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Title: End of Watch

Author: Stephen King

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 372

Rating: 3.75*/5

Stephen King – End of Watch

This book is the third and final book in the Bill Hodges trilogy, and it came as something of a relief. I loved Mr. Mercedes, the first book, but Finders Keepers (the second one) wasn’t up to the same standard. This one isn’t as good as Mr. Mercedes either, but it’s still pretty good, and I did like how you get to learn more about some of the characters. The whole gang is here, from notorious domestic terrorist Brady Hartsfield to Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson.

It’s also interesting to see how Hartsfield’s ostensibly psychic powers develop and how he successfully uses suicide as a weapon. On the downside, it just didn’t feel quite right having all of these psychic powers and astral projection when the first book was basically a hardboiled crime thriller. Adding all of these other elements may be more King, but it just doesn’t seem to ring true to what the first book attempted to do. But maybe I’m only saying that because I think it kind of devalues Mr. Mercedes, which I gave 5/5 to.

There’s also the fact that I already knew how the entire trilogy was going to end from the very first book, purely because of the title of this one. When it finally happened, it felt like something of an anticlimax. The same is true with the final confrontation between Hodges and Hartsfield, which almost felt rushed after how much the reader has gone through to get there. Unless you’re a hardcore King fan who wants to read every single one of his releases, I’d suggest just reading Mr. Mercedes and then calling it quits.

I also had a few problems with King’s representations of tech, and he even says in his afterword that he’s changed some of the details to suit the story. I kept unsuspending my disbelief because stuff was happening that just isn’t possible. There was also a character who went to visit Hartsfield when I don’t think that she, as a person, would have done it. But if she didn’t, the entire book wouldn’t have happened. Bummer.

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Stephen King – Firestarter | Review

Title: Firestarter

Author: Stephen King

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 512

Rating: 4*/5

Stephen King – Firestarter

This is one of Stephen King’s earlier books, and it’s one of those that I’ve put off for a while purely because there are so many other well-known Stephen King books on the market, but I feel like the basic idea of this book had still made its way into my consciousness. I’ll try to cover that without revealing too many spoilers.

Before the main story starts, when Andy McGee was a college student, he volunteered for a medical trial in exchange for $200. Only something went wrong, and many of the volunteers died. Others survived but were forever changed, often by inheriting strange powers. McGee himself earns the ability to ‘push‘ people, which is a little bit like using a Jedi mind trick to convince them of something. He also earns himself a girlfriend – and later a wife – by befriending a fellow test subject.

And then they have a child, and it’s this child that’s at the centre of much of the action. Charlie McGee is a little pig-tailed girl with a hell of a lot of power – if some of the characters are to be believed, she might even grow up to have the potential to split the earth in two. The book starts with Charlie and Andy on the run from some mysterious government entity, and the plot basically barrels its way along from there.

Stephen King

That’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot itself, but what I will say is that King does a great job of creating a sense of a constant threat from the government. It was so successful that the only thing I can think of that comes close to it is the threat and the conspiracy in Prison Break. It’s difficult to communicate just how real and how visceral the threat felt, but it was always there.

The characterisation was great here too, whether we’re talking about Charlie and her family or whether we’re talking about the bad guys that are trying to hunt them down. I particularly liked John Rainbird, an American Indian with a heavily scarred face from the Vietnam War, and I liked King’s revelation of how it actually came about and how that clashes with what the government would have you believe was actually happening in Vietnam. It also kind of reflects the corruption that’s shown by The Shop and its attitude towards the victims of the medical trial.

Overall then, I’d definitely recommend this, and while it might not be the best book to pick up if you’re new to Stephen King, that’s only because he has so many great books on the market. It’s a better option when you’ve read three or four of his books and you’re ready to dig a little deeper, but it’s up there in his top 10-20%. I really enjoyed it, and I think you will too – after all, it’s kind of hard not to. It’s just a gripping conspiracy thriller but with a lot of fire.