Let's Talk About 'The Shining!' - Part I: The Book

Recognizing that the world hardly requires yet another commentary on this particular modern horror classic book and it’s equally classic horror film adaptation, I am nevertheless throwing all to the wind and talking about both right here. Folks who know me well understand that I very much enjoy Stephen King’s books, and hardly anyone knows (until this moment) that I had somehow gone through roughly ten years of reading his works without ever having gotten around to The Shining. I have chosen here to… poke about at some things that I find interesting in both works rather than ‘review’ them in the proper sense.

Is it necessary to say ‘spoiler alert’ for two pieces of media more than thirty years old? Probably not, but I just did, so be warned.

First, the book: What struck me while reading this for the first time was the way it begins as a very human story, a trait King is extremely talented at portraying. For the first hundred pages or so, we’re just hanging out with the Torrance family, and while there are foreshadowing moments of uneasy things to come, for the most part we’re just getting to know Jack, Wendy, and Danny. They are far from a perfect family, largely due to Jack’s violent and drunken unpredictability, however at the time we meet him, there is the sense that he has turned a new leaf and seems to really be fighting to give up drinking for the first time in his life. Sure, there have been major wounds done to his family (largely swept under the rug, though tensely present in Wendy’s every thought), but all that unpleasantness is seemingly behind them and Jack wants to get back to being a good husband, loving father, and hard-working writer.

I describe this section of the book as being so ‘human’ because King is comfortable with just letting us hang out with these characters for a while and get to know them. We see hints of Jack’s temper (albeit only in his thoughts) during his meeting with the arrogant hotel manager Stuart Ullman, but outwardly Jack keeps his cool, indicating a conscious effort to change and better himself. Wendy is a sweet, mousy, rightfully protective mother rattled by the past sins of her husband, hoping beyond hope for Jack’s transformation to be permanent and true. Danny is brilliant for his age, and talented in a way even he doesn’t realize early on, and yet there are many scenes where he is still very much a curious, playful five year old. It is in these beginning pages that we really develop a fondness for this family unit, which makes circumstances all the more devastating when they are torn to pieces.

To paraphrase a comment from an interview I recently heard with Joe Hill: real horror isn’t scary until you care about the people having horrible things done to them. That formula proves to be quite true in The Shining.

Speaking of getting to know and love characters, the shnerky, jovial old Dick Hallorann is a delight, and shines (HEH-HEH) some comic relief and hopefulness into this heavy tale. He is immediately likable, easy to relate to, and becomes the kind of character you rather wish you knew in real life. He is Danny’s deepest and only trustworthy confidant (though they are also confidants, I’m throwing out Wendy here for her lack of understanding of her son’s power, and the imaginary Tony for his sinister intentions and lies). Dick Hallorann is the most sympathetic person in the entire story (by which I mean he shows the most sympathy and human warmth to others) and makes the hard choice to save the boy, even though he realizes it could very well be his own demise. But the bond Dick makes with Danny is strong, and deeper than friendship, though they have only spent brief moments together in person. Perhaps more than any other, you find yourself rooting for Dick to succeed in the end because his actions are so noble and selfless.

Alright, but enough about the characters, Gainesy. Isn’t this supposed to be a scary book?

Right you are, and the scares come aplenty, though in differing ways from the film (which I’ll get to shortly). Perhaps the most unsettling element in the book are the ghosts (or demons… or whatever they are) within the Overlook Hotel that whisper mad things with increasing frequency into Jack Torrance’s brain. He spends many hours in the cellar (seated next to the ancient, precarious boiler) reading mysterious scrapbooks containing news-clippings of horrible things that have happened at the hotel over the years, and it is in these solo escapades that his mind begins to unravel. Oh, sure, there’s the decomposing bathtub lady who strangles Danny, the two dead mafia men with their brains splattered across the walls of the Presidential Suite, and the thorny hedge animals in the courtyard who come to bloodthirsty life, but the deepest horror comes from Jack receiving demonic, violent thoughts towards his family. When he finally snaps and lets the hotel’s whispers overtake him completely, shit gets real.

One final element I realized is how a large portion of the book is Danny-centric, where is the film is very Jack-centric (with Wendy being the most minor character of the trio in both versions). So much of The Shining is sympathetic towards Danny’s honest fears and trying to understand why Mommy and Daddy aren’t getting along well. He is actually more brave in the face of dreadful visions that his shining talent presents to him than he is with the very common fears of a young child uncertain if their parents will stay together. Danny has sufficient psychic ability to peek into Wendy or Jack’s thoughts (as he reveals to Hallorann), and yet his pure sense of young morality keeps him from doing this too often as he worries he is intruding in an unfair way. This sort of depth is what makes Danny seem so genuine, and his thoughts are so true to his age. King has a theme in many books of being sympathetic towards children in terrible situations, and he interprets their thoughts in a way that feels very familiar and true.

So, to bring this back around, The Shining is (I feel) better described as a human story that happens to end in horror. It is, at it’s heart, the story of a family struggling to hold things together in the aftermath of violence, drunkenness, and pain. Ultimately, they end up in the worst place that a family in that position could have gone: stranded in a snowy prison inside a hotel with a dark history of causing people to go mad. It’s funny the way things in our culture become well-known for certain qualities, when often those qualities aren’t even the point. The Shining is arguably King’s best-known work, and a household name for the horror genre. But while it is scary, there is much, much more going on between these pages, elevating it (in my mind) to a great piece of literature that supersedes genre.

-D.G.

Doctor Sleep - Stephen King

Prior to this year, I had never read Stephen King’s iconic novel The Shining, despite being an avid fan of his work. Conveniently, I decided to read it immediately before King’s thirty-years-later sequel, Doctor Sleep, was released. It was an interesting, though not necessary, way to approach the latter. While Doctor Sleep does continue the story of Dan Torrance (the gifted five year old Danny of The Shining) and calls back to the original book in numerous ways, it could also be read as a stand-alone and be almost just as enjoyable. At this point in Stephen King’s lengthy career and devoted readership, if there is any individual who bought Doctor Sleep and hasn’tread it’s prequel, I would be rather surprised.

This book begins by exploring what Dan has been doing for the past thirty years, and what we see at first is a man not so different from his late father. Despite his firmest intentions to stay far from alcohol, Dan eventually succumbs to the same addiction that plagued Jack Torrance. Alcoholism and involvement in AA are heavily prevalent in this book, exploring an interesting theme that people tend to gravitate towards the same habits and struggles as their parents. Dan still has ability to use the shining, but it’s power has toned down significantly as he has grown older. He works as an orderly at a nursing home, and it is there that his nickname ‘Doctor Sleep’ is coined, for he has a special ability to ease the dying through a gentle passage into death.

Before long, The True Knot are introduced: an outwardly forgettable caravan of RV travelers who move together from place to place across America, led by a gangly power-bitch who calls herself Rose the Hat. The only catch: The True are not-quite-living, not-quite-dead, and they require feeding off of human souls to live (a diet that also keeps them looking young and fit). More is revealed about The Knot throughout the book, but I can say with confidence that they make as effective and sinister a band of villains as King has ever conceived. Needless to point out, The True and Dan Torrance cross paths in some interesting ways as the pages roll on.

Another element that stirs up the narrative even further is a young girl named Abra Stone who seems to have shining powers that would eclipse those of the younger Danny. Several states and a thousand miles away, Abra telepathically calls out to Dan (as an infant). Not long after, The True gets wind of this extremely powerful little girl, and that’s when things get really interesting.

King described Doctor Sleep in early promotional interviews as getting back to, “balls-to-the-wall horror,” and what a pleasant return it is. There are more than a handful of clever elements worked into the story, such as each of the members of The True Knot having a specific ‘power’ or talent that helps them succeed as a group. I got a pleasant sense of freshness and excited ideas, reminiscent of King’s earliest work. To avoid spoiling something wonderful, there is an ability introduced between Dan and Abra’s shining power that bears a distant resemblance to such heady concepts as Inception or The Matrix. While what is actually being done with this power would be rather difficult to describe clearly in most contexts, King, master that he is, introduces the reader and establishes the parameters of it with incredible clarity. That description probably sounds quite convoluted… Read it, and you’ll know precisely what I mean.

As a whole, Doctor Sleep is a book that opens with a bang; there are a number of great hooks on both the ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ sides, snagging one’s attention immediately for the first seventy-five pages or so. Likewise, it ends with an exciting, clever, rather curious sort of confrontation. However, the middle narrative tends to drag in places. While the cast of characters is colorful and enjoyable throughout the novel, I found something somewhat lacking in the actual action of the plot. Don’t misunderstand, I’m quite alright with a book taking it’s time and having a slow-build, and I could not even call the middle of Doctor Sleep slow. It simply has a bit of a misguided feel.

That said, I think King wrote the sequel to The Shining that felt right to him, and in that sense I believe that it is probably about the best that it could have been. Does it hold the same un-put-down-able quality of the original? Is it the best Stephen King book I’ve ever read? Not quite. But is it a good sequel that makes sense within the world of the first story? And is it a fun read? Absolutely, and I think in this case, that’s enough.

-D.G.

P.S. As has been King’s habit, especially in recent years, to include some reference or another to The Dark Tower universe, Doctor Sleep is no exception. There’s literally just one sentence (only one that I noticed, anyhow) that ties the book to that world, but for avid fans it will stick out like a sore thumb. 

20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill

I've been a fan of Joe Hill for two years or so, first stumbling upon his novel Horns, then reading everything else of his that I could get my hands on, including his graphic novels and stand-alone short stories for Kindle. Ghosts was his first widely-published book, and the only thing of his that I had not read, until now.

Best New Horror starts the collection off with a bang. A disgruntled, apathetic editor of a horror journal seeks out the secretive author of the most shocking story he has ever read (which reminds me a bit of Sutter Cane in the film In the Mouth of Madness). This story gives nods to Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, with an ending that is satisfyingly haunting.

Next is the titular story, 20th Century Ghosts, which was so unexpectedly beautiful that it nearly brought me to tears. It has hints of creepiness, but is really more a very sweet—and unique—love story, with an underlying thread of appreciation for classic cinema.

Pop Art: also lovely. It's about an inflatable boy, and it seems only Hill could write a story like that and play it straight. There is zero tongue-in-cheek or cuteness, and somehow, it works.

You Will Hear the Locust Sing pays direct homage to Kafka's The Metamorphosis (boy wakes up as a bug), but it is dark and sad and completely different. There are some gross-out moments, and it is far from a happy tale, but ultimately leaves you with a sense of wonder and stillness.

Better Than Home is a sweet, straight-forward story of a father and son with brokenness at its edges, and beauty at its center.

The Black Phone involves the sort of child-in-turmoil situation that Hill would later expand upon in NOS4A2. It's one of those where you keep going, 'oh god, please don't let such and such happen to the poor kid.' Some of it does, some of it doesn't. It has some chilling elements of the fantastic, and by the end, deserving parties get what's coming to them.

I had previously read The Cape in graphic novel form, though it differs quite a bit from this version. An interesting exploration of a flawed 'hero' becoming a villain because of troubling circumstances.

Last Breath, again, would have been right at home as a Twilight Zone script. Quick, creepy, original, great.

Dead-wood is one page, and in few words, presents some big ideas.

My Father's Mask is definitely the 'trippiest' of the bunch; both creepy and extremely bizarre. It is a tale that doesn't reveal all of its cards by the end, but the answers are there—I think—between the lines. Has a hint of Alice in Wonderland to it.

Voluntary Committal is the longest piece, close to a novella, and is parked appropriately at the end of the collection, because it's the best story in here. At the heart, it is a story of two brothers with a complicated relationship—one of whom has a mental disability that lends to some incredible, uncertain powers—but is wrapped in a cloudy blanket of imagination. I say cloudy because this story had wonderful, fascinating moments of childhood wonder, but also haunting, unhappy, otherworldly terror. The disabled brother has an almost savant-like knack for building breathtaking structures out of household items, such as Dixie cups, egg cartons, Legos, and ultimately cardboard boxes. Sometimes his structures create doors to other places, not all of them friendly.

 Those were the stories that stuck out most for me, although all of them were good. I couldn't help but notice how many of these stories had children as their main characters, and how much of this collection deals with the imagination of youth and young people experiencing wonderful (or terrifying) things. Hill seems to have an appreciation for the things that kids go through, impossible or ordinary, and an aptitude to write from their perspective. His characters are real, and often broken, and you feel sympathy for many of them. That's what makes the scary parts all the more scary, because you've grown to care about the people to whom the bad stuff is happening.

I knew I was in for a treat with 20th Century Ghosts, but what I got was a sometimes brilliant, frequently beautiful, horrifying collection of stories; I gobbled them down in rapid succession. Hill is a talented and diverse author, able to be deep and thoughtful, or campy and gross. He can write sweet things or horribly twisted ones, and all of it works in its right place. This is the first truly 5-star book I've read in 2014.

-D.G.

Just After Sunset: Stories - Stephen King

It's hard to review short stories, because to say almost anything about them will give too much away, but I'll do my best to give appropriate commentary.

This was, for the most part, great, and at times brilliant. King seems to be one of the only authors today, especially in his genre, who consistently releases short story collections, though not all of the tales in Just After Sunset are horror. King is just as masterful at the short-form stories as he is at the monstrous novels, and that's more impressive than a lot of people realize. The short story is a craft all its own, and not an easy thing to pull off well.

Here are the stories that stood out most to me:

Willa and The Things They Left Behind are both pleasant for their easy pace and sweet quality. They deal with impossible things, as so many of King's stories do, but at the center are characters experiencing something scary that turns wonderful. While his imagination is wild, King can blend fantastic, other-worldly elements with regular people going through regular things and make it all seem perfectly believable. These two are like that.

Two stories have to do with exercise, at least they begin that way. The Gingerbread Girl is a smart, suspenseful little story of a woman in trouble. It is scary because what happens to her is completely possible. Stationary Bike is a curious story of warning, and no matter what you think the title means or where the story might go, you probably won't guess it; it's too out there. This story in particular had a concept so creative, I kept thinking about it days after finishing the story.

Mute is, ironically, a story told mostly through dialogue. It unravels somewhat like a mystery, though it is not. The end is chilling and rather unexpected, though not entirely unpleasant, or unjustified.

The Cat from Hell is an 'old' story, written (I believe) in the 1980's and anthologized a number of times, though it had never appeared in a collection of King's until now. This is a 'bonus-track' of a story, as King calls it in the Author's Note, and is a quick little nugget of absurdity, fun, and gross-out. With a title like that, you can probably expect what to receive, but it's a good story all the same.

A Very Tight Place also ventures into gross-out territory, though in a much different context. The title is fitting, for the situation in which the character finds himself is one of those that keeps you holding your breath as you rush through the pages, longing for him to get out of it. Again, this one is scary because it could really happen (though for reasons I won't say; that would spoil it), and is the embodiment of a fear that probably many of us have felt. This is one of the longer stories in the collection, and while it wasn't my favorite, I still found myself unable to put it down until I knew what happened.

N., the most recent of the stories at the time of publication and first released for this collection, is pure brilliance, and a flawless example of what a tightly-crafted short story ought to look like. The premise is big enough that it could have been a full-length novel, yet King is able to express the vastness of the situation in sixty pages or so. It has a fantastic slow-build, gently revealing the terrifying truths at the story's center, and generally has a foreboding heaviness about it; a cloudy darkness between the lines. Without saying too much, it has to do with obsessive compulsive behavior, and ancient, angry gods in another universe only a thin sheet away from our own. It is a story that leaves one feeling haunted, and viewing the world differently after finishing it, and that's powerful. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Also, this story casts a shadow upon the world of Under the Dome (that's not a spoiler, merely another one of King's many 'easter eggs' within his own fictional universe).

Those were the finest stories per my preferences, although all of the pieces in the collection are good, and have their own merits. This is a great little collection, and could easily be read straight through, or popcorn the stories one by one at random; either way, you'll have fun, and a few scares.

-D.G.

One Shot: A Jack Reacher Novel - Lee Child

Find this book on Amazon.

This was fun, if a little silly. But then, I picked it up for easy entertainment, not literary prowess.

I had been reading The Sound and The Fury the week that my daughter was born, and quickly realized Faulkner is not a good author to read when one is going to be frequently interrupted, nor when one's capacity to think clearly is handicapped by lack of sleep. I needed something that was easy to pick up, put down, and come back to without losing track. I had been meaning to try a Jack Reacher novel for a while, even though mass-market political thrillers are rarely my taste. Turns out, it was just the right thing at the right time.

Since they made a film of One Shot (simply titled Jack Reacher, with Tom Cruise in the role—haven't seen this yet), I figured I was in for 400 pages of corny one-liners and some terrorist ass-kicking. I was right about the one-liners, and came to realize that these are hammy to a degree that I hope Lee Child is writing them tongue-in-cheek; I can't picture some of these lines being written with a straight face (even though Reacher delivers them with one). As for the terrorist ass-kicking, there wasn't a whole lot of that, actually. One Shot is more a detective story than it is a fast-paced thriller with explosions and knife fights, but a good detective story, nonetheless.

Reacher is an all-American male bro-vinist, and while he's a talented investigator, he is absurdly self-confident and smugly impressed with himself. A friend who has read all the Reacher novels pointed out that Jack Reacher is essentially invincible; he rarely gets injured, and almost always walks away from every fight without a scratch. This proved true in One Shot. Reacher also has that magical/impossible-in-real-life James Bond or Don Draper quality where gorgeous women just throw themselves at him. There were no explicit sex scenes, just eye-rolling sentences immediately beforehand to let you know, with one pun or another, that Reacher is about to get it on.

While there's not much depth to Reacher, you still can't help but kinda like the guy.

Again, I knew I wasn't picking up any great piece of literature, but for what this was, it was pretty good. Thriller fiction can be equated to action movies, at least in my mind: I know I'm not going to learn anything about life or beauty or art, but occasionally I just want to see some meatheads blowing stuff up. Most thrillers—again, like action films—can pretty much be boiled down to a basic formulaic plot, and yet One Shot still felt original, smart, tightly plotted, and had a few nice surprises that kept things interesting. By the end, all is wrapped up with a nice little bow, and Reacher rides off into the sunset to sniff out his next adventure.

Would I read another Reacher novel? Sure, maybe in a year or so. It went down like candy, and was just unabashedly fun, and I think there's a time and place for that. I can see how people really get addicted to these series' that one usually picks up on a whim at the airport before a long flight; they're quick and tight, you know what you're going to get, and if you liked it, there are probably about 87 other novels featuring the same main character.

That said, I wouldn't be caught dead with a James Patterson book in my hands.

-D.G.

Jim Henson: A Biography - Brian Jay Jones

My relationship with The Muppets has been, for much of my life, something like a genuine yet marginal appreciation. I grew up on films like Muppet Treasure Island and A Muppet Christmas Carol, renting these on VHS over and over with my sisters, or 'pirating' them by recording the films when they aired on the Disney Channel. I recall enjoying re-runs of the Muppet Babies cartoon as well.

More recently, I found the 2011 revamp film The Muppets to be surprisingly good; funny, fitting to the times, and extremely well-written, especially considering how poorly a revamp could have gone. It was the first Muppet-related thing I had watched in probably ten years or more.

It was not until the past year that a significant interest and rekindled passion for The Muppets grew from out of the most unlikely place: listening to The Nerdist podcast. The host, Chris Hardwick, is an avid fan of The Muppets. He has praised the Muppet crew multiple times, citing them as a huge inspiration to his own comedic upbringing. He even had Brian Henson on as a guest, as well as The Muppet performers themselves. I was intrigued by the way that Hardwick heralded them as such an icon of comedy in general; I had always viewed them as primarily a 'kids show.'

It was this interest that led me to Brian Jay Jones' recent biography of Jim Henson. My appreciation for The Muppets, as well as for Henson himself, has been transformed into full-blown fandom. At the time of writing this, I have revisited all three Muppet films that Jim had a direct hand in (The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan), re-watched Labyrinth, have gotten through much of the first season of The Muppet Show, and plan to get my hands on every bit of Henson material I can find.

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As this biography describes (and in great detail), Henson was one of the most innovative creative minds of the century. After hearing story after story of the ideas that Jim wanted to try out (probably less than half of which ever actually get made, primarily from lack of time or interest from investors), it is clear that he was almost too far ahead of his time for anyone else to understand his brilliance.

Initially, Henson had no particular interest in puppetry itself, but rather he was determined to work in television by any means possible. He had been fascinated with television from a very young age, and viewed TV not as a mindless entertainment device to be distracted by, but an incredible tool through which wonderful content and art could be made. Mind you, Henson was a kid in the 1950’s when home televisions had just come out—he was alive at the birth of the television show.

Jones’ biography begins with a slow start, going into (to be honest) way too much detail about the far, far reaching history of the Henson family; I didn’t need to know about Henson’s great-great grandfather in the Civil War. This section is mercifully short. One other mild criticism: the book suffers at times from being a little too overly-cloying and cutesy in places, and downright corny in others. This mainly has to do with Jones’ writing style, not with the content itself.

Once the narrative reaches Jim’s college years, things become much more interesting. What follows is a step-by-step history of Jim’s initial work in puppetry (like explosion-hardy commercials for Wilkins Coffee, and the Sam & Friends show), leading right into the progress of The Muppets as a company and a brand, including his befriending and hiring of a 19-year-old Frank Oz. He and Oz would remain friends and collaborators for the remainder of Jim’s life.

This chunk that makes up the bulk of the book is delightful and exciting, as Jones details precisely the facts and fun stories that a Henson fan would want to know. He recounts The Muppets’ short and rocky experience on Saturday Night Live, the development of The Muppet Show (and Jim’s fight to convince producers that his characters could hold their own on an all-Muppet show), and the production of each of the Muppet films, as well as Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal (plus a few other interesting projects that Jim was never able to complete).

Kermit is as much a central presence as Jim, despite the fact that he began life as a milky-blue lizard, not the bright green frog we know and love today. As Jim’s life went on, the more he and Kermit were inseparable entities in peoples’ minds.

The book winds down with Jim’s decision to begin the process of selling his characters to Disney; a deal Michael Eisner was thrilled with, although the legal battle regarding rights and ownership would continue until after Henson’s death.

The chapter detailing Henson’s death is absolutely heartbreaking, not only for the fact that his family (and the world) lost such a kind, wonderful man, but also because by this point in the book you can’t help but have fallen in love with Jim Henson. Although he was driven, demanding, and precise in his work, he was also endlessly patient, generous, and truly a lover of people. It is clear in his quotes throughout the book that his utmost desire was not only to entertain, but also to make people happy, and to make the world just a little bit better for everyone.

I would highly recommend this biography to any fan of Jim Henson, The Muppets, or even to any creative person interested in the life of a truly innovative person. In the end, Jim just loved to make good stuff, and I found his process and passion extremely inspiring.

-D.G.

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Tincture: An Apocalyptic Proposition, Book 2 - Matthew D. Jordan

The second installment in the Tincture trilogy has solidified this series for me as one of the best pieces of science fiction/fantasy/western I have ever encountered. The first book was strong in its own right (I reviewed it over here), but the sequel is masterful, and mind-bending.

Originally released as a free serial audiobook with new chapters releasing every two weeks—and read by the author, who does a fantastic job with the narration—Tincture is a complex story of characters trying to rebuild their lives in the midst of a world that has moved on. The landscape is all dust and decay, and the small towns scattered across The Barren (this being the desert-like nothingness that covers most of the earth) resemble shantytowns of the old west.

There is no shortage of mysteries in the world of Tincture; there are folks who walk The Scar with metal tanks attached to their backs with tubes, yet the purpose and origin of the tanks is unknown. The tinctures themselves are archaic and unpredictable mixtures of ferment made with skilled hands through a process of strange alchemy, and the results are only sometimes successful. Lastly, everyone's memory is slowly losing its hold, and no one can seem to recall what happened that left the world in its current state.

What makes Book 2 so compelling in particular is the complicated narrative that leaves you only a few breadcrumbs at a time, eventually coming together to give a satisfying full picture by the end. The chapters are well-paced, and often conclude with a cliffhanger just infuriating enough to leave you wanting for the next episode. Like Book 1, this story skips around multiple timelines, but characters' names also change from one point in time to the next, and there are hypnotic black portals in the ground that transport people and objects from one unknown to another.

The world of Tincture has an overhanging sense of never being quite safe, and the characters who let their guard down are the ones who get injured, or killed. The Templars—hammer-wielding, violent religious fanatics—return from Book 1 and play a larger role in this story. A new presence on the dusty land is an ambiguous organization called The Warrant; ambiguous because it is never quite clear whether they are police, a form of government, a corporation, or all three. One thing is clear: crossing paths with Warrant men is to be avoided. Lastly, rumors drift of one called The Lazaran, a mysterious leader with a cultish following. It is said he can walk on water, and was once raised from the dead…

The most compelling element by far, and perhaps the best character Jordan has yet crafted, is 'Devil' Dock Avery. A towering, well-dressed man with a precise vocabulary, Devil is one of those characters with whom one is instantly fascinated. He lures you in with his proper speech and kind manners, then scares the hell out of you with his twisted humor and massive, cannon-like revolvers. Every scene in which Devil appears is a horrifying kind of delight.

While Book 2 is a 'complete' story in its own right, there are still elements of the Tincture universe that have not yet been fully explained (and perhaps some of the mysteries will be left that way intentionally). Either way, I eagerly await Book 3, and would implore any with a taste for the fantastic and strange to dip into Tincture as soon as possible.

-D.G.

P.S. Book 1 is now available for Kindle (with Book 2 coming soon). Visit tincturestory.com to read the chapters online or download the podcast episodes, both for free.

Tincture: An Apocalyptic Proposition, Book 1 - Matthew D. Jordan

Originally posted on Wordpress July 2013.

Earlier this year, I was recommended a serial-novel released in the form of bi-monthly podcasts by my next-door neighbor. To release a book in this segmented-audio format seemed new and quite clever to me. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it first. Anyhow, that book was Tincture: An Apocalyptic Proposition, Book 1, and about two weeks after my friend’s recommendation, I had blown through all 19 chapters of the story. I listened to the roughly 30-minute episodes on my way to and from work, and the entire experience was riveting. I COULD. NOT. WAIT to get to each new chapter. Honest.

Tincture is (as presented by the title) a post-apocalyptic story, but to me it stood out above the over-done, same-old-zombie-story slew of post-apocalyptic material available today. There be no zombies here. Rather, one will find nomadic people with failing memories wandering a dusty landscape, a hermitic group of violent religious fanatics who paint all things white and wield hammers, a psychotic sheriff with an army and a town in his clutches, and mysterious little glass bottles of ferment known as tinctures. All of this takes place in a world ravaged by The Whatever during a time where time itself is evasive.

Explanation as to what the tinctures are is scarce and seemingly left intentionally ambiguous. The concoctions themselves are stewed and fermented with particular care by tincture artists, and the mixtures have varying properties, ingredients, and uses. The liquids are never given proper names, but are distinguished only by their colors and smells, and often the creator alone seems to know how to use each one properly.

The main drama of Book One involves the aforementioned psychotic sheriff (Aphulan, Sheriff of Allgood, being this fellow’s name) forcing a trio of weary travelers to fetch him a whole hell of a lot of one particular tincture ingredient. These unfortunate travelers, our heroes, are the quiet and reclusive Rhamuel, the hot-headed and talented Abranyah (also a tincture artist, mind you), and a portly fool of a chap named Marcus (with a few talents up his own sleeve) whom they pick up along the way. This journey across the wind- and dust-wrecked landscape is where the story really opens up to adventure… and a whole lot of crap going really badly for the lovable trio.

Tincture is a book with split timelines; the primary one focusing on the present in the unknown length of time after The Whatever shook the earth, but a secondary narrative pokes it’s head in every now and again to give the reader some hints into what our heroes may have been like in their previous lives. This adds a delightful element of mystery. There is a careful `slow-reveal’ going on as the story progresses. This is not a tale that tells all it’s secrets at once; alas, even by the end of Book One, there are some questions still unanswered, which makes one all the more hungry for the sequel.

Matthew Jordan’s writing is sharp, witty, and peppered with an old-world vocabulary that well compliments the overall feel of the world he has created. There is more than a little western-genre feel to Tincture, but it is western of a weary and broken sort with all the light-hearted silliness grinded out of it. Also, no horses (but there are a few clunker-vehicles still running around). Twisted into this are subtle tones of sci-fi and a dash of otherworldly horror. Somehow, Jordan has crafted what I consider a mostly dark and heavy story of an intensely dangerous world, and yet humor is present. There are moments that are downright funny, and this is a feat in a story of this sort.

Fans of Stephen King may find a little extra enjoyment here, as there are a number of… oh, `Easter Eggs‘ that loosely mention the Stephen King universe, though this is not fan-fiction nor meant to take place in any version of King’s world. That said, I believe fans of The Dark Tower series will absolutely love Tincture, as there is an element of similarity between the two works (though, again I reiterate, this is a stand-alone work worthy of consideration apart from all of that).

So basically? If you can appreciate westerns, sci-fi, gunfights, post-apocalyptic propositions of how the world might look, or just generally like really weird fiction, just buy this already. It blew me away on multiple levels, plus the chapters for Book Two are being released as we speak, and this is an author you will want to be able to say you were on the ground-floor with: because he’s going places.

-D.G.

P.S. Get Book 1 on Kindle here.

Sharp Teeth - Toby Barlow

Find this book on Amazon.

A novel written in prose regarding ages-old lycanthropes rallying packs to take control of Los Angeles probably belongs in a category by itself. It’s a crime thriller mixed with horror plus a dash of literary themes presented as poetry.

Toby Barlow’s werewolves are a slightly different spin on the typical folklore—one pretty much has to make it their own these days, what with all the werewolf/vampire/zombie chatter in the ethos. The creatures in Sharp Teeth are simply humans that can turn into vicious dogs anytime they please, requiring no full moon to make the change. Also, they are fully aware of their human minds in the dog state.

The story centers around the antagonist Lark, a hardline pack-leader who has lost much of his original team and is in the process of building another—larger—dog-army. Anthony is the ‘kind-of’ hero; a rather bumbling but sweet-hearted dogcatcher who begins to fall in love with a woman who just happens to be a she-wolf in Lark’s pack.

Side note: in the author’s universe, there can be only one she-wolf per pack. She is closely tied to the pack-leader, and is used primarily to ‘satisfy the urges’ of the pack. She is also a sort of keeper of the peace, ensuring the leader’s decisions are carried out by the lower ranks. At the point in the story that we meet the unnamed she-wolf in Lark’s pack, she is ready to get out from under his thumb and move on to a semi-regular life.

Another element in the story is Peabody, a worn-out detective who keeps noticing dogs at crime scenes, or dogs as part of the crime scenes. He investigates further and winds up in the center of an ugly underground world that he could not have imagined.

The author has accomplished a unique feat in boiling down the narrative to only the most necessary information. Despite having a low word-count and sentences throughout chopped to their simplest forms, Sharp Teeth feels rich with detail. There are countless (seriously, tons of them) small, quiet moments of profundity that resemble literary fiction far more than horror thriller; I underlined a number of lovely (or horrifying, or sad) passages for later reference. It was these tiny, beautiful observations that made the book more than the story as a whole.

To speak truth, I would have to applaud the author’s skill as a writer more-so than his ability to tell a great story; the plot is decent—drugs, guns, dogfights, cops—but nothing mind-blowingly original, and the ending is what one might expect. But the fact that Barlow chose to tell such a throat-ripping horror story in a poetry format is what makes it most interesting.

I can’t say that I loved this, but it was a unique experience with many memorable, poetic glimpses. Sharp Teeth was certainly worth a read, but (to flip an old adage) the smaller bits were worth more than the whole.

-D.G.

Dystopolis - Christopher J. Fraser

This book was recently published by a dear friend and a talented writer. Since writing is his livelihood, please consider supporting him by buying the book on Amazon in Print or for Kindle. Perhaps the praise below will convince you even further that this fantastic book is worthy of your time and money.

A book title such as Dystopolis insinuates immediately that at the periphery of the stories inside one will find a city where all is not well. While not all of the narratives are overtly dark in theme from start to finish, there is a deep heaviness hanging over the mood of the book; black clouds at the edges of everything that disappear if you try to look at them directly. Along that same theme—in  a literal sense—I  don’t think I visualized a single scene taking place during the day or in the sunlight; the world the author paints is all stale fluorescents in underground structures, stark neon against foggy streets, and wet alleyways in constant night (visualize Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner).

Dystopolis is not quite a novel, but is clearly more than just a collection of short stories. It could perhaps be described as a profile of a city told through it’s inhabitants, yet at the same time is a supremely original picture of a cold, calculated future.

The book operates on a slow-reveal, introducing the reader to veiled and minimalistic descriptions of how life operates within this world, then gradually pieces come together and earlier uncertainties are resolved. The answers are sometimes shocking, at other times chillingly ironic.

The individuals at the heart of each story range from stoic to despicable to pitiful, yet a common thread carries through all of them: in varying degrees, they are allgrasping for life. This is exemplified in different ways, and some characters are more directly self-aware than others, but there seems to be a theme among them of searching for purpose in the midst of a world they do not completely understand. Some seek intense personal comfort or pleasure, others are just trying to keep alive and fed for the next week, still others are merely hungry for real human connection. While this theme is not at the forefront, it rises to the surface the deeper you get into the book. Again and again, you find yourself recognizing pain in these people, and the way each addresses it is often not pretty.

Another ‘character’ of sorts (or at least a constant presence) is CAIN, the Central Artificial Intelligence Network. To go into detail here would spoil secrets better told by the book itself, but suffice it to say that the concept is one of the most uniquely blended interactions between man and machine that I have encountered in some time; it is one of those rare, excellent ideas that ‘changes everything’ about the way we think of humans going about their lives. There may be commentary going on questioning technology and the way man uses (and abuses) it, but if so it is subtle, not heralded loudly.

At first glance, Dystopolis could be pegged as science fiction regarding a jarred and wretched future. While that is part of it, I found the book to be more like a profile of human behavior and the universal search for meaning clothed in a futuristic environment. That may sound cliché or like a concept that has already been explored ad nauseam, but I found Dystopolis to be consistently unique, starkly honest, and relate-able in all the right ways. While the reality it creates is often unpleasant, it is true, and warrants self-reflection as to how the broken characters are maybe not so different from ourselves.

Things really hit their stride at a chapter called Dining Out; that story and two others were the infuriating sort of brilliant that makes one jealous they didn’t think of it first. There’s material here on par with the best of Philip K. Dick or William Gibson—that isn’t flattery, merely a truth. With Dystopolis, Fraser has imagined something that walks in with a sci-fi badge on, then sneaks up on you with a pitcher-full of vulnerable, tragic, real life.

 Again, here’s where you can buy the book: Print or Kindle

-D.G.

Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis

Re-posted from Tumblr, May 11, 2010

I just finished reading a novel called ‘Less Than Zero‘ by Bret Easton Ellis, author of Lunar Park and probably best known for American Psycho. I picked it up because it was recommended to me more than once on Amazon for people who also liked Chuck Palahniuk, my current favorite author (although he has let me down on the two most recent stories…more on that later). Less Than Zero was his debut book (and it’s not new btw, published 1985).

It follows a young man named Clay who is home in Los Angeles from college in another state, and the whole book takes place in the period of only 4 weeks. It moves from one scene to another with little connection, and is basically about Clay (who has an incredibly apathetic view on life) hanging with his group of filthy rich L.A. friends (who are all children of Hollywood producers, actors, directors, etc.), going from party to party, sleeping with each other (often homosexually), constantly drinking and buying drugs, and just living completely self-indulgently. Strangely, not all of these things, as graphic sounding as they are, are explicitly detailed, only suggested or alluded to.

It is narrated by Clay, who is constantly unsatisfied despite having basically everything he wants in life, and he often has strange little moments in his head (that the reader is let into) that border on psychotic obsession. He thinks much, but leads a very shallow life. It does move in a very stream-of-consciousness manner, each scene is just Clay suddenly ‘there,’ and he talks about what’s going on around him.

I kept waiting for the book to go somewhere specific or come to a conclusion for Clay (and it’s not very long, only about 230 pages). The end of the book has Clay in basically the exact same position, no real change or transition has taken place in him nor his surroundings, except that he has seen and experienced some really terrible things while at home, mostly because of spending time with his drug dealer, Rip. The writing is decent, and it does have a quality that reels you in and keeps you interested, although always with the hope that something crazy or exciting is coming, and it doesn’t.

I do not know what the author’s intent was in writing such a story (or how it became a national bestseller), whether to give a ‘snapshot’ or commentary on an exaggerated group of youth, or if there is some deeper message or wake-up call in the book’s edginess. Overall, it was worth a read, but I would not recommend it. Mostly because there’s a lot of inappropriate material to wade through that I’m not sure why anyone would write about so pointlessly, and ultimately, even for myself, I don’t think it was a ‘healthy’ book to read, content-wise. I like dark and I like satirical, but this one pushed the envelope in some disturbing ways.

-D.G.

Learning How To Die: The Wilco Biography - Greg Kot

Originally posted on Tumblr in June 2010.

I was already a big Wilco fan when I began this book; I am now a significantly larger Wilco fan, though this book goes through some swampy, personal territory that might push other fans away, or at least turn them off to the guys who make up the band. 

It begins with a brief history of Jeff’s childhood, then quickly moves onto his first major music pursuit, being a bass-player in Uncle Tupelo. Nearly half the book is about the progression and rise to fame of this punk-grown alternative-country band that unknowingly sprouted an entire generation of followers and imitators. They truly created a completely new sound, having been ‘raised’ on punk rock, but playing what was basically grungy-country, and rounding up a significant fan base in their town (Belleville, IL) and the surrounding larger cities with their energetic, drunken, noise-fest performances.

It then moves on to Jeff Tweedy’s growing tension and eventual falling out with Jay Farrar, Uncle Tupelo’s lead man. After being kicked out of Uncle Tupelo with no warning, being told second hand by his manager that Jay wanted him out, Tweedy started Wilco only weeks later with a few musicians he had worked with previously.

The book then moves systematically through each album, how and where each was recorded, some of the quirky methods and ideas that went into each one, the ever-changing lineup of players in Wilco, Reprise/Warner Bros. Records cutting them from the roster, and Jeff Tweedy’s thoughts and emotional battles through all of this. The book concludes at the point in the band's history right after 2004’s A Ghost is Born is finished being recorded.

Greg Kot is a good writer, especially for this genre and even this band. He is an award-winning music critic for the Chicago Tribune, and at first the book’s name-dropping, references, and comparisons get a little tiresome, like he’s trying to make a really killer, audaciously-worded review into a 240 page book. But then… you kinda start to realize that he’s exactly right! His references are smart, accurate, and sometimes obscure, and his ability to put musical moments and sounds into words are impressive. He also paints well the conversations and confrontations between band members throughout (and there are a lot of them). 

Ultimately, for some people, if you like something, it can be best to not find out about what goes on behind-the-scenes. This is somewhat the case for this book, partly because Jeff Tweedy is such an anti-hero of a person, and somewhat of a 'tortured artist.' I don't care for that term, but read it and see how true it is about him. The book often mentions Jeff's depression, migraines, intense anxiety-attacks, and overall self-destructive personality. He even comes across as kind of a douchebag at times. But you can’t help but love him, his passion, his creativity, and the unwillingness he has to comprise his art. If you love Wilco enough to want to know intimate and intricate details about them as people and musicians, then this is indeed the book for you.

-D.G.

The Dead Zone - Stephen King

That glorious time came once again a couple weeks ago: the time to pick up another Stephen King book. I’ve been reading King since age sixteen, when I picked up (for some reason) a monstrous cigarette-smelling volume from the library calledInsomnia. I’ve been hooked ever since, and have largely hopped around King’s catalog chronologically, reading both his newest and earliest works, as well as those 80’s and 90’s oddities in-between that the hardcore fans say aren’t any good—I don’t agree, for the most part.

I intend to read each and every King work eventually, but this time around, I felt like tackling a ‘classic,’ and chose The Dead Zone. I have vague memories of the 1983 David Cronenberg film starring a young (but still old-looking) Christopher Walken. I think it was edited for television, but I still remember being terrified as a little boy at the idea of a man sitting in a bathtub, impaling himself in the eyeball with open scissors as a form of suicide. My memory of the scene is probably more gruesome than the real thing could possibly have been on TV. Also, no such thing occurs in the book. But now I look forward to revisiting the film as an adult and with the book fresh in my head.

The story is that of Johnny Smith (yep, John Smith, who mentions the comic irony of his own name), a young man with the pseudo-psychic ability to see secret or future things about others when he touches them. It is suggested that this power came as a result of two major head traumas Johnny experienced; one as a child in an ice-skating accident, the other as a twenty-something in a head-on car collision. Following the crash, Johnny goes into a nearly five year coma, from which the doctors never expected him to awake. He does, obviously (that’s not a spoiler), and is devastated to find that the world has moved along five years without him, and that his sweetheart at the time of the injury is married with a child.

What follows are a series of episodes in which Johnny is able to use his psychic abilities, either intentionally for the sake of helping someone, or accidentally, often leading to haunting discoveries. The ‘Dead Zone’ refers to the blanked-out areas in Johnny’s mind during his visions where he cannot fully see the future in detail; he receives flashes of things that may happen, but cannot always discern every element.

The book is oddly paced, and that’s not to say necessarily bad, but I think it could have done with a more cut-throat editor, despite its already short length. I felt that there were about thirty or forty pages that could have been cut, primarily towards the beginning regarding Johnny’s slow recovery and physical training after having been in a coma. These portions were well-written, but tended to drag, and only one scene in particular lent much relevance to the story as a whole.

That said, there are some very interesting moments that follow, once Johnny’s power is fully realized. There is a mystery of sorts as he assists the police in chasing after a ‘un-catchable’ rapist and strangler of women. This plotline is resolved with roughly one-third of the novel still to go, which involves Johnny stumbling upon a horrific vision of a possible future at the hands of a wicked, yet well-loved, politician on his way to the presidential seat.

As with nearly all of King’s works, there was a human element blended into the supernatural that kept me coming back; Johnny’s power is more-so a curse than a gift, and he struggles to understand why it has been entrusted to him, and for what purpose. Other authors might focus only on the power and forget that it’s a real person burdened by them, and I think it is this quality, among others, that has made King many a devoted reader. Johnny was not an amazingly original character, but he had his moments of reality, weakness, or humor that made him enjoyable enough. Also, the concept of the dead zone is an interesting one, and leads to some exciting circumstances.

This is not King’s best book, though it is far from his worst one (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is. There, I said it). I mentioned above that it felt somewhat oddly-paced, and I can’t quite pinpoint just what felt off-kilter about it compared to his other books? There is the fact that the primary villain is a politician, which makes for some rather bland political talk at times. The book also jumps focus a bit, causing one to think that the big climax of the book will be Johnny catching a murderer-rapist, but that element kinda comes and goes. Maybe other folks won’t feel any disconnect in the pace of the narrative. And for some reason, The Dead Zone continues to be listed up there with King’s earliest and best, right along withThe Shining and The Stand.

None of this is to say that I didn’t have fun with it, and I do think it’s worth a read. However, from a 2014 perspective, it feels to me a little bit like a young writer at the absolute TOP of the publishing world in 1979—also entering the heaviest of his drinking days—getting overly excited and knocking out an initially great idea without necessarily polishing all of the edges. But who am I to criticize one of the modern masters? I’m a young writer, and if I were in his position at that age with five blockbuster books behind me, maybe I would have knocked one out prematurely too.

-D.G.

Travels with Charley: In Search of America

While I loved every page of this, I now find it hard to articulate just what about it was so special. Travels with Charley is John Steinbeck’s personal account of his meandering three-month journey across the United States with his French poodle, Charley, in a custom-made trailer-truck (named Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s steed). The year was 1960 and Steinbeck was fifty-eight: bored, itching for travel, and feeling out of touch with his country and it’s people.

The charm of the story is not so much where John goes geographically, but his observations and honest thoughts in-between the destinations, as well as the colorful conversations he has with eccentric folks along the way. The book does conjure up—and satisfy—that deep-down longing in so many of us to just uproot for a while and wander around without any plans; I found myself frequently admiring Steinbeck’s sense of adventure and willingness to explore with no boundaries or plans. This is even an element mentioned by the people he encounters early on; when folks hear what John is up to, everyone wishes they too could go along with him on this no-rules roadtrip. Granted, Steinbeck had the luxury of being able to uproot a little easier than most of us, having his ‘retired’ freedom and—presumably—the healthy budget of an author with many bestsellers under his belt.

The commentary throughout the book is endlessly funny; Steinbeck is constantly belittling himself and poking fun at his own mannerisms. He has the ability to be frankly honest about the absurdities of life and make them sound profound at the same time. He articulates the flaws and inconsistencies in the people he interacts with, and yet his depiction of them is one of fondness, not of criticism, seeming to recognize that he, too, is just another strange person in a world of strange people. His descriptions of Charley are also hilarious, especially for dog owners.

Steinbeck puts off an aura of old-world bad-assery and manhood that has very little to do with being chauvinistic. It’s more of a ‘stuff needs done so I’m gonna take care of it’ attitude; that working-class resolve that a man is made to toil with his hands and sweat for his bread. There is a scene in Travels where, before he leaves home, Steinbeck has to wrestle his wayward ship back to the pier during a treacherous storm (perhaps the scene is exaggerated to sound more heroic, but… let’s be honest. Wrestling a ship to shore is still more than most of us have even gotten close to). He also has a hearty view towards being generous with his liquors and hospitable to all who will settle into his company for a spell.

A number of times throughout the book, Steinbeck mentions being cynical of (and somewhat disgusted with) the way society has felt the need to sanitize and vacuum-seal so much of our existence. He talks about encountering food across the country that has been pre-packaged in cellophane and diners that once cooked their own food now serve re-heated frozen goods. He questions the over-use of paper/plastic/cardboard-packaged-everything, and makes a comment about how one day the mountains of our discarded packaging will be greater than anything they ever contained. Remember, this was the sixties, and Steinbeck was already uncomfortable with how wasteful and excessive our country was becoming. Imagine how horrified he might be by where we are today.

There are so many beautiful quotes throughout Travels that I found myself underlining passages on nearly every page. Steinbeck was a writer through and through, keenly observant of his surroundings and starkly aware of himself and others. He was clearly a lover of people, and seems fascinated by all varieties of personality, even of those who do not necessarily treat him with kindness. Somehow, he is able to craft his thoughts and observations in such a way that does not seem arrogant or self-serving, but more like he is putting to paper what so many of us are already thinking but don’t know how to say. The book is equally sad, lovely, funny, and brutally honest, often questioning whether we as humans are too proud in our ways, and that maybe we’re not so clever as we might think.

The story closes with a weary man who is quite ready to be home. He describes losing the fervor for his trip seemingly all at once and out of nowhere; his sense of adventure instantly drained and replaced with an urgency to just get back to home and familiarity. While it is not quite a sad ending, it is very much a human one, and an emotion with which we can probably all relate.

I would implore any creative person—Steinbeck fan or not—to gobble up this little volume. Bask in the quiet brilliance of this great author’s observations, for there is beauty to be found on nearly every page, and perhaps you will find out just a bit more about yourself.

I’ll close with this quote from the man himself, “Who has not known a journey to be over and dead before the traveler returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in space and time have ceased.”

-D.G.