Re: Books by Stephen King
Okay, well given the interest in this topic and me obviously being in something of a King mood, I started Just after sunset.
I've read the first two stories so far and as has become my custom here I'll add some thoughts on each one, so beware spoiling spoilers of spoileriness beyond this point!
Willa: Okay this was a rather cute premise which slightly missed the mark for me, though in fairness to King I suspect that's more a cultural matter. I gathered something was up with the people waiting in the station, and I did indeed wonder if they were dead, so nice to prove I'm write, also a great job by King on painting the people as the most annoying bunch of pasengers to get stuck with (I particularly liked how spot on he was with the cranky five year old),
I also liked that Willa was neither entirely likable nor completely irritating, and that David recognised her faults, her spiky and occasionally selfish personality just as he still loved her.
the problems came for me firstly in that the story felt a little long, since after we found out the people were all dead, matters seemed to drag a little. Then, while I liked the idea of Willa and David going back to try and get the rest of the people unstuck and them refusing, it didn't feel entirely right that Willa and David were themselves still stuck in the honkitonk bar anyway. I rather thought King should at least have implied that by moving out of the station and stopping waiting for the train, Willa and David might get the chance to move on, rather than just be stuck in the bar forever, which would also imply that the other passengers might get the chance to move on eventually as well (while she was annoying I thought it was a bit rough on the little girl, especially when her mother slapped her and physically dragged her off).
Then again its entirely possible this is simply a cultural thing. I'm not entirely sure what "honkitonk" actually means, and having no especial liking for rock or country music, and an active dislike of places that are too noisy and crowded to converse, the idea of being stuck in a bar for all eternity sounds a bit like hell to me, whereas Willa, David and King obviously felt differently.
Again, I might have been able to accept if there was some possibility that they might pass over in the future, as occurred with the trucker at the truck stop in James tiptree Junior's; aka Alice Sheldon's, story, her smoke rose up forever, indeed I wonder if King read that story as there are some striking similarities in plot, if not quite in style, though ironically for a writer known for zir grim take on things, tiptree's story ends surprisingly well.
So all in all, Willa wasn't a bad story, not a favourite, though how much of this was just King's preferences over mine for an afterlife I don't know.
the gingerbread girl: Okay this one was a lot of fun, particularly the onrunning battle with the psychopath. Indeed, it interesting reading this one so soon after Gerald's game and noting a few of the same feelings, even some similar turns of description around physical cramps, muscle pain etc, indeed only Stephen King could make the act of pulling yourself off a chair you'd been duct taped to quite as agonising, or as riveting.
I genuinely loved the run up the beach and the way the psycho got his just deserts, though I felt rather sorry for the nice Mexican chap, still deaths of innocents are par for the course in horror stories. I'd also call this one an absolute crash course in how to setup an ending with payoff and mess with your character's skills.
We know that Emily has been training herself as a runner, we see her do it in the book, so her kicking free of the chair and out running the crazy murderer is almost the exact opposite of a deus ex machina, ---- would that be a devil stuck in a tree? .
My only two miner issues were how we got to the big confrontation, and the character of Emily's husband. Rather like Jessy in the Stand), henry just seemed to get written off with a little contempt, and I could never really understand how these two people could've been happy together at first. I get that King just had to find an excuse to get Emily to florida and with a running obsession and that a husband would get in the way, but he could've done it with a little less contempt, ---- EG, maybe she just had to go to Florida to clear her head and get out of the house where she'd lost her baby.
Then again, since I've never fathered a child, much less lost one, I can't say what that would do to someone's marriage, and hay maybe Emily and henry (surprised their daughter wasn't called Dorathy), weren't too fond of each other to begin with.
My second issue with the story is more critical.
Emily sees Deek the old bridge keeper who warns her away from the nasty Pickering, okay, however then Pickering, a guy who has apparently made murdering several women a year pretty much a regular summer occurrence, just happens to leave the boot of his car open so the bloody hair of his latest victim is peeping out?
Hmmmm, can anyone say author convenience?
Actually, I'd have minded less if say Emily thought she saw something in the car, went to look, saw what was in there and then got herself clobbered, but the idea of this supposedly meticulous murderer driving around with a body in the open boot of his car sort of beggared belief.
All that being said, I really did enjoy the story, an awesome and well plotted battle with the kind of murderer you love to hate done with the classic King compelling sense of gore, and a happy ending to boot.
Definitely a thumbs up on this one.
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