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 Insomnia by Stephen King
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 7, 1995
I have long been a fan of Stephen King, but I feel that even his most vocal supporters would claim that he is without faults. Personally, I have always felt that his best novels always ended while still in search of a fitting climax, with the exception of Misery. In particular I would offer into evidence the atomic bomb cop-out in The Stand and the ridiculous spider-thing in It.
However, in Stephen King terms, his latest has just about everything, including an ending that satisfies. INSOMNIA is definitely one of his best. Though his choice of senior citizens as central characters may seem strange, as always King's instinct for people is spot on. Ralph Roberts is at that age where society seems to cast people loose. He has become a dweller on the fringes, observing everything but partaking in little of it. He is sad and he is lonely. But worst of all he is sleeping less and less every night.
Eventually this sleep deprivation leads to a state in which he begins to hallucinate. Or so he thinks at first. What he is seeing really exists and it is a higher level of existence than we are normally permitted to see. But he discovers that he is not the only one able to see the higher plane. There are others. And one of them has been driven insane by his experiences. One of them has murder on his mind. More than murder. Genocide.
Only Ralph and his new-found love, Lois, can stop the madman, though it will likely cost them their lives. The question is, will they last long enough to make the sacrifice? Can the all-too-human monster be stopped?
To find the answer you've got 650 pages of novel to plough through. But it's well worth it. In the company of Stephen King and his latest blockbuster the time will seem to fly. INSOMNIA may not be amongst his most frightening outings but it is definitely one of King's most satisfying on all levels.
 Rose Madder by Stephen King
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 12, 1996
With Stephen King you know pretty well what you're going to get. It's product, but it's never shoddy product. And after the somewhat more literary(?) or experimental departures of Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne, he is firmly back in the King groove, following up the traditional horror of Insomnia with the psychological horror of Rose Madder.
It begins very much like a standard thriller. Rosie Daniels is a battered wife. Her husband is a cop. He controls her completely, destroying as much of her individuality as he can, forcing her to sublimate all evidence of what remains. Then one day she realises if she doesn't get away from him he will inevitably kill her. So she runs, taking only his credit card and using it only to the minimum necessary to effect her escape.
The genius of Stephen King is that he gets you inside Rosie Daniels' head. You see what she sees and feel what she feels. You understand her fear. You know that Norman is insane. You know he will kill you. To an ordinary person Rosie's life seems to contain one simple, straightforward equation: her husband beats her, she should run away. To the majority of us that's as obvious as one and one equals two. Until, that is, you see things from Rosie's perspective. And you do. And you realise how difficult it is for her to leave. You realise how debilitating to the will such intimate assault can be.
And on top of that he delivers a first rate, no-holds-barred, roller coaster ride of a thriller. My only reservation is that I found myself questioning the device at the very heart of the novel, the Rose Madder painting which insinuates itself into her life and provides the platform for the resolution of the plot. The question that kept recurring was - is the painting and its supernatural presence really necessary to Rosie Daniels' story. The answer to that has to be no. The novel could have been just as successful without it. In many ways it appears to have been shoe-horned into the plot just to give it 'Stephen King Horror/Fantasy' credibility. Or should that be marketability.
That said, the device of the painting works and the novel is a winner because of as well as despite its presence. This is undoubtedly one of his most satisfying novels in terms of its cohesion and denouement. It builds to a superb climax and a satisfying one. Rose Madder is definitely one for the casual reader as well as the fan. As if any of his billions of fans give a toss what I think.
 Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 4, Spring 1994
I was worried when I read the publisher's blurb for Stephen King's new collection NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES. As I recall it now, it said something about this being a collection of everything worth publishing that was not in his previous two collections. I thought to myself, 'oh oh, here we go, all the second rate crap will be here as padding despite claims to the contrary'. But being an incurable optimist (and an incurable Stephen King fan) I decided to brave it anyway.
How could I ever have doubted him? Despite GERALD'S GAME. Everybody deserves a second chance.
As short story collections go, this is a tour de force. Okay, there are one or two that could have been written by a mere mortal, but on the whole this sets standards against which every author of short fiction must measure himself. Of course there are stories out there that have been more stylishly written or which ask more questions about the texture of reality or ones which make more effective and evocative use of the English language, but hell, I guarantee that there are few of them that you will LIKE quite as much as King's. They just call out to be read.
The lead story, Dolan's Cadillac, is a novella length piece about the physical lengths to which a man can drive himself in the pursuit of revenge. As usual, its strength is in the characters. Almost without noticing it, we find ourselves loving the protagonist, rooting for him in his quest for revenge over Dolan whom we, naturally it seems, find ourselves hating. Though there is nothing startlingly original or meaningful in the story it is simply a wonderful piece of storytelling. Which has always been Stephen King's secret.
Almost every story in the collection deserves mention but one more will have to do. It is called You Know They've Got A Hell Of A Band and if I tell you that while out for a drive our heroes get lost and find themselves in an odd little town called Rock and Roll Heaven, Oregon, need I really say more?
As they would say in Rock and Roll Heaven - The hits just keep on comin'.
 Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 23, August 2001
Appealing to just about every literate human on the planet, or so it seems by his sales, will be Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. This is King in full-on adventure-story mode with no pretensions at literary worth, merely that rabid desire to entertain. And in that department he delivers in full measure, as usual.
Even Stephen King, in his wildest and most imaginative moments could not claim the plot of Dreamcatcher to be terribly original. It is pretty standard alien landing/invasion fare and much of it feels fairly familiar. In brief synopsis: aliens crash-land their saucer in the backwoods of Maine (where else?) and the army send in a psychotic (called Kurtz, which may or may not be an alias in reverence for Apocalypse Now) to quarantine the area and eliminate the problem. Unfortunately the problem is considered to be not only the aliens but every human or animal that may have been in contact with them - which is everything in the area - as the aliens carry a killer plague with them. Luckily the crash happens in November and the aliens and their virus do not respond well to the cold.
Our heroes, four boyhood chums from Derry, Maine, who hunt the woods in November every year, are trapped in the quarantine zone. How do they escape? Do they all escape? Who will die? Will the alien incursion be contained? Will Kurtz kill everyone? Do we care?
Well, the only question I'm going to deal with here is the last one. And the answer is, as it always is with King, a resounding yes. As always the characters' backgrounds and motivations are handled beautifully and although these are by no means four great guys, they do have a spark of goodness in them. It was this spark that led to them saving a Downs Syndrome child from a bad beating, at no little risk to themselves, when they were kids. And it is this incident which may provide the key to survival for one or all of them. Even Kurtz's psychotic act is enthralling, as is his interaction with his troops, though you do feel you've seen it all before in just about every war movie made in the last ten yeas. It's King's spin that makes it readable.
Dreamcatcher is effortless. The writer doesn't show, only the story is visible on the page. Dreamcatcher is also vintage King and is the sort of novel that should be force-fed to aspiring novelists, the sort of novel which defines this field of entertainment. Of course there are novels written for other reasons: to inform, to educate, to question, to enrage, to shock. This one does none of these. Thank the gods for that and for Stephen King. Long may he reign.
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