Bag of Bones - Stephen King

Title: Bag of Bones Author: Stephen King Genre: Thriller Rating: 5/10 # pages: 487 Date read: May, 2006

Summary: Four years after the sudden death of his wife, forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write, and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the western Maine summerhouse he calls Sara Laughs, Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway. There, he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie and Kyra's struggle, as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What are the forces that have been unleashed here -- and what do they want of Mike Noonan?

Review: Meh... I like some thrillers, but I don't think I'm too much of a Stephen King fan... at least I haven't been terribly impressed with what I've read by him so far. It's weird though... I enjoy reading his books, and most of them are definitely page-turners, but once done, I put them down feeling strangely un-impressed. This one more than most though. I found the entire plot quite unprobably - even within its own universe.

Book List

The Stand - Stephen King

Title: The Stand Author: Stephen King Genre: Thriller Rating: 8/10 # pages: 1007 Date read: December, 2007

Summary: This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

Review: For some reason it took me ages to get through The Stand. I'm not sure why, because I quite enjoyed it, so it wasn't that I neglected it, I just found it a slow read.

In many ways it read a lot like some of the post-apocalyptic books I've read - the fight between good and evil, where you know good is going to come out on top, the only question is how many people will die along the way.

It's very different from King's usual writing style, and I think for that reason alone I liked it more than his other books. I was slightly disappointed by the ending as it seemed as if things were solved too easily, but on the other hand I understand why he chose to end it that way.

I read the "complete and uncut" edition (literary talk for 'directors cut' I guess?) - wonder how much was taken out in the original versions.

Book List