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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Los cuatro cuentos tienen su encanto, pero no terminan de cuajar para mi gusto. Los primeros dos no están mal, los segundos dos son olvidables.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Langoliers 3/5
Secret window secret garden 3/5
Library policeman 4/5
Sun dog 2.5/5
Secret window secret garden 3/5
Library policeman 4/5
Sun dog 2.5/5
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Mostly a miss for me, if it hadn't been for The Library Policeman, I wouldn't have liked this collection much at all. Secret Window, Secret Garden is good, unfortunately I saw the movie version before I read the novella and the adaptation follows the novella closely enough that there were no surprises. The Langoliers was a complete miss for me and The Sun Dog was alright. At least in the middle part of his career, SK has a thing for baddogs. Back to The Library Policeman, definitely was the highlight of this collection, as I knew nothing about it. Creepy little story all around, with a pretty great villain, some nice depth to it and a nice little romance to top the whole thing off. Generally when I love a story by SK, all of those things are boxes that he checks and when he checks them, well, there's no one better.
Overall Rating - 4.5 Stars
The Langoliers: 4 Stars
Secret Window, Secret Garden: 4.5 Stars
The Library Policeman: 4.5 Stars
The Sun Dog: 4.75 Stars
The Langoliers: 4 Stars
Secret Window, Secret Garden: 4.5 Stars
The Library Policeman: 4.5 Stars
The Sun Dog: 4.75 Stars
Absolutely brilliant! Secret window, secret garden was hands down my favourite short story I have ever read!!! Loved it!
Woof. This slog of a collection is bottom-of-the-barrel King. He's always been long-winded, and these four tales are especially bloated; they all come off like over-long short stories, rather than slim and focused novels. Even the hits feel like minor B-sides, and the misses are awful. Running them down:
- The Langoliers: This is a sci-fi short story dressed up unconvincingly as a horror novella. There's a spark of inspiration in the central concept here--the passage of time leaves behind empty versions of our universe, and what if you were to somehow hop into one of those parallel universes just before it collapsed into nothingness? But the cast of characters is twice what it should be, the adult female characters are pretty awful, and the choice to stage this as horror forces King to create a monster where none needs to exist, and the resultant baddie is laughably dumb. I didn't love "The Mist" either, but it runs rings around this too-similar tale. 2.5 stars.
-Secret Window, Secret Garden: A moderately suspenseful story, enlivened by a few tense sequences, but bogged down by unnecessary bulk. It lumbers towards an obvious conclusion that's somewhat inexplicably presented as if it's a brilliant feat of misdirection. I tend to prefer King when he minimizes his supernatural elements, as he does here, so I'm inclined to choose this as my favorite of the bunch. But it's still pretty weak tea. 3 stars.
-The Library Policeman: Boy, I hated this novella. It's got a ridiculously dopey premise ("Remember how scary the librarian seemed as a kid? What if it's because she's a MONSTER!!!"). It's got a truly terrible female supporting character (She can't be innocent AND sexy AND a noble sufferer AND a font of wisdom AND a portrait of a recovering alcoholic AND a damsel in distress. Or rather, she could be, if you wanted her to be more than the love interest of a standard King "everyman" protagonist, but it's Stephen King in 1990, so...). It's got one of those grandiose Lovecraftian finales that some people really seem to like, but always leave me cold (How many villains have to be weird alien bugs in disguise?). And then it has the gall to try to up the stakes in this insipid story by introducing a frankly irresponsible trauma narrative, including a graphic first-person depiction ofthe rape of a child. Bad enough to make me angry. 1 star.
-The Sun Dog: Basically fine. It's definitely overlong, including plenty of unnecessary detail about how old-timey cameras work, in case that's what you're into. And the central conceit is simple and silly enough that it feels more like a RL Stine hook than anything else. But we've got a well-sketched (human) antagonist, and it feels slightly LESS bloated than the rest of the collection. No great shakes, but there's not a lot wrong with it either. 2.5 stars.
Averages out to the low side of 2.5 stars, and I'm rounding down. There's just nothing here to make it worth slogging though the nearly 800 pages this monster takes up. Do yourself a favor and skip it.
- The Langoliers: This is a sci-fi short story dressed up unconvincingly as a horror novella. There's a spark of inspiration in the central concept here--the passage of time leaves behind empty versions of our universe, and what if you were to somehow hop into one of those parallel universes just before it collapsed into nothingness? But the cast of characters is twice what it should be, the adult female characters are pretty awful, and the choice to stage this as horror forces King to create a monster where none needs to exist, and the resultant baddie is laughably dumb. I didn't love "The Mist" either, but it runs rings around this too-similar tale. 2.5 stars.
-Secret Window, Secret Garden: A moderately suspenseful story, enlivened by a few tense sequences, but bogged down by unnecessary bulk. It lumbers towards an obvious conclusion that's somewhat inexplicably presented as if it's a brilliant feat of misdirection. I tend to prefer King when he minimizes his supernatural elements, as he does here, so I'm inclined to choose this as my favorite of the bunch. But it's still pretty weak tea. 3 stars.
-The Library Policeman: Boy, I hated this novella. It's got a ridiculously dopey premise ("Remember how scary the librarian seemed as a kid? What if it's because she's a MONSTER!!!"). It's got a truly terrible female supporting character (She can't be innocent AND sexy AND a noble sufferer AND a font of wisdom AND a portrait of a recovering alcoholic AND a damsel in distress. Or rather, she could be, if you wanted her to be more than the love interest of a standard King "everyman" protagonist, but it's Stephen King in 1990, so...). It's got one of those grandiose Lovecraftian finales that some people really seem to like, but always leave me cold (How many villains have to be weird alien bugs in disguise?). And then it has the gall to try to up the stakes in this insipid story by introducing a frankly irresponsible trauma narrative, including a graphic first-person depiction of
-The Sun Dog: Basically fine. It's definitely overlong, including plenty of unnecessary detail about how old-timey cameras work, in case that's what you're into. And the central conceit is simple and silly enough that it feels more like a RL Stine hook than anything else. But we've got a well-sketched (human) antagonist, and it feels slightly LESS bloated than the rest of the collection. No great shakes, but there's not a lot wrong with it either. 2.5 stars.
Averages out to the low side of 2.5 stars, and I'm rounding down. There's just nothing here to make it worth slogging though the nearly 800 pages this monster takes up. Do yourself a favor and skip it.
fun fact: I initially gave this three stars prematurely, after I read "The Langoliers," because I liked it so much I figured it would make up for any potential shortcomings in the other stories. then I got to the graphic child rape scene and immediately got rid of the book without finishing it! what the fuck!