Pet Sematary :: Countdown to Halloween 2013

Pet Sematary. Another Stephen King classic which I have yet to read, but have very vivid memories of.

You see, contrary to whatever you may have read on the bathroom wall, I am not generally a fan of horror. I don't think I have ever seen a Freddy movie, nor have I seen more than one Jason flick. I don't like gore at all and have avoided everything from the Saw movies to all but  the first Scream movie (and I only saw that because of my then crush on Drew Barrymore and she died right away!) I like psychological horror like The Exorcist and Psycho, and smart takes on old cliches like A Cabin in the Woods, and I love The Walking Dead in both comic book and television form, and of course I am a fan of Stephen King, but I generally avoid the genre as a matter of course, and did even moreso when I was a kid. I'm an enigma, I know.

My older sister, however, could not get enough of this stuff! She read King voraciously, as well as any and every other scary or horror or true crime book she could find. She would also watch all the slasher flicks she could get her eyeballs in front of. Fortunately for her there was plenty of both back in the eighties - and often (quality of interpretation of source material notwithstanding) they would both have the name Stephen King attached to them.

So I don't remember if it was the book or the movie poster I first saw, but I remember my sister explaining to me that the word 'Sematary' was misspelled because it was written by kids who didn't know any better, and that the book involved their dead pets, and that those pets may very well come back to life, but EEVILLLL!

Being a sensitive pet loving horror non-fan then as much as now, I have successfully avoided the book and the movie for about thirty years. But when I found a pile of old Stephen King hardcovers at a flea market for a buck each recently I couldn't walk away from any of them, and this one was one of them.

I want to read it, I really do, but part of me still has reservations.

11/22/63 :: Countdown to Halloween 2013

11/22/63 is another Stephen King book that isn't what you would generally expect from the shock master. As the book's title and cover attest, this novel is about the assassination of President Kennedy. The twist is that this novel is a 'time travel' story; the protagonist's goal being to stop the assassination from ever happening. A simple synopsis, there is of course ,much more to it than that, and plenty of twists that are indeed worthy of the name Stephen King being printed on the cover.

11/22/63 is excellent read and one of my all time Stephen King favorites. But of course I am a big fan of the concept of time travel and multiple universes (hence my enjoyment of the Dark Tower series).

I actually read this one last year, having borrowed it from the local library. I picked up this hardcover copy to give to my sister (the previously alluded to horror fan) as a birthday present.

Eyes of the Dragon :: Countdown to Halloween 2013

I have yet to read this one, but I look forward to getting into it soon (once I finally finish the Dark Tower Book 8, which I have decided to just get from the library after all.) Written for his then 13 year old daughter, The Eyes of the Dragon was first published in 1987. More of a fairy tale than a horror story (at least as far as I understand, having not yet read it) I believe the story does have some connection to the world of The Dark Tower.

I think I paid three bucks for this at the goodwill, because it's a hardcover.

That's all I have to say about the book, since I haven't read it, except maybe 'Yay dragons!' because dragons are pretty nifty.

Cycle of the Werewolf :: Countdown to Halloween 2013

Last year during Countdown to Halloween 2012 I was able to present the Stephen King/Bernie Wrightson Creepshow graphic novel. This year I present another King/Wrightson collaboration: Cycle of the Werewolf:

Cycle of the Werewolf is a short novella with a handful of amazing illustrations. Originally published in 1983, this Signet copy was printed in 1985. And even though it is a larger sized trade paperback, it is indeed a paperback, so Goodwill only charged me a dollar for it.

One of these pictures alone is worth that dollar! And there are twelve full color illustrations, not to mention the black and white ones that bumper each 'month' or chapter.

Cycle of the Werewolf is a quick but wonderfully Halloweeny fun read. Taking place over the course of a year, it chronicles one werewolf's attacks on a small town each time the full moon appears. And the illustrations by Bernie Wrightson are absolute eye candy! I have no idea if it is still in print, but if you can find it, I recommend it!

Insomnia :: Countdown to Halloween 2013

One of the things I loved most about Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is how it referenced so much of his other works. In some cases, not only are works or places or creatures referenced, but entire characters from earlier works pop up to help or hinder Roland Deschain and his band of misfits on their journey to The Dark Tower. I've read a lot of Stephen King's work, so I picked up many of the nods to other works, worlds and weirdos. Still, the man has written A LOT, and there are tons of books I have not read, and I am sure there were many more references that I missed

One book that gets a direct mention (as well as supplying a very important character) in The Dark Tower Book VII is Insomnia. Insomnia is a book I have not read, so I thought it somewhat cosmic when at right around the time I was reading of it's mention, I spotted a hardcover copy for sale at the local downtown library.

I barely gave it a glance at first - I had my toddler with me at the time, and Insomnia in hardcover is the size of a toddler- so I left it on the shelf intending to return and purchase it once we finished strolling around downtown and I was on my way back to my car.

On our way back, we missed the library's closing time by about five minutes. Oh well, I have a lot of books at home. I would find it again eventually.

Upon returning home, I mentioned to my wife how I had barely missed out on the book. She said she had seen the book at the library herself a few days earlier, but assumed I had already read it. She was heading back to town in a couple days and would look to see if it was still there for me.

Well it was. She paid the whopping one dollar asking price and returned home with it. Being distracted with other reading and parenting and work etc, it was a week or so later before I even picked the book up from the kitchen table where she had set it.

I flipped open to the title page and was greeted with a different kind of shock than I usually associate with Stephen King:

Yup, that's a  legitimate signature! Sure, I have no way of proving it's real - it matches King's signature, and it isn't printed on the page mechanically (there's even the ghost of the signature pressed into the following page from hand pressure, and a little ink seepage too) and I have no reason to believe someone in a single shot signed King's signature so accurately only to later donate the book to the library so they could sell it for a dollar!

But yes, I wasn't there when Mr. King signed it, so one can choose to be as cynical as one wishes to be.

As for me, I believe it is real, and for a buck that's good enough for me! I also check inside second-hand books more often now.

Here's the man himself on the back cover, right before he signed my book.

My Journey to the Dark Tower :: Countdown to Halloween 2013

I made myself a fun little challenge a few months ago: To read the entire Stephen King Dark Tower series back to back from beginning to end. To add to the challenge, I gave myself one rule: that I get every book from Goodwill or garage sales or other second hand outlets (no library, I wanted to own the books, and no full price 'new' bookstore purchases either.)

I added the 'second-hand' caveat because Stephen King books are all over the place at the Goodwill and garage sales and flea markets, and they can cost upwords of three whole dollars for a hardback at Goodwill - cheaper still for paperbacks - even the large trade paperbacks are only a buck at goodwill, and of course books can be even cheaper still at garage sales.

I love King's work and have gotten tons of it this way, and I kept stumbling onto his Dark Tower books, a series which I had never read. When I found the first of the series: The Gunslinger in trade paperback form with all the neat illustrations in it I thought to myself it was a good time as any to start! So I began to snatch the rest of the series up whenever one came into sight.

It wasn't easy, I did not find them in order or find them all at the same locations, and I began reading the series before I even had them all! But I feel like I accomplished most of what I set out to do, and got a wonderful reading and thrift-hunting experience out of it to boot! 

I especially like how the variations in book types came together - some large, some pocketbook size, some with illustrations, some without, some thrashed, some pristine. This picture isn't all of them, but it is all of what I had at the time I took the picture (I have since given them all to my sister who intends on reading the whole series too!)

Okay, so I kind of cheated - the copy of Book 5 I had was missing a page (Aaargh, I hate that shit! Throw it away if it's missing pages, don't donate it, you idiot!) so I borrowed another copy from the library just until I got through that missing part, and although I finished the whole series through book 7 a couple weeks ago I have yet to find a second-hand copy of Book 8: The Wind Through the Keyhole. That being the case, I have read a couple books that are not the Dark Tower series since finishing Book 7 ( a book on Superman's history, King's 'On Writing,' and a Sci-Fi short story story anthology by Arthur C Clarke. Plus lots of comic books. I read a lot!)

In my defense I have also began reading King's 2003 updated version of The Gunslinger (which I also got from the library) to see what King added to those original stories which he first wrote in the late sixties and early seventies to better jibe with The Dark Tower - my copy of The Gunslinger being the original version - and it is my understanding that Book 8 is sort of a look back at some of the characters in their youths; so technically I started at the beginning (The Gunslinger) and finished at the ending (The Dark Tower) non-stop back-to-back and uninterrupted by any other non-Dark Tower books in between.

And while I have every intention of reading Book 8 as soon as I stumble onto it, I am ok with throwing in a few other reads in the interim. Honestly, I needed the break. Reading the whole series from chronological beginning to end was pretty emotional - I grew to love the characters and spent so much time with them in my thoughts, and as anyone who knows how the series ends...well let's just say I needed a break.

I am also very glad I was able to read the whole series non-stop. I can't imagine how painful it must have been for people to read to the end of any one of these books and have to wait years to find out what happened next! I'm also very glad King survived his auto accident of 1999 (I say thankya), because had this Magnum Opus gone unfinished the world of fiction would have been left with a terrible void.

Now I know The Dark Tower isn't the most Halloween-y of King's work, but King himself is Halloween-y enough to warrant this post. And fret not, I have more from the Master of the Macabre for future posts as the Countdown to Halloween 2013 continues. Stay tuned...if you dare!

Creepshow 'Illustrated Fiction' :: Countdown to Halloween 2012

That's right, when this thing came out in 1982 the term 'Graphic Novel' wasn't as commonly used as it is today. But that's basically what it is. A movie adaptation graphic novel, no less!

Based on...well, you can read it all there on the cover there. Which, when my wife first saw it declared 'I think the creepiest thing on that cover is that kid. He's a little too into that comic book!'

True.

I found this at a garage sale recently and paid all of fifty cents for it. I've yet to read it but I am sure I will enjoy it. I love Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson is of course a comic book legend.

I did like the Creepshow movies as a kid (part 2 more than Part 1,) but haven't seen them in decades.

But glancing at these illustrations, a lot of the memories of these stories in their film form came rushing back to me. This is going to make for a fun midnight read!

AAAHHH! Jeezus, Steve, don't scare me like that!

Oh, and do you see, up at the top right of the back cover: 'Illustrated Fiction.'

And at $6.95, this was a pretty pricey...ahem...comic book...in 1982!