Reading on the Eights: 10/10

During the past eight weeks, I went through the last six books of a popular children's series, two science fiction novels, a "legal" thriller, and of course, a few of Stephen King's novels.

Off and on for the last year or two, I've been reading Lemony Snicket's (real name Daniel Handler) A Series of Unfortunate Events, a frustrating series relating the ordeals of the three Baudelaire orphans as they tried to escaped the clutches of evil Count Olaf. I survived the first seven books and then got bogged down in the eighth, The Hostile Hospital. Well, I decided one day just to check out all of the rest in the series from the library. Then I just plowed right through each volume, starting with the aforementioned one. Then came The Carnivorous Carnival, The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, and The End. Whew! I'm glad that's over with! Mr. Snicket (Handler) did introduce a lot of new vocabulary items in his series, so if you're into expanding your "word power", then Snicket's the source! My favorite new word? Widdershins!

I continued reading an Isaac Asimov work, his futuristic robot novel The Caves of Steel. I plan to start up soon on his follow-up story, The Naked Sun. Good stuff! Like many other authors in the genre, Asimov had built up a complete alternate universe of the future, spanning many thousands of years, that he filled up with assorted stories. Speaking of science fiction, I picked up a copy of Douglas Adams's satirical masterpiece The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'd seen the earlier-made miniseries based on it, and reading the book brought back some funny memories. I plan to obtain and read the next book in this series.

I decided to try a popular author whose works I had yet to experience. John Grisham was my choice, and The Pelican Brief was the novel. It was very enjoyable, although I thought the ending was a bit of a fizzle. At least for this story, Grisham's style of writing reminded me a little of Stephen King's.

And speaking of the King, the remainder of my readings for the past eight weeks were of his novels. I read Carrie, Dreamcatcher, Cujo, and The Dark Half. All were good, although Dreamcatcher stood out the most (it had an epic, science fiction feel to it). I believe that all four stories were made into movies, but I only saw parts of Carrie. And the little that I saw differed substantially from the book. Cujo and The Dark Half were actually connected by a common character. And all four novels were naturally set in Stephen King's home state of Maine. I've just started reading his fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon (which doesn't seem to be set in Maine).