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Read The Dark Half... you'll enjoy it.51. Created By
by Richard Christian Matheson
About the Book:
"From a startling new voice in fiction comes a savagely written thriller of greed, ambition . . . and terror.
Alan White is a hot young writer-producer looking for the one megahit every Hollywood writer dreams about. He thinks he's found it with a new TV show called The Mercenary.
The network has never seen anything like it. Sex. Violence. Nudity. This time they're taking it to the max and the Nielsen ratings are shooting through the roof.
Alan couldn't be happier. Until the morning's headlines start to read like a rerun of last night's episode. Until The Mercenary begins to take on a terrifying life of its own. Until it becomes chillingly clear that Alan must cancel his creation--before it cancels him."
My Thoughts:
Harry O. Morris is our artist for this one. Nice creepy image to go with the story. My copy was a signed numbered edition.
I like the way this guy writes. His descriptions and images are just so good. His words not only give you a nice clear picture in your head to focus on, they also give you a very visceral feel too. The way he liked to describe things spoke to me as this is the way I write. Of course, he has talent, I don't.
The story was reminiscent of The Dark Half, at least what I know of that story as I have never read it. And there was a moment in the book that was very reminiscent of a Night Gallery Episode, The Girl with the Hungry Eyes.
The story contained the gruesome scares, biting sarcasm and also had fine moments of humor given the way Mr. Matheson worded things. I felt like I was given a little look/see into Hollywood workings, and this book, although fictional and fantastical, had moments that felt drawn from the real and personal.
Some of the chapters felt very disjointed and fractured, but I think that was a stylistic choice given what was going on in the story and what was going on with the main character. He was disjointed and fractured. And I'm not talking about the jibberish chapters necessarily. At times, I lost my way of who, what, where, when and why. Everything got a bit timey wimey.
David J. Schow and Craig Spector add wonderful commentary about Matheson and the book. Moments they highlighted from the story were the same passages that stuck with me too, so it was kind of cool to see we were on the same wavelength.
A nice interview was included.
Also, Mr. Matheson wrote an added chapter with information about himself, his writing, career and discussion of this book.
At the end of my copy was a script portion that is always interesting to see.
Apparently in the lettered edition they got to see an unpublished chapter and the story outline which I wish I could've had the opportunity to see, but I get it. Gotta give those deep pocket people something special.
Enjoyed the ride.
Very cool! Can't wait to read DJ's write up on this.
Can't wait to read it! I really love these Shivers books. I get to read so many authors I might not otherwise even know about, and some really great short stories.
I'm about halfway through and I lay the book down and walk away. I'm not sure why I can't finish it because it is a good story. But this has happened twice to me now.
I have Shivers VIII ordered. By chance and just picking your brains, do you know when they plan on having that one out?
Oh wow. I hadn't been to the site to look around for a while. I didn't realize they had an update page on these things. That's nice, I have a bunch of other things on that list I'll keep watching.
She was phenomenal!
I will miss Alan. He was my favourite character.
