This post was originally published on Tor.com. I’ve always thought cats are the perfect companion for the bookish. You never have to put down your book to take a cat for a walk. Instead, our feline friends will curl up on our laps while we dive into our latest fantasy obsessions, as though they’re tiny,…
Last week, my wife and I stood on the side of a four-lane suburban road, holding a bundle of balloons for our nephew’s first birthday party. We watched our faithful Hyundai Accent—Dante, we called him—as his tarnished form was hauled onto the tow truck. We were seriously rear-ended minutes before, and everyone involved was fine.…
This article originally appeared on Tor.com. Places have power. In science fiction and fantasy, they have actual, magical power more often than not. SFF settings are often big by necessity. Locales need to hold entire casts of characters, sweeping civilizations, the flora and fauna flourishing in myriad biomes. Most settings function as they’re meant to,…
Continue reading ➞ Five SFF Settings That Feel Like Characters
It’s been a while since my last outing into the Stephen King universe. This October, I read Misery alongside a friend to entrench myself in spooky season. King didn’t disappoint, laying out a personal and harrowing tale of a writer trapped by his number one fan. Misery isn’t a beast of a novel—my copy clocked…
Stephen King walks the fine line between reality and the supernatural in The Green Mile. He’s no stranger to the liminal space that hovers on the borders of our world and the unknown. I’ve read better King, and I’ve read worse King, but The Green Mile emotionally walloped me in a way few of the…
Looking back on my childhood summers feels like gazing through a thin, glistening veil. The sheen washes away the less desirable moments--scrapes, tears, time-outs--and shows me an idyllic scene that, in retrospect, probably contains a portion of truth and a smidgen of selective memory. Step through the veil, and some of the negatives cascade into…
How does one review a book that everyone knows about already (oops)? The Shining is so pervasive that you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of it. Cultural osmosis makes that a near certainty. Tack on the fact that most readers have settled firmly on one side of the Stephen King fence.…
Stephen King’s Pet Sematary plunges readers into a deep well of terror that provides a steady supply of eerie atmosphere, horrifying happenings, and a look into their effect on human relationships. The novel wrestles with death, grief, and human nature, bleeding dark themes onto every page. Pet Sematary transformed me from a hesitant first-time King…
...and the punchline is an 850-ish word essay about his inaugural experience with The King of Horror, which Google tells me is one of Stephen King’s nicknames. It’s admittedly difficult to kick off a piece like this knowing full well that Stephen King has a body of work large enough to be called a pantheon…
Continue reading ➞ A First-Time Stephen King Reader Walks into a Pet Sematary…
