As the year comes to an end, here’s three short offerings to round out 2017.
Desperation – Stephen King
Quintessential King, this novel involves a crazy cop, a desert town, rats (always with the rats!), spiders, and a heap of dead people. There is a definite God element in this tale, but King does it in such a way that he’s not hitting the reader over the head with it. Desperation is the sister novel to The Regulators, and Constant Readers insist if you’re going to read one, you better read the other.
Dog Stars – Peter Heller
This is probably my favourite post apocalyptic novel so far, this life. Heller’s writing is delicious as he takes his reader across a ruined Earth through the eyes of Hig (your main guy protagonist). There’s a dog called Jasper and plenty of marauding bad guys, and has been compared to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. However, Heller’s optimism shines through in a way that McCarthy’s effort never could.
Mystery – Peter Straub
This is one novel that I enjoyed in parts, however as a whole entity, I’m not really sure what I read. It’s a mystery novel (der, just read the title) but I found the mystery itself almost secondary to Straub’s descriptions of characters and places.
You’ll like this if you like a grand set piece – exotic locations, nostalgia for the 1920’s and dapper eccentric dandies dressed to the nines.
Give it a try if you like Straub, and let me know what you think it’s actually about.
In my next post I’ll be sharing my reads for 2018. Stay tuned!
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