Riding With The King: Just After Sunset (2008)

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A few weeks back, I was trying to think of some Stephen King books to listen while driving out to Ohio to hang out with my friends from home for a weekend. Last year, I was elated with my choices of Joyland and Revival (a book I STILL think of several times a week) and hoped to have an equally great experience this time around.

After kicking around a few ideas, I settled on getting Desperation and Regulators because I read that they play well off of each other. Unfortunately, between then and leaving on the trip, we got two feet of snow and the requests didn’t come in. So, I went to the actual library and grabbed a pair of his short story books in audiobook form: Just After Sunset and The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams. Continue reading Riding With The King: Just After Sunset (2008)

Riding With The King: The Stand (1978)

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the-stand-stephen-king-2 You’ve seen my write a million times that I’m a slow reader. Sometimes a book will grab me, though, and I roll right through it, no matter the length. That’s the experience I had reading Stephen King’s Under The Dome and even the much shorter Dolores Claiborne, but nowhere near what happened with The Stand.

Looking back, it took me a while to get through Gerald’s Game and then I started reading this one BACK IN MAY. Sure, it’s an exceptionally long book — up there with Dome as the longest I’ve ever read — but I kept finding myself distracted by comics, TV, movies and a few other books like Clive Barker’s Inhuman Condition and Jason Zinoman’s Shock Value. Continue reading Riding With The King: The Stand (1978)

Halloween Scene: Tales From The Darkside

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tales-from-the-darkside-the-movieEarly this month I worked on a list for CBR that might eventually get published about the best classic horror movies to stream on Netflix and Amazon Prime. That lead to me watching Tales From The Darkside: The Movie for the first time and I think it’s up there with Body Bags as one of my all-time favorite horror anthology films!

That got me thinking about the George A. Romero-produced TV series than ran for four seasons from 1984-1988. Basically, a new take on the Twilight Zone/EC Comics, these half hour episodes offer a variety modern horrors many of which (at least in the first two discs) revolve around then-new technology like word processors, answering machines and multiple phone lines. Continue reading Halloween Scene: Tales From The Darkside

Riding With The King: Film Edition!

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maximum-overdriveAs I mentioned in my Stranger Things-inspired post, I’ve been watching a lot of horror films lately. And you can’t have a mention of that Netflix series without thinking of Mr. Stephen King, now can you? Well, I read and listened to a crazy number of his novels earlier this year (and am still sloooooowly working my way through The Stand) but I’ve also watched a few of the films he’s worked on.

While flipping through movie options on TWC On Demand I saw Maximum Overdrive as an option and immediately turned the film on. Usually, I spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about my choices, but this was nearly instantaneous. Continue reading Riding With The King: Film Edition!

Riding With The King: Gerald’s Game (1992)

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gerald's gameWhile reading the intro to my copy of Dolores Claiborne, I saw that Gerald’s Game acts as a kind of companion novel. So, being a bit of a completest and possibly a crazy person, I picked up a copy along with Bag Of Bones and Green Mile on eBay.

I’ve got to say, compared to all of the Stephen King books I’ve listened to or read since getting on this kick starting with Joyland, Game proved to be the hardest one to get through. I might not have been the biggest fan of The Gunslinger, but at 250-ish pages, I was still able to knock it out pretty quickly. The same could not be said for Gerald’s Game, but I was very happy I stuck with it. Continue reading Riding With The King: Gerald’s Game (1992)

Riding With The King: Dolores Claiborne (1992)

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dolores claiborneRight after not being super into The Gunslinger, I dove into Dolores Claiborne and basically tore through it as quickly as I could. I wasn’t sure if that would be the case when I read a little bit about the book and realized there were exactly no page or chapter breaks because it’s one woman’s account of the tragedies and triumphs of her life. Continue reading Riding With The King: Dolores Claiborne (1992)

Riding With The King: The Dark Tower – The Gunslinger

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dark tower my coverI am on a crazy reading kick these days. I don’t think I’ve finished this many novels in such a short period of time since college. The main difference? This time they’re all books I want to read. They also all happen to be written by Mr. Stephen King.

As anyone paying attention to UM will notice, I listened to Joyland and Revival which launched me into reading Mr. Mercedes (mostly on my phone, but I also got a hard copy from the library). After that, I was curious enough to jump into a realm I have very little experience and interest in: fantasy. Yup, I read The Gunslinger.

Going in I knew just a few things about this book. First, it’s the beginning of an epic series King wrote over decades that brings in various characters and ideas from his other books. Second, my buddy Sean didn’t like how it ended. And third, Marvel made a bunch of comics based on the main character, Roland the Gunslinger. It’s about the last Gunslinger chasing the mysterious and supernatural Man in Black across a big desert and presumably someone wants to get to this tower. Continue reading Riding With The King: The Dark Tower – The Gunslinger