Reading on the Eights: 12/7

I've continued my reading pace at about the same rate for the past eight weeks. I read another Isaac Asimov robot novel, The Naked Sun, which was passable but not my favorite. But it does tie in to his later Empire and Foundation series. And I have a trilogy of his Empire novels that I will be starting soon! To round out the science fiction reading, I'll say that I'm currently working on Douglas Adams's second Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, titled The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This reading has not been particularly enjoyable to me (although it's very funny) because I already know pretty much what happens, having seen the miniseries on TV a couple of decades ago.

Of course, I am continuing with my dogged pursuit of reading everything that Stephen King has published in book form. To this end, I read The Eyes of the Dragon, The Dead Zone, Insomnia, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and his short story/novella collection Skeleton Crew. Eyes of the Dragon was a short, pleasant fantasy departure, while The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was a depiction of a child's scary, trying adventure lost in the wilderness, interlaced with pro-Boston Red Sox propaganda (I guess that tells you I'm not exactly a fan of theirs). The Dead Zone and Insomnia both were great, gripping novels dealing with psychic abilities descending uninvited on the protagonists. Insomnia is, maybe, the best of King's novels I've read so far. He has a heart for the elderly, and dealing with life in its latter stages takes up a great deal of the book. His Skeleton Crew collection (published in the 1980s) spans a wide range of story types. The Mist is a novella that just came out as a movie (and this spurred my interest in reading this book). I wonder if the movie will stay true to the written word, or will it diverge a lot (like Children of the Corn did). There was sci-fi (Beachworld, The Jaunt), crime/mystery (The Wedding Gig), deranged poetry (Paranoid: a Chant, For Owen), New England-oriented stories (Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, The Reach) and, of course, horror (many stories). There were four stories that stood out the most to me: The Mist, Mrs. Todds's Shortcut, Nona, and The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet. The story Work Processor of the Gods seemed too similar to an old Twilight Zone episode titled A World of His Own. As a whole, Skeleton Crew was excellent. I can't wait for Stephen King's next short story collection to come out!

I also began to read Ralph Keyes's writers guide The Courage to Write (How Writers Transcend Fear). It definitely has a lot of food for thought in it!