QOTD - Is online privacy really that important?

I can't say that Permemant Record is a great book. As far as biographies go it's a bit bland, but the ideas and realities it presents are nonetheless crucial to our development as a species.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

QOTD- What is your favorite subgenre of fantasy?

If you like the troupes that come with YA romance and YA fantasy, then Strange the Dreamer will be perfect for you, but for me, these cliches, combined with the contrived conflict and pacing issues far outweighed the original ideas.

QOTD- what is the worst Stephen King book?

Stephen King is someone both beloved by casual readers and treated like a messiah by his super fans. But why is Stephen King so successful? As someone who likes his work, but doesn‘t love it nearly as much as others do, I‘ve decided to to get to the bottom of this mystery.

1. Stephen King writes... a LOT
2. Stephen King is... consistent
3. Stephen King… has a genre

Continued in comments. 👇

QOTD- Do you read any literary magazines/web-zines? If so, do you have a favorite?

I found this collection overall to be middling. Most of them were entertaining, but each has an air of modesty and predictability that kept them from hitting me hard emotionally. As far as small scale goes, his sentence are poetic, but sometimes unnecessarily long, and while I enjoyed almost every story, I often struggled to convince myself to keep reading.

⭐⭐⭐🌠

QOTD-which are cooler, vampires or werewolves?

Told with heartaching sincerity, Mongrels is a literary story through and through (i.e. it's focus almost solely on characters and not plot). For me, this is especially felt in the novel's pacing, which contains a serious of minor events that take place over the course of our main character's young life. The narrativs highlights their lives well, but it does make each event feel a tad insignificant.

My newest short story, The Outlet Store, a Twlightzone-esque tale of mystery, violence, and retail life, is now available for free.

Link in bio.

Sign up for my newsletter and you'll not only get this story for free, but many others as well.

QOTD- have you played any video games before? If so, which one left the biggest impact on you?

Incase you don't know, Halo is a shooter centered around a galactic war between humans and aliens. As far as storytelling goes, this series has rarely been anything to write home about, and although i've always seen the potential in it, these books never quite reach the quality I envision for them. 😓

⭐⭐⭐

QOTD- Favorite crime novel?

Leonard usds a very minimalistic style in his writing, giving just enough detail to get our imagination going. We really don't need page long descriptions of what Miami looks like anyways. We already know.

But why didn't I absolutely love it? Well, i suppose it would be wrong to call this book mainstream, just because it's easy to read, but Leonard clearly isn't trying to make any sort of hard hitting drama.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”

“War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.”

QOTD- What was one of the first adult books that you read as a kid?

I read the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson when I was 13 years old, and wow did it leave a deep impact on me.

⭐⭐⭐⭐🌠

QOTD- Favorite book about mental health?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a tour-de-force. Focused on the story about a sane man being sentence to an asylum, Cuckoo's Nest it's about what we consider 'healthy' in an ultimately insane world. It also asks us to consider what it means to be free, how we treat ourselves as individuals, and most importantly, how it important it is to fight against the system, whichever it may be

⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

QOTD- What are your feelings on military scifi?

Forever War is easy to read and has some strong world building, but unless you already know you love hard, military scifi, this one isn't worth trying.

5/10

QOTD- What's one of your favorite short story collections?

Featuring nineteen stories, here are the ones I most recommend: Nineteen Shots of Dennisport (a boy recalls a shocking thing that happened during a family vacation); The Teacher (a literary story about the threat of adulthood); Her Red Right Hand (death, grief, and monsters); It's Against the Law to Feed The Ducks (the end of the world seen through the eyes of a little boy).

QOTD- Best cosmic horror?

The Ballad of Black Tom is a novella released a few years ago and is part lovecraftian horror and part historical drama.

The supporting characters and the conflict were somewhat underbaked, but that doesn't take away from the resonant ending to this story about anger, grief, and our own insignificance.

Overall this was an enjoyable collection of novellas (I didn't read the main story If It Bleeds since it's a sequel to The Outsider, which i haven't read).

Each story is written with King's signature style and competence, but honestly i feel like it was over hyped. If these stories had been written by a no name author though, I don't think they would have gotten anywhere near the same attention.

7/10

Anyone else agree with me, or am I crazy?

QOTD- What are your thoughts on the Noir genre?

Hammett is very much like his mystery genre counter, Agatha Christie, in that their characterization is economical but rarely deep. If you love Christie's writing style than you'll probably love this, but for me, the mystery wasn't quite compelling enough to make up for it.

P.S. click the link in my bio to read my short story 'Pot O' Gold' a tale about a young boy and a crotchety Leprechaun.

It's easy to feel like 2020 is the worst year in existence, sure to end in our annihilation, but Mark Manson helped me to remember that everything has always been fucked, and that what each of us need more than anything in the world, is a little bit of irrational hope, because the fact is, we live in a world that has never, and will never, make sense.

P.S. Click the link in my bio to read my free short story.

This first story in Stephen King's new collection was a firmly middle of the road, one that I don't think would've been published if it wasn't written by the king himself.

I don't think Life of Chuck will be known as a Stephen King classic decades later, but it is a engaging and thought provoking read.

Rat is easy to get invested in, although it's somewhat predictable and copies off of King's more dynamic stories about struggling authors.

7/10

A quintessential novel aboit the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried is a poetic and hypnotic series of interconnected stories that paints a vivid portrayal of what it was like not just to serve as a soldier during this time period, but it was like for these men before and after.

10/10 Masterpiece

Invisible Monsters follows the story of a glamorious fashion model who gets into an accident that leaves her horribly disfigured afterwards.

Invisible Monsters is signature Palahniuk, and for those of you already on his wavelength, this is a must read. If you're new to him however, this may not be the best place to start.

7/10.

What fictional book would you choose for the apocolypse?

I would choose Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, the greatest novelization of all time.

Revenge of the Sith is a novelization you should read if you, like me, are fascinated by Star Wars' more intellectual elements.

10/10 Amazing

'The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins' - Matthew Stover

The Patient is a novel of intrigue and mystery that gleefully hops between genres on multiple occasions, and while it ultimately is more of a book for horror fans, still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Recommended for... anyone who likes the idea of an Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs mash up.

8/10

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

1. Shining
Is there anything left to be said about Shining that hasn't already? It's freaking great. I will say this though: it did make me like the movie less.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

2.
The first one is still the best in my opinion, mainly because of how mysterious and enigmatic the world was. You didn't understand much and that was okay, because we knew what the gunslinger wanted: to catch the man in black. And King succeeded wonderfully here.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

3. On Writing
One part memoir, one part writing guide, On Writing is a great book for both King devotees and fledgling writers. Some of the bits on writing most of us writees have already heard from other writing resources, but this remains a highly informative and entertaining read.

What has been your best quarantine read?

A man wakes up in isolation with no memory and is told that he's being kept inside because his immune system's compromised and there's been a horrible pandemic outside.

The sense of mystery was good, but the story was a little fatty and predictable, so in the end i'd only recommend this for previous fans of Tremblay's work

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

4. Wastelands
At 800 pages, Dark Tower book 3 definitely has some fat on it, but it wears it on top of a mass of narrative muscle (kind of a weird analogy, but whatever).

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

5. Wind through the keyhole
A story within a story really shouldn't have worked, but i found this little dark tower book to be quite piogant.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

6.
King packs a lot of great stuff into 100 pages, but the ending disappointed me. It wasn't a bad one by any means, but it felt like it didn't know what it was reaching for.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

7. Drawing of Three
A contraversial choice, putting book 2 so low, but in my opinion, King's meandering passages don't mesh with a breathless, edge of your seat pacing such as this. Still a good book, though.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

8. Doctor Sleep.
This one has some really good character development, but the plot sags too much, and it doesn't help that most of Danny's growth happens before the main plot even starts.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

9. Wizard and Glass
Ambiguity is a powerful thing, and i'd argue that Roland was a more interesting character when we didn't know everything about him. A flash back novel would have been fine, if it hadn't been so damn long. Seriously, i don't know how King managed to stretch this much plot out over 700 pages.

In celebration of Stephen King's newest release, If It Bleeds, i'm ranking/reviewing all ten books of his that I've read.

10.
How you feel about this one dependz on this: King has this habit of bloating his novels and Cujo is the best example of this. It's a novel even he himself can barely remember, thanks to his severe alcholism at the time. Cujo would have made a great short story, but at 400 pages it doesn't know how to sustain itself.

Ever since I visited Norway, about five years ago, i've been enamored with the place. The desolate, espansive landscape, the enternal darkness / endless sun, and the reserved and hardy culture.

While Midnight Sun lacks rereadability, it's still a damn entertaining book for any who wants a crime novel that takes place in a unique location and doesn't rely on melodrama to get us invested in the story.