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3.35 AVERAGE
3.35 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Definitely on the lower end of quality from this author.
I'm a fan of Stephen King as previously mentioned and I'm particularly a fan of his short stories (his occasionally erratic hit rate matters less when you're only reading something a few dozen pages long). I love the format of this book - a minute hardcover with an old fashioned painted cover.
The main story is told in that great sitting round the fire spinning a yarn fashion that worked so well in Dolores Claiborne. It's a nice little tale and well told but not being American and not understanding anything about baseball it's rather lost on me.
The 'chilling short story' backing up the piece is brief and interesting but none too deep. Nasty in that way King can be.
Overall, worth getting if you're a fan ok his books but I'm not sure why he didn't just save these for his next short story collection.
The main story is told in that great sitting round the fire spinning a yarn fashion that worked so well in Dolores Claiborne. It's a nice little tale and well told but not being American and not understanding anything about baseball it's rather lost on me.
The 'chilling short story' backing up the piece is brief and interesting but none too deep. Nasty in that way King can be.
Overall, worth getting if you're a fan ok his books but I'm not sure why he didn't just save these for his next short story collection.
This book was very slow for me. A lot of sports talk until the last 20 pages, even then, it wasn’t much of a story.
Stephen King writes a spooky, creepy story about baseball with a monster you never saw coming.
Blockade Billy is a slim hardcover containing two novellas, the title story plus another called Morality. The whole thing was a quick read, so from that perspective you could call it light reading, although the subject matter is definitely lacking in rainbows and kitties.
The first story, Blockade Billy, is (obviously, based on the cover) a baseball story. Not being much of a baseball fan, I didn't expect to like it -- but I did. The story is told in the first person by an old man who once coached a not-very-good major league baseball team. As the man tells the story to his listener, Mr. King (!), we enter the world of 1950s-era baseball. A young catcher joins the team to fill in for an injured player, and surprises everyone by being a fantastic player, even though he seems a little off in the head. After a glorious start to the season, Billy's achievements and the team's winning streak were struck from the record books. Why? Read the story to find out!
In Morality, we meet Chad and Nora, a couple in their 30s with mounting bills and little chance of paying them. When the elderly stroke patient in Nora's care makes her an offer to earn a big pile of cash, the couple faces a moral dilemma. Shades of Indecent Proposal? Kind of. It's disturbing to find out what the old man wants, and to see how and why Chad and Nora agree to his plan, as well as how they deal with the aftermath.
I ended up enjoying both stories, probably Morality more than Blockade Billy. Is enjoying even the appropriate word? Probably not, as both stories are disturbing. What’s great (again, not really the appropriate word) about both is that they’re not horror stories. The bad things that happen are driven by human nature, desires, and impulses. It’s people doing evil, not evil beings inflicting pain on ordinary people. There’s something sad and fascinating about watching the drama unfold in both of these stories -- and of course, Stephen King is the master of keeping the reader guessing as a story builds. We may not have all the details until the end, but we're hooked from start to finish.
If you're a King fan and you haven't read Blockade Billy, pick up a copy when you're looking for a bite-sized book to pass the time with.
Note: As I finished writing this post, I found out that both of these stories are included in Stephen King's new book of short stories, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, published in November 2015. And while I'm not usually a short story reader, I'm thinking I might need to make an exception for this collection.
The first story, Blockade Billy, is (obviously, based on the cover) a baseball story. Not being much of a baseball fan, I didn't expect to like it -- but I did. The story is told in the first person by an old man who once coached a not-very-good major league baseball team. As the man tells the story to his listener, Mr. King (!), we enter the world of 1950s-era baseball. A young catcher joins the team to fill in for an injured player, and surprises everyone by being a fantastic player, even though he seems a little off in the head. After a glorious start to the season, Billy's achievements and the team's winning streak were struck from the record books. Why? Read the story to find out!
In Morality, we meet Chad and Nora, a couple in their 30s with mounting bills and little chance of paying them. When the elderly stroke patient in Nora's care makes her an offer to earn a big pile of cash, the couple faces a moral dilemma. Shades of Indecent Proposal? Kind of. It's disturbing to find out what the old man wants, and to see how and why Chad and Nora agree to his plan, as well as how they deal with the aftermath.
I ended up enjoying both stories, probably Morality more than Blockade Billy. Is enjoying even the appropriate word? Probably not, as both stories are disturbing. What’s great (again, not really the appropriate word) about both is that they’re not horror stories. The bad things that happen are driven by human nature, desires, and impulses. It’s people doing evil, not evil beings inflicting pain on ordinary people. There’s something sad and fascinating about watching the drama unfold in both of these stories -- and of course, Stephen King is the master of keeping the reader guessing as a story builds. We may not have all the details until the end, but we're hooked from start to finish.
If you're a King fan and you haven't read Blockade Billy, pick up a copy when you're looking for a bite-sized book to pass the time with.
Note: As I finished writing this post, I found out that both of these stories are included in Stephen King's new book of short stories, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, published in November 2015. And while I'm not usually a short story reader, I'm thinking I might need to make an exception for this collection.
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I'm glad I listened to this book instead of reading it for myself because I think the narrator's voice did an excellent job bringing me into this book. I was totally engaged, as if I was sitting at a bar listening to some old timer tell a story from his glory days. The story itself isn't my favorite subject, in fact, I have managed to avoid most books about sports up to this point! But being that this is King and I want to "read them all", I gave this one my ears. I'm glad I did!