At long last. The tribute-read for my mother that this whole thing was originally planned around.
Couldn't help it. Those progressive rebuttals were like pie-aroma to a cartoon hobo.
Had to run down that rabbit hole to the end.
The Dead Zone (Movie) (1983)
Skeleton Crew (1985)
The Tommyknockers (1987)
Dolores Claiborne (1992)
Yeah, I added "Dead Zone" because it predicted Trump, and that makes it King's rebuttal-quel to Lovecraft's fascist leanings; and I went with the movie of "Dead Zone" to speed things up, and to not fuck up the final novel count.
I didn't count the animated Batman and Ghostbusters towards the novels either.
They're side-trips.
Before getting started on these, I read Ma's diaries.
"Dead Zone" "Talisman" "Skeleton Crew" "Eyes of the Dragon" and "IT" pop up.
She bailed on the diary before "Tommyknockers" could show up.
I'm glad I read them. They were really therapeutic.
Set me back a month on these, but worth it
The Dead Zone (Movie)
Quick summary: guy goes goes into a coma, comes back out of it with touch-telepathy precognition, sees a local politician in the future as president launching World War 3, ponders assassination.
Hi-jinks ensue!
This was the first of King's Castle Rock stories. The birth of his universe.
Sheriff Bannerman pops up again in "Cujo".
Tom Skerritt is Bannerman in DZ, Sandy Ward in "Cujo".
"Cujo" plays in the background in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife".
As mentioned, Ma re-read it in her diary, so that pushed me off the fence to include it.
I went with the movie for the above stated reasons, but screw rules, I'm gonna read the book for a future entry. I'm just skimming quickly over the movie to get this one done.
I've fooled around long enough.
Skeleton Crew
As I said here...
I've read "Skeleton Crew" but way back in high school.
I remembered a good majority of it, but some of the stories took me by amnesia surprise.
Well, I guess I'll tackle this one like the Poe, Machen, and Lovecraft books by ranking the stories, then going into finer detail.
-The Mist
-Word Processor of the Gods
-Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
-The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
-Gramma
-The Raft
-The Jaunt
-Beachworld
-The Reach
-The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands
-Survivor Type
-Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)
-Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)
-The Monkey
-Uncle Otto’s Truck
-The Reaper’s Image
-The Wedding Gig
-Here There Be Tygers
-For Owen
-Paranoid: A Chant
-Cain Rose Up
-Nona
I think "Monkey" on down were the "meh" to clunky ones.
Now, for observations on individual items.
"Gramma"
Told the plot and the family anecdote before here.
Castle Rock pops up so we're in King-world proper.
Hastur get's a name drop. One of Gramma's spells also contained "Yos-Sothoth" which was/is a bastardization of Yog-Sothoth. Probably George misremembering by one letter.
Yog is Cthulhu's daddy. So, while the story didn't directly reference Cthulhu, I was close.
Also!! A name drop to Buxton!!
At least the "Shawshank" one made it to the movie.
I re-watched the "Gramma" Twilight Zone on Youtube.
The expanded Lovecraft references, including Cthulhu, are in the episode, not the story or movie.
Harlan Ellison did the adaptation. I didn't hallucinate it.
I'll go into more detail in the review for the movie, "Mercy".
"Mercy" wasn't great, but I'm glad I saw it, and saw the Twilight Zone again for comparison.
"Nona"
"Nona" is a sorta-sequel to Lovecraft's "the rats in the walls".
I didn't care for either.
Happens in Castle Rock, and Ace Merrill and Vern Tessio from "Stand By Me" pop up.
Skip it. Ace is Ace, but Verne is made into an Ace toadie, and that'll shit all over "Stand By Me" for you. The story isn't good enough for that.
"Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)"
-and-
"Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)"
Okay! Very Hembock-ian, and now I know for sure I got a lot of Harry Hembock from subliminally absorbing King.
So!! I learned to write from King, and didn't know it.
I always wondered how the Hell I won that goddamned writing contest.
Now I know.
Meh, on both of those enjoyment wise.
But!! Fascinating as Hell to see I subliminally absorbed this stuff for my style.
If good Mike Meggison is as good as middling Stephen King, and critics say "King at his best" about this shit, then I really am pretty damned okay.
Oh!! Upon reflection, wacky, drunken, homicidal cartoon people?
He's inspired by Poe's weirdo ones like "King Pest" and "Angel of the Odd" and "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether".
Yeah!! Holy shit!! So Poe inspired King, and King inspired me!!
So Harry traces his lineage right back to the wacky Poes!
Wow! This quest keeps yielding treasures!
I'm even more encouraged to trudge onward!
“The Raft”
Was adapted pretty faithfully in "Creepshow 2".
My head-canon is the creature is a Shoggoth.
“Word Processor of the Gods”.
This one was a "Tales from The Darkside" with Bruce Davison (from "Lathe Of Heaven" the movie) as the guy.
Guy gets a magic word processor from his dead nephew.
Hi-jinks ensue.
"Survivor Type".
A corrupt drug-dealer doctor ends up on a tiny desert island, and has to eat himself.
The line "if you are what you eat, I haven't changed a bit!" is infamous.
Ma described this one to me, and we both had a laugh.
She didn't log that in the diary.
I read it in high school with the joy of recognition.
"The Mist"
I re-watched the movie before this, and the movie is a damned near perfect adaptation.
You aren't missing too much if you only see the movie.
Dunno why "Mist" isn't in the Darabont collection, actually.
Oh! Except! Fryeberg Fair gets a shout out!
And WJBQ and WBLM! I remember WJBQ!!
Shop-and-Save before it was Hannaford!
Project Arrowhead is referenced, and pops up again in "Tommyknockers".
Lovecraft comes up.
David says the spiders aren't immortal Lovecraftian horrors, but biological creatures with their own weaknesses.
Lovecraft's works exist as fiction, but also, the Miskatonic river exists, and Gramma's a Cthulhu worshipper, so Lovecraft's world exists at some level of reality as inspiration to the fiction.
Like Arthur Pym and Poe.
And Poe is a writer in Castle Rock in "Dead Zone".
“Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut”
A woman seemingly discovers wormholes through sorcerous act of will while going driving.
Castle Rock, Castle Lake, Derry, and Haven are mentioned.
Also, Route 202, and Fryeberg.
“Uncle Otto’s Truck”
A murder is avenged by a ghost-truck.
Shades of "Christine".
Fryeberg Fair got another mention!
“The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet”.
Two guys get sucked into each other's web of paranoid madness.
Hi-jinks ensue!
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" gets a shout-out.
All King anthologies are a mixed bag, but this had more good than clunky, and the good ones, like "The Mist" are all time greats.
It was a joy to revisit.
The Tommyknockers
Had never read "Tommyknockers" but Ma described it to me like "Dolores".
Her audio book reports were something.
Thorough doesn't begin to describe.
"The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act".
-Stephen King.
Gotta disagree.
His mental and physical state may not have been optimal, but I really enjoyed this one.
Artists are often their harshest critics. Boy, do I know that.
Anyhoo! Basic plot. The townsfolk of Haven Maine find a 3 million year old flying saucer that when dug up, starts mutating the town into aliens to replace its dead crew. On the way towards their transformation, they get brain-boosted, and start building gadgets that border on magic.
King-verse connections-
See the bits on "IT" below.
Johnny and Stilson from "Dead Zone" come up.
Project Arrowhead from "The Mist" and The Shop from "Firestarter" are mentioned.
The Shop facility is specifically a rebuilt version of the one from "Firestarter".
Direct reference there.
Lovecraft connections-
"Tommyknockers" is inspired by "The Colour Out Of Space".
The family in "Colour" are the Gardeners, and the protagonist of "Tommyknockers" is James Gardener.
There's brief mention of one of the characters having "weird dreams in alien colors" which is (to me) an obvious "Colour" Easter egg.
Between that, and James Gardner's name, that (IMHO) makes this a reboot-quel to "Colour".
Gardner mentally makes reference to "the lecture hall bore who talks about his expedition to Antarctica in 1937 with faded slides to prove it".
I took that to be a "Mountains of Madness" reference.
Really glad I built the foundation of this read-a-thon on the Pym sequels now.
The Miskatonic river from Lovecraft-verse passes through Derry in "IT".
Bits of "Tommyknockers" occur in Derry, and a character passing through Derry sees Pennywise, making this a beside-quel to "IT".
Other things that get a shout-out-
A beagle named Peter as an homage to the author Peter Beagle (The Last Unicorn).
Poe's "Telltale Heart" is mentioned.
Long side-ramble on nuclear power and nuclear war, and Maine Yankee power plant comes up.
Fryeberg Fair gets a mention!
And Old Orchard Beach!!
If you're a Mainer, and you've been to OOB, or Fryberg Fair, you're canon. 😉😏
A Humpty Dumpty chip bag is among litter that gets blown around.
The electronic portable game Merlin shows up.
The fictional planet Altair 4 from "Forbidden Planet" is mentioned, and used as a placeholder name for a real planet.
A teleportation portal like the ones in "Lovecraft Country" shows up, and may have inspired LC.
Feels like forever ago I read those now.
"Floating Dragon" by Peter Straub is mentioned.
"Watchers" by Dean Koontz is mentioned.
Overall-
To me at least, this thing is an unintentional metaphor for the fall of the boomers.
And it's exactly right that it should be written by cocaine-crash-out King.
The shitty miniseries kept me away from this for 30 years, and now I can see it was shit because they stripped it to its skeleton, and didn't spend enough money.
And had a hack director. Simple as that.
If they made it 10 episodes, and put "Welcome To Derry" money into it, and had a name director, it could be good. I wish they'd try again. And I'd totally be there for it if King attempted a sequel.
Perhaps it's best I waited. I think young-me would have liked the sci-fi of it all pretty well, but not liked it as well as "Talisman" and "IT"; but being 50, and looking back at the boomers, and how their political legacy has stacked up really makes it mean so much more.
Final summary; almost as good as "IT" and where it isn't as good, it still swings for the fences. King hates it cuz of his cocaine shame, but screw it. As a fan, I love it.
I did not expect to feel that way coming into it.
Dolores Claiborne
Damn, took me so long chewing through those other books, it's been two months short of a year since I bought it. Anyhoo!
Plot. A live-in maid, Dolores Claiborne, is accused of murdering her charge.
Her rollercoaster biography unfolds in her deposition tape.
In the intro stuff, we finally get a map of King-world!
The map relates to the foreword, so they kinda blend together.
"Dolores" happens on Little Tall Island.
Haven is right next to Bangor.
Derry is right next to Haven.
Castle Rock is way the Hell out by Mexico and Rumford!
I'd always imagined it next to Derry!
So Derry and Haven are the towns that are set up like I always imagined Castle Rock and Derry!
Way out by Franklin is Sharbot.
In 1963, a solar eclipse passed in a band from Sharbot to Little Tall.
It passed through Derry and Haven, and missed Castle Rock.
Narrator/King says a lot of people missed it because of clouds or fog.
It telepathically linked Dolores to Jessie from "Gerald's Game".
We didn't get another eclipse until 2016. Fitting year. The curse of Trump.
Vera, Dolores's employer, put the eclipse map from the beginning of the book up on her bulletin board. So, that canonizes the map, and thus all the King-verse towns into it right there.
Fuck every encyclopedia that doesn't take that into account.
Wiki doesn't mention it, and the goddamned King-wiki doesn't.
Failures.
Shawshank prison is mentioned in-story.
Derry is mentioned in the postscipt bits at the end.
Another encyclopedia failure.
Shop-N-Save gets another shout-out.
Dolores's speech patterns are more redneck-y than the movie.
They must have softened that not trusting non-Mainers to keep up.
That's the least of the movie's sins.
The emotional journey of the daughter, and the friendship between Dolores and Vera is explored with much more depth and tender sensitivity than the movie.
The movie was almost downright mean-spirited in comparison.
Imagine if the tender moments were ripped out of "Stand By Me" in favor of more scenes of Ace being shitty, and you'll get how I feel about it.
Not only do I like the book better, I think I might not even like the movie anymore.
I think this is a first. I've often liked a book better, but I've never in memory had a book sour me on the film.
The book crushes the movie.
As much as the "Tommyknockers" book crushes the miniseries.
At least I hated the "Tommyknockers" miniseries beforehand.
The book is so much better, it's hard to convey.
If the movie had been done right, it could have been one of the all time greats along with "Shawshank" "Green Mile" and "Stand By Me".
It's right and proper that the movie has kind of vanished down the memory hole in favor of the better ones like the ones mentioned.
I wish they would try again someday. Christ, they're remaking all the other ones. "Dolores" actually needs it.
Yeah, the more I think of it, I actively dislike that movie now.
I've got a grudge against it. And I'm kinda wary of Tony Gilroy.
The Tony Gilroy that made this film is an asshole and a hack.
I'd forgive him if he'd shown growth by apologizing, but he hasn't.
Everyone's sucking his dick for "Rogue One" and "Andor" so my opinion will never gain purchase.
I can look forward to being all alone on that. Yipee.
As for the political content; the main villain is Dolores's husband, Joe.
All the Epstein-Island fuckers are Joes with money.
And our president is a Joe.
Yep, our current times are a mashup of "Dolores" and "Dead Zone".
Ma loved the shit out of this book all right.
I get why now. It's her book.
Like "Ain't Exactly Clear" is mine.
Well, tossup between "Ain't Exactly Clear" and "The Dispossessed".
But yeah, it's like getting a fourth diary from her.
"Dolores" both breaks my heart, and is healing.
There's no one magical line or scene, it's the whole thing.
The whole thing is a freeing release.
Like Ma's diaries.
Love you, Ma.
Thank you, Stephen King.
So!! Now I can rank them up against the other rebuttal-quels!
And yes, they're all rebuttal-quels.
"Dead Zone" is anti-fascist. "Tommyknockers" references "Dead Zone".
"The Mist" is anti-military. "Tommyknockers" references Project Arrowhead from "The Mist".
"Tommyknockers" is anti-nuke. "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" is anti-nuke.
"Dolores" is feminist out the yin-yang.
Golden tier-
"Dolores Claiborne" "Vellitt Boe"
A Tier-
B tier-
All of "Lovecraft Country" "Black Tom" "Skeleton Crew"
Again, C tier is for ones that stink, but there is no C tier yet.
The clunkers dragged down "Skeleton Crew". If "The Mist " was its own book, it'd be A tier.
Aaaand, that's those!!
Next: A jury-rigged volume 2 of Lovecraft, and some bonus goodies.
No comments:
Post a Comment