The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Stephen King, �Storm of the Century�

Started November 13 � Finished November 15, 2002; 392 pages. Posted 18 November 2002

Okay, I think it�s time to admit it. My boycott of Stephen King is no longer in effect. The problem is, after reading this I wish it still were.

I really should have known better. There were so many warning signals. This book is a screenplay, which should be enough to make me stay away — after all, can you name five Stephen King movies that were any good? (The Shawshank Redemption, Misery, Kubrick�s version of The Shining, and Stand By Me is all I can think of. Well, I guess Carrie was okay. That�s five. Fine. Can you think of six? Didn�t think so!)

Worse, this is a screenplay for a mini-series on ABC. Did anybody besides me make it through their painfully bad serialization of The Stand? Bleeeeeeech!

So this was conceptualized and written to fit a six hour, three day chunk of air time but the story is so weak that I think they could have done easily whittled it down to a standard hour and a half horror movie. And you know what? It still would have sucked.

Look, I know the horror genre is expected to follow certain formulas, but this was chock full of eye-rolling, clenched fist, heavy sigh inducing clich�s, even for a Stephen King, Inc. story. Thank god I didn�t see the show, though it still pains me to think this was probably the biggest miniseries event a network commissioned since the adaptation of Alex Haley�s Roots.


Rating: Worth reinstating a boycott of all things Stephen King.

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