Thoughts on Doctor Sleep

First off, okay, I'm gonna talk about Doctor Sleep, and that INCLUDES the ending, so if you haven't read the book and plan on doing so, stop reading this RIGHT NOW.

Okay.  Doctor Sleep by Stephen King.  First thought, reading Stephen King books is kind of like listening to ZZ Top songs - they're all pretty much the same.  Some are more epic than others, some run to a thousand pages instead of five or six hundred, but still, pretty much the same.

That said, I enjoy his books at lot.  He really is a good writer, and unlike with a lot of books I read, I don't think I've ever winced over an awkward turn of phrase while reading one of his.  He makes it look effortless, which I am sure it is not, even for him. 

What I enjoy most about King is the plot setup and the character development.  Once the story gets to the last few chapters, where it's good vs. evil and good wins and at least a few of the bad guys meet horrible, grisly, graphic deaths (King is very fond of splattered brains, and intestines are always good, as well), I kind of lose interest.  Because you know the good guys are gonna win (with maybe a minor good character or two killed off just to keep it real), the bad guys are gonna lose, and Amen.

And there is ALWAYS a big showdown. The shootout at the O.K. Corral, so to speak.  Even in a book like Doctor Sleep, where everybody's psychic and technically they could have just phoned the whole thing in, the good guys have to do a road trip halfway across the damn country just so everybody can meet-and-greet in person.

One other thing that stuck with me is how Dan pulled the dude out of his mental lockbox so he could kill the gal in the shed.  It was a deus ex machina, like Indiana Jones pulling the gun out of his belt and shooting the saber-wielding bad guy dead.  I mean, it was cute, but I was kinda like, "Whoa ... THAT'S convenient".

But then again, if you can keep people locked in boxes in your mind ... the whole premise is just fantasy, of course.  The True Knot doesn't really exist, although it WOULD explain some of those spooky old f*cks I see in Walmart.

Final thoughts?  I liked it.  I like most King books.  It only took me a week or so to tear through Doctor Sleep, even thought it's right around five hundred pages, because he really does know how to write a page-turner.  It's just, I never seem to get a chance to go revisit his older stuff that I REALLY liked, like The Stand and Carrie and The Long Walk, because he churns out the new stuff so fast.  Which isn't a bad thing, really.

I tell you what, Mr. King.  You keep writin' em and I'll keep readin' em.  How's that?