Brian's Reviews > Blaze

I'm usually a big Stephen King fan. I even liked most of his Richard Bachman work. This one, a Bachman "trunk novel" (that is, one that was written and put in a trunk until it was rediscovered), fell short of my usual expectations. The characters aren't really fleshed out very well. George, who exists in Blaze's mind, could have been pretty creepy if taken to King's usual places, but instead was just kind of there to tell Blaze, our oafish protagonist, when to flee from the cops, yet again. The story is totally predictable, and the only real enjoyable parts were the flashback sequences describing poor Blaze's life in an orphanage. Maybe it's because I have a baby of my own who is very close in age to the one that Blaze kidnaps that caused me to not like Blaze or the book, but I was disappointed by this one. The short story that appears at the end as a teaser for the upcoming 2008 release of a novel based on the story was more interesting than Blaze to me.