Ethan > Recent Status Updates

I think I've had this one figured out since about page 30; Stine isn't exactly great at throwing the reader off.

Ethan came toddling into the room. He was about four, chubby, roundfaced, and very blond. "Who are they?", he asked his mom, pointing a water pistol at the new arrivals.

Hey! That doesn't describe me at all. And the only plastic pistol I own is an old Nerf gun. 🔫 😤

🚮

A fight to the death

Soooo...this book is terrible. If I hadn't spent like $40 bucks on my hardcover copy years ago I would have DNF'd by now. There is a villain in here named "Mr. Ha-Ha", which really tells you all you need to know.

This one is pretty boring so far and a classic example of the extra bloat in King's novels: 120 pages so far of a teenager just taking care of an injured elderly man. Giving him his pills, helping him into bed, feeding his dog. Many of these things repeated multiple times. Why does this need to be there? It simply doesn't. Also King calling the internet "the Net" dates him considerably and makes me cringe slightly.

A growing sense of unease

The Optimen

Aaaaaand the phone zombies are levitating now... 😐

😢

Ok...the pseudo-zombies are all gathered in a soccer field lying down and may be "rebooting" now...I'm getting a whiff this may be heading into "Terrible Stephen King Second Half" territory now...

This isn't anywhere near as terrible as I've been led to believe over the years. But King DOES have a tendency to fall apart in the second half. Interested to see where this one goes, but it's not bad so far!

I have to say, I don't really "get" this book. The...what do I call them, I don't watch reality TV...contestants?...participants?...of the compound keep saying how they came to the compound to have a good time, but these people are miserable and life on the compound is very cutthroat and seems like a living hell. Maybe that's part of the point of this book but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me regardless.

Dreamers

Green fog

Tabloid haystacks squat. Emptied trash cans skid to anchor corners. Shopkeepers retract metal gates that repel burglars from merchandise unworthy of theft. All this metal grinding, this is the machine of morning reaching out through cogs and gears to claim and wake us.

If retaliation is your fear, know this—I should hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law, and an ocean of salt tears could not melt the resolution of the statutes.

Every woman in Salem being addressed as "Goody", with one having the last name Good, resulting in the hilarious, though not intended as such, name of Goody Good.

Are you Good, Goody? Yes, I am Good. Well that's Good. Good. Goody. Good. Goody. Praise Jesus.

Forces of darkness

Comrade Colonel Rosa Klebb ☭ 🚩

Banco

SPECTRE

A plan to rob Fort Knox

Oddjob 🎩

The Game Is Baccarat

SMERSH

James Bond getting bit by a barracuda 🦈

The Silver Phantom

Mr. Big

(Sounds like a villain name from a porno 🤔)

Dear Stephen King, please stop writing these dreadful Holly Gibney books. She is by far your most overrated character. Sincerely, a disenchanted fan.