Waiting For A New Stephen King Book

Waiting for a new Stephen King book is like waiting in line for a roller coaster.  You try to find things to talk about with your friends as you wait in line.  Little snippets of the coaster thunder by as you wait,  building the anticipation.

I didn't get to read  this one early.  (I did Joyland.  And was quoted on some of their publicity stuff.)  But I know Lilja has already read it and has expressed pleasure.  See, there's always people getting off the ride going, "Yah dude!  That was awesome!"  Of course, there are also people getting off who are puking their guts up.

As you near the gate, everyone gets a little quiet.  Both scared and excited.  Scared -- in terms of a book, what if this thing is a total bummer?  Excited because it might just blow us away.

Did I mention I live in SoCal -- where there seems to be more roller-coasters  here than anywhere else on planet earth.  We have Six Flags, Disneyland (yes they do have good coasters), Knotts Berry Farm and Legoland.  Yeah, there's no cool coasters at Legoland!

But this is Stephen Kingish -- this year my favorite wood Coaster got torn down.  Magic Mountain decided it was time to take out the old wood structure, which had been a park staple  for years.  It was once a duel track coaster, but in later years  they just ran one track because. . . I don't know.  At Halloween time, they'd run the coaster backward, which was indeed the freakiest, funniest thing I'd  ever been on.  It was awesome!  When riding a coaster, your eyes do a lot of talking to your brain as you judge  how much further you have to fall.  Without seeing the drops, even little  drops felt like dips toward a bottomless pit.

When Magic Mountain decided to tear the Colossus out, it was a sad day for many of us.  But the old pile of wood did not go down without a fight.  A big fight.  The thing caught fire as they tried to tear it down!  The fire department had to be called in to put out the fire.  Imagine the person who had  to call 911 on that.  "911, what's your emergency?"  "Yeah, well, I work for Magic Mountain, and our roller-coaster is on fire.  You'll probably need a ladder truck, it's pretty big."

Ukrainian Joyland

Here is a hardcover, Ukranian Joyland.  It's selling at ebay for $21.47.

Joyland Hardcover

Spending The Stephen King Money

You've read  Joyland, right?  You know, the 2006 Emily Schultz novel.  -- OH, wrong Joyland, right?  Turns out, a lot of people are accidentally buying the Schultz novel instead of King's book.

Schultz writes at her website:

I'm Emily Schultz. My first novel came out eight years ago. It was called Joyland. Last year Stephen King released a print-only novel with the same title. That was cool, until a few King readers bought the e-book version of my novel by mistake and started leaving negative and confused Amazon reviews. I asked Amazon to change their search results to keep people from buying the wrong book but never heard back. 

Apparently there were a lot of confused readers as this week I got a—for me—big royalty check for those mistaken books. I'm not so upset anymore. Sure, it's more a pleasant surprise than a fortune, and I'm stuck with those reviews, but I thought a blog detailing how we're spending the Stephen King money would be a nice way to end this funny and strange story. 

So what do you do when Stephen King's money starts to roll in?  Well, obviously, if you're a writer, you write about it!

Schultz has started a delightful blog titled, "Spending The Stephen King Money"  With each purchase she records, she also asks the question, "Would Stephen King like it?"  This includes:

• furniture from Ikea, a haircut for Brian, 
• the deductible for bumper repair, 
• books, 
• Dinner for two at a place called "Junoon" . . . and more.

She notes that she bought a new Apple computer, and asks if Stephen King would approve.  "WOULD STEPHEN KING ENJOY IT: According to his book On Writing, King writes 10 pages a day. I think he knows the importance of a good machine."

I think this is brilliant and quite a bit of fun.  Naturally, we wonder, what does Stephen King think of this, though.  After all, it is his book that's losing the sales, right?  King told Entertainment Weekly that he is “I’m delighted for her."  And, what's more, "I’m going to order her book.”  So there's a real sale!  And, from none other than Stephen King.  Schultz said in turn that she would be buying King's book. Of course, she'll be buying King's book with King's money.  A nice way to go!

King Books Worthy Of A Return Visit

I read Gerald's Game a couple of times, but really have no desire to go back again and again.  In fact, many novels are a great read once.  Some books actually lose something on the second read.  The first time through a book, the writer has the ability to surprise the reader.  The second time, the reader is emotionally armed up.

There are a small handful of books that are worth returning to again and again.  No matter how many times I read these books, they maintain their magic.  In fact, I look forward to the little plot twists.

Sometimes rereading a book reminds me of the period of life I first read it in.  So reading the Stand takes me back to High School and those long days I sat in summer school reading the book as a teacher droned on.

These "favorite" books are ones I'm most likely to buy special editions of.

So here are a few King books I've read more times than I can count:

Joyland

This book is absolutely delightful!  I could really care less about the who done it part of the murder mystery, this story is all tone and setting.  We get a behind the scenes look at the old amuse park and a trip back to the 1970's.

King spares the reader the typical "who done it" -- even though that is a central part of the book. There is no running around, room to room trying to put clues together.

The novel focuses on first love -- and next love.  The love we find in the midst of a broken heart.  Can that love be trusted?  Is it real?  Can we really love when we're on the rebound?  This is actually a pretty complex emotional equation King sets up for a short book.  Kings skill at depicting relationships is superb.

Early on, man suggested that Joyland would be "vintage King."  I disagree.   Joyland is not like Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Dead Zone or any other King novel.  It's stronger.  Much stronger.  The characters are deeper and the story is told with a depth of maturity King could not bring to earlier novels.  So it may have elements we saw in King's younger work, this is ultimately the work of a seasoned writer.

Favorite Scene: Mike's visit to the amusement park.

Favorite Character: Mike.

First read: 2013

check out my post about the real corpse in a theme park's house of horror: talkstephenking joyland journal

The Stand.  

I love the entire book and was so happy when it finally came out in audio.  Have read it both as the abridged version and unabridged.  Both are delightful.  There are lots of little sub stories that run through the book that are easily forgotten.  And, I could travel with Larry through that tunnel a hundred times and still be scared.

Favorite scene: I like the final scene in Las Vegas.  The hand of God reached down and took evil out.  That's pretty gutsy writing.

Favorite character: The Walkin' Dude.  Flagg.  I love it that King dared to give us evil personified. And he wasn't a seething dark monster oozing goop -- he was one cool dude.  Of course, if you made him unhappy, he had a few tricks up his sleeve to return the favor.

First read: High School.

Needful Things.  

It's been too long since I've read this book!  Time to come back.  I think Needful Things is not given enough credit as a strong, character driven book.

Favorite character: One complaint sometimes leveled against Needful Things is that it lacks likable characters.  There were certainly people I liked!  How about Sherif Pangborn and his girlfriend, Polly Chalmers.

The book worked, for me, because it was long and had lots of breathing room. King interwove the characters and moved the plot toward a final crescendo that I thought worked on behalf of the town.  The final scene with the Sherif being offered a video of his wife's death was goofy.

Favorite scene: When Wilma and Nettie go crazy and hack each other to death in the middle of the street.  Yuck.

First read: High School.

IT

This book is many people's all time favorite King book.  I like it a lot.  I think I would like it even more if I had grown up in the fifties.  The story is as a much about childhood and friendship as it is monsters.  But King isn't afraid to give us lots of monsters!

Favorite character: Eddie.

Favorite scene: There's so many!  I really like the part where Bev hears the dead children calling to her through the drain.  The book has plenty of scenes that don't work for me.  But the overall narrative and magic of the book simply overwhelms these troubling/dull passages.  I like scenes where the kids are running around town, going to the theater and shops in Derry.  King transports us to another time; not only the 1950's, but to our own childhood.

First read: High School.

11/22/63

The book is absolutely brilliant.  Never mind the awkward means of time travel.  Naturally, we all go to the 1950's via our pantry.  In fact, like IT, there is plenty that doesn't work in this book for me.  When King finally gets down to alternate history, his own mechanisms of time travel distort what might have been.  Because of the earthquakes and other things related to time travel, we never get a clear view of the stories promised theme -- what if Kennedy had lived?

But then, mid or late novel, I realized something; this isn't really about alternate timelines!  King plays with the "white if" for just a while, but the thrust of the novel is really a love story.  A LOVE STORY!

What is so powerful about the book is King's ability to take us back in time.  For people like me, who did not grow up in the late 50's and early 60's, it is a grand tour of a place I've never been.  King starts by giving us the good, and then slowly begins to uncover some of the deeper evils of the era as the novel progresses.

Favorite character: Sadie.  I'm sure I'm supposed to connect  more deeply with Jake Epping, but the guy makes so many bad decisions that it is difficult to actually like him.  There were many times I found myself  going, "really, dude?"  But Sadie is emotionally complex and real.  I didn't start out liking her, because she seemed like a distraction from the plot.  "Why this side stuff about a love story," I asked myself.  But she won me over.

Other favorite Character: TIME.  Yep, time.

King plows new ground in 11.22.63 with the concept of time itself being obdurate. 

What if time wasn't a thing, like a block of wood or even a machine -- what if it was alive?  What if time was insulted when people tried to change it?  And, the biggie -- what if it could fight back?  What if the time line itself was able to protect itself against time-travelers. 

Notice how the past is indeed alive as King writes, "the past is sly as well as obdurate. It fights back. And yes, maybe there was an element of greed involved, too."  Later in the novel, King says, "The past is obdurate for the same reason a turtle’s shell is obdurate: because the living flesh inside is tender and defenseless." (p. 827)  Time protects the people within its shell.

Sadie picks up on the theme and tries to relate to it but she uses the wrong word–malelevolent--instead of obdurate. She hasn't experienced the obdurates of the past the way Jake has!  It has beat him to a pulp!

Favorite scene: When the story passes through the IT narrative.

First Read: 2012

Non-King

1. The Pillars Of The Earth
2. Cold Sassy Tree
3. The Pelican Brief
4. The Grapes Of Wrath
5. The Martian Chronicles
6. Great Expectations
7. A Dangerous Fortune
8. Piercing The Darkness
9. 1984

What Stephen King books are you most likely to come back to?
What non-King books do you read again and again?

JOYLAND comes to ebook

From stephenking.com:

On May 27, Hard Case Crime will publish the book for the first time in the classic rack-sized “mass-market” paperback format typical of pulp crime novels in the 1940s and 50s. The company will also release the novel for the first time in an e-book edition, in April 2014.

Doctor Sleep Journal #3: SHE SHINES

I'm sure there  are spoilers here.  If you are whiny about spoilers, you probably shouldn't read blogs about books you haven't read yet.  Because, it is totally fair for a community of readers to discuss portions of the book as they progress, not just give vague overviews. 

Some short  notes:

1. This is the second book this year in which King tells  the story from a primarily male  perspective.  Both Doctor Sleep and Joyland are about young men finding their way in this world.  Neither is particularly tied down as the novels begin, and each begins to make their own tangled webs of relationships as the novels progress.  Just because each is a young man does not mean their perspective is the same.  Devan Jones sees the world through pretty innocent eyes -- even though the story is being retold by and older Jones.  Dan's point of view is much darker; haunted.  I like them both, but personally identify more deeply with Jones than Torrance.

2. She Shines!  The reader knows as soon as Abra is introduced that she Shines.  Her father describes the families ability to work around her shining as the adjustments the family of a blind child  might make -- but in reverse.  I liked that analogy.

King reveals a connection that the reader picks up  on quicker that the characters in the story.  The good doctor has links to both Dan and Abra.  Might he be the connecting point? The chalkboard scene is reminiscent of scenes from Bag of Bones in which refrigerator magnets moved about.

So what's up with Abra?  As her doctor discusses possibilities of what might be going on with the strange kid, I sense King replaying characters he's introduced us to in the past.  She's not like Carrie, though she can move objects -- she's more powerful than Carrie!  And she's not like John Smith, who knows things -- she's more powerful than John.  So what's up with  her?  The reader knows she Shines.  But she is doing stuff Danny never did.  In fact, things would have unfolded much more decisively in Danny's favor if he shined the way Abra does.

Here is the song referenced concerning Abra as a baby:

3. Realistic family tones: The friction blended with camaraderie for the sake of a beloved child between mother-in-law and son-in-law is both sweet and all so real.  King makes these  scenes work like a master, grasping bits of insight that ring true to the reader.  There is something tender in this love/hate relationship.

4. Back to New England.  The scenes in New Hampshire remind me of the early tone King used in Needful Things.  Of course, both are pretty deep in New England -- but I could swear that for a moment I was back in the beloved Castle Rock.

5. Okay, I've gotta say. . . THE CLOWN CREEPS ME OUT!

They Shine Abra...
They Shine
and when  you're down here with me, YOU SHINE

The clown at the birthday party will give any Stephen King constant reader pause.  Just the presence of a clown in a King book gives the reader a heads up that something is going to happen. 

Clowns, in John’s opinion, were highly overrated. They scared the ---- out of kids under six. Kids over that age merely found them boring.

Well, the doctor proves wrong more than once, and I think his take on clowns is dead wrong.  Kids over six find them plenty scary!  I think we have an almost communal fear of clowns.  After all, if Pennywise didn't put the fear of clowns into you, then Steven Spielberg must have in Poltergeist.  If Spielberg and King didn't do it, how about Joker or John Wayne Gacy.

6. Return Visits To The Overlook.  Memories of the Overlook are intense.  King takes us back to the haunted hotel via Danny's memory -- and that is much more powerful than simply reading The Shining again.  Because when Danny goes back to the overlook in his memory, he is doing it personally, experiencing it again with renewed fear he can't stifle.

Was the hose a hose, or a snake?  In Dan's mind it was a snake, no doubt about it.  But he also knows he was really just a hose.  Dan does not try to rationalize his experience at the overlook, telling himself some garbage about it all having been in his head.  He knows full well the place was very haunted and that the ghosts in the hotel drove his daddy crazy.

Is it a snake or a hose? 

Who can say, my dear Redrum, Redrum my dear? Who can say?

It buzzes at him, and terror jumps up his throat from his rapidly beating heart. Rattlesnakes buzz like that.

7. Haha Mr. Kubrick, the joke is on you!

  Kubrick digs abound!  King rightly insists that the true history of The Overlook comes from his novel The Shining, not the Kubrick movie.  In the current issue of Cemetery Dance (#70), Bev Vincent calls the 1980 Kubrick adaptation "pollution."

Yes, it was room 217,  not room 237.  Dick Hallorann is alive.  And yes, the Overlook is gone,  burned to the  ground after the boiler exploded.  . . . Int he Stephen King universe, Jack Torrance never wrote "all work and no play makes Jack a dull  boy."  There were no creepy twins in the hotel corridors, nor did gouts  of blood erupt from elevators.  Danny's father  never  said, "Here's Jonny."

There are other subtle jabs at Kubrick.  In particular, King insists several times in Doctor Sleep that ghosts are evidence of life after death.  Of course, Kubrick didn't necessarily believe in life after death, and certainly not hell.  Don't tell Dan Torrance that, because he has seen beyond the grave.

Joyland Reviews Keep Coming

I loved Joyland!  And, it seems the positive reviews continue to pour out.  Of course, most of the major book reviewers have had their say on the book; but just as important are the reflections of more ordinary folk.

COOK:
Alison Reeger Cook wrote a review for  gainesvilletimes.com in which she admitted that this was her first Stephen King book.  Her reaction?  Impressed that King was able to take well worn themes and work them anew.  She also noted that King was able to keep from creating paper cutouts of characters, but created real depth.

 This is not a fast-paced novel. It takes its time getting to the central mystery about the haunted house and the legacy of the infamous murder. Yet, the story is steadfastly engaging and, at times, touching. King gives as much care and thought to this novel as any of his more highly publicized literature. And his writing seamlessly combines tinges of natural humor, subtle drama and just the right amount of tension for suspense.

He final take?  She'll be reading more Stephen King!

ARUL:
Also published this past Sunday, Davin Arul writes a review of Joyland for thestar.com, calling the novel, "a murder-mystery that’s sweet, fluffy and a tad lightweight," and then promises, "but you’ll savour every little strand."

Arul, like Cook, has not been keeping up with the most recent Stephen King offerings.  He starts by saying "IT has been a long time since a Stephen King book grabbed my attention from the start and held it right through to the end."  Is IT capitalized simply because it is the beginning of the article, or is it a clue that IT was the last novel by King that was joyfully read cover to cover?

He notes,

 Where the book really scores high marks is in its depiction of carnival life, the parlance and little behind-the-scenes nuggets of information, in capturing the things that go into creating the mass illusion – call it magic if you must – that makes such places so special in people’s lives and memories.

I had thought about this as well:

There is a supernatural element in here that is somewhat jarring when you consider the core theme of the HCC imprint is supposed to be “hard boiled crime” after all. But then, this is a Stephen King book, so we shouldn’t be surprised to find its murder-mystery spiced with ghosts and people who have the “Shining”.

Arul suggests that the great story telling found in Joyland is a hopeful sign of good things to come in Doctor Sleep.  I couldn't agree more!

Koster Discusses King's Bushnell Performing Arts Center Conversation

The Day columnist Rick Koster has posted a review of Stephen King's conversation with NPR's Colin McEnroe benefiting the Mark Twain House and Museum.

Koster offers several interesting tidbits.  I liked this note about Joyland,

On how books start with just an image in his mind. For a long time, he said, he had an image of a boy in a wheelchair flying a kite but wasn't sure what to do with it. Then, driving past a carnival, it all came together in his mind - and he wrote his latest book, "Joyland."

Joyland On CNN's WHAT TO READ

CNN posted their top 20 picks for things to read this Summer.  #12 on their list is Stephen King's delightful new novel, Joyland.

The CNN caption reads,

(Available Now) This summer, fiction master Stephen King offers a pulp thriller for your beach bag. Set in 1973, "Joyland" covers 21-year-old Devin Jones' summer finding love, saving a life and working as a carny at North Carolina's Joyland amusement park, where a woman had been killed in the Funhouse. To hear King tell it, "Joyland" is "a carny novel ... a novel about growing up and, as you might expect, a novel about terror."

www.cnn.com

JOYLAND pirated

photo credit: www.guardian.co.uk
(From M John Harrison's review of Joyland)

That's just rotten!  And illegal.  . . . oh, sorry, story first:

The LA Times posted an article that Stephen King's novel Joyland has been digitally reproduced and pirated.  Amazing, since Joyland wasn't even published digitally.

Carolyn Kellogg's article, "Stephen King's 'Joyland' pirated as e-book -- like all the rest," notes that Joyland is not alone -- almost all of King's work is pirated in the digital format.  She points out that one site offers "The Shining," "The Stand," "Pet Sematary," "It," "The Green Mile," and "The Gunslinger." Sound like a lot of King?  Kellogg then points out that "and that's all just one bundled package."

King said in May that he was hopeful people would go out to real bookstores and buy a copy of Joyland instead  of downloading the digital version.  Kellog notes, "The problem is that to some people, a pirate site looks like a digital bookstore -- one where everything is free."

The full article by Carolyn Kellogg is at www.latimes.com/features/books

mediabistro.com posted Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai full statement:

We’ve seen dozens of websites over the past year purporting to offer pirated downloadable copies of JOYLAND, and so far they’ve all been frauds – if you try to download the file, you get malware or a virus instead.  But inevitably the book will eventually be pirated for real, just as every best-selling book and popular movie or TV show or piece of music is.  As a publisher, you try to prevent it or to stamp it out when you discover it, but it’s like the “war on drugs” – good luck.  Seize a boatload of heroin, and what does it get you?   There are more boats, there’s more heroin. 

But all of that would be equally true regardless of Stephen King’s decision to release JOYLAND initially in printed-book form only.  Books that do have e-book editions get pirated, too, and I’m sure JOYLAND would have been pirated just as quickly either way.  There were pirated copies of HARRY POTTER before J.K. Rowling decided to release electronic editions and there were pirated versions after. 

In the end you have to rely on the good behavior of the vast majority of the audience – I see no reason to think that pirates represent more than a small fraction of all consumers.  That doesn’t mean we don’t care about piracy – we do.  But it’s just one of the many punches you have to learn to roll with in the rough-and-tumble world of modern publishing.

LA Times Review Of JOYLAND

I really liked David Unlin's (LA TIMES) review of Joyland.  Titled, "In Stephen King's new horror house, it's the everyday eeriness that grips," Ulin takes simple delight in the new novel.

In particular, I liked Ulin's note that the book is "written with a lighter touch, an air of if not nostalgia then wistfulness."  I totally agree.  Though I've read some reviews that said the book was so heavy, so dark that they would  not read it again.  I do think there are dark overtones, but it mostly remains true to the hard boiled crime imprint.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/06/12/4728743/in-stephen-kings-new-horror-house.html#storylink=cpy

Here's a great line -- "Joyland has a patina of the supernatural."

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/06/12/4728743/in-stephen-kings-new-horror-house.html#storylink=cpy

What I Miss About Digital Books

I am loving every bit of Joyland -- all of it! -- except  that I  can't get it on Kindle.  I don't even own a Kindle, but I have  the app on my computer and can probably read it also on my iphone.  So what's to miss? 

1. I miss my growing relationship with the language.  I would  submit to Mr. King that digital books are more than simply a convenience -- they give us a deeper access to words themselves.  Though under glass, I actually feel a bit closer to the language.  In fact, if a word is confusing I can look it up quickly without worrying  if I am spelling it correctly.  I do this often with theology books.

2. I miss being able to search the text quickly and accurately.  This is an amazing feature I use constantly in work.  Being able to find a specific line, or the exact wording of a quote, or even the ability to count the number of times a certain word is used all requires a search feature. 

SEARCH would be particularly nice to be able to search "talk" -- as in Carney talk.  The word won't appear too often in Joyland outside that reference, so it would allow me to find all the times King gives us those new words.  The only other way to make this happen is to take copious notes as I read.  It also requires I decide  ahead of time what words I'm going to mark and note.  With a search feature, you can realize mid novel that something was important and grab up the earlier references.

Finding things is particularly difficult in Joyland, since there is no numbering!  You can't make the mental note, "Okay, we're in chapter 7 -- so I need to look up things I just read in chapter 6."

3. I miss the "anywhere" feeling that digital gives.  I don't have to decide to take a book with me, if I"ve got it digitally downloaded, it is with me.  This is really nice when dealing with lots of cumbersome theology commentaries!

4. I miss seeing others highlights.  Kindle allows you to spot passages other readers have marked.  This can actually cause me to slow down and go back to a narrative and ask, "now why was that important?"  And I see things I'd run right by.  This feature is like walking around Disneyland.  There is so much to enjoy, you're not always sure what to take in.  But when you see a big crowd gathered in on place,  you might hover close just to see what the excitement is about.  (Actually, at Dland, you thank God the crowd is all mesmerized by something else so you can make a B-line to Space Mountain.)

5. I miss the ability to quickly and correctly quote.  Holding a book open (a paperback) is difficult as you try to get each line, each punctuation right.   And those of you have read this blog enough know that I often struggle with typos and misspellings.  The last thing you want to do is mess up a quote out of a book!

6. I miss spelling.  That's right!  I miss being able to quickly look up something and see exactly how  King punctuated or spelled something.  I'm listening to the book at the moment, and the reader read an abbreviation.  I wondered if in the book King had abbreviated and the reader just read it out for the sake of the audio book, or if King had written it out also.  Of course, I can dig through the paper copy and find it.  I've already read over  that part in print.  But finding is the issue sometimes, right? 

7. I miss being able to bookmark several places at once without dog-earing my copy up.  Also miss the ability to mark quotes without marking the book itself.  But, alas,  I broke down and  just highlighted the daylights out of this thing!

8. I miss being able to play fruit ninja and subway surfer and look like I'm reading.  (This is the same as when we were kids, hiding comics in our school books.  Which  I never did.  never.)

JOYLAND compared to nostalgia of The Green Mile

Christian DuChateau at CNN offers notes on several books considered to be "hot reads."  In the non-King literary world (there is one), he reviews 'The Son' by Philipp Meyer, 'A Serpent's Tooth' by Craig Johnson, 'The Shining Girls' by Lauren Beukes and 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' by Neil Gaiman.

He takes a moment to highlight Joyland and then offers this insight:

 While the story is at times dark and intense, there's less of King's trademark horror and more of the wistful nostalgia and emotion that will remind fans of "Stand by Me" and "The Green Mile," especially for its bittersweet and moving conclusion.

The full CNN article, Hot Reads For June, can be found at www.cnn.com

TALK the TALK

This is great news from titanbooks.com

Roll up! Roll up! Talk “the Talk” @Titan Books to Win Money-can’t-buy Prizes!
Best-selling author Stephen King returns with a breath-taking tale of love – and loss – set in a 1970s North Carolina amusement park. 

Celebrating the release of this bittersweet coming-of-age novel, Titan Books and Hard Case Crime are teaming up with a series of digital partners to host competitions to win a free copies of Joyland and ONE-OF-A-KIND Joyland canvas prints of the Robert McGinnis art designed especially for the limited edition of the book. 

Who dares enter the world of Joyland to win these unique prizes? 

Playing the game is simple. Follow the carnival as it tours across websites… Each website will post two definitions of carny “Talk” used in Joyland or Stephen King trivia each day for three weeks.  

To be entered into a competition to win copies of the book (hosted by each site) as well as THREE EXCLUSIVE CANVASES copy and paste the right answer to a tweet @titanbooks 

eg. BANG SHY means a shooting gallery…I think. Find out in Stephen King’s #JOYLAND @titanbooks 

The more unique carny terms that you share with the world, the more likely that you are to win books and prizes. There’s three canvases in total.
Roll up! Roll up! Talk “the Talk” @Titan Books.

Check it out at  titanbooks.com

Just for fun, I just learned what "DOG HOUSE" means. Anyone. . .

Hollywood Girls Of Joyland in England

Did you catch all that?   Hollywood... Joyland... England...

It's like they stepped out of the book.  This is enough to make you wish you lived in London.  Forbidden Planet reports:

a team of ‘Hollywood Girls’ from the world of JOYLAND will be touring bookstores to give away free JOYLAND-branded bags of popcorn. Bookstore shoppers will also be able to win free books and exclusive JOYLAND prizes by tweeting pictures of the Hollywood Girls - #Joyland @titanbooks

Dressed in the costume designed by Glen Orbik for the cover of the book, four ‘Hollywood Girls’ and their vintage popcorn machine will be at Forbidden Planet Shaftesbury Avenue on June 7th from 1 – 3pm.

The full article  is at forbiddenplanet.com

JOYLAND Journal 1: THE SHINING, DICKENS & CARNEY FROM CARNEY

I've been on a wonderful trip to Joyland these past few days. In fact, it's like a season pass.  As with other books, I'm not reviewing the novel so much as taking notes as I go.  I can say that it's everything Kevin Quigley said it would be.  Check out his review at www.fearnet.com 

WE SELL FUN: What is Joyland -- the amusement park -- all about?  The owner, Mr. Bradley Easterbrook, breaks it down: "you are here to sell fun," he says. As the speech progresses, one character whispers that this guy is the Jesus of fun.  Then, a bit later Easterbrook is just short of preaching as he says, "We don't sell furniture.  We don't sell cars.  We don't sell land or horses  or retirement funds.  We have no political agenda.  We sell fun." (pg.60)

1973: "When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction," declares Devin Jones on page 43 of Joyland. A lot of Joyland is about history and how we remember it.  King does a lot of reflecting about how there is very little truth in the soup of memories.  The new Stephen King novel is set in 1973.  I was born that year.  King does a nice job recreating the world of the 70's.

Joyland belongs to a world with elevator shoes, girdles, Al Jolson, boarding houses and snail mail.  No instant messages, no texting and no facebook.  The scenes in the boarding house remind me of Salem's Lot.

King not only shows locations and gadgets from the past, but the characters actually feel like they belong to the world of the 1970's.  It's not just the way they talk, but the things they don't talk about.  Notice the way Devin resists the temptation to spill all of his emotions on other characters.  This is not so much because he is stoic, but because "I'd been raised  by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness. . ." (p.90)  That's both funny and insightful.  I'm not sure people raise their kids that way anymore.  Today when someone doesn't like a customer at their place of business, they barf it all over facebook.

Joyland also belongs to a unusual place immersed in something called "The Talk."  The Talk is Carney language.  King is good at introducing us to terms, without feeding us so much we're ready to gag.  "Carney-from-carney" means that a person comes from a heritage of carnival workers. (Devin is not Carney from carney.)

The Shining: I would be remiss not to mention how much Joyland reminds me of the early pages of The Shining.  Both books really do feel like they belong in the 70's.  Both novels have a girl named Wendy.  Both novels begin with a job interview, which is primarily used to introduce the reader to the sets where the action will later unfold.  Also, in The Shining we have characters who "shine" while in Joyland there are characters who have the "sight."  And, both the hotel and the theme park have a dark secret  that involves Redrum-- murder.

Are these intentional nods to the earlier book?  I suspect not.  There is also a girl named Nadine.  Like from The Stand?  No! So why names of characters that appeared in other books?  Because those were names common to the era.  Katlyn wouldn't work for a book set in 1973.

Also, King takes a small little dig at Kubrick. When King recently discussed in an NPR interview that the only discussion he ever had with Stanley Kubrick concerned ghosts. Kubrick asked King about his belief in the supernatural. Kubrick suggested that belief in ghosts is really optimistic, since it implies an afterlife. "Sure," Kings said, "But what about hell?" Long pause, then he said in very stiff voice, "I don't believe in hell."  King later blamed Kubrick's departure from his book on his view of ghosts.  The movie is more about Jack being crazy than the overlook actually being haunted.  In Joyland, a character named Tom saw a ghost.   Later, as he nears death, he takes comfort in having seen the ghost, because at least it means there's an afterlife. (pg.121)

DICKENS & Co: The narrator, an aged Devin Jones, apparently has a love for Charles Dickens.  He more than once draws comparisons from the work of the famous writer.  "She grinned -- a big wide one that made her almost Dickensian. . ."  Or, consider this:

With a name like Emmalina Shoplaw, it was hard not to picture a rosy-cheeked landlady out of a Charles Dickens novel, one who went everywhere at a bosomy bustle and said things like Lor' save us.  She'd serve tea and scones while a supporting cast of kind-hearted eccentrics looked on approvingly; she might even pinch my hceeks as we sat roasting chestnuts over a crackling fire.  (Joyland, pg.29, Titan Books, 2013)

By the way, there are also kind winks to other writers as well. Page 39 has a reference to George Orwell's classic, 1984 when Mrs. Shoplaw says, "Just like in that science fiction book about the Thought Police."

Sweet Nothings: Joyland is not broken into chapters or in fact any numbering at all.  Each short section is simply headed by a single heart.  Is King hinting that this is really a romance?

Some of the lines in this really do belong to a set of books called "Hard Case Crime."  It's -- well, kinda delightful.

• This is good, "The sun was a hammer" (p.123)
• I like this bit, "I'm not sure men know how to talk about women in any meaningful way." (pg.50)  
• I also like this quote, "a boy with bad thoughts needs to be visiting a hautned house like he needs arsenic in his moutwash." (pg.99)  

I like the writing quite a bit -- and the way this story flows.  The narrator moves easily from past to present, telling about characters fate while still narrating the meat of the story taking place in 1973.  The story moves pretty quickly, without making the reader feel like the characters are just paper cut-outs being moved about on a big canvass.

JOYLAND Trailer (english)

Joyland Trailer

NPR: King JOYLAND Interview

Stephen King has given a great interview to NPR about his book Joyland, titled, "Stephen King On Growing Up, Believing In God And Getting Scared."

Dimension X

King is asked what got him scared as a kid -- a subject that's getting old for some of us, except that he notes the importance of old radio.  Dimension X in particular.  YES!  You can listen to Dimension X at archive.org.  Some of the best writers of the day, including Ray Bradbury, had their stories translated to radio for this program.

THE SHOW!

Hey, this is kinda preachy.  No apologies!  It's my thoughts about what King said. 

King describes some modern preachers and mega churches as a sort of carnival where the preacher is reduced to being a "carny pitchman."  I find that very interesting because I agree, that is what has happened to much of modern Christianity.  Instead of being people of the Book, for many it has become people of the show.

I am reminded of the times people demanded Jesus do a miracle, and he refused to be a showman. In fact, even his home town was excited when he came through.  The local boy makes good -- now put on a show!  But he would not.  

The book of Mark implies that if Jesus would have done miracles for King Herod, he could have escaped death.  (Luke 23:8-10)  But he would not even speak to Herod, giving him no answer to the King's many questions.

When the Faith is reduced to guys slapping people on the head, or jumping up and down, or sowing your seed to get a blessing -- the Gospel itself is lost in the show.  There is a difference between passion and thinking how to clearly communicate  the message and simply turning God's Word  into a good luck charm to stir masses.  I cringe when I see certain preachers on TV, holding up their Bibles and then giving nothing more than a motivational talk.  Still, Philippians 1:18.

By the way, I do think preachers should be interesting!  They should have something to say (from the Scripture) and say it well.  I weary of preaching that goes like this, "I'm just going to talk from my heart --" which is fine, except you kinda start to wonder if that is code for I didn't study this week so I'm winging it!

What King, and actually the Bible, drives at about preaching is AUTHENTICITY.  Preachers are not to be carnival salesmen, showmen who are fun to watch but actually hollow at the core.  The preacher is to be the real deal, living out what he teaches and explaining with passion what authentic faith is and how it is lived out in a way that honors God.  He's not there to steal from the congregation, but to truly Shepherd and love them. 

Creation: I find King's comments on God delightful.  He admits to being totally inconsistent. I understand that, and respect him for admitting it.  

Before pointing out that the God who created this world must have an interesting personality, King says of those who choose not  to believe, "then you're missing the stars in the sky and you're missing the sunrises and sunsets and you're missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together. Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design."

Or, as King David said,

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him? 

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings 

and crowned him with glory and honor. 

(Psalm 8:3-5)

The Spirit!  King notes that the original term for the Holy Spirit was the Holy Ghost.  Rightly implying that God is Spirit.  As Spirit, he is not limited to a body.  (Unless it's in the miracle of the Incarnation.)  Actually, his comments on God watching us is very good.

KUBRICK

King talks about a discussion he had with Stanley Kubrick.  King says that belief in spiritual things is freeing.  He says that Kubrick was a "thinking cat.  He really thought about what he was doing.  He didn't just go out there and shoot film."  He retells the story of Kubrick asking him about belief in the supernatural.  Kubrick suggested that belief in ghosts is really optimistic, since it implies an afterlife.  "Sure," Kings said, "But what about hell?" Long pause, then he said in very stiff voice, "I don't believe in hell."  

King reflects, "To me it was the voice of someone who was denying their own deeply held belief in something they were unable  to root out."

King said he told Kubrick, "It's not that you don't believe in hell.  It's that you CHOOSE not to believe in hell."

You can listen to the NPR interview with Stephen King at http://www.npr.org