I’ve just been enjoying the latest instalment in James Smythe’s marathon Stephen King Reread for The Guardian, a great little essay about Cujo that focuses on the rabid dog as a metaphor for alcohol and drug addiction. The series has been brilliant so far and I look forward to each new ‘episode’. It’s also inspired me to do something I’ve been meaning to get around to for years but have thus far never managed to allocate the time to: read the Dark Tower series. I’m almost at the end of The Gunslinger now (early days I know) and just… loving it. The sense of place – the acrid harshness of the hardpan desert – is majestic (King’s consistent attention to sense of place is in my opinion one of the things that makes his fiction great) and the idea of the book – as the first step on this monumental fictional journey – makes me jealous. That’s the simplest way I have of putting it.
I wish that I could write something like this.
As well as duelling with the green eyed monster, I have also been writing. I’ve just finished work on a new story (a long one) and am about to begin on another (not so long). I have also been trying to get my voting choices in order for the Locus All-Centuries Poll of SFF – a strenuous task, of which more in the near future.
Listening to: Cowboy Junkies Open, Bob Dylan’s Tempest. We bought this a week ago and it’s fantastic. I don’t think any lyrics could ever equal the incandescent poetry of some of those earlier albums (for me at least) but this is a good record.