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Title: From a Buick 8 by Stephen King ISBN: 0-7434-1768-2 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 25 November, 2003 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.27 (260 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Thriller with a Scientific Approach
Comment: Lately I've read each new Stephen King book with apprehension, not knowing what each will bring. My apprehension was unfounded with this intriguing thriller that combines the threads of human lives with the investigation of a mysterious phenomenon.
We meet teenage Ned Wilcox at the very beginning of the story. His father was the late Curtis Wilcox, a state highway trooper with Troop D of the Pennsylvania State Patrol. Ned helps around the barracks, cleaning, sweeping, and talking with the troopers. We immediately identify with Ned, seeing his activities at the barracks as one way of connecting with his lost father, killed in the line of duty. Ned becomes so much a part of the troop that the troop lets him in on a secret they have kept for 20 years; a mysterious, chilling secret.
One day, a long time ago, a man in an overcoat stopped at a gas station and asked the attendant to fill the car with gas. The man disappeared around the corner of the gas station to the back where the restrooms are. A long time after filling the car up the attendant realized the man had not come back from the back of the gas station, and went looking for him. The man was no where to be found, and the attendant called the highway patrol.
One of the two troopers responding to the call was rookie Curtis Wilcox. Their investigation of the car was anything but routine. The car's engine had many of the correct components, but they were not connected to each other. The configuration of the engine was such that there was no way the car could ever have run. The state highway patrol decides to impound the car. During the initial investigation of the car, Curtis's partner disappears, further compounding the mystery of the car.
Curtis Wilcox becomes obsessed with investigating the mysterious car. Soon strange things begin happening; mysterious brilliant flashing lights that accompany electronic disturbances; things come from the trunk; things left in the car disappear from their cage. There is something very wrong with this car.
Stephen King has written many horror novels where the villain is a werewolf, a vampire, a spirit, or even Satan. In this novel we never meet the real villain, and we try to understand the nature of that villain from the artifact that the villain created. The car itself is not evil, but what it does is evil, and perhaps where it comes from we might perceive as evil. The troopers treat the car scientifically, investigating the car as methodically as they can. They form theories and test their theories. They record their observations as would any scientist. They are also careful and cautious with their discovery, because they have found that bad things can happen to the unwary.
The story of the investigation of the car is told from multiple viewpoints, and in the past and the present; an extended story told to Ned Wilcox about the passion his father had for investigating the car, a passion that Ned was unaware of even as he neared adulthood. The story telling can be a bit confusing if you lose focus on the story, but keeping track of the multiple main characters and their perspective is rewarding to the reader.
I liken the story-telling style of this novel to "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke. In that novel Clarke tells the story of humans investigating an alien ship that has entered our solar system. There is speculation as to why the ship is there, where it is going, and the nature of the ship's creators. The story is told in a scientific way that in many respects is boring because there is no "Alien" hiding around the corner, but is still intriguing because these investigators are in a totally unique situation, and they deal with it as best they can. King's approach to this story is similar as he centers the story on a place that most of us would consider an unlikely location for a suspense, thriller or horror novel, a highway patrol barracks. Yet, we find the scientific approach of these officers to be plausible.
The story has its slow moments, but I remained intrigued once King intimated the nature of the car. By the last 50 pages I found myself glued to the book to see what was going to happen. This book will not please Stephen King fans expecting a ghost story or something with fangs. For fans with eclectic tastes that run into science fiction, particularly if you enjoyed Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama" books, this novel is a good read. Fans expecting a scaly claw grabbing a victim by the throat and pulling the victim into the car will be disappointed.
Rating: 5
Summary: An element of horror in everyday life
Comment: This newest effort by Stephen King is something that to my knowledge he's never tried before. He's taken something that comes from the deepest recesses of his own mind - in this case something that looks like an old Buick (but knowing Stephen King it's anything but that) - and incorporated it into the daily lives of a novel's main characters.
In this case the main characters are the members of a Pennsylvania State Police barracks. One day, years ago, one of the officers responds to a call about an abandoned car. At least that's what it starts out as, but since we're dealing with a Stephen King novel we know from the get-go that it's not a car - and it probably wasn't abandoned either; rather, it was deliberately left at the gas station where it was "found".
The "car" gets towed to the barracks and gets stored in a shed, where it quickly becomes apparent that it's more than just a car - but exactly what it is isn't really made clear; it looks like King wants to leave the reader with a little mystery in the story.
He then tries to integrate the "Buick" and its actions into the daily lives of these troopers. They run various experiments in an attempt to discover exactly what this thing in their garage is. They don't come up with any definitive answers, but along the way a lot of weird things happen - and I won't spoil anything for the reader by going into detail about them.
The troopers can't be sure what this thing is, but they'd rather keep it under lock and key in their shed than let it loose on an unsuspecting world (now there's a tired old cliche if ever I've heard one!), so that's exactly what they do. And so over the next several years, in between the usual things that happen to state troopers, they keep the "Buick" confined to the shed and watch what it does with something more than a dispassionate eye.
All this doesn't mean that the book isn't as scary as King's best work. It's plenty scary - and the fact that King doesn't resolve exactly what the "Buick" actually is makes it even scarier.
This is definitely a worthy addition to the canon.
Rating: 2
Summary: back to reality, please
Comment: King needs and editor who can look him in the eye and tell him when a book isn't worth the millions people are about to shell out for it. This should have been a short story, not the endless sleeper I'm struggling to finish.
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Title: Everything's Eventual : 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King ISBN: 0743457358 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 30 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, Book 5) by Stephen King, Bernie Wrightson ISBN: 1880418568 Publisher: Donald M. Grant/Scribner Pub. Date: 04 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Black House by Peter Straub, Stephen King ISBN: 0345441036 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Desperation by Stephen King ISBN: 0451188462 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Regulators by Stephen King, Richard Bachman, Charles O. Verrill ISBN: 0451191013 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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