Stephen King’s “11/22/63”.

My blogger friend Thingy mentioned reading and enjoying Stephen King’s novel 11/22/63 awhile back.  I’d never read any books by him, so I decided to give it a try.  I’ll try not to spoil it here, but it’s about time-travel and the unintended side-effects thereof.

It’s quite good, all in all.  You can tell he made an effort to research the styles and vernacular of the 1960s, and he also does a pretty good job of presenting  both the good and the bad aspects of that era.  There was also a lot of the hint-don’t-tell kind of cosmic horror in certain parts that I really liked.

The ending was a bit weaker though still good.  Again, without giving away too much, there was a part of it that reminded of the book A Clockwork Orange, and that felt kind of cliched.  The ending was… I guess, “bittersweet” is probably the best word for it.

I might analyze it more in-depth later, but for now, I just want to recommend reading it.

6 Comments

  1. Finally! All his endings are weak. Maybe he gets tired, I’m not sure, but I think he did a decent job, all in all. Hmm…Clockwork Orange cliche??

    1. Maybe that’s the wrong word… or the wrong book. I guess what I meant to say was that it seems to me like there are a lot of dystopian stories about “young hooligans running amok and destroying society” and King seemed to be using that idea a bit towards the end, when the main character sees what he’s done.

      Still, with as big a story as he had, it would be hard to pull off a totally satisfactory ending. I think he did a pretty good job.

  2. Stephen King writes surprisingly good fiction. I was surprised, anyways, the first couple times I read him. But he presents his material intelligently, with clear evidence of research, and with a lot of personality.

    Two of his books I particularly enjoyed: Christine and The Stand.

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