The Book Report
By A.Bae Hel
11/22/63
By Stephen King
In 1979 I lived in Dallas and worked downtown a Baylor. I had interviewed at Parkland, well known for its trauma care, but chose Baylor for its nice safe position in high-risk maternity. I would drive down through the wide street of Daley Plaza fairly frequently never failing to look up at the window of the brick building on the corner. Even for a Canadian in a strange land the mythos of the building claimed attention.
Stephen King has never been one of my go to authors, but there has been a great deal of hype about this book. Sometimes I ignore hype, sometimes I fall for it.
I suspect this novel is written in usual King style. I seemed to scream American genre to me. It isn’t a deep storey, but it is woven around the event many of its readers will remember. Then it incorporates the thought experiment – If you could go back in time and kill Lee Harvey Oswald before he killed Kennedy, would you do it? The premise is that the Kennedy assassination was a pivotal moment in history and the trajectory from that bullet has had far reaching consequences. Change that and it would change all of America, and by extension, all of the world.
Like all King books it is long. I have often thought he could do with an editor who tells him to cut with a bit more ruthlessness, and there were moments where I almost tossed it into the Unable To Finish pile, but like King, I persevered and got to the end. I am glad, because the post script, which I normally never read, was well worth it to hear his comments.
Was Oswald a pasty like he claimed? Did the shot come from the grassy knoll? Was the Badge Man a real figure or just photographic distortion? I have no clue and this book will not resolve those questions if you are prone to wondering about them. It is an easy read, I suspect, but I listened to the audio version. It provides and interesting perspective on time travel and the consequences of messing around with the past, and because I am a fan of time travel stories, I was willing to finish this one.
If Stephen King is one of your favourites you might enjoy this. No horror, just regular people just trying to live their lives in a racist time. And yeah, Dallas was still racist in 1979. I give it 3-4 stars.
The Bedlam Bride
By Matt Dinniman
Many reviewers say this is the best one yet in the Dungeon Crawler series. I would be in that camp, although there are currently book 7 and 8 yet to be read, so…
Each book has me astounded at the imagination needed to create not only a truly f*cked up (can I say that in the Grapevine?) basic scenario, but such previously unimagined monsters, aliens, gods and random NPCs. I think Carl might have the “outline of a plan” on how to burn it all down, and I trust Carl’s outline of a plan more than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Carl has the necessary rage and genius to circumvent the AI and the sponsors. I think one of the best things I like about this series is that the main character intent on bringing down the overlords is not a teenager. Nothing against teenagers, but in order to bring about the kind of revenge and destruction needed to bring it all down, you need a full developed frontal lobe. Katniss may have had the rage, but it needed Haymitch Abernath to bring the plan together. Carl brings people together. He reminds them that they are human, and they are stronger together than when the game pits them against each other. I am continually reminded how a small group of determined rebels can bring down a giant. Playing now on cable for your entertainment.
Still a 5 star and still audio excellence way into the night.
