Archive for the ‘thrillers’ Category

Stephen King in Playboy!

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Image: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Image: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

No need to avert your eyes. Stephen King’s appearance in this month’s edition of Playboy is of a literary rather than an anatomical nature.

Departing from his traditional role as an author, King appears as a poet with his work The Bone Church.

Told by a man in the bar, the poem is the tale of a doomed jungle expedition.

If you want to hear, buy me another drink.
(Ah, this is slop—slop, I tell you—but never mind; what isn’t?)
There were thirty-two of us went into that greensore
and only three who rose above it.
We were thirty days in the green, and only one of us came out.
Three rose above the green, three made it to the top:

It’s a good month for King fans on the whole. In addition to the Playboy poem,  New Yorker’s November 9 issue features Premium Harmony, a new short story by the bestselling author and King’s latest novel, Under the Dome - a 900-page epic - will be published on November 10.

50 factual errors in The Lost Symbol & Da Vinci Code

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Dan Brown and his Lost Symbol book have enjoyed two weeks of positive publicity and now here comes the bad stuff. The Telegraph reveals 50 factual errors in the novel and also The Da Vinci Code.

Langdon is shown lecturing his students that the Christian tradition of communion, eating the body of their god, comes from the Aztecs. Communion has taken place since the first century; the Aztec civilisation arose during the 13th century. Europeans did not reach central America, where the Aztecs lived, until the late 15th century.

Albino monk Silas lives for some years before the book in a Spanish ‘village’ called Oviedo. Oviedo is a medium-sized city of some 200,000 people, around the same size as Southampton.

A British police officer tells someone over the phone: “This is the London police.” There is no such body. The Metropolitan Police have responsibility for policing the capital; the City of London Police exist, but only in the financial district, the so-called Square Mile.

There’s nothing like a good hatchet job and this is a very good one. Where did Brown do his research? Wikipedia?

New Dan Brown finally on sale

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

The Lost Symbol went on sale today, and it seems that Mr. Brown is the only one who is going to actually make any money with it…

Dan Brown’s long-awaited new novel The Lost Symbol, published today, looks likely to spark a discounting war after Asda slashed its price on the £18.99 hardback to just £5….

On the high street, WH Smith is selling the latest adventures of Robert Langdon for £5.99 if £15 is spent on books or stationery, or half price otherwise, while at Waterstone’s and Amazon it is also on offer at half-price.

Seems like an awful lot of bother for a silly potboiler… but maybe it’s just me.

Quotes from the Guardian

How Well Do You Know Literary Spies?

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to complete The Guardian’s quiz, “How much do you know about literary spies?

Be careful…it may be possible to know too much

This message will self destruct in 30 seconds. Well no it won’t really, I’ve just always wanted to say that.

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Provided you generally eat nutritious, healthy food that acts as fuel and gives your body the things it needs, I think it’s occasionally acceptable and fun to eat junk food.

In completely unrelated news, Yahoo News reported today that Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro teamed up with thriller writer Chuck Hogan to write a book called The Strain that combines three things I find almost irresistable - post-apocalyptic type stuff, vampires, and zombies. Actually, it sounds like a mutant virus that sort of COMBINES vampires and zombies. Watch out for the vampies! Anyway, it’s already out - why did I not know about this before?! AND it’s the first book of a trilogy, so if I love it, I get to enjoy the giddy agony of waiting for the other books.

“…a visceral page-turner that reimagines vampirism as a virus that causes its victims’ bodies to mutate — disgustingly — into buglike creatures, stomping zombie-style around Manhattan and wreaking havoc. A disparate team of a rogue CDC doctor, rat-catcher and an Eastern European pawnshop owner come together to try to stop them.”

Anyway, I have two predictions. The first is that it will be pretty bad, and the second is that I will devour and love every minute of it nonetheless (then lick the orange powder from my fingers).