In Which We Discuss Kind of Book and Sarah Lawson's Identity

I recently found Kind of Book via facebook. They're a site which gathers together ten Kindle books which are heavily discounted below their normal price; most are under a £1, and generally 2-3 will be free.

They are the devil.

Over the past few days I've been downloading most of the free ones and a few others that looked interesting.    Yesterday, that included Play or Die (which I mentioned on Twitter, and which is still free at the time of writing) and Who is Sarah Lawson, which was discounted to 62p.  Both sounded fascinating.

So far, I'm two thirds of the way through Who is Sarah Lawson.  It's about a woman who returns home from work to find her house occupied by total strangers who insist that she doesn't live there, and that she is the husband's sister who suffers from memory loss ever since 'the accident'.  I love the premise, and I'd love to see what Sophie Hannah would do with it.

There may be spoilers for the first two thirds of Who is Sarah Lawson below.

The first third focuses on Rowena Shaw, the aforementioned woman.  Her actions sometimes seem illogical to me, and she seems to miss several obvious things.  Although she hires a private detective, and takes steps to  prove her identity, she doesn't once consider having a DNA test done to discover whether or not Andy actually is her brother or not, which seems like a really obvious way to poke a hole in his story.  At one point, she finds a bottle of Rowena Shaw's pills in her brother's bathroom.  She calls her doctor, and though he is out of town, the receptionist comments on her changing her name from Rowena Shaw to Sarah Lawson.  Instead of paying attention to the fact that here is somebody who acknowledges a suspicious connection between Rowena and Sarah, and who has records to prove it, Rowena simply hangs up and throws the bottle of pills away in disgust because the receptionist calls her Sarah, and she can't bring herself to use that name.

The second third focuses on Owen, Rowena's ex-fiance, focusing on a point before the books starts when he and Rowena were still together.  His actions make no sense either.  When the real Sarah Lawson begins stalking him and imagining that they're together, he doesn't tell Rowena about it.  Even when he does, he doesn't tell her everything.  He never goes to the police, either.  Sure, at first, it's the kind of thing where you aren't quite sure.  Like when you get an odd vibe about someone, but everything they do has a plausible explanation, and you sound really vain and paranoid when you try to explain it.  But, it very quickly goes beyond that point, and still Owen doesn't do or say anything.  I guess it's possible that someone would act that way in real life, but it still seems pretty implausible, and at this point the story doesn't seem to hang together.  There also seem to be some strange discrepancies between Rowena and Owen's accounts, and that bugged me until it occured to me that maybe the 'Rowena' we've been hearing from actually is Sarah.  If that does turn out to be the case, the book will make a whole lot more sense.  K. J. Rabane won't have shot her story-telling load way too soon, the inaccuracies make sense, and even  Rowena's thing with the receptionist will hang together.  The detective not suggesting a DNA test will still seem a little off though.  But we'll see.

In Which We Discuss Bookmarks

Up until the age of 19 or so, I just used to fold the corners of books down.  People would criticise me for it, but it's my book, and I like when they look loved.  Then I started going to the library regular, and started using bookmarks.  I have a couple before then, but it was around this time that I realised I could cross stitch bookmarks, and my collection started to take off.

Unfortunately, I suck at picture taking, but this is one of the first bookmarks I cross stitched.  Plus a dollar bill.  It cost 66p, which is a fair price for a bookmark, and those things are pretty interesting when you're used to pounds.

Anyway, the cross-stitched bookmark.  The figures are from the first Final Fantasy game, as filtered through 8 Bit Theater (which I hadn't read at the time).  Pixelated images are incredibly easy to cross stitch, since they're basically exactly the same thing - images made up of small squares.  Anything 8-bit can basically be cross-stitched as is.

I went with the 8-Bit Theatre images purely because I prefered that version of the White Mage.  I later read it, and it was pretty good.

More cross-stitch.  My beloved Deis, again, copied directly from her 8-bit existence, with lettering from a cross-stitch book I have around here somewhere.  The other one, the 'K' was a gift from a friend's mother.  She has since succumbed to bowel cancer, so it's a little special.

I did use the Deis sprite to make Cloud, Tifa, and Aeris sprites, but I've since switched computers and lost the file.  It's a shame, because they came out really well.  Speaking of Final Fantasy, I also had a bookmark in blue-green mako colours which had Aeris in a large font, and, underneath, "You're the slum drunk!", but I managed to drop it outside one day and I never found it again.  I might make another version some day.  I've also made a konami code bookmark for a friend's birthday, and I'm tempted to make myself one of those again.  I love Kirby Krackle's song about it.

Here's the last of my cross-stitched bookmarks.

Not very fancy, and not my favourite.  While I can't imagine Squall or Rinoa with anyone else, I find Selphie and Irvine's relationship more interesting, and, if we swap games, Alice and Yuri more so than that.  It was fun to experiment with the final fantasy font, though.  I'd change the 'Q' to make it one row wider than it is, but other than that, I'm very happy with how the letters came out.

When I design my own bookmarks or other cross-stitch patterns, I generally just draw them onto squared paper.  I've been working on a Sookie Stackhouse bookmark, but it's hard to get the fanged smirk looking the way I want.  I'm tempted to make a 'Griever' bookmark, copying the griever symbol in freehand embroidery, and then writing the name vertically, rather like my Deis bookmark.  I'll keep that in mind next time I feel like sewing something.

Finally, my non-homemade bookmarks.  These are mostly magnetic mini-bookmarks, which I find rather lovely.  I have crime and horror.  Also a few metal petals, but I don't use them often because I find that they tend to mangle the pages a bit.

In Which We Discuss Richard Matheson

Richard Matheson, the author of I Am Legend died just over a week ago, on June 23rd.  He wrote a lot of other things, including several Twilight Zone episodes, but that's the only book of his that I've read, and that was after seeing the 2007 movie adaptation.  That adaptation went in quite a different direction from the book.  I like both stories, and I highly recommend reading the book.

I read I Am Legend back in 2007, and hadn't thought of Matheson much until recently, when I was idly browsing the graphic novels section of my local library and spotted a comic book adaptation of the novel.  That was about a month ago, and I've yet to read it, though I intend to start it at some point today.  I'd been toying with the idea of rereading the novel, and the comic seemed like an interesting compromise.

Note here; I like the word comic.  I don't want to call them 'graphic novels' simply because that phrase seems like it was coined in order to give comics a bit of legitimacy as a literary art form, and I think they have that as comics.  It's like sticking 'adult' covers on the Discworld and Harry Potter books - it's still the same story underneath.  That said, I absolutely do believe in judging books by their covers.  Short version; publishers want you to find books that you like.  They don't want to trick you, or at least, not too much.  Thus, you can usually, at the very least, tell what a publisher thinks of a book from it's cover, what category they would put it in, what books they think it resembles, if nothing else.  That doesn't mean there are no surprises; just that the cover is a rather better indicator than that phrase would suggest, and yes, this absolutely does apply to the metaphor as interpreted as applying to other objects.  Anyway, yes, I take a childish joy from using the word 'comic'.

I guess what I wanted to say here is, what a shame.  He was 87, which is better innings than most people get, but it's always a shame when people die.  He influenced a number of other creators, including Stephen King who dedicated the novel Cell  to him.  He was due to receive the Visionary Award at the 39th Saturn Awards ceremony, which was held on June 26th.  The award was given posthumously, with the ceremony dedicated to him.

In Which We Discuss 'Salem's Lot

So, I finished 'salem's Lot last night/early this morning.  It took me a while, and not just because the book is so long.  Honestly, I just wasn't feeling it.

I've read 'salem's Lot before, but only once, and I didn't remember much about it at all.  This must have been pre-2011, because there was no record of it on my goodread's account, so it's no wonder I didn't remember much.  The fact that I've not re-read it since then is also telling.

I'm finding it really hard to get excited about 'salem's Lot.  Lots of people do really like it, and I'm sure that the fact that I wasn't feeling it right now affected my enjoyment.  Along with other things like, the illustrated edition is really hard to hold up, and it made my wrists hurt.  But, yeah.  The Shining next, which I've owned for years but never read.  Never seen the film either.

There're two short stories, Jerusalem's Lot and One for the Road, prequel and sequel respectively.  Both are included in the illustrated edition.  Apparently, they also show up in Night Shift (which I have read before, though I don't recall every story in it).  Father Callahan later shows up in the Dark Tower series, too.  'salem's Lot was adapted into two mini-series' - one in 1979 and one in 2004 - a movie, Return to 'Salem's Lot which served as a sequel to the '79 series, and a radio drama in 1995.  I don't intend to watch any of these.  However, I did watch the '76 movie of Carrie, and the sequel, The Rage.  The Rage was originally intended to be an original work, but they turned it into a sequel both to cash in on the success of Carrie and to avoid accusations of plagiarism.  I remember both gave me nightmares as a teenager, but I didn't find them overly terrifying now (this may have something to do with playing dot hack at the same time).  I couldn't get ahold of the 2002 movie, which I did quite want to see.  Apparently, they changed the ending a little, with the idea of spinning off into a TV series, but, unfortunately, that was not to be.

Another remake was due to be released a few months ago, but was pushed back to October.  I'm quite excited to see it, based purely on the fact that, from the trailer, the town looks exactly like how I picture it when I read the book.

To finish; an anecdote.  I can't quite recall where I've read it, but, essentially, after Carrie, Stephen King had written two novels, Roadwork and 'salem's Lot, either of which could be published.  His agent told him that 'salem's Lot was the better choice, but....but what?  Well, if we publish 'salem's lot, you'll be stereotyped as a horror writer.

King's reply?  "I don't care what they call me as long as the cheques don't bounce."

In Which We Discuss Lolita, Catch-22, Stephen King, and Lionel Shriver

The funny thing about reading classics is it's all been done before.  I finished Lolita a few days ago, and I was quite pleased to find out that Humbert Humbert was supposed to be creepy.  I was a bit worried that the whole thing was a defence of paedophilia, and it would turn out that the author thought H.H was totally normal.  Luckily, no.  Though I do wish they'd stop putting young girls in provocative poses on the covers, it's a total misrepresentation.  And creepy.  HH style creepy.  Like, "reader, she came on to me, look at how she's posing!".  To which I will recite Ellen Page's speeches from Hard Candy, you creep.

Ahem.

I started Catch-22 yesterday.  That book has been in my unread pile for almost a decade.  I was surprised to find that it's funny, really laugh-out-loud funny.  I knew I planned to read it someday (eventually), so I tried to avoid spoiling it for myself.  It's dark humour, but that's what my family goes in for.  My aunt had her leg amputated a few weeks ago, and we've already discussed getting her a parrot and an eyepatch for Christmas.  It's how we cope.

In other news, Stephen King did a recent ask-the-author session on Reddit.  There's a summary of the questions and answers here, and the entire thread is here.  It's finished now, but it's still an interesting read.  I'm very gratified to see how many other people loved Rose Madder.

Lionel Shriver did a similar session yesterday, on Goodreads.  She seemed to get bored halfway through, though.

In Which We Discuss Another Kobo Competition

Go here to play.  Each day until the 26th of June, Kobo will be releasing one new trivia question based around film adaptations of books.  Each correct answer will get you a discount code for 10%-75% off certain books and answering all ten correctly puts you in a draw to win either the top prize of two Kobo Aura HD eReaders + $1000CA (approximately £640), or one of the second prizes of a Kobo Mini.  I have one; they're adorable.  Mine is called Opal.  Terms and conditions here.

No, I'm not going to tell you the answers.

In Which We Discuss Carrie

Carrie was Stephen King's first published novel, written while he was at university.  It's not his first published work; to my knowledge, that would be Graveyard Shift, a short story which appears in Night Shift, if I recall correctly.

The story (as relayed in the introduction) goes that Stephen King, newly married to Tabitha, was writing short stories to sell to magazines for extra money.  He started Carrie, wrote the shower scene, and decided his time would be better spent writing short stories to sell than a novel which nobody might want.  Tabitha fished the pages out of the bin, read them, and suggested that he finish them.

Incidentally, Tabitha King is a writer too.  In one of the most romantic things I've heard, Stephen King has said that Tabitha is one of his favourite writers.  I have her first novel, Small World, which was published in 1981.  I might slip that into my experiment, between Roadwork and Danse Macabre.  It would actually be pretty interesting to read both Stephen and Tabitha King's work in published order together, to see if they were thinking on similar themes, if they inspired each other, if they both worked out the same issue through writing, etc.

Carrie was published in 1974, at which point Stephen and Tabitha had been married for three years and had two children, Naomi and Joe.  Joe is also a writer, under the monicker of Joe Hill.  He and his father have collaborated on a few recent short stories.  One is available on the Kindle store, and I gather that the others are available as eBooks, but haven't researched where yet.  Joe Hill has published three novels and a collection of short stories; I've read Heart-Shaped Box and intend to read NOS4A2.  So including him is also a possibility.  I don't need to commit to that right now, since his collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, wasn't published till 2005.

Owen Phillips King, who was born quite a bit after Carrie, in 1977, is also a writer.  He's published a collection of three short stories and a novella and one novel, starting in 2005.   He's also married to a writer, Kelly Braffet, and they are cute together, but, honestly, this is getting absurd.  According to Goodreads, Kelly Braffet has published four novels, starting in 2005.  I wonder what happened in 2005; did the King family propose a writing competition in 2004 or something?

I'm kidding, I'm sure that year is a coincidence.

Naomi King is not a writer, doesn't even have her own wikipedia page, and probably enjoys her privacy.  And if she or Joe turns out to be married to a writer, I am throwing in the towel right now.

Anyway, Carrie.  In short, it's about a telekinetic teenage girl, who has horrible things done to her, and makes things explode in return.  Apparently, King was inspired to start writing it because someone had told him he couldn't write women, and he wanted to prove them wrong.  So, he began with menarche, and the theme of menstruation and blood continues throughout the novel.  It's a lot more apparent in the book than the film (I saw the film at thirteen, and it scared the bejeesus out of me).

I first read Carrie at fifteen, possibly sixteen, and since I experienced menarche at the age of eleven, it was old news to me by that point.  My grandmother experienced it at eight.  That was a terrifying experience for her.  Her 1950s father conducted himself well; he was the only one in the house, so he tootled off down to the shops to buy her some towels.

The book is semi-epistolary, with newspaper clippings and excerpts from books within the fictional universe discussing the event.  There are also third person segments which offer a more unbiased viewpoint.  It's pretty short, especially for Stephen King.   In my paperback edition, only 242 pages in total.  Purely based on wrist strength, it's a lot easier to read than the brick that is the illustrated edition of 'Salem's Lot, which I'm working through now.

I like Carrie, and I think that Stephen King does write quite good women.  I don't like Carrie as much as Rose Madder or Dolores Claibourne, but it's pretty good.  The film is a pretty faithful adaptation, too.

Part of what inspired me to do this in the first place was this flow chart, which lists the links each of Stephen King's books has with the others.  In Carrie's case, it references Castle Rock.  Later, Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone mentions the prom night fire, and Ray Bower, the infamous body of The Body (filmed as Stand By Me) was from Chamberlain, where Carrie is set.  Finally, Dinky Earnshaw of the Dark Tower #7 says he doesn't want to be like Carrie.