Jag Ends

Okay, so I've been busy. Doing what, pray tell? Well, I've procrastinated the past few months on matters of catching up Stephen King's Dark Tower series. He's integrated quite a few of his other books into this series (most of which I'd read), but I hadn't read Hearts in Atlantis or Insomnia. So I had to read those. I think I was actually supposed to read Hearts in Atlantis before Wolves of the Calla, but didn't get around to it. I'm gonna have to reread the whole Dark Tower series anyhow, so no big. But reading Hearts in Atlantis makes obvious one huge glaring story element missing from From A Buick 8. If you want to get the full effect of that element, read From a Buick 8, then read Hearts in Atlantis ("Low Men in Yellow Coats", the first portion of the book), then smack your forehead when you realize what you were missing from From a Buick 8, then go back and read the beginning of From a Buick 8 to confirm.

You know, on the other hand, just read them in the correct order. I can't figure out if Mr. King's books had a bad patch after he quit the drink or after he got the shit knocked out of him by that van, but his more recent stuff is nice. Maybe I'm just older, but they seem to be moving at a much better clip these days. 'Salems Lot was like that, and is still my favorite of his stuff. It just sorta jumped straight to story. Let me adjust that--it doesn't just jump straight to story, it's just that the character development and stuff happens during and as part of the story, not as constant interruptions to the flow. I dunno if that makes sense or what.

I don't know when Mr. King consciously decided to tie his normal books to the Dark Tower series, but a while back I caught the jist that most of the books happened in the same world. Comic book geeks can respect that. Of course, The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon stood separate from that (maybe others, I can't remember) by necessity. On a side note, Eyes of the Dragon was so totally cool. It just screamed for more of that world. Which I guess I sorta got, but not quite.

So I gotta stop by B&N tomorrow for the last book in the Dark Tower series. So I'm 29 now and read the first book when I was 14, so that was quite a wait. There was stuff to read in between, though.

Be sure and check out my new hateful satire blog, Old Age Notes. I wasn't sure what it would be like when I started to write it, but it reads like a mix of Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer and Herman T. Zweibel. What it really sounds like is me making fun of the old people I hate so much by smashing their primitive thoughts into a shape such that they resemble thoughts that would come out of my head, but stupider and more afraid of electronics.