Tucker continues to heal, although I can’t say he seems to be enjoying it, much less the collar he still has to wear all the time. There’s no word yet on how many days he’ll have to continue wearing it, though he returns to the vet tomorrow morning to evaluate his progress and the stitches. The estimate on their removal was 10-14 days, but I suspect we’ll know more tomorrow.
Meanwhile, life continues pretty much as normal. Yesterday, I (finally) finished reading Stephen King’s Under the Dome, which is a lot of fun, and above all else a compelling read. It is, of course, a very long book, and took me something like a month to get through. (I get most of my reading done on my daily commute, which only adds up to about six hours a week. Though that’s not a hard and fast rule, and I hope to do more reading on the weekends now that I have half a year off from reading Kaleidotrope submissions.)
Anyway, I really liked the book. I’m much less enthusiastic about the TV miniseries now that I’ve actually seen the trailer for it, since it looks like they’ve taken a lot of liberties with the novel. That said, King himself seems quite pleased with it. Of course, that said, King also seemed quite pleased with the television version of The Shining starring Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay…
Without venturing into spoilers too much, here’s one particular quote I highlighted in my reading:
America’s two great specialities are demagogues and rock and roll, and we’ve all heard plenty of both in our time.
I feel like I want to read a lot more King now…but I also think maybe I should take a break with something a lot shorter.
I thought Under the Dome had a really interesting premise, and I liked some of what King did with it, but I also had some issues with it, so taking a few liberties doesn’t seem to me like an inherently bad thing. And I think a TV series may be a really good format for capturing the things I liked and avoiding the things I didn’t, so I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about it. (For the record, my wishlist for changes from the book mostly consists of bad guys who are nuanced rather than eeeeeevil, and some convincing sense of actually being set in the 21st century. Which hopefully should not be too difficult to deliver.)
I didn’t find the villains especially cartoonish, but I felt the book was more a thrill-ride with colorful characters than a deep examination of good and evil. With the exception of cell phones that aren’t smartphones, it also didn’t feel all that dated to me. Are there particular examples that occurred to you? It’s worth noting that the book exists in a weird universe, where there’s a Lost spinoff series and Jack Reacher is a real person. So there’s that.
It’s not so much a question of specific things feeling dated, as King kind of only just barely acknowledging the existence of the internet at all. But it’s probably easier for me just to link to the review I wrote of it on LibraryThing, as I went into my issues with that aspect of things in considerable detail there.
Hmmmm, yeah that trailer is not inspiring me with confidence. I think I shall now think of it as ‘based on some characters in the novel Under the Dome’. Much less disappointment that way. 😉
Oh, and I might have picked up a used copy of Firestarter today. You know, just ’cause.
I don’t know if that’s the King novel I’d be first to recommend…
I really liked The Long Walk – he wrote that as Richard Bachman, years and years ago. It’s a bit rougher around the edges than some of his other books, but it’s a really great story. I certainly would recommend it for a next Stephen King read.
I’m planning on reading the one he wrote about the guy who goes crazy up at the hotel during the winter. Can’t put my finger on the title, but it’s sitting on my tablet, ready to go.
I think you mean Cujo. 😉