The Dark Half: 9th - 26th April 2012

I’m not sure how I feel about this one.  The story is a bit daft - I know that’s something you just have to take for granted (with varying degrees depending on the premise) with Stephen King’s books - and the genre in general, but I think the physical manifestation of a parasitic twin crept a little too far over the line and prevented my total absorption.

There was enough about the book that I did like to keep me interested the whole way through and I cared for the safe outcome of Thad, his family and Alan.  I liked pretty much all of the characters and appreciated the less than tome-like length of the book.  There wasn’t much I didn’t like about the reading experience either.

As for what I wasn’t keen on: Stark’s existence made no sense.  Yes, I know King’s works beg a hefty suspension of disbelief, he’s just usually much more explanatory or at least provides a thread of logic to the far-fetched plot points.  I’m not saying I’d have preferred a classic dissociative identity disorder story, although it would have been easier to swallow than the physical reality of Stark as a separate person.  Of course it wouldn’t, and couldn’t, have been the same book, but at least it would have been a concrete reference point.  I’m being a whiny bitch, I know, but for someone whose works are generally resplendent with exposition, we were kept as much in the dark as the characters themselves.

The illustration of the bond between the twin babies was something that always threatened to have a deeper significance than it actually turned out to have, particularly when William displayed the identical bruise that Wendy earned from her fall.  In the end it didn’t go anywhere and, if the point was just to say that twins have a strange connection, he made that point just by stating it and mentioning the few examples of phenomena and didn’t need the Wendy/William goose chase.

As for the book being a response to his outing as Richard Bachman, I’m a bit removed, 20 years down the line, always having known that Bachman was King to be too much moved by the idea that he was outed.  The idea of the pen name existing as a distinct personality is interesting but a little over-dramatic when extrapolated to the nth degree.  I think/hope it’s more a case of King having a bit of fun with the concept.

So yeah…The Dark Half.  Not great but not shit.

The Dark Half - 9th Apr 2012

Here we go again. Once more I'll make the resolution to charge through it. I'll just have to see how strong my will is in fending off the relentless desire to read comics.

For a change, I've decided to read the flap synopsis. It sounds great. A horror-thriller-page turner would go down lovely about now.

The Tommyknockers: 6th Feb - 8th Apr

This took me quite a bit longer than I'd have liked, initially intended and certainly longer than it should to have had the proper experience of the book. Aside from my usual indolence and distractions, I'm going to lay the blame at the door of comics and Walker Percy. Between The Walking Dead, Third World War, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Transmetropolitan, I've finally been making some progress with the Ultimate Edition Battle Royale manga I've had hanging around for the last year. Considering my usual slow progress with the King novels, this is clearly a terrible idea. I don't suppose reading Percy's The Moviegoer twice helped matters too much either.


So anyway, The Tommyknockers...
I started really hopeful that I was going to love it but was left it feeling a bit underwhelmed. Aside from my reading habits contributing to a complete lack of momentum, I had trouble giving much of a shit about the characters, well, maybe apart from Ruth and Ev. I didn't care much for the residents of Haven or the neighbouring locals who ended up being casualties of the maelstrom. As always, there is plenty to be gained from the simple act of reading Stephen King, but there were plenty of times when his long-windedness and painstaking backstory composition dragged. Had I been hammering my way through it, this may not have been as noticeable or off-putting for me.


The other problem I had was a lack of interest and connection with the plot as a whole. As so much of the nature of the Tommyknockers was left until the very last to be explained (not a problem in itself as constructing a story with so many unknowns and ultimately unexplaineds is not something I'm afraid of nor put off by, rather it's often something I'd prefer) we were left only with the effects of the ship and the Tommyknockers on Haven and its residents. As I didn't care much for them, even Bobbi, the whole thing ended up being a story I had to sit and see played out. I didn't expect Gard to figure quite so extensively but fear that any endearment I built up towards him in the first half didn't have the legs to perpetuate. Again, my halting reading was probably most to blame.


As for my usual question: did it scare me? The short answer is no. I'm not left watching the skies or fearing the resurgent energy of a buried alien ship. That sounds really dumb when I put it like that - I know that the scare factor of horror, and particularly sci-fi horror, is rarely concentrated on and confined to "what if this really happened?". In fact, is it ever? There were a couple of occasions where the physical transformation of the becoming had me squirming but past that, the chills were at a minimum.


I can imagine the tv mini-series was a pile of horseshit but you know I'll end up watching it, if only to revisit the book and scratch the nagging itch that it was better than I thought. We'll see. Until then I'm giving it a meh.