Lee Hunts

I just finished reading Rage, by Richard Bachman. This is an early novel by Stephen King, and it is undoubtedly one of his more controversial novels, even for King himself, as he has allowed it to fall out of print. According to wikipedia, five incidents involving students going to school with guns have been inspired by this book. People were not killed in every incident, but in some they were. The book was written in 1977, and the inspired shootings and attempts didn't start to happen until a decade later. All the same, there were five. As you can guess, the book is about Charlie Decker, a High School student who takes his class hostage with a gun, after killing his teacher. The novel explores his daddy issues, his problems with authority, and the general issues that teenagers face regarding sexuality in that time. Controversy On its face, the book comes off as remarkably poor taste to the average person (I guess?). I can only guess, because my second (unpublished) novel was also ...

In the A Song of Ice and Fire series, Tyrion is given a thought experiment by Varys, one of the more mysterious characters in the story. Here is the quote: “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?" After Varys leaves, it is immediately suspected that the rich man would be obeyed by Shae, which says something. But Tyrion comes away with a somewhat more nuanced view, saying that it cannot really be answered directly, at least not yet, because there is not enough information, which implies an answer of its own. “All depends on the man with the sword.” But Varys has his own response to that: “[Y]et...

I just finished reading King of Thorns, which is the second entry in The Broken Empire trilogy by Mark Lawrence. This book follows up on the first entry, continuing the plot lines with interesting point of view shifts that relate to how the original story was told. I will be spoiling the first entry of this series throughout, so click away if you want to avoid that. We last saw Jorg, the main protagonist, manage to capture the castle of Count Renar, with Jorg proclaiming himself King of the lands of Renar. There are two following plotlines, where we see what is more-or-less the immediate aftermath of Jorg's rise to power, and then see Jorg's place four years down the line. The back of the book fills in some of the details. Jorg is now surrounded by a multi-nation army, and they are almost certain to lose. Jorg is now forced to surrender or sacrifice many as he faces down the enemy in a live or die situation. Also, "Jorg," as I say, is actually pronounced as it is spel...

I just finished reading The Stand, by Stephen King (finally). I split this one up into chunks, due to the length of the novel, and only read a third at a time. I reviewed the first third, giving it a glowing review (indeed, it is the only 10/10 I have given up to this point). I didn't get around to reviewing the second part when I finished it, but now that I have finished the whole novel, I will now give a review of the latter two parts. The Stand is a massive novel, the longest that I have ever read, almost 500,000 words, and in its pages, it recounts a pandemic that wipes out the entire population of the world save for a small segment. And in the aftermath, the survivors in America split into two budding civilizations, one built under Mother Abigail, and the other built by the Dark Man, Randall Flagg. The first third deals with the pandemic and the collapse of civilization. The second third deals with the struggles of establishing a civilization as it follows Mother Abigail's...

I just finished the first third of The Stand, by Stephen King. I chose to read this book in thirds, breaking up the reading with other novels, so this post will cover only parts that I have read. I will post reviews of the second and third chunks of the novel later on. The Stand is about a pandemic, where 99 percent of the population is decimated by a bioweapon accidentally released onto the population, but with a creepy wizard named Randall Flagg spliced in, as he takes advantage of the aftermath. This is widely considered to be one of King's best novels, the book coming in near the beginning of his career. (As a slight aside, I am reading the uncut version released a decade later). Overall, I really enjoyed the first third of the book. This is actually something that I have read before. My first time I read through, the first third of the novel was amazing, but I DNFed the book due to distractions. My reading this time around, older and honestly much wiser, I can say that the fir...

I just finished reading Pet Sematary, one of Stephen King's most widely praised novels, one which he, himself, thought he had taken it too far. This is a horror novel about a doctor who, with his wife and kids, moves to a home in Maine with a heavily trafficked highway just without their front door. The highway is notorious for killing pets, leading to the creation of the Pet Sematary, where children would bury their pets once they've turned into roadkill. But there is something deeper to this cemetery, something darker than you can imagine. What ensues is a disturbing, slow-burn story where you track the lives of this newly moved-in family. Overall, my reaction to this story is actually kind of mixed. The premise of the story is amazing, and most everything leading up to the end was great, but I thought the ending did not quite work, both coming off as low-brow and too sudden. Strides (Spoilers) Behind the Pet Sematary is an ancient Native American site called the Micmac buryi...