Authors: Hans-Ake Lilja
“Stationary Bike” is about Richard Sifkitz, who is told by his doctor that his cholesterol is way too high and that he has to start exercising if he wants to stay alive. To make Sifkitz understand, the doctor paints him an image of having a work crew inside of him who takes care of all the junk he eats. At this point, the crew is very tired and driven too hard.
The problem is that Sifkitz, being an illustrator with very vivid imagination, takes this very seriously. He starts exercise (“What is the problem with that,” I hear you ask…), and he even draws a painting of the crew and starts giving the four men in the crew names and backgrounds. They become very real to him, maybe too real…
In order to exercise, he sets up a stationary bike in the basement and as time passes he goes from overweight to being in the best shape he has ever been in…
but,
what happens to the work crew when they aren’t needed anymore? What happens if they are laid off and don’t get their paychecks anymore? What happens if they take matters into their own hands?
“Stationary Bike” is on two CDs and about 1½ hours long, so it’s a fast listen, but is nevertheless a very pleasant listen. It’s a very good story with an unexpected ending, and until now hadn’t been released as a King book; it has only been published in the anthology
Borderlands 5
. Here you have it with King’s name on the cover.
Lilja’s final words about
Stationary Bike (audio)
So, when this CD is released on June 6, make sure you get a copy ASAP....
Oh, and Simon & Schuster Audio, please let Ron narrate more books for you!
****
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished
Posted: October 19, 2006
After finishing
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished
by Rocky Wood, I must say this is every collector and King fan’s dream book. Not only do you get information about every known uncollected and unpublished King story, you also get one story and one poem previously unpublished.
Let’s start with the story and poem…
The story is chapter seventy-one of King’s unpublished book
Sword in the Darkness
. Before I read it I was a bit skeptical as to why they would publish a chapter from somewhere in the middle of the book. Would the reader be able to follow the plot? But, as usual, Rocky knows what he’s doing. The chapter deals with one of the main character’s background and is totally isolated from the rest of the story.
The biggest surprise, though, was to see how good it was. You have to remember that this was written back in 1970 by a very young King, and even though you notice that the writing style isn’t exactly the same as today, much of the story could have been written yesterday. That was very interesting to see, and I agree with Rocky when he says that King could easily put this one in the next collection without being ashamed of it. In fact, I would be a bit disappointed if he didn’t.
The poem is “Dino” and it has actually been published once in
Salt Hill Journal
in 1994. It was then lost for some time and just recently surfaced again, and now you get to read it. I’m not a big fan of poetry, but still, it’s interesting to see how King handles it.
The rest of the book deals with uncollected and unpublished works that King has done. The book covers no less then fifty-one unpublished and forty-six uncollected works of fiction. These ninety-seven works include novels, shorter works of fiction, twenty-four screenplays and nine poems. I did tell you it includes a lot, right? The information is so detailed it almost feels like you have read the pieces after reading this book, which is a nice feeling.
The only negative with the book, though, is the fact that you end up wanting to read all the stories you have read about, and let me tell you one thing up front, you are not going to find all of them. Some are available if you know where to look, but far from all of them. So, even though it’s great to learn about them, I can’t help feeling an urge to get my hands on them.
One other thing that I don’t like about the book is that all of the footnotes are at the back of the book, and it gets very annoying to have to flip back and forth. I would have wanted them at the bottom of each page, which would have made the reading much easier.
The book has been released in two versions. One is a limited edition from Cemetery Dance and the other is a trade paperback from Landmark Press in Australia. Since the one from Cemetery Dance is limited it’s more expensive than the Australian edition. So, if you don’t have that much money and just want to read it, go for the cheaper one. If you want to have a nice book in your bookcase and you can afford it, go with Cemetery Dance’s edition…if they have any left.
Cemetery Dance’s edition comes in a slipcase and is limited to two thousand copies. It’s also signed by all three authors.
Lilja’s final words about
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished
is a book that should be in every fan’s collection. Most of us are really interested in knowing more about King’s work, but even if you’re not you get a brand new (old) story. Not bad if you ask me!
****
Lisey’s Story
Posted: October 23, 2006
Lisey’s Story
is one hell of a book. It’s so rich that you almost forget some of the side stories while you read it. There is one story about the past, there is one story about the present, there is one story about a sister and there is one story about a young boy…and they are all connected.
It has influences from both
Bag of Bones
and
The Talisman
, and from time to time you get the feeling that King is about to connect
Lisey’s Story
to any of those books, but just as you think it, the story turns and takes you in another direction.
It’s also very hard to categorize. It’s not a horror story, but it has elements of horror; it’s not a ghost story, but there are ghosts; it’s not a romance novel, but it sure has a love story in it. I guess the only category you can put it in is the “Stephen King books” category.
Lisey’s Story
is the story about Lisey Landon who, after the death of her husband, the famous author Scott Landon, discovers there’s a lot she didn’t know about him…or that she didn’t know that she knew about him. As the story moves on we, and she, get the full story of Scott’s complicated life: his childhood with an abusive father, his trips to a place he calls Boo´ya Moon and about Bools, Blood Bools in particular.
When you read
Lisey’s Story
you get the feeling that while King may not be writing about himself, he’s writing about his own situation. As far as I know he isn’t, but some of the things he says about the fans, the readings, the Incunks—Lisey’s word for the people who want Scott’s unpublished works at any price—make me wonder. It feels like all this could be taken from his own experiences as a famous author…
This time I both read the book and listened to it on audio CD, and both were a very pleasant experience; the book because there is always a very nice feeling the first time you crack the spine on a new King book, and the audio because it’s brilliantly read by Mare Winningham, and as an extra bonus, the afterword is read by King himself. This, combined with the fact that it’s a very good story, really made my day…or days, in this case.
The book is just over five hundred pages long, and on audio it’s about nineteen hours. In other words, you’re in for a treat, so stop wasting time on the Internet and run out to get it…NOW!
Lilja’s final words about
Lisey’s Story
Whether you get the book or the audio is up to you, but please know that Mare Winningham has a voice made for narrating, and hopefully we’ll hear more from her in the future.
****
The Secretary of Dreams, Volume 1
Posted: January 29, 2007
The Secretary of Dreams
is a big book, and I mean really
BIG
. It’s big in size as well as in illustrations. Maybe even a little too big? The book contains six stories, half of which are comics and the other half are regular text stories with illustrations. The text on the stories that aren’t in comic format is a little too big in size, though, if you ask me. Text that big makes reading a bit strange…
It’s also a big book if we talk illustrations. Glenn Chadbourne has done a very good job illustrating the book. The illustrations are extremely detailed, though sometimes they are almost too detailed. You find yourself stuck on a certain illustration to catch all the details instead of reading the text…
The three stories that really make
The Secretary of Dreams
stand out are “The Road Virus Heads North,” “Rainy Season” and “Uncle Otto’s Truck,” since they are the ones portrayed as comics. Glenn has really captured the feeling of the stories and it’s quite funny to see how much Richard Kinnell in “The Road Virus Heads North” looks like King himself. And the way the toads look in “Rainy Season” is just genius.
The only problem as I see it with those three stories is that they have put every single word from King’s original text in there. Some of the explaining words don’t need to be written in text since the situation is clear to you when you see the illustration. I think that in those cases they should have let Glenn’s illustrations do the telling and that would have given the text a better flow…but Cemetery Dance stated early that this book would contain every word in King’s written text, so it did.
The three stories that are illustrated are “The Reach,” “Jerusalem’s Lot” and “Home Delivery.” At first I was a little disappointed that these weren’t turned into comics like the other three, but after reading the book it feels like a very good balance having half of them illustrated and the other half as comics.
Despite these initial reservations,
The Secretary of Dreams
is a very interesting book and is actually one of the more interesting ones done lately. Whether you like the big text or whether you like that every word is there, you can’t deny that it’s a beautiful book. It’s very interesting to see King’s stories turned into comic versions and illustrated by Glenn. What I would wish for in Volume 2 is that some of the illustrations be in color. That would be very interesting to see.
The Secretary of Dreams
was released in three different editions: a slipcased gift edition that will cost you seventy-five dollars, a signed and numbered limited edition that goes for three hundred dollars and a signed and lettered edition that will set you back fifteen hundred dollars. The last two sold out in less than three hours from the time they were announced, though, so if you want one of those you’ll probably have to pay even more on the secondary market…
Lilja’s final words about
The Secretary of Dreams, Volume 1
I know that seventy-five dollars might be a bit much for a book, but if you can afford it, I definitely think you should get it. I think you’ll find yourself regretting it if you don’t!
****
Graduation Afternoon
Posted: March 16, 2007
“Graduation Afternoon” is a very strong story. It’s also a very hard story to review without giving away the ending…but I’ll try.
“Graduation Afternoon” tells the story of Janice, a not-so-wealthy girl who is dating Buddy, a very wealthy boy. His parents do not approve of their relationship, so Janice suspects that it will end pretty soon. What she doesn’t know is just how soon.
King doesn’t give us that much background about the characters, so we really don’t know much about these people. What King does do in this story, though, is build it up to the climax beautifully and then just executes it. Personally, I think it’s one of the best short stories he has done. And yes, it’s very short. It’s only five pages long, but it’s very effective.
King actually sums the story up best himself in the introduction to it. Here he talks about when he got the idea for it in London in 2006:
“When I woke, I slid to the floor, glad to be awake and amazed that any human brain could hold such a powerful image. I knew I had to write about it, I knew the story had to be short—no more than a vignette—and I knew I would never be able to do the image (God, don’t let it be a vision) justice.”