Review - Firestarter

I really liked Firestarter. It's not a plot I've read Stephen King doing before (yet, anyway), although I suppose there's shades of Carrie. It's more science fiction/thriller than horror, definitely.

It's much denser than the books I've been reading lately by King -- Cell and From A Buick 8. More description, more stopping and starting, a longer time frame. It worked, for me, I got caught up in the story, I didn't want to put the book down, I got close to the characters and worried about them. Or steadily got to loathe them more, in the case of John Rainbird.

I liked Andy a lot. I liked the fact that he was trying so hard to save Charlie, but he was just an ordinary guy, and I liked that he didn't lie to his kid. I also liked that he couldn't just use his powers however he wanted, that there was a price both for him and for the people he tried it on, that things could go wrong.

Charlie herself is a sympathetic figure, too. I don't think I really got as close to her as I did to Andy, because she's a little scary, too. Her powers are, after all, barely held back a lot of the time. Her conflict about using them was well-written, though.

Worth reading, if you like Stephen King's writing and you don't mind looking outside the horror genre. Maybe not quite as fast-paced as some of his others, but it also doesn't do too much in the way of slow build-up -- the minute you meet the main characters, they're already on the run. The flashback technique is unsubtle, but hey, it works.

Review - The Green Mile

A long time ago, I watched about half of the film, The Green Mile. I think my mum has the DVD, I'll have to get it out when I'm home at Easter, because I've read that the movie was pretty faithful to the book, and I want to see that. I actually read the book, all of it, today, putting it down now and again to eat, wash my hair and do some school work. Very reluctantly, I'll have you know.

I didn't actually cry at it, but I came pretty close. Ouch. Particularly this part, for me:

"He kill them with they love," John said. "They love for each other. You see how it was?"
I nodded, incapable of speech.
He smiled. The tears were flowing again, but he smiled. "That's how it is every day," he said, "all over the worl'." Then he lay down and turned his face to the wall.

The Green Mile is really quick to read, but I wouldn't call it easy. The characters are well-written. In fact, Percy, who is one of the most awful characters, is one of the best, because you can imagine him, right down to not wetting the sponge. You've probably known someone a bit like him, a bully, someone who never understands why people think he did something wrong. The other characters were pretty well-written, but Percy was probably the most memorable for me (just like you probably remember the bully from school, but you don't remember the quiet girl who sat in the corner and followed the rules).

Definitely worth reading. It's not horror, by a long shot, and I don't know why people dismiss Stephen King as "just a horror writer", or "not a writer", when he writes stuff like this.