Review: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King (audiobook)

It's been quite a long time since I had read a collection of short stories by Stephen King. As a matter of fact, the last collection I read by him was Four Past Midnight, which I honestly didn't care for and was the last King book I read until a very long time later. For those who are curious Doctor Sleep the sequel to The Shining is what made me come back to his writings.

I decided to partake of this lengthy collection of short stories as an audiobook format, which clocked in around 12 hours total. I will admit it took me a few days to listen to it in its entirety, and can only imagine how long it would have taken me to read it out if I had stuck with the regular book or Kindle format instead. There were a total of 21 short stories in this collection, and I rated each individual story with a 1-5 star rating. Upon completion of the book, I averaged out the total and got an average rating of 3.23, which translated to a 3-star rating on Goodreads.com. I enjoyed the majority of the stories and rated them 3 stars. But only one was rated with a 5-star rating.

Batman and Robin Have an Altercation was the story that I rated 5-stars. I really enjoyed this one. It was about a father and son. The father who was a senior citizen suffering from Alzheimer's, and the son who came to visit him and try to keep him coherent. Not only was the phrasing that the author uses great, but the recollections of the father were pretty funny at times. I really enjoyed the ending of this one too. Road Rage D-bags is all I will say.

There were a few others that were nearly as good, such as Premium Harmony about a man who goes out with his wife on a shopping trip and things do not go quite as they plan. Another great one was The Dune about a site the gave premonitions of peoples upcoming deaths. The Bad Little Kid was a shocking one that at first I didn't think I would like, but it quickly grew on me as it went by. One of the last few stories Drunken Fireworks was a humorous tale about two families and fireworks competitions to see who could outdo the other.

Some of the stories I thought were not as good and felt that they were way too short to have any sort of meaning like Mister Yummy. This one involved senior citizens nearing their time seeing the most attractive person the had ever seen in their lives before dying. Kinda weird and creepy if you ask me. Or the Obits story about a guy who could kill someone by writing their obituary.

As I have said before the choice of narrator does either help or hinder a great book, and this collection had a nice selection of narrators. Yes, plural...narrators. I can only imagine the production cost to have made this into an audiobook. But they chose some great people to narrate individual stories.

Even though this got an average rating I still want to read some more of the author's books that I have yet to read. You see I thought he had lost his touch way back when I read Four Past Midnight, but maybe that book just wasn't for me.

 

Review: Hellboy: Oddest Jobs

I totally thought this was a graphic novel at first, and it was a subtle surprise. I say this as I tend to avoid reading novelized books about comic book characters. Come to find out that this is the 3rd book of a trilogy of books about the title character. The fact that this was a collection of short stories really helped for me to get into and enjoy this book. Had it been one big novel about Hellboy I don't think I would have liked it that much. don't get me wrong I like HB, but like I said I tend to avoid those kinds of books. Of course, I rated each individual short story using a 5 point star system and came to an average overall rating for the collection based on those total sum ratings.

Each story was written by a known author such as Garth Nix, Joe Lansdale, and a few others who I had never heard of but after reading their tales of HB I may have to look them up. The story I enjoyed the most was by an author I had never heard of named Stephen Volk. His short story was called Monster Boy which was about a little boy who seemed to be in the spectrum based on his description who shared a common interest in movie monsters with his grandfather. The story I disliked the most was called Feet of Sciron by Rhys Hughes which featured a very strange character named Foggy Dicks. Apparently Foggy has an ectoplasmic power and he left the BPRD team to pursue a career in porn...yeah you heard me right....porn.

Each and every story could be read out of order, and I'm assuming the same could be said about the previous 2 volumes in this series. So I will have to go ahead and read the previous volumes. I rated this collection of short stories 3 out of 5 stars based on the above calculation. It is a decent collection of stories some of which I really enjoyed and some not so much. The majority I felt were just okay, but overall this book is worth checking out if you are a fan of the Hellboy series.

Review of Acid House by Irvine Welsh

I just finished reading Acid House, by Irvine Welsh. If you follow my booktube channel you know how much I enjoy reading this authors works.  This last book is a collection of short stories, a few poems, and a novella. Like all of the other books I have read by Welsh I really enjoyed this book. Like his other books this collection of stories involved the right of satire, drugs, sex, and shenanigans.

For instance, one story was about a man named Bob Coyle, who God chose that because he hated himself for not making the world a better place he would then punish Bob. He punishes Bob by turning him into one of the lowest forms of life, a fly.

Another story involved a young man named Coco Bryce, who has a tragic accident one night that he is tripping on acid on the night of a thunderstorm. He is struck by lightning, and finds himself inhabiting the body of a newborn baby. This was a rather comical story, and one that I remembered from the Acid House film. A talking baby as if that were not funny enough, but the things he does, and says were good for a laugh. Coco Bryce!

The last part of the book is a novella entitled "Smart Cunt", and is broken up into smaller chapters.  This story involves a first person account of a man named Brian, who seems to think that every important female in his life has abandoned him. First his mother when he was 8yrs old, and later his girlfriend who decides to go away to college in London. Brian chooses to cope with his sense of abandonment, and depression through drinking, drugs and reading horrible biographies. The title of this story has the same meaning as what we Americans refer to as a "smart alec", and I'm sure some people would be offended by the term used in the title, but this a perfect example of the way an average person living in the schemes of Scotland talks. The reader gets the impression that the main character is lost in his drugs, drinking and depression, because the story seems to jump from events in his life with no clear explanation of transitions.  This story is very tragic in it's telling and we get a feeling of pity for the main character, as he feels like people do not like him because he is a "smart cunt".

Like his other books that I have read so far I really enjoyed seeing into another life, and culture, which I may never get to experience, and one that I think is a good example of being a diverse read. I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

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Review of 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

I recently just finished reading 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill.  If you have been following my channel you know how much I like Joe Hill's other works, and could not wait to read this collection of short stories. This book is actually his first published work. I did a review of his first published novel, which came out after this publication, and I was very impressed by how deep that book was. That was my first impression of this author, and that review can be seen here  down below -

Besides that review I had also reviewed his newest book NOS4RA2, and made a tribute page on Squidoo. So I have been a fan of this author for quite a while now.  Below is my progress, and a brief synopsis of each story contained within this book.

If someone were to ask me just what were my favorite stories from this book I would have to say 20th Century Ghost, and The Black Phone were the best in my opinion.  The main title story was really sad, because it was a bout a girl who was a movie fan, and just happened to die from an aneurysm while watching the Wizard of Oz. She never got to see the end of the movie, and her ghost had a special relationship with the theatre owner. So the ending of that story was very touching.  The Black Phone was good because it was the fantasy of the pedofile getting what he deserved in the end.

While I love Hill's other works I just found this book to be an average book, and he has written much better works since this. If you are a fan of his other novels or perhaps a fan of his father than I do think you should give this book a fair chance.

04/19	page 30		9.0%	"Best New Horror- creepy. life imitating art."
04/21	page 54		17.0%	"20th Century Ghost- the ghost of a young girl haunts a movie theater. too fast,but nice ending."
04/23	page 70		22.0%	"Pop Art- Jewish balloon boy,literally a balloon. strange and weird."
04/24	page 92		29.0%	"You Will Hear the Locust Sing- teen turns into a giant bug..."
04/26	page 113		35.0%	"Abraham's Boys- strange. Van Helsing and are vampires real or a sick fantasy of the father."
05/02	page 139		43.0%	"Better than Home- About a kid with anxiety and a drooling problem. ...zzzzz."
05/04	page 173		54.0%	"The Black Phone - Pedophile kidnaps the wrong kid... In the Rundown - euphemisms about running bases, and a run for help."
05/09	page 200		63.0%	"The Cape- Slightly different than the comic series, but still very good. Loser whose only talent is that he can fly while wearing this cape."
05/10	page 256		81.0%	"Last Breath - Creepy Doctor keeps last breaths in a museum...saw that ending coming. Dead Wood - Can trees be ghosts? The Widow's Breakfast- Sad story about hobos, and a widow. Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead - Love story well sort of man reminisces about an ex girlfriend."
05/12	page 270		85.0%	"My Father's Mask- A very strange tale of the masquerade house,and the playing card people."
05/15	page 313		99.0%	"Voluntary Committal - With the imagination of a child he can build mazes that people literally get lost in."