41 Comments
Mar 1, 2023Liked by John Birmingham

On the one hand I though that this one was almost too slow a burn from King. It was hundreds of pages to build up, and then within Empis hundreds more pages to get to some action. By the time it kicked off, I was thinking that there's not a lot more book for this action to occur within.

But then I realised that enjoyed immensely all that other good stuff too. It was almost vintage King- the start of the Stand, the world of the loser kids in It, even the training and village life in Wizard and Glass. It was a change from the not-quite immediate 'splodey, but certainly faster moving, 11.22.63.

I've got a weekend away coming up, so I've clicked and bought Taste. Thanks JB.

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Mar 1, 2023Liked by John Birmingham

I knew from the start that Clare Bowditch was evil. I think this book will scare the crap out of me!😳

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Mar 1, 2023Liked by John Birmingham

Finished this last night - WOW! I too was bitten by "The Stand" back in the day, and actually devoured a lot of Mr King's literature when I was a lot younger - my first foray back to "Fairy Tale" did not disappoint, and the mental gymnastics required to understand his multi-verse made me smile.

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I’m going to give a shout out for Jason Lambright’s King’s Ohio Rifles. It’s an alt history where the War of Independence and the American Revolution didn’t happen, and we follow the adventures of a Native American soldier fighting for King and Country in the trenches of WWI.

This book made me feel like I was in the trenches alongside Bill and his mates, to the point where when someone woke up in a crater after nearly being shelled and did the obligatory pat down to ensure everything was still intact I was almost overcome by the urge to check that genitalia I do not possess was still with me. Incredibly vivid and real writing. The rest of the trilogy is due to be published this year.

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I’ll drop a recommend here that is at once a far cry from King but incorporates plenty of his humanity and horror. The book is The Dawnhounds, by Kiwi scribe Sascha Stronach, and it is batshit in the best possible way. I have heard it described as “what if Jeff Vandermeer wrote Discworld” and honestly, it pretty much is. It is an eldritch horror police procedural with badass lesbian magic pirates and maximum toothy solidly plus plenty else besides and I loved the imagination dripping from every goddamn page. Get amongst, all ye.

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Read most of Fairy Tale on a 21 hour flight from Sydney to Toronto. Love Stephen King and loved this one particularly. I can't imagine he worries about things being made into movies / series anymore but this would make one killer streaming series....

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Haven't read any SK recently but have just re-read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre 40+ years after first doing so. Like the curate's egg, it was good in parts. But those two insufferable, pompous and self-important men, Edward Rochester and St John Rivers and their penchant for long-winded soliloquies made it a tedious read. Christ knows why Jane didn't just give them both the arse - surely she was bored to death. Am now cleansing myself with Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. A most refreshing contrast!

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The last Stephen King book I picked up was "IT" in the late 80's. I'd moved past wearing Scoops (Ipswich adjacent in Inala) by then, but I love the reference. I have never been one to read much horror and I am afraid I never finished that book. I also did not pick up another Stephen King book for a very long time for fear of reading nightmare inducing stories. The Stand was an exception (excellent work Stephen).

So it was with some trepidation that I took on the challenge of Fairy Tale. I choose audiobooks these days due to busy work schedules and the fact that if I pick up a real book to read in bed I am snoozing before I have finished the first page.

Fairy Tale was awesome. I know that I should have understood where the story was going based on the title but Stevie boy knows how to suck you in with a narrative grounded in Charlie's day-to-day life before heading down that rabbit hole.

I loved everything about this book. Someone should tell Stephen to write some more books.......

Keep the recommendations coming JB. The Splendid and the Vile was also quite excellent.

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I’ve been a fan of the King for most of my life (although interestingly I didn’t read The Stand until about 7 years ago). I’ve been keeping an eye on this one, JB, and your review has tipped it onto the digital reading pile. Possibly even next on that list.

Here’s a short review of the book I’m about 95% of the way through:

The Three Body Problem

The problem with The Three Body Problem is that it’s an unwieldy mess, it’s translated well but still doesn’t really translate, it’s trying to be heartfelt and extremely scientific at the same time, and there are huge plot holes that break the believability along the way.

That said, it’s a somewhat beautiful read, with lovable and hateable characters in equal measure, discussing a world on the edge of an emotional and physical breakdown, bringing together real life with extreme sci fi in a way that makes the latter seem (appropriately) completely unworldly. It’s a statement on humanity’s apathy and hatred of its world and itself, and the lengths people will go to to find meaning, even when the meaning is unknowable.

My advice: read it. Just don’t expect it to be a fun ride.

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I wasn’t a massive fan of Kings time travel book that everyone seemed to love but I’ll give this a go sounds ace.

My King story- made a bet with my high school English teacher that I could read 100 books. I had a system, my librarian buddy would recommend an author then off I’d go down the list. I too started with The Stand, then chugged through 3 weeks of solid King until about 15 books in I woke up one night and was convinced the cover of Pet Cemetery was fucking glowing like a UFO on my desk and devolved into a week of shocking nightmares.

Admittedly this might have been from staying up well into the night for months reading on top of everything else I was doing but back then it felt like the book was going to open up and swallow me whole.

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Mar 1, 2023·edited Mar 1, 2023

First King book I read was Carrie, when King was still an unknown. I don't think I've read one since Pet Sematary. Not a good book to read if you're the parent of a two year old kid. But now the kids have long grown perhaps I could venture back.

I did go all gung-ho when the book club was announced and read an oldie, a Ken Follett drama, and wrote a quick review so I didn't have to think about it later. And so, here it is:

45 years after first publication, Ken Follett’s “Eye of the Needle” remains engaging reading. You can get the scenario and guess the ending from reading the blurb, but the story-telling fleshes out characters and evokes the war-time setting so that social media lost its sway over my time for as long as it took me to finish the book… and the inclusion of Churchill seemed to be a sweet case of serendipity in light of JB’s previous review.


If, like me, you’d read “The Pillars of the Earth” and appreciated Follett’s talent for weaving historical fact within his grand narrative, you’ll find this, his first-ever published novel, worth picking up.

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steven king......yawn! to wordy and drawn out , i'm not interested in the chidhood trauma of EVERY character . just tell the dam story , PLEASE !!!

oi J.B when are we going to see another Girl In Time book ?

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Thanks for the review, JB, I haven’t read Mr King for ages but I might give this a go.

I read The Shining as a pre or early teen, and The Stand a bit after that, both settled into the bedrock of my psyche. I think the last SK novel I read was Rose Madder, a great depiction of domestic violence that was spoiled by the supernatural stuff.

I just finished reading the Joe Pitt Casebooks by Charlie Huston, written 2005-09. I read them 10+ years ago and again just recently ‘cos I was in NYC and always enjoy reading something set where I am. If you like a bit hard boiled of vampyre noir I’d highly recommend. The point of this being, they were endorsed by Mr King.

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DId your purple scoops make you look crash-hot?

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I had a pair of scoops

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I’ll quietly mention that Chester is still waiting to be reunited with Titanic

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Great timing, thankyou JB. Just today I was checking the release date (again! And it’s still only in April) for the audio book of Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky, yearning for something epic and transportative to ‘read’ while I slog through a repetitive and large job. Oh Stephen King… as kids in the 80s, my brother and I used to lie side by side to read the same book, because our library had only one at a time and we were both HUGE fans. We wanted to be scared out of our wits simultaneously. So good. Looking forward to reading him again.

Thanks!!!

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At the start of the COVID thing, Steven King inadvertently re-released an extra long version of The Stand. I’d already read it as a youngster, but thought sure - I’ll give it another go.

In the same way as Fairy Tale, he spent a lot of extra time painting the picture that forms the background to all the chaos. But it was terrifying reading that shit, and then turning on the TV to watch it unfold in real life.

Fairy Tale is a much harder read for me.. too slow to get started, and Charlie seems like a sadistic fuck at times - hard to see him as a hero - I’ll keep reading though.

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These days making someone happy is a pretty worthy goal. Can he next write a book that will make someone kind?

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Interesting - I'm hearing 'variable' reviews of this book.

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