UPDATE: RIP II challenge completed

RIP II successfully completed, and what a great challenge it was. My goal was to read 4 books and Fragile Things

The beauty of a challenge is sometimes you find a book you weren't planning, and it turns into a great read. And then Carl sprung some mid-challenge challenges in the middle which completely changed what was originally planned. I read 3 of the books I originally listed, and just didn't get to The Historian, but I made up for that by reading Colleen Gleason's vampire books, the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, which was one of Carl's surprise contests.
The books I read during the past two months that fit into this challenge include the following:

Among the Shadows by LM Montgomery
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Seterfield
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason
Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason
and then The Additional Peril: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

What a great bunch of books!

Favorite books: Never Let Me Go, Neverwhere, and The Road
Short Story collections: Among the Shadows, Everything's Eventual and Fragile Things
Vampire Series: The Gardella Vampire Chronicles, and looking forward to the third book

So thank you to Carl for hosting, and having my poppet, Christie arrive during the RIP II challenge, it seemed perfect. Can't wait for next year, because I still have some more creepy books to read, and it is fun to get into the Halloween mood.

BOOK: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
a collection of short stories

read for RIP II challenge, an extra challenge

I'm really tired, I called 25 parents tonight because I missed parent teacher interviews because I got my wisdom teeth out last week, and I still have a test to make up for tomorrow. On the plus side of getting my wisdom teeth out: I haven't eaten very much in 5 days, so my waist is happy, and I got a lot of reading done. Bad side: I would love a bowl of peanuts and crunchy vegetables and I am beat tired.

Review: a great collection of short stories, good to read a story about Shadow, he's a great character, best poem was one about a very bad day. Gaiman isn't quite on a level with Stephen King for me, but it was still a good read. The end.

BOOK: Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason

Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason

The Gardella Vampire Chronicles, book 2

The RIP II Challenge had an extra challenge - to read Colleen Gleason's vampire novels, The Rest Falls Away and Rises the Night. This has been a great new series for me as vampires are a new genre for me.

The second story picks up one year after Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy fought her epic battle against Lilith. I don't want to give away anything from the first book, so I can't say too much. After the battle, Max has disappeared, and Lilith has taken all her vampires from England. Her son Nedas, is planning to take over the world, so Victoria and Aunt Eustacia head to Italy to head off this challenge. The dashing Sebastian Vioget is still lurking around, and while Victoria isn't sure if she can trust him, she is definitely drawn to him and they have several steamy interludes.

This book was a little sexier than the first one, but that's okay because Sebastian is an interesting character who I like reading about. This is a great series, and will be my reading candy for the next little while, as the third book is to be released after Christmas. I like the rules of dealing with vampires, and the Victorian setting, and the characters. Victoria is a smart, strong heroine who knows what she is doing. She doens't have to rely on the men to solve her problem, but she works with them to rid the world of vampires. I can't wait to read the next book, The Bleeding Dusk.

Kaliana over at The Written World, is having a contest to promote the Gardella Vapire Chronicles.

"The object is to write fan fiction, draw a picture, or take a photograph relating to Colleen's two in print novels and her forth-coming one."

I'm not sure how creative I am feeling, but I'd love to win the signed copy of the third book. I'll think about it as we have until November 15th to submit the entry.

SHORT STORY MONDAY: a small peril

The Specter Bridegroom by Washington Irving

I thought I'd try an older spooky short story after my Stephen King escapades. And you can see how scary subjects have changed over the years, because this little story didn't seem scary at all, actually, it was a little funny. I kept picturing it as a Three's Company episode. OK, I'll begin at the beginning.

I found this story in a small collection called Great Tales of Suspense, which was in the children's section of the library. It includes stories by HG Wells, Charles Dickens, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so I'm sure they are supposed to be scary. The setting was an old castle in Upper Germany, the castle of Baron von Landshort. And yes, even by that name I was amused. He is a little down on his luck, but still proud and yet carrying grudges. He will become Mr Roper in the story in my head. The baron was 'a dry branch of the great family of Katzenellenbogen.' Did you giggle there? I know I did when I said that name in my head. So Mr Roper is trying to marry off his daughter - no wife is mentioned. The beautiful daughter, we'll call Chrissy, has been raised by two maiden aunts, we'll call them Mrs Roper and Janet. My analogy doesn't work perfectly, but bear with me. The Baron arranges a marriage, but nobody in the castle ever meets the guy before the marriage. All the poor relatives arrive for the wedding.

The bridegroom is riding to meet his future wife and runs into an old friend from his army days, Jack Tripper, who alas is an enemy of Mr Roper, but it's an enemy back of few generations, so they haven't actually met. Can you see the set up? It seemed so obvious to me from a mile away, through the Black Forest. The old pals are accosted in the woods and the bridegroom is killed. Jack Tripper agrees to head to the castle to tell the bad news and espy the beautiful bride he has heard of through the neighbourhood, perhaps down at the Regal Beagle over a few beers with Larry.

When he arrives, late, everyone is so happy to see him, and they think he is the bridegroom, so they don't let him tell that he is not who they think he is. He stays, has dinner, makes googly eyes at the bride, and she back. and then leaves. The next day they get word at the castle that the original bridegroom had been killed, so they all think they met a specter.

I won't give away the ending, but Chrissy often ends up as the wise one amongst the idiots, and that darn mix up is usually figured out. If you can figure out a Three's Company episode, this won't be too surprising. So, my question now is, have we changed so much, been exposed to so much that this was once spooky? Or was this really an amusing little story, not meant to be very scary? I've read some books this year, like Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which were creepy, and held up to modern scrutiny, to an extent, since those stories are so famous, that the endings were not surprising.

I enjoyed the story, and making it a 70s sitcom in my head, but I wouldn't call it a Great Tale of Suspense. I must go look for another Washington Irving story, because I'm pretty sure he can do scary. This wasn't it. This was pretty funny, and maybe even on purpose.

BOOK: Everything's Eventual by Stephen King

I haven't read a Stephen King book in a number of years, and this was a wonderful book to get back into the King mode. Look's like Lisey's Story will be coming up soon.I picked this book and read a short story a week, for Short Story Monday, and as a part of the RIP II challenge to read a short scary story on the weekend. I actually enjoyed reading just one story a week, in the beginning, and thinking about one at a time. I usually read the back end of a book much faster; as I get closer to the end and can feel the thin section left in my right hand, my reading automatically picks up. To review the last few stories in the book:

1408

John Cusack was recently in the movie of the same name. I haven't seen it, but I imagine the movie quite altered the story. It is the classic 'haunted room' story in this collection, and it was super creepy. Mike Enslin is researching haunted hotel rooms for one of his tabloid style books. He wants to stay in Room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York, but the manager doesn't want to let him. The manager recounts all the horrors that have taken place in the room, but the nonbelieving writer dismisses his claims. Then he enters the room. King lets your imagination take most of the heat, but he also describes, in too much detail, horrors that you couldn't imagine. Of course, that's why people always ask him: Where do you come up with this stuff?

Riding the Bullet

King writes: There comes a time in most lives when we must face the deaths of our loved ones as an actual reality. . . and by proxy, the fact of our own approaching death. This story is his response to this. He also uses a version of the classic monkey's paw story. After the creepy parts of riding in a car with a zombie - a great warning against hitchhiking - King closes the story with some nice philosphical musings on life, and its meanings.

Luckey Quarter

This was a sweet little story to end the collection, not really creepy at all. Unless I missed something, such as why lucky was spelled with an 'ey'

I've linked up the rest of the reviews from my Short Story Monday posts, mostly because I feel like I need to put all the reviews together. I'm compulsive like that. A place for everything and everything in its place, which is why science and math are so satisfying for me.
intro and Autopsy Room Four

The Man in the Black Suit

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

The Death of Jack Hamilton

In the Deathroom

The Little Sisters of Eluria and Everything's Eventual

L.T.'s Theory of Pets, The Road Virus Heads North, Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French

UPDATE: Wednesday

Have you met my poppet Christie? I won her in the draw for the Once Upon a Time challenge during the summer, along with a set of Lord of the Rings bookmarks. Here she sits looking at the Stephen King book I'm just about finished for the RIP II challenge. This has been a wonderful challenge, with, I think, my favorite themes, as I keep finding more creepy books to read that take the place of books I meant to read.

Christie is named after Agatha Christie, a wonderful mystery writer. If you think she's a great writer, or at least a better writer than EB White, head on over to the book mine set and vote in the Great Wednesday Compare. I've got nothing against White, but Christie has such a collection of mysteries and stories that I don't think they compare at all. I read a Tommy and Tuppence book earlier this spring, and they were terrific role models for women's equality, as Tommy treated Tuppence as his equal, not the dumb chick along for the ride.

I finally got The Road from the library to read. I put my request in during July, and it has taken until now to get it. I was number 24 in line at one point. I hope it is good after waiting so long. It better be good, because it is a part of the dystopian challenge, the new york times notable book list, and it is a Pulitzer prize winner for 2007, so I will be able to cross it off three lists at once. It was also an Oprah pick during the summer, which may explain why it has become so popular at the library.

I see that The Gathering by Anne Enright has won the Man Booker Prize this year. Of the six that were shortlisted, I read two: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and On Chesil Beach. I bought The Gathering as the next one to read because I thought it looked good, in a bleak, Irish grief sort of way. And now it has won. I enjoyed both books, but was glad that they weren't any longer. Each of the two I read had a gimmick and it worked, but only for the slim volume that it was. But I still think about some aspects of both books, so they must have made an impact.

what I'm reading now: Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason (one extra challenge in the RIP II is to read Gleason's vampire novels with the chance to win the third edition which will be released this winter. )
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King (one more short story to go)

in the queue: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson and Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coello

I've been browsing around The Bookworms Carnival as well. Lots of great suggestions and read about spooky and creepy books for the Halloween season. My kids are going to be for Halloween the decidedly unscarychoices of: a nerd, Hannah Montana, and a unicorn. Pictures to follow after Halloween.

SHORT STORY MONDAY: a small peril

from the Everything's Eventual collection by Stephen King



L.T.'s Theory of Pets
King says this is one of his favorite stories to read from at readings, because of the combinations of emotions that get played. It began with a Dear Abby letter, as many great conversations often do. The letter was about how you should never give a pet to someone as a present, for all the reasons you can imagine. The story follows what happens to one couple who give each other pets. It's told from a male/female, doomed marriage point of view, but suddenly, at the end, the mood changes, and bam! That's why it is in this collection.


The Road Virus Heads North
Supernatural creepiness, as a painting comes to life, like a terrible virus. What if a painting was like a virus, mutating and causing havoc in its wake? King also takes some time here to write autobiographically and slam at his critics, as his main character is a famous, horror writer from small town Maine who gets no respect, except from his fans. Where does he come up with this stuff?


Lunch at the Gotham Cafe
The fear here that is so scary, is, what if something completely random happens? What if you happen to be in a restaurant when a nut job goes crazy? Sometimes I go through phases where I watch a lot of crime drama on TV, the CSI's, the Law and Order's, Criminal Minds type of shows. Then they start to get too weird, too random, and too creepy as there are only so many murders by spouses that can happen before it's time for a random killing. And random killings are what can cause people to become irrationally afraid of statistically unlikely events.


That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French
A woman is having deja vu, on her way to a second honeymoon with her husband. There are secrets between her husband her and herself, and some tension between them on the ride. I liked this one a lot, and might go back and reread, because there was some more to his one, but I can't tell, because that would ruin the ending for you. There were some nice techniques in the writing, and I wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but it was a good ending.


john mutford is hosting Short Story Monday today, and he is getting into the Halloween spirit, reading a spooky story. If you've written a short story post, go on over there and comment and he'll put all the posts together. I'm just about done my Stephen King book - three more stories, and Fragile Things came in the mail last week.

SHORT STORY MONDAY: a small peril

The Little Sisters of Eluria
Everything's Eventual
from the collection by Stephen King

October will be two-for-one for this collection of Stephen King stories as I want to get through it by Halloween, and for the RIP II challenge.


The Little Sisters of Eluria
And now I remember when I stopped reading Stephen King: The Dark Tower/Gunslinger era. I tried to read the first book, and could not read it. I didn't get the story - the setting, the characters, the quest. I can usually immerse myself in other worlds - Neverwhere by Gaiman, and Harry Potter's wizard world, but just like Middle Earth of Tolkien, King's Gunslinger doesn't work for me.
Unfortunately, Little Sisters of Eluria would be a prequel for the Gunslinger. I read it, it had vampires, it wasn't as incomprehensible as I remembered, but I'm still not planning to read The Dark Tower. There were some interesting concepts, like the doctor bugs, although I am getting a shiver just thinking of them again.

Everything's Eventual
What if you had the power to deal with bullies and bad guys? Just by making a suggestion or writing a letter, you had the ability to get rid of them? And who decides who the 'bad' guys are?
This is the interesting premise of the title story of this collection. Eventual means 'awesome' in the slang of the narrator. It becomes an interesting play on words. Certain people in the world have this ability, this trait, to cause deaths, and a multinational company hires them to deal with whomever they need to, after an extensive indoctrination at the company headquarters. In the tradition of great dystopian novels, our narrator begins to suspect something is wrong with this plan, but can he get out of it?

Am I hosting this week? Sure. If you have read and reviewed a short story on this Monday or weekend, provide a link in the comments and I'll put them together at the end of the day.

SHORT STORY MONDAY: a small peril

I'm hosting Short Story Monday again, so please feel free to leave a link to a review you've written of a short story in the comments. I'll collect them all together at the end of the day. I'm continuing my reviewing and slow reading of Stephen King's Everything's Eventual.
I didn't get squares baked for any visitors to Short Story Monday; my grade twelve physics tests got corrected instead. (I can't even pretend lie on the internet about imaginary baking)

In the Deathroom by Stephen King
I am struck by how much I am enjoying this collection of King's. His writing is so wonderful and easy. This one had quite a bit of suspense, as we begin with Fletcher, under guard and beaten up, entering a room that he is sure is a deathroom, his deathroom. It's not clear why he is here, if he is a good guy or a bad guy, or even where this is located. Gradually, it is revealed that this deathroom is in a police station of sorts, in a South American/Central American country. King makes great use of repetition here, reinforcing important facts and sentences, as if by repeating the phrase, Fletcher can tell us twice as much, when he only really says half as much.

King can turn a phrase and set an image: He thought of the light on the water at noon, moving river light too bright to look at. Later, Fletcher tries to focus during his torture on images, not memories, as memories are too difficult. Oh yes, there is torture here, and gory descriptions of what exactly goes on when a bullet rips a face or a person is electrocuted. I am reading King after all. King calls In the Deathroom "a Kafka-esque story about an interrogation in a South American version of hell." Makes me wonder if I'm ready for Kafka.

If I hope to finish this book before October 31, I'm going to have to step it up and read several stories each weekend. That is one of the things I like about short stories: that a collection of stories provides an atmosphere, and although the stories are not connected per se, a good collection has a feel, a theme running through them, and it is all the stories together that make up the experience.

So, feel free to share any short stories you are reading. John Mutford at The Book Mine Set is hosting a Bookworms Carnival in November with a short story theme and is looking for submissions.

Other Short Story Monday participants:

john mutford read A Small Good Thing by Raymond Carver

stephanie read more Neil Gaiman stories from Fragile Things

BOOK: The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason

I'm very new to the vampire genre, and I was worried before I started. I've read so many raves about this book (the first in a trilogy) and I'm not sure I 'get' vampires or their attraction. I never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I haven't read Twilight by Stephanie Myers. This book sucked me in though. (sorry about that pun)

The Rest Falls Away is set in 19th century England, one of my favorite settings for novels. I've enjoyed the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mysteries by Anne Perry, and Gleason's characters could fit right into a ball with Charlotte Pitt. However, we are introduced here to Victoria Grantworth, the newest Venator, and the Gardella family legacy as vampire hunter. She is trying to balance her debut into society and her mother's attempts to marry her off, with her legacy of vampire hunting. If you haven't read any vampire books, I think this is a good introduction. We learn all the vampire lore - stake to the heart, sunlight, holy water, garlic, all the stuff I already knew, plus the fact that vampires are the undead, and their historical significance with Pontius Pilot and the pieces of silver. I also didn't know that vampires disappeared with a 'poof' when they are stabbed, leaving no evidence behind.

Victoria embraces her new role as vampire hunter and the story moves along briskly, introducing love interests, a conflict with male Venator, and the battle with the head Vampire, Lilith, over a book with spells. Meanwhile, she is falling in love with the Marquis of Rockley and trying to kill vampires in between dances at balls or the ballet. Once I understood the vampire lore, the story was great. I finished it in two days because I couldn't put it down and so wanted to find out what happened with Victoria and her fiance. There is some humor because I don't think anything with vampires can be completely serious, unless you really believe in them, in which case they are terrifying. I will be getting the next book, Rises the Night, very soon,and I know just the friend to give this book to to read.

This makes the fourth book book I've finished for the RIP II challenge. I still have Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman to read, which is an extra peril, and I'm still working on The Small Peril, short stories from Stephen King's Everything's Eventual. I have quite enjoyed all my books so far. If you want to see all the reviews, check out the RIP yarns review site.

BOOK: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Title and author of book?
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Fiction or non-fiction? Genre?
fiction

What led you to pick up this book?
Everyone I know has read and loved this book. It was a choice on the Something About Me challenge by Kristin, so I picked it for a RIP II challenge read as well. I've been wanting to read this one for a while.

Summarize the plot, but don't give away the ending!
Margaret Lea, a quiet, somewhat unhappy bookstore owner/biographer receives a strange letter from a famous author to come and 'hear the truth' of her story, to write her biography. As she enters into Vida Winter's tale, the plot gets very interesting.

What did you like most about the book?
I most liked the connection to Jane Eyre, which I read recently. Living on the moors, crazy people hiding in the house, abandoned children, pages ripped from the novel, fires in old castles; there were so many parallels to Jane Eyre.

Have you read any other books by this author? What did you think of those books?
First book by Setterfield I've read.

What did you think of the main character?
Margaret was dealing with her own sad childhood. She was not a very social person, so she didn't have any problem falling into Vida Winter's world and childhood. Margaret was brave to take on this challenge, and very injured herself emotionally.

Any other particularly interesting characters?
Emmaline and Adeline March were certainly unique. I also liked John the Dig and the Misses, both old fashioned servants, the kind you only find in tremedously British books. They were devoted to their charges and also didn't seemed to become fazed by some strange happenings.

Share a quote from the book:
Oops, I already returned the book to the library. I don't usually notice quotes anyway.

Share a favorite scene from the book.
I wouldn't say I had any favorite scene in this book. Each scene leads to the next. For over the first half of the book, I couldn't understand the amazing appeal. It was good, and I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't feel inspired to pick it up at every moment; I wasn't racing through it, and I actually read other books at the same time. It picked up at the end, and the actual ending was great!

What about the ending?
The ending was the best, with a trendous twist that I can not reveal of course. Suffice to say, it was tragic and full of atmosphere and tied up the story perfectly.

SHORT STORY MONDAY: a small peril

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away by Stephen King from the Everything's Eventual collection

King is known for his scary, horror stories, but he does poignancy as well as anyone. He has a way of connecting in little ways with people, his characters, that the reader immediately identifies with. That he can do this so well in a short story speaks to his talent.

Alfie Zimmer is driving, on the road. The story begins as he is checking into a motel in Kansas or Nebraska, somewhere in the desolate prairies. Alfie is typical midlife, Willy Loman salesman, questioning his life and meaning. The interesting quirk of Alfie is that he collects graffiti and studies it as poetry and humor, the comments on America. This was King's germ of an idea that built into a story. I enjoyed the poetry analysis that Alfie applies to his graffiti, and felt for Alfie as he deals with a crosssroads in his life.

EDIT TO ADD: I was thinking about graffiti: I have these wooden squares in my physics lab that I use to ration out the masking tape, because kids use masking tape like they don't have to buy it! Anyway, these little pieces of wood now have the funniest graffiti on them, and they crack me up when I read them. Of course, right now all the funny escapes me, but the witty, pithy comments of well done graffiti are poetry in themselves, especially the ones that get answered.

heh, a short review for a short story

BOOK: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Would you believe I had never heard of Neil Gaiman before this year? How is this possible? And I don't mean I hadn't read any of his books - never heard of the man. Then I read American Gods and I really enjoyed it, it had a real Stephen King quality to it. This is high praise from me. Then I read Coraline during the Once Upon a Time challenge and found it super creepy. And then I laughed my way through Good Omens, a tale of the apocalypse but in a funny way.
But I think I liked Neverwhere the best.

First of all, I really want to go to London. Gaiman uses the mythology present in England to fashion an amazing world, underneath London. The subway system is an integral part of this novel and I really want to ride the tube now. One night on his way to dinner with his fiance, Richard Mayhew comes across a woman, hurt on the sidewalk. He insists on helping her, and this becomes the most momentous decision in his life. He loses everything - his fiance, his home, his job, and his life on the upper levels of London. Because Richard has fallen through the cracks into the underside of London, where Knightsbridge is a Night Bridge, and angels and Friars and shadows and some really creepy people are hanging out. When you hear "Mind the Gap" you should take it serious.
Richard is soon on a quest with Hunter, and Lady Door and the marquis de Carabas in a battle underground. Gaiman has created the most amazing world and interesting characters and I enjoyed picking this up every time. Richard is a rather reluctant hero and I liked how his everydayness made him a realistic person. He doesn't do amazing feats, just is brave when necessary and thinks for himself.
So, hurrah for the RIP II challenge and me finding this great book. There was violence and some gory scenes, but the world underneath was amazing and Gaiman is an amazing writer to imagine this place just beneath our periphery.

BOOK: Among the Shadows by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I finished my first book for the RIP II challenge, one I've been waiting to read ever since I realized there was a LM Montgomery book that fit this challenge. Of course, the surprising thing is that there is only one book of short stories that were compiled into a darker collection. Montgomery was not a happy woman, and most of her stories show her hope for happy endings. She had an unhappy marriage, and her husband suffered from episodes of melancholy, so her stories often show characters unwilling to settle for a loveless a marriage, and who would rather stay single than enter a union not up to their standards.



I think Montgomery's short stories go best in a collection like this. I don't know if many would stand alone, in a collection of stories by other authors; I find her stories somewhat blend together, but for Montgomery fans, that's perfect. The themes here are ghosts, messages from beyond, unexplained happenings, and 'bad' people, which in the early 1900s, included sins like drinking and excessive jealousy or pride, and crimes like embezzlement. Montgomery's talent for description of nature helps set the mood in many of the stories, moonless nights, friendly shadows, mysterious fir-lined brook. All in all, this book was what I expected and I enjoyed the diversions and happy, if mysterious, endings. I'm not sure I believe in ghosts, but I don't disbelieve either.

SHORT STORY MONDAY: a small peril

As one of the RIP perils, Carl has suggested reading a short story of a spooky nature on the weekend and posting about it. At the same time, john mutford has been posting Short Story Monday. I have always enjoyed short stories. Serendipity, no? It does seem to be calling out to me to read and post about some short stories. As I looked at my pile of books, and my RIP list, I seem a little short story heavy as it is. Among the Shadows by LM Montgomery, and Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman are both on my list. I have Everything's Eventual by Stephen King on my alternate list. [I've been carrying this book around since last year, when my sister picked it up in the library on the Grand Princess of our Mediteranean cruise. How great an image is that? A library, with a shelf of take 'em/leave 'em books, to read on the deck, under the Mediterranean sun, with Angelo bringing another strawberry daqueri, with no children?] I didn't get to read the King book last year, so RIP seemed appropriate. And if I read one story a week, this should last me the two months of reading in peril. That's my plan, then: one Stephen King a week, and my thoughts.

Now my Stephen King background: I love him. I mean his writing. I was in a huge King phase, reading most everything I could get my hands on, during the eighties. The Stand - read it in nearly one sitting, and if you know that book, you know the bedsores I had, It, Needful Things, Different Seasons, I mean he has written some of my absolute favorite books. He is so readable. But I went off King, for some reason. Sometime around The Dark Tower series, I lost the thread of his books; they just didn't scream to me or make me scream anymore. So here I am, with the book, and the challenge, and the blog, all coming together in a Short Story Monday. I just started the Introduction and was right back in King fangirl status. Even his intros are good. "Yet for me, there are few pleasures so excellent as sitting in my favorite chair on a cold night with a hot cup of tea, listening to the wind outside and reading a good short story which I can complete in a single sitting." Amen, Mr King, amen.


Autopsy Room Four
With the first story, King leads, 1 -0 in scaring the bejeesus out of me. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole 30 pages. First, I'll have to tell a little story about me. Once, in my single, university dorm room, I had an experience. My brain woke up, but my body did not. I could think, but not move. I tried to move, nothing. I tried to talk, scream, twitch; nothing. I was a little panicked, but couldn't do anything. In a move which characterizes me very well, I gave up and went back to sleep. In the morning, I woke up like usual. Anybody I mentioned this to, dismissed it as a dream, but I know it wasn't. I'm sure I even read somewhere, sometime, that this is a syndrome, or sleep event.


King takes an event, based on an old Hitchcock show, that people would fear: being alive and being mistaken for dead, with no way to let anybody know. Thus our narrator describes, slow step by slow step, his experience in the title. Part of the fear is knowing that Stephen King is writing, and how far will he take you? Does he have any boundaries? He builds and builds the suspence. Is our narrator really alive? Is this really what death is like? Could this really happen?

The characters seem real, and included are his characteristic popular references. For example, the Stones are playing in the background and their songs become a part of the story. King takes advantage of the fact that our imagination is even worse than anything he can come up with, and the genius of his writing is waiting for the story to end, to see how he can possibly finish this other than the ending you have imagined. This one ended a little quickly and corny, but the build up was worth it.
How will I ever wait until next week for King's next short story?

CHALLENGE: 2007 RIP II ((Readers Imbibing Peril)

Then the shadows began to gather; first little furtive ones under the table, and then bolder ones in the dark panelled corners…~H.P. Lovecraft (The Strange High House in the Mist)



Carl says: Time for gothic tales and things that go bump in the night.
I've been looking forward to this challenge, and have been planning some books to read. There are several perils you can take for this one. This is part of what makes Carl's challenges so much fun; it's an adventure just deciding which peril to take.

A man [Ed. note: or woman] who limits his interests, limits his life.~Vincent Price (editorial addition by Carl V. Anderson)

I'm chosing Peril the First, read four stories of your choice. I had planned to read:

• Among the Shadows by LM Montgomery
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Seterfield
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (alternate)
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason

I also thought I'd read Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, which turns out to be An Additional Peril. It is being released as a paperback in Canada on September 19. Perfect. Aaand, I am considering reading that giant tome, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke for an online reading group, which almost becomes Peril the Third, a scary sandwich peril. I don't want to commit to that, as I may be committed trying to read that giant book. But I might. The option of a book list, with choices, is there too. I am in favor of this, because once the reviews start, I will see books I really want to read, and I want to be able to change my mind.

The book list of choices right now will include:

• Twilight by Stephanie Myers
• Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro
• The Talented Mr Ripley
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Lisey's Story by Stephen King
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• Everything's Eventual by Stephen King

So, four books it is, plus Fragile Things. Let the spooky fun begin!