THE (ALMOST) UNDELETED

Stephen King has a new book coming out. Throughout much of the last decade or two he has been a pitiless hack, but he really managed to impress me with his zombie book, Cell. This one looks like pure SF. Ill probably get it in pb. Looks like a monster at 1088 pp though.

Yeah, Cell was a pleasant surprise. Cheers for the heads up.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry...

Oh my GAWD. A long-gone-to-mold old piece of brie!

THAT HE'S STILL NIBBLING ON!!! AAAAAAAAH!

Meh. I don't know, sounds a little too much like more of the same. I'll let one of you read it first and then decide.


Edit: Just having a look through the discussion threads; someone mentioned that the description made them think of Tommyknockers. That was kind of the same vibe I was getting. And I hated that book. (And the whole evil politician trying to take advantage of the situation ... bleh.)

Hmmmm. Thought you liked SK's home-town political/history stuff.

I do. Or I did. But this feels like it's going to be just more of the same.


Yeah, one of the things I liked about his stories (before he started in with the Dark Tower references in every novel ) was how they were all set in the same general area and he would mention events from the other things he had written, just offhand references in passing.

But then I was reading Tommyknockers and not really liking it and he had IT from IT wave at one of the characters from a storm drain as they went by in a car (or something like that) and it suddenly just seemed like a cheap gimmick. (Kinda like how you can eat something you really like when coming down with a cold or flu and you sick it up and that association puts you off the food for a long time or for good.) That was back in '89 or so.

I didn't read anything more by him until the Dark Tower books, or maybe it was Dreamcatcher I read first. I liked the latter, and the four or five Tower books I've read so far, and I loved Hearts in Atlantis.

I don't know. Again, I'll wait to see what you say.