The Shining by Stephen King

The Shining
Stephen King
1977, Kindle ebook
Unnumbered

Jack Torrance takes on the job of caretaker at The Overlook Hotel for the winter season with his wife and son Danny, who has telepathic powers. After the snow cuts them off from all access, Jack begins to behave oddly and violently.

More terrifying work from King. Jack was a surprisingly sympathetic characte. It was hard to put this book down. I would like to see the movie now.

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The Dark Half by Stephen King

The Dark Half
Stephen King
1989, 1990, Hodder & Stoughton, London
045052468X
468p.

A writer is forced to admit his use of a pen name to write violent and profitable novels. He takes the opportunity to publicly 'kill off' his pseudonym in order to fully pursue his own, less popular but less violent, writings. But the pseudonym does not stay dead.

This book starts off as wryly amusing, and then very quickly turns violent and horrible. A couple of passages made me feel almost physically ill, and the last section had to be read all at once as it was terrifyingly suspenseful. The other great passage is the opening scene in which an eyeball is excised from the brain of an 11 year old boy - King can paint with words.

Insomnia by Stephen King

Insomnia
Stephen King
1994, Signet, New York
0451184963
663p.

Sixty-something year old Ralph begins to suffer from insomnia shortly after the death of his wife. And then he starts seeing coloured auras around people, and stumbles onto a whole other world beyond normal vision.

Stephen King is always a good read, and this is no exception. It's a great premise, and quite suspenseful. I read this in my first week in Iceland, it's so nice to have time to read again. If I was at home, working, a 600-page book would take months to read.

Parkland by Victor Kelleher

Parkland
Victor Kelleher
1994, Puffin, Ringwood
0140378928
256p.

Cassie, Ralph and Boxer are best friends who live in Parkland, a zoo-like enclosure for humans and other apes. After some type of cataclysmic event in the past, humans and apes are now bred in captivity and live out their lives inside Parkland.

This was a little slow to start, but once I got into the story, I really enjoyed it. I like how the characters were flawed, even the heroes of the story - it made the book more three-dimensional.

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The Running Man by Richard Bachman

The Running Man
Richard Bachman
1982, 2007, Kindle Edition, Amazon
0451197968
340p.

Set in the future where the gap between the poor and the wealthy is large, one of the only ways for the poor to make money is to participate in humiliating and often dangerous games which are broadcast on "free-vee". Ben Richards is selected to be in the most dangerous game of all, "Running Man", where he is a fugitive trying to escape killers for up to one month. No one has ever survived.

An excellent book by King - not horror so much but definitely gory! The characters are so well developed, the reader can't help but to be drawn into their lives.

Misery by Stephen King

Misery
Stephen King
1987
e-book
1110p.

This is the first e-book I've read all the way through, and it's also the first book that I've read all the way through in over a month. Book reading rut over! This is a classic King novel about a writer who ends up trapped in the house of a mad woman who wants him to write a novel for her.

I had increased heart rate at times while reading this book. haha. King is very good at taking the reader along for the ride. The character of Annie Wilkes is terrifying.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
1984, 1999, Faber and Faber, London
0571200834
311p.

This is a story about loves and infidelities; about the relationships between people and the differences in them that define their relationships.

It is very hard to describe this book; I wouldn't say that I loved it but I did like it. It made me laugh out loud sometimes and sad at others. The philosophy got a bit strange but the characters were well-drawn.

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Fire Dancer by Victor Kelleher

Fire Dancer
Victor Kelleher
1996, Penguin, Ringwood
0670871117
307p.

Josie and Ivan are two adolescents from the near future who are on a time travel holiday when they become stranded in the past. They must learn to survive in the wilderness with a tribe of Neanderthals.

This was a very interesting premise and I like Kelleher's exploration of time travel theory and the nature of time. However, at times, it felt a little too much like it was trying to be educational from a historical viewpoint ... it seemed to read like a documentary about Neanderthals and their life.

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Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

Brother Odd
Dean Koontz
2006, 2007, HarperCollinsPublishers, London
9780007226580
439p.

Odd Thomas can see dead people and strange creatures which feed on death he calls bodachs. After his girlfriend is killed in a mall shooting, he finds his way to a monastery where he hopes for some peaceful reflection. But of course, he doesn't get it - bodachs begin swarming around the monastery and Odd must find out what they are after before too much blood is shed.

An ok story, but not great writing style. I never felt comfortable in the narrative - it was like the narrator wasn't sure which voice to use, and the story jumped around far too much. Odd should be a fascinating character, but it just doesn't come through which is a shame. The best part of the book was the tete-a-tete between Odd and Romanovich.

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Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Dolores Claiborne
Stephen King
1992, 1993, Hodder and Stoughton, London
0450588866
307p.

A sixty-five year old woman from Long Tall Island walks into the police station and states that she killed her husband thirty years ago. She then goes on to tell her tale in her own way.

This was an interesting book in the way it was written and how it all came together. Not exactly horror, but thrilling nonetheless. The characters were incredibly well fleshed out and I feel like I know them.

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Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer
1996, Anchor Books, New York
0385486804
203p.

True story of a young American man who gave up his possessions and money to hitch-hike to Alaska to spend time alone in the wilderness. His decomposed remains were found in an abandoned bus four months later.

I had seen the movie based on McCandless' life a little while ago, so it was interesting to read the book. It's a heart-breaking story - some may call McCandless naive and selfish, but that shouldn't take away from the tragedy. Nor should it deny the legitimacy of the beauty that he discovered.

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The Coins of Murph by Leo P. Kelley

The Coins of Murph
Leo P. Kelley
1971, 1974, Coronet, London
0340186178
191p.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future where people's fates are left to be decided by the toss of a coin. Lank, a true-believer in the system, meets Doll, who makes her own decisions without tossing a coin, and they each look for answers about the past and the present.

I'm not sure I enjoyed the read, but it did keep me reading. It was a very sombre and quietly threatening book. A very solid addition to the post-apocalyptic genre and the characters were three-dimensional which is not always the case in pulpy sci-fi.

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Beyond Star Trek: The Physics of Star Trek, The X-Files, Star Wars, and Independence Day by Lawrence M. Krauss

Beyond Star Trek: The Physics of Star Trek, The X-Files, Star Wars, and Independence Day
Lawrence M. Krauss
1995, 1998, HarperPerennial, New York
046500637X
176p.

Krauss discusses physics theories used in modern science fiction and explains where they work and where they don't.

As I was reading this, I couldn't believe that it was making sense. Krauss is obviously very talented at writing popular science to make it accessible to common man. I loved the theories of quantum mechanics - it's all so fascinating.

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From Baghdad, With Love by Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman with Melinda Roth

From Baghdad, With Love
Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman with Melinda Roth
2006, 2007, Macmillan, Sydney
1405037969
177p.

Story of a little puppy found abandoned in a building in Iraq by US Marines. Kopelman decides to save the dog, and attempts to get him out of the war-torn country.

This book is both heart-breaking and heart-warming. It's about the horrors of war, but also about the hope that an innocent creature such as a stray puppy can bring to those in the middle of it.

I may or may not have gotten a little teary ...

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Velocity by Dean Koontz

Velocity
Dean Koontz
2005, HarperCollins, London.
0007196970
496p.

Billy Wiles discovers a note on the windshield of his SUV which says if he takes the note to the police, an elderly woman will be killed, and if he doesn't, a schoolteacher will be killed. He thinks it's a hoax and the schoolteacher dies. This is the start of a terrifying game of a twisted mind.

It's a great story - told with a soft voice. It could have been a bloody, grisly book about the darkness of humanity, but in this case, it's equally about beauty. The characters are so very believable, and you are along for the ride with Billy the entire way.

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Eddie's Bastard by William Kowalski

Eddie's Bastard
William Kowalski
1999, Black Swan, London
0552998591
480p.

Story of Billy Mann, who, as a baby, was left on his grandfather's doorstep in a basket with the note "Eddie's Bastard". He grows up in seclusion with his grandfather in the small town Mannville which his family used to own. The story tells of Billy's childhood and of his ancestors story.

This is a fantastically woven tapestry of a story. It reminded me a bit of To Kill a Mockingbird. It is funny at times at utterly heartbreaking at others. I loved the slight supernatural themes to the story, and the prose was beautifully written. I didn't want it to end.

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