Like others, I love Stephen King. Read all of 'em. This is the only one I hated, and for two reasons.
1) Tried too hard to integrate H.P. Lovecraft's mythos into his own work. Just futile, since it wasn't completely unnecessary to what was otherwise an interesting story. I've read all the Lovecraft too, and there is a consistency to his structure, just like there is with King's mythos. So, a homage to Lovecraft (or Poe, Machen, Clark Ashton-Smith, or any of the other writers who were the progenitors of the genre) is great - but slamming the Lovecraft "Old gods" in at the end was just a complete disconnect.
Want a better mythos - why not have the "opening of the portal" (so I don't give away too much to anyone who hasn't read this book) give us a view of Rose Madder's little friend? Much better ending, and much more interesting integration. Plus, since several of Mr. Kings books integrate earlier stories (Cujo pops up here and there, the gunslinger keeps wandering into earlier stories), it would have been much more satisfying to concentrate a suitable ending for the Rev in this way.
2) Almost all of Mr. King's stories punish the bad guy, and don't necessarily reward the good guy, but at least they have some redemption. Oddly enough, the same is true for Lovecraft's work, except that there's more collateral damage. The occasional guy eaten by giant rats, that sort of thing. But this story ends with everyone - you and me too - with no hope, no redemption, and a message that tells us that there is no reason for a moral compass of any sort (which means the gunslinger and all the other King protagonists have been pretty much wasting their time) since there is only evil in this world, the next world, the world after that, and anything positive in this world is just a thin veil that somehow appears and grows out of a multiverse of evil.
1) Tried too hard to integrate H.P. Lovecraft's mythos into his own work. Just futile, since it wasn't completely unnecessary to what was otherwise an interesting story. I've read all the Lovecraft too, and there is a consistency to his structure, just like there is with King's mythos. So, a homage to Lovecraft (or Poe, Machen, Clark Ashton-Smith, or any of the other writers who were the progenitors of the genre) is great - but slamming the Lovecraft "Old gods" in at the end was just a complete disconnect.
Want a better mythos - why not have the "opening of the portal" (so I don't give away too much to anyone who hasn't read this book) give us a view of Rose Madder's little friend? Much better ending, and much more interesting integration. Plus, since several of Mr. Kings books integrate earlier stories (Cujo pops up here and there, the gunslinger keeps wandering into earlier stories), it would have been much more satisfying to concentrate a suitable ending for the Rev in this way.
2) Almost all of Mr. King's stories punish the bad guy, and don't necessarily reward the good guy, but at least they have some redemption. Oddly enough, the same is true for Lovecraft's work, except that there's more collateral damage. The occasional guy eaten by giant rats, that sort of thing. But this story ends with everyone - you and me too - with no hope, no redemption, and a message that tells us that there is no reason for a moral compass of any sort (which means the gunslinger and all the other King protagonists have been pretty much wasting their time) since there is only evil in this world, the next world, the world after that, and anything positive in this world is just a thin veil that somehow appears and grows out of a multiverse of evil.
