Candy section. This isn't the last time Phil will see this young boy but he'll wish it was, with every ounce of his soul.

Next up Phil is involved in a car accident and the driver of the other car, yep it's the boy’s Mother.

'Marsh studied him as one might a particularly exotic species of insect. “I’m asking you all of this, Mr. Pendleton, because when the officers went to your house, the child you just described seeing with Mrs. Bennings is the one who opened the door.”

A true Woah! WTF moment and Phil, well Phil's life is suddenly changed and me, I'm tripping. Kealan Patrick Burke never disappoints and just to reassure you, there is definitely no horror of the ball gag variety, Sour Candy is one of the best psychical horror novellas I've read and KPB is pretty fucking awesome.

A 4.5* rating and also posted at http://paulnelson.booklikes.com/post/...




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Snowblind II: The Killing Grounds by Michael McBride

Snowblind II: The Killing Grounds by Michael McBride
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Michael McBride takes us back to the Rockies and once more we're blind in the snow, we're in the killing grounds, the panic is mounting and the tensiometer is pinging like a metal detector in a shipping container.

Seven years ago John Avery's girlfriend went on a skiing trip with friends, none of them were ever seen again and he's searched for them, relentlessly, he was even a suspect.

Sheriff Wayne Dayton once shot a man who staggered into a diner carrying a severed head, a tortuous ending to a harrowing journey that is not easily forgotten. A conservation biologist searching for a missing bighorn sheep finds a video camera hidden in a tree and evidence of the missing party is finally discovered.

'A scream from the television cut him off. It was loud and clear and filled with so much raw terror that the hackles rose along his shoulders and neck.'

Sheriff Dayton investigates, resulting in a group setting out to ascertain exactly what happened all those years ago. Darkness and a freak blizzard put them in the killing grounds of a predator even Arnie would struggle to get away from.

There's a cabin hidden in the snow and the trees, on a wall inside is scrawled the names of those unfortunate enough to realise that there's definitely no hiding place, not here. And a warning 'They come at night'.

Snowblind 2: The Killing Grounds is another exemplary suspense filled horror from McB, in a perfect setting for terror, the pace and trepidation rise exponentially until it's just unbearable. Will there be any survivors in the most extreme of conditions and if there are, can the U.S. law department take them out (kill them that is, not for lunch). Well worth finding out and I do recommend the two Snowblind novellas, heavy on terror, light on humour and there’s a good deal of pronounced nail-biting and heart pounding tension going down.

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The Prophet

The Prophet by Michael Koryta
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Austin brothers haven't spoken in years, not since high school when their sister was abducted and murdered when one of them should have been driving her home. Now, Kent is a football coach and Adam is a hard-drinking bail bondsman. When Adam unwittingly sends another girl to her doom, the two brothers must work together to find her killer...

Holy. Shit. This was one hell of a book.

The Prophet, while appearing initially to be a crime book, is really about what happens to families after a tragedy. In this case, it's about how Marie Austin's death sent her brothers in opposite directions and how another girl's death eventually brought them back together.

Adam Austin can't seem to get past his sister's death and hides from it with alcohol and a simmering capacity for violence. Kent Austin threw himself into his career as a high school football coach and the church. It would have been easy for Koryta to make either of them a stereotype but they are both well-rounded characters. It's a testament to Koryta's skill that he made me care about Kent's high school football team's winning season, which takes up a large part of the book.

I can't say enough good things about this book. Koryta had me guessing up until the end. It knew it wouldn't be a happily ever after ending but it still hit me like a shotgun blast to the chest. I may have let a man tear escape before the final page was turned.

The Prophet looks like a fairly standard crime book on the surface. A psychopath is on the loose and police can't seem to catch him. A certain wise man likened The Prophet to Mystic River, which I think is very accurate. The Prophet is one of those books that transcends genre and proceeds to kick ass on several levels. Five out of five stars.

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BEST HIKE EVER!

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail pressed all my favorite buttons: Humor. Adventure. Danger. Storytelling. Nature. Local/personal interest. Et cetera.

I even liked that the author Bill Bryson is a American-Brit ex-pat/transplant and thus an outsider giving his opinion as a stranger in a strange land. Bryson's humorous, well-researched, yet relaxed writing is what I always hope for when embarking upon a book like this.

A trek upon the Appalachian Trail is supposed to be relaxing, if strenuous, and if a bit of history and humor get mixed in then all the better. For those like myself who grew up in New England, the lure and legend of the trail was spoon-fed us from an early age, right along with Johnny Appleseed and the ride of Paul Revere. Those of us too lazy to make the actual hike can sit back and read Bryson's book while thinking about how swell a jaunt would be.


               


While I enjoyed hearing about the local spots I'm familiar with like Mt. Washington in New Hampshire (a hiker from Pepperell, MA the tiny town my mom is from is even mentioned, woohoo!), it's Bryson's relationship with his friend Katz, a larger-than-life character who joined him periodically on the trail, that really ties this whole book together. The hijinks are raised when Katz enters the scene, making a normal hike in the woods into an adventure, perhaps more than it needed to be, but I'm grateful either way!

Bryson's writing and the personality that comes through made more palatable his occasional soapbox tangents. The guy loves nature preservation and he's not happy when man fucks with it, so every once in a while the reader must wade through a lecture on why the trail is essentially lucky to be alive. For all that, I loved this book just about in its entirety and look forward to reading more by Bill Bryson, a writer who I've taken an immediate shine to, a reader-writer bond strengthened by my own private pleasure at discovering we share December 8th as a birthday.


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Blood and Dirt

Lloyd A. Meeker
Wilde City Press
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Family squabbles can be murder.

Psychic PI Russ Morgan investigates a vandalized marijuana grow in Mesa County Colorado, landing in the middle of a ferocious family feud that’s escalating in a hurry. Five siblings fight over the family ranch as it staggers on the brink of bankruptcy, marijuana its only salvation. Not everyone agrees, but only one of them is willing to kill to make a point.

Russ also has a personal puzzle to solve as he questions his deepening relationship with Colin Stewart, a man half his age. His rational mind says being with Colin is the fast track to heartbreak, but it feels grounding, sane, and good. Now, that’s really dangerous…

My Review

Even though I was assured this story was a standalone, I’m a stickler for order. So I purchased and read Enigma, the first Russ Morgan mystery, and was even more excited to read the second in what I hope is going to be an ongoing series.

Ellis Landry hires Russ Morgan to find out who vandalized his sister’s marijuana grow. What starts out as a simple investigation of a vandalism incident turns out to be much more complicated as Morgan assesses the dynamics of the Ellis/Landry clans using his empathic abilities and, as other facts and feelings begin to emerge, he decides to carry a firearm.

When Russ is not unraveling a tangled web of lies and deception, he is scared of his developing relationship with Colin Stewart, a paralegal he met during his first case, and a man nearly half his age. Russ has achieved sobriety, but still deals with pain from his past. Fortunately, Colin is very patient and mature for his years.

This was a clever, engaging, and thoughtful mystery that deals with toxic families and the fragility of new relationships. I loved the first-person narration of this story that allowed me to connect with Russ on a deeper level and I enjoyed alternating glimpses of his professional and personal life. He’s a very likable, well-rounded character who is easy to spend time with.

I very much look forward to more Russ Morgan stories.

Falling Kingdoms

Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

He said, "I must tell you that while I was forced to guard you and you were making my life harder by being so stubbornly annoying, I fell in love with you for no apparent reason."

She said, "Truly?! While you were guarding me I also fell in love with you despite you not letting me have my way. It's clear that we must be wed since we love each other so."

I said, "I'm too old for this sh**."

Falling Kingdoms was very very young adult. I thought perhaps it was along the lines of a young adult story that is more mature and interesting in nature, but that wasn't the case. I blame Joe Abercrombie his young adult stories made me forget what real young adult stuff looks like, but truly this is my fault it says its genre is young adult. Reviewers kept mentioning how many people died in the story too which made me think it was a more mature young adult, but the majority of the deaths had little weight to them and hardly felt real.

I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but a books cover should have something to do with the book. There is no cool hooded warrior taking on all comers and winning against impossible odds as the cover hints at. Truthfully there is barely any fighting except for the last 60 pages or so.

So although I didn't give Falling Kingdoms a high rating please fans of the young adult genre don't let that dissuade you. I came in looking for the young adult A Game of Thrones not kids with magic and swords proclaiming their love and hate in a nearly elementary school fashion.


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WORLD WAR Z...MUCH MORE THAN JUST A ZOMBIE BOOK...BY MAX BROOKS

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”The book of war, the one we’ve been writing since one ape slapped another was completely useless in this situation. We had to write a new one from scratch.”

With most apocalyptic situations, I think the hardest part to deal with is that there are no wrong decisions or right decisions. There are simply too many variables to consider if your ultimate goal is to survive. The most meticulously planned strategies can still result in failure. You make the best decisions you can and then hope for a bit of luck. Should we barricade ourselves hoping to be saved, or go North hoping the zombies will eventually become popsicles when winter hits? Are we safer in the underground tunnels of Paris or on a cruise ship or living in the woods by ourselves? Whatever decision you make, you must think long game and short game. The short game, the immediate concerns, involve food, water, and shelter. The short and long game both come into play when trying to figure out how to avoid becoming zombie chow.

Once you survive the first wave of contagion, then what?

This book is written as an investigative report, collecting all the experiences of survivors from around the world. Different cultures reacted differently to the apocalypse. Some were more successful than others. The learning curve, unfortunately, has to be short with apocalyptic situations, especially if the hope is to actually salvage civilisation. The lights go out, and many of the comforts we’ve become accustomed to are gone instantly, and the possessions that have come to define us, such as electronic devices, suddenly become useless.

If the whole idea of a zombie apocalypse is too wild a concept for you to grasp, you might be relieved that for the most part the zombies are really just part of the background. What Max Brooks is really dealing with goes well beyond the concept of zombies and focuses more on how people survived the collapse of civilisation. He could have used microbes or conventional war or a devastating meteorite hitting the earth or any of the other fascinating concepts that people have come up with as ways to end the world. It reads like books of a similar nature that collect the stories of people who survived World War Two. The scope is huge and impressive. Brooks addresses aspects about a zombie apocalypse that I have never thought about before.

Quislings ”Yeah, you know, the people that went nutballs and started acting like zombies.” Ok, I’ve read a handful of zombie books, not enough to make myself an expert, but certainly enough to have some background on the lore of a zombie apocalypse. WTH? Now Brooks didn’t just make this term up. It is a term from WW2. ”A quisling is a person who collaborates with an enemy occupying force. The word originates from the Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling, who headed a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime during the Second World War.”

The minds of survivors, I’m sure, snapped in all kinds of strange and wonderful and terrifying ways, but unfortunately pretending to be a zombie was a quick way to find yourself...well...dead. First, any reasonably sane human who notices you lurching toward them, performing your very best mimicry of the undead, will smash your brain. Second, you don’t blend with the zombies. They know you are alive. You become a zombie delight!

People also just went to sleep perfectly healthy and didn’t wake up. This was called ADS, short for Asymptomatic Demise Syndrome or Apocalyptic Despair Syndrome. ”It killed as many people in those early stalemate months as hunger, disease, interhuman violence, or the living dead.” I’ve heard of things like this happening to people who experience long term stress situations. The body just reaches a point where the brain decides to just shut down the power to the spacecraft and let the mind drift away.

RIP

People will put up with a lot as long as there is hope that someday their situation will improve. Babies die when they are not held. People die when things become hopeless.

Brooks also told stories about zombies underwater. WTH? Yeah, people reanimated as the living dead on ships and eventually managed to fall off the ship in the water. It wasn’t unusual for zombies to just walk out of the water onto beaches or grab divers or attack fishermen in boats. Somehow they are more scary underwater than on land. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it. I’m having a Jaws flashback.

During and after WWZ, people had to relearn things that our grandparents and great grandparents knew.

A chimney sweep. ”I help keep my neighbors warm.” he said proudly.

A cobbler. ”You see those shoes. I made them.”

A shepherd. ”That sweater, that’s my sheep’s wool.”

A gardener/farmer. ” Like that corn? My garden.”

”That was the upshot of a more localized system. It gave people the opportunity to see the fruits of their labor, it gave them a sense of individual pride to know they were making a clear, concrete contribution to victory, and it gave me a wonderful feeling that I was part of that. I needed that feeling. It kept me sane for the other part of my job.”

The other part of his job?...killing zombies. Several of the survivors talked about how important it was not to think of them as people or of who they were or of who they might have become. They couldn’t see them as people or what they were doing was genocide.

This is by far the most serious zombie book I’ve ever read. The stories are compelling. This is a panoramic view of a society in crises. The observations are thoughtful. The writing is convincing. By the end I had the feeling I’d just read a history book, not a speculative zombie apocalyptic book.

The book is unfilmable, but the movie industry knew a catchy title when they saw one. They certainly borrowed aspects from the book, but really the movie should be considered a completely different entity. The zombies in Brooks book are the George Romero lurching, yucky living dead. In the movie, they are super charged, fast moving, aggressive, nasty creatures. The virus in the movie is fast acting. Someone bitten is transformed within seconds. In the book, the virus takes much longer to take effect.

Did it bother me that the director Marc Forster took such liberties?

Not one bite bit.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was thoroughly entertained. I certainly intend to watch the movie again. So read the book to discover new depths to an overly exploited genre, and watch the movie to experience a whirlwind of fear and dread. Just a suggestion, have someone else hold the popcorn.

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The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty was released in 1971, we've all seen the subsequent film released in 1973, you might have read the book but an altogether different experience is guaranteed to scare the pants off you with the audiobook. Narrated by the author who won an Oscar for best writing/screenplay based on material from another medium for the Exorcist and I have to say this is easily the best production and performance from any audiobook that I've listened to.

Powerfully gripping, a story that is truly frightening with characters that are riveting and completely absorbing. Every character was perfectly fleshed out, I both liked and likened the detective William Kinderman to Peter Falks Colombo always that one more question or insight. Forever bordering on annoying and continually grasping at straws but really enjoyable, the film doesn’t show any of that as well as the book.

Damien Karras was superb, a compelling character that the film could never quite portray adequately enough and then the impact of Father Lankester Merrin and the attempted exorcism. One word fanfuckingtastic. Merrin has short page time but he is a significant presence all the same. Regan, lovely and sweet, for a short time anyway, until she starts to manifest different personalities and becomes quite the opposite of lovely and sweet. Vomiting, cursing and using a religious cross for a purpose altogether different to what it was intended for.

This is demon possession horror and its done both horrifically well and with immense impact. From the different impersonations by the demon to the relationships of the characters entwined in the story, everything is perfect. Obviously this has been reviewed to death so this is more a profession of adoration for a masterpiece than a review and I really need to watch the film again it feels way to long since I last watched it. *Just watched it and rightly justified as one of the best horror films of all time but the book, well the book is even better, simple as that*.

Absolutely nothing compares to this and it’s without doubt the best and easily my favourite horror story, in fact any bloody story. I rate it that highly and the audio narration by the author adds a level that's nigh on impossible to surpass in the realms of horror and audiobooks. Intense just doesn't seem to cover it. If it's been a good while since you last delved into The Exorcist then it might be time for a revisit.

And I think another star is needed.

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Apeshit by Carlton Mellick III

Apeshit by Carlton Mellick III
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What the fuck can I say about Apeshit, well pretty often, almost as easy as the flip of a coin, the story went from flat-out batshit crazy to head shaking incredulous wonder.

We have six college kids taking off for a break to a country retreat, one of the kids grandfather has died and left him the cabin. So that’s where they are heading. There's plenty of weirdness in this story, on the way up the perilous mountain road to the cabin they run past an area full of dead animals and a random dead bloke at the side of the road. The animal apocalypse it seems but that’s pretty tame as expectations should go.

Now these aren't your average college kids, one's a tattooed cheerleader sporting a mohican who happens to be in a relationship with two of the guys. She spends the majority of the book running round with her intestines hanging out, performing the odd lasso trick. There's a couple who don't have sex and it might be said, get up to some pretty funny sexual activities. That's not funny haha, that's fucked up funny. One guy has had an alleged urinary tract infection for a number of months that's prevented him taking part in the shagging Olympics going down but oh! fucking no, stupid boy, he's had an altogether different operation that... yeah you'd have to read it.

They arrive at the cabin and its total madness, total fucked up mayhem and yes the review does completely deserve this many expletives, there's mutants and a heap load of freakish, rifuckingdiculously queer and downright outlandish shit going on.

Did I enjoy it? I don't think I'll ever be able to answer that, it felt weird and it’s written with an extremely simplistic writing style. This author is as nutty as a dive bomb into a swimming pool full of peanuts and he certainly entertains but I'll be forever torn between genius and padded cell.

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