Classic.

Jeez Louise, folks, what do else do you want from me? They can’t all be pushing the 2,000 character limit!

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Halloween Kills suffers from “middle part,” problems like not having an actual ending and it feeling more like a slog.

There was a plot hole that I didn’t catch at first where Myers kills three and then chases Lindsey through the park.

She hides on a bank and he crosses a bridge, looks for her, says “guess she’s gone,” and continues across the bridge toward the Myers place.

So when did he go back and pose the bodies to be discovered?

Also, the sections in this book that deal with Michael’s inner monologue are thankfully short but seems to give his mask magical powers. He experiences pain for the first time and, unmasked, feels all of it. But then he pops back on his mask and PRESTO! Back to being a murdering machine.

I did like that most of the deaths were less graphic in the book. It’s obvious that the movie folks were making decisions about clever things to do with bodies to maximize horror, but… I don’t know.

I don’t want to say the movie took it too far, but it was just… I guess it was sadder than the rest? This wasn’t a good time of a horror slasher and I haven’t put my finger on why exactly.

This book answers the question of what would happen if a town was so freaked out that they fanned their own flames and jumped at every shadow and the answer is nothing good. Tons of people who have given up on a system and decide to take matters into their own hands die as a result.

In general, I don’t enjoy stories about mobs being generated because it seems too easy to do in real life. People get angry very easily and when they’re with other angry people and that energy is directed toward destruction, it’s never a good thing.

Maybe what it really is is that I came to see a monster movie and feel like, though horror movies have been mirrors to society and allegories of the horrors of real life, I didn’t really want it with this movie.

I’ve had enough of real world monsters.

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So… I’m either reading or re-reading all of Stephen King’s stuff and this is a thing that he wrote and published as an Amazon single.

It’s interesting.

He makes a lot of good points as a guy who owns and seems to like guns. There’s space for nuance here somewhere between “guns are evil,” and “all guns should be open-carried all the time in all the places by all the people,” that I feel not enough people want to acknowledge.

More importantly (to me), though, was the defeated tone that comes from having watched shooting after shooting after shooting. All the thoughts and prayers that don’t amount to shit, all the legal measures blocked by politicians that live in gun manufacturer’s pockets, and the crushing depression that comes from the certainty that this will continue to happen until the end of time or until something substantial happens.

But the thing that’s interesting to me is that so many people who obviously can’t read subtext in King’s books freaked out when this came out. They said he shouldn’t get political or opine on serious matters but held been doing that literally since his first book.

These are the idiots who failed English in high school for not being able to recognize symbolism, subtext, or meaning. The people who are taking everything at face value.

You know. Morons.

And these people were upset but I don’t get it. This isn’t anti-gun. This isn’t anti-gun owner. This is a measured appeal for common sense that made people upset because it dared to ask for limits on supposed freedoms.

Look, take it or leave it, okay? People believe what they want to believe. But I think there’s something wrong with someone who ignores literally everything except the boo-scares in a series of over 60 novels and then complains when the author’s feelings become too obvious to ignore.

Maybe King just isn’t for them.

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Oh man, I can’t wait for Pixelfed to slowly degrade this image like it’s done for SO many of my others!

Anyway.

Just in case you were curious, it’s impolite to ask a vet (or anyone, I guess?) if they’ve killed someone. It’s usually not something they’re stoked or wanting to talk about.

If you HAVE to ask, you ask “did you see any action?”

That’s the most polite way to ask an impolite question.

Just FYI.

Anyway, Beauchamp served in the Army and learned lessons that just about all vets learn like how you don’t fight for leadership but rather to keep the person next to you alive.

But the most interesting part is his identity crisis. After he got out of the Army he leaned hard into becoming a professional writer and found himself not fitting in with the typical city-dwelling writer crowd.

Or THINKING he didn’t.

I actually have doubts about this. There’s a lot of internalized “these people wouldn’t get me,” that is brought out of the service but I think the civilian population - while not being able to FULLY understand - could certainly understand ENOUGH to realize the nuance of the individual within the larger body of the military branch. They might not support wars or missions (or even the specific branch) but I have to believe that they won’t fully dismiss the vet for serving.

Anyway, I don’t think military service acts as a worthwhile contrast to critique modern culture. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Actually, it sounds more like regret than anything else. It’s like Beauchamp resents civilians for not going through or learning what he did. Kind of like how you envy/hate children because they don’t know the absolute joy of paying bills.

I didn’t hate it. There’s a lot of applicable stuff in here that would shed some light on typical service stuff for civilians if anyone is interested.

I wouldn’t hold it against anyone if they weren’t, though.

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I like comics, I like pugs. This was a must-buy at the used bookshop.

That said, I’m sure thinking about moving to New Zealand to go to university and I’ll need to pay to ship all my stuff so now I’m looking at my books with a critical eye.

How many of these things do I want to pay a LOT (probably) to ship to the other side of the planet just so I can try to jam them into a tiny (affordable) apartment?

How much do I want to pay weekly (they do rent by the week there) to let my books live with me?

It’s not only made me critical of the books I’ve read but also the books I HAVEN’T read. My TBR is looking less like a wine cellar waiting for me to be in just the right mood to dip into a book and more like a serious gamble as to whether it’s worth paying for the trip/real estate.

Anyway, I don’t think this one’s going to make the cut. It’s cute, but I don’t see me re-reading it often enough to bring it with me everywhere.

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A little about me: I grew up as an art kid failure. Big aspirations, not enough skill. But I took enough art classes to start to appreciate the unfinished project as much - if not more - than the finished.

So when I saw one of Batman’s critical arcs collected solely as penciled panels, I was sold. And in hardcover no less.

This is a good story. I think it makes for a fine bridge story from young, grieving Bruce putting all of his pain into playing detective to the Batman we all know and love.

The flaw here is that if Bruce gets scared away or fails, why did it take so long after donning the cowl to get back into the mystery as an adult?

Regardless. Court of Owls is a fantastic arc with very few flaws. It’s a shame it was used in the wildly mediocre Gotham Knights video game. Some of the scenes are direct lifts but would have been better as… well, you know. An actual Batman game rather than playing as one of the Knights.

And now the story feels used up because they used so much of the actual story in their padded game that anything new will feel derivative.

Bummer.

Oh well. We’ll always have the book at least.

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I generally like Stine’s longer standalones. They’re usually a good time.

This one’s a bit of a mess, though.

There’s a lot of head hopping, but it doesn’t happen between chapters so it’s easy to catch and you bounce between first and third-person for LONG stretches that probably would have been clearer if Stine used italics like King does to tell you were in the character’s head.

Meanwhile, Stine tries to write the worst character and does a decent job of writing a shallow, materialistic girl.

But it’s funny how time changes how you read something, right?

I read this as a kid and thought she was the worst. Then I read it as an adult and just saw a poor kid whose dad abandoned her, leaving her with a lot of trust issues for people and clinging to material objects because they will never go out for smokes and never come back.

This girl may be a villain, but she still needs therapy.

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