Just After Sunset – DaneCobain.com

Oli Jacobs – Filmic Cuts V: Suplex Sounds of the 70s | Review

Title: Filmic Cuts V: Suplex Sounds of the 70s

Author: Oli Jacobs

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 248

Rating: 4*/5

Oli Jacobs – Filmic Cuts V: Suplex Sounds of the 70s

This book was a lot of fun, and there are a lot of reasons to recommend it – the quality of the writing, the quality of the paper, and the fact that this is one of those rare indie books that’s printed as a hardback.

Here, in the fifth collection of author Oli Jacobs’ short stories, we’re treated to a half dozen or so cracking little short stories that span a number of a different genres, with my favourites including an account of what happened during an expedition to another world and a gripping piece about The Game.

The Game is a televised game of Russian Roulette in which participants volunteer to play, knowing they’ll either win £1 million every day for the rest of the year, or be carried out on a stretcher with a bullet through their skull. This piece was interesting because it was written using short sentences – which were snappy and to the point (like a bullet) – and descriptions of the characters, such as The Guy, The Housewife and The Thrillseeker, instead of actual names.

Overall, it was an impressive read, and while I thought the actual layout could have been improved, it’s on a par with some other books by mainstream authors. I preferred this book over Stephen King’s Just After Sunset, for example.

Oli Jacobs

Click here to buy Filmic Cuts V: Suplex Sounds of the 70s.

Stephen King – Full Dark, No Stars | Review

Title: Full Dark, No Stars

Author: Stephen King

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 468

Rating: 9/10

Stephen King – Full Dark, No Stars

“Is it possible to ever fully know anyone? Even those we love the most?” So starts this collection of novella-length stories, and I have to say – it’s a cracker. In fact, this is easily my favourite collection of multiple Stephen King stories, and way better than Just After Sunset, which I recently read. And the cool thing is, because there were only five stories here, I can talk in-depth about each one.

It started off with my favourite of the lot, a piece called 1922 which follows the story of a farmer who kills his wife to stop her from selling her family’s land to a corporation. The farmer and his son end up in a downward spiral, with life getting worse and worse. The father even starts to see rats everywhere, while the boy is trying to hide the family secret while starting up a relationship with a neighbouring girl. It’s beautifully written and deeply haunting, and probably my favourite Stephen King story to date.

Up next, we have a story called Big Driver, which follows the story of an author who’s raped in an abandoned convenience store and who goes after the man who did it to her. She goes from being like Miss Marple to being like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

Stephen King Quote

Then there’s Fair Extension, a story about a man with cancer who makes a deal with a man who’s able to sell you extensions, whether we’re talking about a penis extension, a loan extension or, indeed, a life extension. But of course, a deal like that comes with a cost…

Up next, there’s A Good Marriage, which tells the story of what happens when a woman finds a box that her husband has kept secret and which makes her start to wonder whether the man she’s loved all these years is actually a serial killer.

This is the point at which the initial print run of this book came to an end, but here there’s an extra short called Under the Weather. The other ‘short stories’ in this book are actually not so short, but this one really does stick to the true spirit of how long a short story, culturally at least, is expected to be. Interestingly enough, it’s also the weakest story of the lot, although it’s still pretty good because come on, it’s Stephen King.

Overall then, this is a pretty good place to start, not just with King’s shorter fiction but with King in general. It’s dark, and I should offer up that most nebulous of things – a trigger warning. It gets pretty violent, and you might want to bear that in mind before you commit.