BEWARE OF SPOILERS

Monday 28 January 2013

The Green Mile - 28th Jan 2013

It's going to be hard to read this one without visualising the characters from the film.  I'll give it a go, though.

Rose Madder: 12th - 26th Jan 2013

I liked this book. It may have had a lot to do with my having hunkered down and rattled through it - comparatively speaking, at least. If only I can maintain this sort of momentum, I won't need to begin each review with a lament on how much more I'd have got into and enjoyed the book if only it hadn't taken me months to get through it.

Rose Madder is a page-turner with a very real horror executed by a very real villain towards (as we can typically rely with King) well-realised characters. The supernatural element is a bit hit and miss, but not total horseshit. Overall, the book sits on my "good" pile.

I haven't got much else to say about the book. That's not really true. There's a lot more I could say, but it would just be arguing with other people's comments and reactions to the book. I'm not really interested in going down that road.

Saturday 12 January 2013

Rose Madder: 12th Jan 2013

Here we go.

Rose Madder

Insomnia: 23rd Oct 2012 - 12th Jan 2013

I'm an arsehole. Nothing you didn't already know, of course, but here's why this time. Two and a half months to read a 700+ page novel is fucking nuts.

I've been banging away at a few comics - finally finishing Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan, getting caught up with Joe Hill's tremendous Locke & Key, making some progress with Bill Willingham's Fables and making a start on Brian K. Vaughan's Y The Last Man - so there's the reason. It's not an excuse though, when I charged through the last couple of hundred pages of Insomnia lamenting not having kept up any sort of momentum.

For momentum would have made the book a lot better. I had a few moments of thinking "christ, this is dragging" and, while it didn't approach The Tommyknockers' level, it did a fair bit of limping.

More than anything, it just didn't grab me. I liked the characters of Ralph and Lois just fine, but the book just didn't thrill me. I'll admit the closing pages hit me, but you'd have to be hollowed out not to feel a bit of something at the closing events.
Check me out, writing spoiler free reactions.

Having read the bulk of the book in November, I'm struggling to say much more worth saying. I think I've promised myself I'll hammer the next book each time I've finished the last so I won't kid either of us this time.

Edit:
I've just read Laura's review on her blog, Devouring Texts, as I generally do once I've finished a King book and, while the points she made didn't make me buzz off the book, I will admit to being a sucker for references, links, nods and winks to others of his works. The Dark Tower isn't as dear to me (yet?) but the Derry refs did have me in nerd-glee.

Insomnia

Friday 11 January 2013

Proof of Life - 2012 non-King highlights

As last year drew to a close, plenty of people made "Best of" lists. I've done it in the past but won't this year.

When it comes to film and music, I just didn't see/listen to enough stuff to produce a meaningful list. It would just illustrate how closeted I've been and how narrow my tastes have become.
So, instead, here are a few of the things that have moved or thrilled me in 2012. Some of them may not have been released this year, but it's my list.


Skyfall
I’m not much of a Bond fan. I appreciate the kitsch of the Connery and Moore eras but I’m no die-hard. With Daniel Craig’s first two additions to the canon, I offhandedly judged it as a dying franchise that should probably be put out to pasture. Come Skyfall, I wasn’t overly excited. I ended up seeing it as there wasn’t much on at the cinema that week and I was swayed by the positive things I’d heard. Javier Bardem and Sam Mendes’ involvement gave me that final push.

As it turns out, I loved it. Absolutely loved everything about it. Well, apart from the shitty theme song.

Listener
The song Wooden Heart was the single most moving/affecting/perception-shifting piece of art I witnessed last year.

It’s not the most immediate and accessible style (I first came to an almost a cappella version of Wooden Heart that initially baffled me) but, hearing it in conjunction with the video, something clicked and it just floored me. The rest of the album, also called Wooden Heart, is just as good.




Joe Hill
Aside from the obvious motivation for recommending his works to me, my first introduction to Joe Hill was as the writer of the Locke and Key comic book series - http://www.idwpublishing.com/lockekey/

From there, I stumbled up his second novel, Horns, in my local library and now I’m programmed to devour anything he produces.

Both are fantastic. Joe is also seems a very nice guy. You can get to know him better on Twitter - @joe_hill, his website http://www.joehillfiction.com and his Tumblr – http://joehillsthrills.tumblr.com


Bob Mould on Letterman
I’ve been a fan of Bob’s since the Sugar days when, at the tender age of 14, I heard If I Can’t Change Your Mind from the album Copper Blue. This performance of The Descent from the album Silver Age on Letterman had my jaw on the floor. Describing things as ‘raw’ and ‘honest’ is unfathomably clichéd, but this is just that. The guy’s in his fifties too. I love him.
Oh, I also listened to the audiobook of him reading his autobiography -See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody - last year. I’d definitely recommend it for fans.