Updates: King's "Cell" and Other Things

Well, it's been too long.

So much has happened since my last post here, that it would take gigabytes of typing to catch you up on everything. (The last post, regarding V for Vendetta, was really a copy of a post from my other blog.)

So, what say we just skip forward to right now and talk about what's happening today?

Well, we'll start with yesterday. Yesterday I finished reading Stephen King's new book "Cell". I was so excited the first time I picked it up at the bookstore, but I must say I was disappointed. I think I've discovered Stephen King's weakness. He does not know how to end a story. Anyone who's read through to the end of his Dark Tower series knows what I mean. The man can really write. No doubt about that. He knows how to evoke all kinds of feelings. He really, really knows how to create a sense of dread and foreboding. But, more often than not in my opinion, his stories fall flat in the endings. Sometimes he knocks one out of the park , but most of the time his endings suck. And with "Cell", the ending sucks more than unusal. If you can remember the sinking feeling you got when you first watched "Independence Day" and saw Jeff Goldblum uploading a virus from his laptop to the alien computer system, you know what I mean. There's a certain feeling that this story is going down the toilet now, and there's no way it can recover.

I think Mr. King knows what I'm talking about. That's why his biggest story by far -- the Dark Tower series -- just about NEVER ends. With "The Dark Tower", he was able to write novel after novel after thick, thick novel, without having to write an ending!

I'm not saying you shouldn't read "Cell". If you like Steven King, you know that it's mostly about getting to the end, and the ride is enjoyable I guess, but I really wish he would have talked to somebody about the end. It's kind of a letdown when you get three-fourths of the way into a long story and realize the ending is going to be lame.

In movie news, I saw the film "Everything is Illuminated". It's about a seriously quirky American Jew who travels through the Ukraine looking for information about his grandfather and a mysterious girl in an old photograph. I won't say it's a great movie, but it's very good. It's strangely compelling, and at times hilarious. How's that for a recommendation?

In other news, I sent an email to Anne Rice and she wrote me back!! I highly recommend her latest book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, and wrote some comments about it in a previous post. She wrote me asking permission to link to my blog from her website! Of course I granted it, so if you are coming here from Ms. Rice's website, I welcome you!