Doctor Sleep.

Anytime of year is a good time of year for a Stephen King but this close to Halloween is a very heaven. In this book he revisits Wee Danny Torrence,who only narrowly survived a visit to The Overlook with his family.it all took place in The Shining, when much was revealed in what has proved to be a Tiger Tank of a novel over the decades since its publication. Danny continues to Shine nad in this book we learn of a wandering tribe, The True Knot, who feast on the energies generated by Shiners. Led by Rose The Hat, a depraved matriarch who feeds her followers with the agonies of the innocent. As if the burden of such a gift were not enough to bear. Danny's life has not been easy and it has been touch by many of the same treaumas that shaped the life of his father. the poor boys DNA was in all likelihood hardwired that way and he finds himself an alchoholic trying to mend his ways while also coming to terms with an ability that allows him to ease the passage of those leaving this world. An ability that earns him the nick name Doctor Sleep. in the years since I first read The Shining and the couple of times I have watched Stanley Kubrick's adaption of it I find the two variants of King's story have merged in my memory. In the book Doctor Sleep I found myself waiting for a return journey to the Overlook. Forgetting that in the book it is destroyed by the boiler exploding (As the janitor who was supposed to monitor it in order to prevent this happening had gone on a murderous rampage.). It remains standing in the movie version, for good or ill. There is a return journey, off sorts, when we once again mount The Roof O The World ( O The World, not Off The World.I did not mistype.) I am going to seek out the movie version of Doctor Sleep.I have to see how they handle Rose The Hat. Although you can have a preview of How I handled her. So to speak.

Out of The Darkness.

Came across these back issues of the comic The Darkness, all off which I wrote when I worked on for a year for the company Top Cow, way back in the day. Its a strange thing to come across a pile of your own work in a buy in. Trade ins are such randomn events, one never knows what one is going to be offered. Certainly not a chunk of one's past.

Skunk And Badger.

One of the best, funniest, moving and most beautiful looking books I have read in some time.Badger gets a roomate, after three years of comfortable seclusion in Aunt Lulu's Brownstone; enter Skunk. His settled existence is thrown into a whirlwind of dissaray and rapid change and poor Badger has a hard time keeping up. All at once there are chickens. Lots and lots of chickens. Which attracts the attention of natures primary chicken predator. This book has so much charm I want to move into it. It might look like a wee book but its got Tardis-like interior dimensions that only reveal themselves in reading. It was Jon Klasson's extraordinary art that initially drew me. I found his art irresistable and his use of colour an auntumnal magnet. Combine Jon Klasson's world building art with some sublime, and yet hysterical storytelling by Amy Timberlake, and you have a book that proves itself a keeper.Rife with strong characterisation and compelling interconnectiveness, it felt funny and enriching. Skunk emerges as a complex and complicated character who feels very real indeed. And Jon Klasson's beautifully rendering of the world in which Skunk and Badgerfind themselves feels very rea. with my heart and soul wishing it were so.

Doctor Who; Frankenstein.

Loving this series of Doctor Who books, the Monster-Mashups. Worth buying for the covers alone. Two of the High church Horrors here, all right. Dracula! and then Frankenstein. the gothic trappings of both characters lend themselves so well to the life, and lives, of The Doctor. It has visited both sources before yet not quite as directly as it does in this instance. Good choice of Tardis crew for this particular cross pollination of horrors. The gruesome qualities, lacking in the dark romance of vampirism, are a meatier choice for this literary pairing. From The Brain Of Morbius to The Haunting Of The Villa Diodata the television show has mined the mines Frankenstein with its vein of riches. And does so once more, with this book written by Jack Heath (Did he use to be an infamous Highwayman?) Frankenstein and The Patchwork Man to give it its full title. It wears its science fiction tropes on its sleeve, comfortably so and also does great service to the short, but influential, era its set in. It does not skirt the unpleasant notion of a body comprised of body parts of others and feels more timely than ever with an amazing looking adaption of Mary Shelley's classic about to be releashed by visionary storyteller Guillermo Del Toro. Another great choice for this time of year.

Tom,Tom Club.

Whats Not To Like?

A Christmas Carol.

Heading towards the time of year I like to dust off a copy of this Dicken's classic. In this case a lovely edition with art by the sublime Quentin Blake.Its never gets old. I do,though. Sigh.

Help The Witch.

"As night draws through country lanes, and darkness sweeps nacross hills and hedgerows,shadows appear where figures are not", so says the blurb on the back and boy does it sell this collection. How can one resist so signposted an anthology? certainly not me. And it did not mislead as this is a sweetly unsettling clever collection of wittily spooky vignnettes, country tales from the October territories, in landscapes that would have been familiar to writers such as EF Benson and MR James. Although these stories possess (in every sense of the word) a modernity that would have sounded anachronistic coming from either of those fine writers. There are genuinely unsettling momments throughout this collection, with hooks that snagthe imagination, tugging in ethereal rustic directions, down into the earthy soil of a countryside that conceals much that waits patiently for the wary and unwary alike. None of these stories outstay their welcome although some might struggle with its otherworldly humours. Sunsets over the darling buds of May as a witches moon rises.