Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... From a Buick 8 (2001)by Stephen King
Best Horror Books (81) » 11 more Books Read in 2016 (3,158) Books Read in 2017 (1,780) Dark Tower Books (16) Books About Boys (171) Fiction For Men (110) Unread books (578) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.
Rated "Indifferent" in our old book database. ( ) Well, this was interesting. In my re-read of King, this was one that I was definitely not looking forward to. I remember being quite frustrated with this novel on two fronts. The first was, why is this all happening? What's up with that car? The second, quite closely tied to the first was, I know this is related to the Dark Tower, it has to be, because it reminds me sort of the car the Low Men drove in HEARTS IN ATLANTIS, so it has to be right? Nope. This time, I went in with a different frame of mind, and just kind of let the story happen, and I loved the hell out of it. It's King just spinning a fascinating yarn that builds and builds and, at least to me, has a satisfying conclusion, which was the third complaint I had the first time around. King builds a mystery, and doesn't offer a lot of answers, and I'm okay with that now. Maybe getting older has taught me that life rarely offers up the answers we're constantly seeking. Sometimes, we just have to enjoy the ride...even if it's a ride in an otherworldly Buick 8. Dull. Everybody throws up all the time out of horror and shock etc.; it makes the book look like a vomit competition. The world as seen by Pennsylvania countryside cops, so that you can never trust "the scientists", because they give you poison calling it knowledge, and a dangerous, alien device is better concealed in their shed. And nobody goes mad or tells the secret because they are like a big family, like, you know. Please someone stop King before he starts going around with a bible in his hands denying evolution. Anyway. Scary at times. Good brain chewing gum for a stormy sleepless night, so 2 stars. Most Stephen King books are long, and generally that's ok. This is one of the first books I've read by him (and I've read big fat ones like It and The Stand) that felt like it was too long. It was a decent story though. And it's impressive that at his age he's able to write an entire book while licking the boots of police.
Give this much to Stephen King: He doesn't sit on his laurels and rely on formulas. Yes, "From a Buick 8" is about an evil car, in a manner of speaking. And yes, King trod that ground years ago with "Christine," which was engaging if mediocre. But this latest novel is different in many ways — in topic, style and in the way King chooses to tell his story. Is From a Buick 8 Stephen King's last real novel? He insists as much, and -- bad sign -- his latest main character is a dissatisfied storyteller. A Pennsylvania state trooper fills a mournful teen in on the confounding history of a grinning, otherworldly Roadmaster that may or may not have offed the boy's father. IT must get exhausting, inventing monstrous evils year in and year out, especially the sort of ancient, supernatural forces that start by insinuating themselves into the fabric of everyday life and grow to threaten everything sane and decent before being vanquished, against all odds, by a valiant band of unlikely heroes. You can see why Stephen King, who has done this many times, might get tired of it, might look around him at a world that certainly enjoys no shortage of terrors as it is, and write a book like ''From a Buick 8.'' Back in 1983, Stephen King tried to send a collective shiver through his audience with "Christine," a novel about a killer hot rod that could mow down unsuspecting pedestrians all by itself. Despite some effective scenes, that book proved to be one of his sillier offerings. Stephen King was driving from Florida to Maine in 1999 when nature called. He pulled off the highway, found a gas station and used the restroom. Then he walked behind the building and lost his footing, sliding down a slope and almost landing in a stream. That was when nature -- his nature -- called upon him to dream up ''From a Buick 8.'' Awards
On the heels of his hugely successful "Dreamcatchers" King delivers another classic novel about boys, men, and a terrifying force only they can contain. The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was ... wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous -- and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it. Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes -- inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well. No library descriptions found.
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |