Chilling

On This Day In History
1900: Italian American assassinates Italian king

Quote Of The Day
"It is nothing."
(Last words of King Umberto I)

Yesterday I spent a lot of time at home with my family and my book, making good use of the air conditioner as the temperature rose to 34 degrees with a feels like temperature of 36 degrees. Today the forecast high is 36 degrees, so goodness only knows what the feels like temperature will be. Looks like it will be me, the fam and The King again today.

I ummed and aahed a bit before reading this book because after purchasing it I read an interview with Stephen King in which he said he considers it the worst book he has ever written, being the last book he wrote before getting clean and sober. I have to say, I'm glad I finally took the plunge because I am enjoying it. However, I must say it is the worst Stephen King book I have read; thankfully, the worst of Stephen King is still better than anything many authors can create.

In many ways, The Tommyknockers echoes It, with it's multiple story arcs as a town implodes while a sinister unseen force drives the locals insane. At one point, the character Ev even starts hearing voices coming from the drain. The characters are well drawn, the horror is chilling, there are plenty of laugh out loud comic moments and a lot of suspense. Now that I am just over half way through the pace is really picking up and the book is hard to put down; I am really excited to find out how this megillah ends.

So why do I agree it is King's worst book? Three reasons, mainly. First is the author's obsession with alcohol. One of the main characters, Gardener, is alcoholic and Stephen King spends way too much time delving into his destructive behaviour. It's not interesting, it's not entertaining and it slows down the story. Second is the waffle. I just feel that King could have made this 900 plus page book shorter and tighter if he dispensed with many of his tangential asides. Too many times I feel like shouting, "Get on with it!!" Third is my main gripe; as Science Fiction, this book totally sucks (so far, at least.) Why would an alien space ship that crashed millions of years ago cause people to start inventing brilliant machines? Why would it make them acquire telepathic powers? Why would it make everybody's teeth fall out? What is causing people to act this way? Is it gas? Is it radiation? Is it electromagnetism? Why does the aliens' influence stop exactly at the town's borderline? And what kind of beings would travel around the galaxy in a craft that causes such havoc? Perhaps all this will be explained eventually, but I have a feeling it won't be. If this was a supernatural horror story it would be fine, but science fiction requires science and logical explanations. King has no background in science, and boy does it show.

Much the same story was told in a much more scientific way in 1967 - Exhibit A, m'lud. Was this really a Martian?

Quatermass And The Pit

UPDATE
A very good short documentary about Quatermass and the Pit by Music, Movies and Monsters. I can't find the film on YouTube so I'm going to try and buy the Blu-Ray/DVD; it looks incredible!