Kristopher Kelly's Blog, page 10
March 31, 2012
Review: Creepshow
Creepshow by Berni Wrightson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Just doing a little weekend comics reading … saw this on the shelf, felt like reading it again. Glad I did.
I've adored this book since I was a kid; decades later, it still brings a twisted smile to my face. I used to compulsively read the EC Comics that served as inspiration for this collection, and, while I love those too, I think King's stories surpass the source material. I've read this comic collection more than I've seen the film version, and I think I prefer the book for whatever reason.
Standout lines for me: "It's Father's Day, and I want my cake!"; "I want to measure the bite marks."; "I'll shoot you dead!"
Also, kudos to the concept of a man listening to a television preacher talk about salvation while his own personal doom approaches. Very slick. And I like the monster in the crate as example of a man's id, restrained, then broken free, then suppressed. King's symbolism there is top notch.
A few problems: in "The Crate," I don't find the initial reactions to the monster at all believable. When you see a man pulled into a crate, I'm pretty sure I would at least open the lid and try to pull the guy out. And then I WOULD get the police. Or someone. RIGHT AWAY. And I would not leave the scene. That was all a bit clumsy, but overall still a great story.
Another problem I noticed this time around is that some of the really revelatory panels are not very well-placed in the book. Too easy to see the surprise event coming.
Of course, I know these stories so well it doesn't really matter to me, but for the first-time reader, I imagine it wouldn't be so great to see a panel of someone blowing their brains out before it was obvious that was going to happen.
But anyway, I'm being picky. Overall this collection is diabolical, memorable, campy fun.
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March 19, 2012
Factual Errors Have Been Found in Your Online Dating Profile
The good news is the photo really does you justice. It accurately represents your default smile. Your other features are likewise not distorted. Kudos.
The bad news is we have taken a closer look at some of the specific claims you've made in this profile, and we feel it only fair to point out a few concerns w/r/t their validity.
The claims:
"I have a great sense of humor and love to laugh."
If this statement is true, it is not borne out by your Netflix viewing history. Over the past 90 days, you have viewed only two comedies, both of which feature struggling cancer victims. While you might claim to find humor in the dramas you've watched, a hidden recording device we placed in the cactus beside your television has picked up nary a lone chuckle.
Likewise, a survey conducted at your workplace also found that you laugh at your coworkers' jokes the least frequently of any of your coworkers, regardless of who is telling the joke. While you may love to laugh, it is clearly difficult for you, and you do not seem to seek it out, nor do you have a sense of humor describable as anything other than decidedly below average. The most common adjective used to describe you by your coworkers was "quiet." Second-most common: "Nice." No one ever mentioned your sense of humor. When asked about it, however, they would laugh.
"I enjoy long walks …"
We've averaged the length of the walks you take and found it to be 0.2 miles, or about two short city blocks. The longest walk you took over the past year was 1.2 miles, and you were reported to have complained about it. Your most common mode of transportation is a taxi, and when in groups, you always argue for taking some mode of transportation when walking is suggested. We suppose "enjoy" and "long" may have flexible meaning for you.
"… and spending time with my dog."
Presuming you mean Charlie, your full-sized poodle, who you mostly ignore, this is unlikely. As far as time spent in your apartment goes, the bulk of your time is spent looking at your laptop screen (46%), followed by your television (31%) and food (16%). Your dog (0.7%) ranks below your bathroom shower curtain (3.3%) and toilet paper (1.4%). Most common command given to Charlie: "Charlie, lie down!"
"I wasn't very popular in high school."
We took a poll and conducted a thorough analysis of the yearbooks from your class. Out of the lists created by your former classmates, your name showed up the most among people remembered to be "popular." Analysis of the yearbooks of you and all your classmates shows that you are in the 99th percentile when it comes to number of distinct signatures.
But that was overkill on our part, as you were also voted Prom Queen at your senior prom (could've been an ironic gesture, a la Stephen King's Carrie, but probably was not, given the above evidence) and 'Most Popular' in your senior yearbook (ditto the last parenthetical).
"I love music."
Number of times you have watched an entire musical performance without talking over at least 40% of it: 0.
Here is our suggestion for an edited, more accurate profile: "I have a below-average sense of humor and prefer to cry most nights. I don't like walking, and most of the time my dog is an inconvenience to me. I like to browse the Web. Music is tolerable to me as long as I don't have to pay too much attention to it. I was the most popular person in high school, and I am still very cute (see photo)."
You will not be alone for long.
March 18, 2012
Review: A Feast for Crows
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oh, does someone want to sit the Seaside Chair? Oh really? Oh, someone else wants to sit the Iron Throne? Anyone feel like bending the knee? Yeah? No? Maybe? Why don't you all just fight about it some more. Game of Thrones = a very vicious game of musical chairs.
Oh, so much sitting and sitting and bending! Where will it all end? Hopefully not in the tower cells with the hundred princesses of Dorne, because I barely know where that place is.
I kid. This book continues the long saga of the wars of Westeros, only this time it does so without any dragons. Truth is, this book is mostly exposition. I'd say it's probably 65% exposition, 35% holy-crap-what-the-hell-just-happened awesomeness. So much boring stuff; so many alarming surprises–and often all in the same chapter!
I mean, is there any chapter in this book that doesn't introduce new characters? It's a bit ridiculous. On the one hand, it helps make the universe the story takes place in feel real. On the other hand, I don't care about so-and-so's step-grand-uncle's second wife's bastard child twice removed, replaced, saddled, and betrothed.
I'm making things and words up here, because that's how it all starts to read to me after a while.
That said, the overall stories continue to be a blast. What can you do but read on?
So glad I'm done with this one so I can get back to reading about the dragons.
Dragons. Not Dorne. I'm making a t-shirt.
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March 13, 2012
For Next Time: More Fun and Exciting Groups to Nominate as Presidential Candidates
The cast of The Expendables 2
Former winners of the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right
The five pieces of the original Voltron Force
Villains from Scooby-Doo
Reality TV show hosts (especially Jeff Probst)
Former hosts of the Academy Awards
The Muppets
March 6, 2012
March 5, 2012
Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I was a sophomore in high school in 1993, I wrote a big preposterous novel that culminated in a school shooting. I'd read The Basketball Diaries, seen Pearl Jam's (apparently misunderstood) video for "Jeremy," and read King's short novel Rage, so it really didn't seem anything special to me to write something like that. It was angst-ridden wish-fulfillment of the most obvious kind, sick with its own melodramatic self-righteous anger and autobiographical details. By the time I finished it, I hated the main character only slightly more than I hated myself. I vowed to grow up, and when I wrote my next novel I made it about a girl so it would have less of a chance to be about me.
Then came all the real-life school shootings, and I started to feel even worse–superstitiously complicit, or at least guilty of some kind of thought crime. Watching the CNN coverage of Columbine made me sick to my stomach, and part of the reason I felt so horrible was because of the manic glee I'd had writing some of the worst scenes in that idiotic novel.
So when I heard someone had written a well-reviewed book about a high school massacre, I recoiled. There was simply no way anyone could get it right, and, besides, that was my book. If anyone was going to write it, it should've been me.
Well, after reading Lionel Shriver's book, all I can think to say is: I was so wrong. I knew nothing about this subject, and I've just been schooled by a master. I'm so grateful someone better than me took this subject on. Shriver gets everything right in this book, and keeping the novel in the point of view of the mother of a teenager who goes on a killing spree in his high school is a masterstroke.
The plot centers around the efforts of Eva Katchadourian, mother of Kevin Katchadourian, nicknamed KK by the press (which recalls both the initials of Kipland Kinkel as well as, yes, disturbingly, my own), who is in jail after murdering nine people, to put together what it all means and why it happened and come to terms with her culpability as the parent of a murderer.
The triumph of this novel is its ability to put you in the mind of a woman tortured and psychologically abused by her own progeny. Reading this as I did after The Psychopath Test, I found myself often making mental checkmarks as Kevin displayed classic sociopathic tendencies. But even so, this is not a book interested in labels or easy answers so much as it's a book about the mysteries of character, even Eva's own. Was she abused by her son, or did she abuse her son? There is no objective answer. There was certainly a war between mother and son, but at the same time it could also seem like an agonized love affair. It's all so disturbing and uncomfortable and compellingly readable.
Not to mention Shriver's wonderful prose style, which is literate and still easy to read. It's great writing that doesn't attract attention to itself, which is really tough to do.
One thing I still don't like is the title, which is just a little too "the more you KNOW" and after-school-special-ish for me. But so it goes.
This is one of the best horror novels about being a parent that's ever been written.
March 4, 2012
Podcast Episode 2.01, "Please Don't"
Presenting a reading of "Please Don't," from my collection I Held My Breath as Long as I Could, available now for e-readers and in paperback from Amazon.com.
March 2, 2012
Flash Fiction: Allegiance Risk Choice Sequel Destroy
Originally written for a contest on Janet Reid's blog. Requirements were the five words above (allegiance, risk, choice, sequel, and destroy) and that it be 100-words-or-less. I lost. Winners and finalists here. My entry below (guessing that clunky second sentence knocked me out of contention, but I still contend it's grammatically accurate).
* * *
She smelled like peppermint, like things sticky-wet, when we went to the room. Our shared allegiance to risk a dangerous choice led us to the door. Craving a fresh sequel to destroy our stale marriages, we moved with naïve excitement toward a second act we hoped would be better than the first.
We were drunk.
In front of the bed, she crossed her arms. Her dress dropped. I wanted to hit pause, spare us the disappointment of subsequent frames, the dimming of the flare of blinding promise.
But we fell predictably together and, later, slept unspooled in the usual gloom.
March 1, 2012
Review: Nohow On: Company / Ill Seen Ill Said / Worstward Ho
Nohow On: Company / Ill Seen Ill Said / Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Read? Somehow read. Seen? Say seen. Somehow seen. Say book. Say book where no book. Say hands. Say hands where no hands. Say hands where no hands hold book. Say book in hands. Say words in book. Say stare. Say stare. Say stare on. Be stared on. Say stars. Words. Stare at words. See words? Say see words. Say ill seen words with stare. Say stare on. Say stare on until no stare on. Ill stare on. Understand? Say understand. No. Not understand. The book? The stare? The hands? Say one. Now two. All three. Or none. Say three. Three stars. Until no stars. Said three stars until no stars. Best worse no better. Somehow none. Somehow all. Somehow three. Either or none. Does it matter? Say so. Be said so. Read on. Until no read on. Until no book in hands.
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February 21, 2012
Open Letter to My Adopted Children: Please Stop Trying to Kill Me
Dear all you insane children,
I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot (itself sort of funny; since I only have one, you might think that would make getting off on the wrong one more or less impossible–but these are just metaphors). Anyway, I can't say it thrilled me when your parents died and left you in my care. Living paycheck to paycheck as I am, buying five used twin beds really tapped me out. I had to borrow against my wages for your morning gruel, nasty as it is, so please stop throwing it at the wall with such disgust. Sorry you find it difficult adjusting to my drafty shack and the nocturnal fumes rising off the bog. I'm sure we'd all rather be living in your parents' mansion, but that's been sold, the proceeds locked in a trust until you come of age, in order to safeguard a brighter future for yourselves.
Mind you, my future will likely be just as grim as my present and my past. I'm sure it's no shock to you that my life was a sad story before I inherited five fussy children. Time was, I was one of the best wide receivers in the university. Had a beautiful girlfriend, too–a cheerleader! Then I shocked everyone, developed a rare form of diabetes that resulted in my having to have my leg amputated. So I lost a leg, a girlfriend, and a sweet future. Took a job as a custodian at the college where I used to be a star, started drinking a lot and avoiding everyone I used to know. Developed a staph infection, and bam! Get this hideous wart on my face! Life's just awesome. I'm lucky I'm not a hunchback.
But, horrible as my life was, at least I didn't have to worry about someone putting gasoline in my liquor bottles, or stirring laxatives and pureed ghost peppers into my milk. That I've sobered up lately is a good thing; that I'm about to get fired from my job because of all the stomach problems I've had is a bit less stellar.
But lately, my dear children, you've really taken it up a notch. I don't know who gave you those asps you put in my bed, or how you managed to find the time to build that contraption of spikes that almost impaled me when I ran out to put out the fire you set in the garden, but you must know that the emergency room bill for the snake bites means it's going to get even leaner around here. Plus, those tomatoes were really coming in nice. Thanks for ruining those, too.
It really is a shame. I like you all–even Janet, who seems to be quite a talented artist. I really enjoyed her painting of the castle before she set off the explosives hidden behind the canvas and blew half my face and all my hair off. It was truly the last great thing I saw with both my eyes, even if it did cost me one of them (just dumb luck the flames managed to miss the wart on my nose). Regardless, I hope she keeps going with her art.
As for the twins, Hector and Helen–you're always good with a joke, even if it is at my expense. Such biting wit! I'm sure these mental wounds will heal in time, but a sense of humor is forever.
Little Susan, I wish you'd talk more. Sometimes in your sullen glower, I see a hint of understanding. Out of all your siblings, you seem the wisest.
And Jack, the oldest and fiercest–you are arrogant, to be sure, but that kind of confidence will take you places, even if all you choose to do with it is wield dangerous weapons. Take it from a former athlete, you're a natural. The way you swung that mace at me yesterday made me reflect on what a great baseball player you'll make someday.
Just, please, stop trying to kill me. I hope this letter helps you understand: I want the best for you. I hope — oh damn, here Jack comes with a shotgun pointed at me. This looks grim. Might be time to put down the pen.
If you should find this note soaked in blood under my body, just know — I tried, but maybe you really will be better in an orphanage.
Your uncle,
Ernie
