Seven More Great Novels That Are Under 200 Pages

On August 27, 2024August 27, 2024 By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Sometimes a short read is all you need.

Are you daunted by door stop tomes like Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove? Intimidated by popular thick bricks like Stephen King’s It or The Stand? Just not ready to plunge into David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (more like Infinite Pages)?

Sometimes a big epic story like War and Peace is what you need. I’m in the thick of The Caine Mutiny on a reread myself right now. But If you’d prefer your next read be more in line with Shakespeare’s ol’ “Brevity is the soul of wit” chestnut, then think about picking up one of these next seven titles.

(Inspired by Bobby Powers’ article My 10 Favorite Novels That Are Shorter Than 200 Pages.)

1.) The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

1897 was a banner year for sci-fi/horror classics, with both H.G. Wells’ brief but surprisingly brutal book being published, as well as Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking Dracula.

The Invisible Man tells the story of a mad scientist named Griffin who runs amok when his experiment in optics gets out of control. He turns himself invisible, as you might have guessed from the title. While being unseen is nice for awhile, when he can’t reverse the process despite his obsessive research, Griffin becomes homicidal. He terrororizes an inn, then threatens a town. After gaining a confidant named Kemp, he concocts a scheme to wreak havoc on the entire nation. But when Kemp betrays him to the police, a deadly vengeance-fueled cat and mouse game ensues.

The Invisible Man is definitely worch checking out, as is the 1933 Claude Raines-starring film adaptation. The 2020 film written and direct by Leigh Whannell is also pretty good.

2.) I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan

As someone who had to endure that hip teen slasher wave of the late 90s-early 2000s that started with Scream and ended somewhere around Wrong Turn, I never knew the micro franchise I Know What You Did Last Summer was actually based on a bestselling YA book from the early ’70s. A book that predates the original teen slasher wave that saw Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and all the clones that followed. I always thought of I Know as just “that movie poster that shows off Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts.”

While the movie shares the major conceit of the book, it diverges significantly by adding in a fish-hook using crazed killer into the mix. The book is actually more of a slow burn in the style of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, or something like the 1988 Dutch film The Vanishing, as opposed to the film’s sexier, slashier counterpart. For some bizarre reason, author Lois Duncan decided to rerelease the book to update the characters with modern tech and center them in the present. The effect was jarring as I started reading a book I knew was written in the 70s when suddenly a character mentions texting their friend. Note to authors: Don’t ever try to update your classics for modern audiences. George Lucas is your cautionary tale there. And besides, everyone loves retro stuff these days. Barnes and Noble sells records now. Half the new shows out there are set in the ’80s anymore. Stories should be like time capsules.

I Know works okay as a YA thriller, except I think it would have served the story better, not to mention a sense of justice, had the teens been hunted down one by one and actually killed. It’s too soft as it is. Only one of the kids is ever actually endangered — the frat douche, who gets shot, but not enough to paralyze him permanently. The darling main character is exalted so much that her BF actually says that his punishment from the killer would have been to have to live in a world without her in it. Get the hell out of here with that. These four kids ran over a little boy while they were out partying, and then left him there to die without getting help. They formed a pact to keep the secret, and then went on about with their lives. Even after the would-be killer is revealed and stopped, we don’t even get to see the kids face justice for what they did.

3.) Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr.

As a writer of novellas, and a sci-fi horror fan, I had to check this one out at some point. It comes with a pretty nice pedigree, being considered one of the most influential and important science fiction stories of all time. Who Goes There? certainly extends gravity in the pulp lit of sci-fi, having been adapted not once, not twice, but thrice to the big screen (or twice if you don’t count the latest 2011 adaptation, which I don’t).

Does Who Goes There? live up to expectations? It’s an unusual book in the sense that it relies mainly on lengthy dialogue exposition between the Antarctic researchers, only occasionally cutting to glimpses of the monster shape-shifting and running amok around the station. Nowadays you’d probably see a lot more graphical description, blood and guts, that sort of thing. So it came across more as a cerebral read. Like a clinical description of heart bypass surgery in a medical school lab.

Still, what makes this novella famous is the monster itself. I think Campbell does a great job of depicting the horror of what would happen were such a creature to reach the mainland, where it would have a whole population of flesh and blood to replicate. There’s one heart-stopping scene where an albatross, which Campbell uses in reference to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, lands near the camp. The men are forced to shoot it to keep it away, preventing the monster from copying it and potentially flying away. I’ve seen the original Thing from Another World, and Carpenter’s masterful ’82 version, and neither takes advantage of such a threat, which makes it unique to the book.

It’s kind of funny though how Campbell constantly refers to the monster as the Thing, and yet he titles the novella something else. Really, the Thing is such a perfect and obvious title, you’d figure it would have HAD to have occurred to the writer to call his story that. He was a legendary sci-fi editor, in addition to being a writer. Perhaps this is case of writer myopia. Who Goes There? comes across more as a murder mystery than a sci-fi horror.

4.) A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison

You could place a colon at the end of the title and add: “A true love story.”

Reading this novella is like handling a Hattori Hanzo sword. Ellison’s genuine love story is less a string of prose than a glinting weapon you equally admire and fear for its supernatural sharpness. Ignoring the outrageous arguments against this short, beastly narrative for its misogyny and big wet dick slap in feminism’s face (it’s Ellison, for Christ’s sake, did you expect a PC automaton?), and you can admire Mr. Always In Hot Water’s cinematic prose, subtlety, and black humor that would certainly warm the cockles of Vonnegut or Burgess’ hearts.

I made the mistake of watching the film version before reading the story, but let’s just say I’m glad it was made in the mid-70s instead of, well, pretty much anytime afterward. This is a young adult dystopian story with big, hairy balls, where the monolithic evil, teenage-exploitative system doesn’t get overthrown by plucky coeds in latex. Nope, our hero simply escapes to live another day, and then makes the ultimate “bros before hos” decision ever made. Which really isn’t a decision. I mean really, who in their right mind would turn their back on their loyal, sarcastic, telepathic doggo for some downunder wacko?

5.) The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

This is a nice companion piece to Fifty Shades of Grey.

This was such a dark, twisted modern fairy tale about a couple nasty people ultimately getting what they deserve. You wouldn’t think a novella about BDSM demons from another dimension would be an insatiable read, yet this is one you can’t put down once you start. Barker’s writing is spooky campfire story tone, with sentences that pulse with blood and desire. Is this one of those rare books where the movie exceeds the source material? Probably not. Hellraiser is a decent horror flick, but Barker’s true talent lies in his writing.

I like to revisit this book every year around Halloween, but it also makes for a good stocking stuffer.

6.) Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky

Ever wanted to experience the psychedelic/swinging 60s/70s in book form? Now you can! Well, it’s not quite same as dropping a tab of acid, or swallowing a handful of mushrooms, but Chayefsky’s novel, which he adapted into the movie starring William Hurt, is like an adult version of Alice in Wonderland crossed with Frankenstein with a dash of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Or imagine if Michael Crichton had become a theoretical physicist with a wake and bake routine.

I mainly read this book just to check out how Chayefsky, already a legendary screenwriter, handled a novel. I’d say this represents a culmination of nearly all his writing efforts. His work generally contained existential themes like the meaning of life, humanity in the face of industry, and such heady topics. But Altered States explores the very nature of consciousness itself. At times it’s a little too jargon heavy. Chayefsky’s two years of intense research amongst the Boston-area medical intelligentsia certainly shows. This is not a book that attempts in any way to be relatable, reflecting the monastic traits of its main character. Nor is it a book that will necessarily put you off due to its way out there premise. I think Chayefsky actually left a lot on the table, and could have explored the transformative effects Jessup experiences in the isolation tank more thoroughly. Instead, plot is dispensed with in favor of scientific soliloquies. Not bad, overall, it just feels truncated.

This is one of those books that you will likely revisit several times in your life, drawing different meaning from it depending on which era you’re currently in. The movie is decent, but don’t expect it to offer any more answers than the novel.

7.) The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackery

You’ve heard of the D.E.N.N.I.S. System from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Allow me to introduce you to:

The B.A.R.R.Y. L.Y.N.D.O.N. System

Be of noble birth.
Always be seducing wealthy and vulnerable heiresses.
Rogues are cool.
Really, rogues are super cool (especially Irish ones).
Yes, my great-grandaddy was an Irish king.

Lying? Me? Never.
Yes, I’ll have a fine brandy. All of them, in fact.
Nora, that bitch.
Destroy scheming step-sons at all costs.
Only bang sluts, never marry them (unless they’re rich).
Never surrender a chance to duel.

William Makepeace Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon is many things. It’s a picaresque confessional novel, a sort of 18th century American Psycho. It’s a satirical look at class and the aristocracy of England during a transformative time when the American colonists were overthrowing the rule of the monarch.

I found its greatest strength to be its cruelly honest depiction of an unhealthy and toxic marriage, in the form of the relationship between Redmond Barry, who becomes Barry Lyndon upon his marriage to Lady Lyndon (the wealthiest heiress in England, apparently). Despite being of low birth, through mostly violence and psychological warfare, Barry gains control over Lyndon’s entire estate, and promptly plunges it into near bankruptcy. He isolates his wife from society, abuses her in drunken black out rages, makes a mortal enemy of her son Lord Bullington; yet still produces a son with her to serve as his heir. As with everything Barry touches, it turns briefly to gold, only to crumble to dust. His son dies in a tragic horse accident, and he is ultimately undone through trickery just as he is ousted from his first love Nora at the beginning of the story.

Subtley, Thackeray seems to hint at the failure of English society, despite all its pomp and importance. All it takes is a mere “Irish rogue” with enough cunning to spearhead his way to the top of the heap (however briefly), to be undone only by the same vices that lead him initially to success. But perhaps Barry isn’t completely to blame. If one wanted to rise above his station in those days, in that part of the world, one had to be a force of nature. You had to be willing to do whatever it took. Only the few were born into the nobility, and so had the leisure of acting as “gentlemen.” For the rest, it was either through military service (risky, considering you had a high chance of death, disease, or dismemberment), or schemes. America had not yet been invented. There was yet very little means for one to climb upward.

Barry gambles compulsively, a habit that serves him mainly in youth, when with his uncle, he tours Western Europe separating fools from their money. Barry’s only chief skill is in fact “play,” (cards) a perfect metaphor for the arbitrary fate that falls on those who choose the criminal life of deception and violence. Though nowadays Barry’s means of creating wealth might be related to the casino dealings on Wall Street. A modern day Barry Lyndon would probably be a Silicon Valley fraud, a la Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes. Someone psychopathically fixated on achieving status not so much because it’s fulfilling or it even satisfies some inner need, but simply because their brain seems wired in such a way. The world is filled with Barry Lyndons, just as the world is filled with horrible, shitty marriages that nevertheless go on.

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is worth a read, as is Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation, it goes without saying. It’s a bit dry in spots, but the parts with Lord Bullington are worth waiting for.

Son of Rosemary: The Second Worst Sequel Book I’ve Ever Read

On May 1, 2023May 1, 2023 By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Fiction Affliction #5: Son of Rosemary, by Ira Levin

A novelist’s career is a strange thing. You can have “it” for a number of years/books, and then suddenly lose “it.” Maybe sometime later you get “it” back. Or maybe you never get “it” again.

What is “it” exactly? The good stuff. The spark. Creative synergy. Your finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist. The muse’s lips whsipering in your ear. Austin Power’s mojo.

You know, “it.”

Whatever “it” is, Ira Levin had it in abundance for the first half of his career. Starting with his global best-sellerA Kiss Before Dying. A book he wrote when he was all of 24. Then his play Deathtrap, which became the longest running thriller in Broadway history. His book Rosemary’s Baby became a smash sensation. He followed that up with classics The Boys from Brazil and The Stepford Wives. And cemented his legacy with This Perfect Day, a dystopian novel which I’ve written about previously.

The man had “it” in abundance. Everything he wrote turned to gold, or became household vernacular. To be a “Stepford Wife” meant to be a compliant Barbie doll, a terrifying prospect for any self-respecting feminist.

Ira Levin did it all before age 45. Simply astounding. Basically a reverse Cormac McCarthy, whose best novels came after he was old enough to collect social security.

But at some point, for whatever reason, Levin lost “it.” His second-half catalogue of material is decisively lackluster compared to his first. It’s also sadly deriviative. Son of Rosemary is, of course, a sequel written 30 years after the classic Rosemary’s Baby. Stephen King would eclipse that with his 2013 book Doctor Sleep, written 36 years after The Shining. Another unnecessary sequel seemingly written more for the fans than the need for the story to continue. Also a title that earns the distiction as worst sequel book I’ve ever read. Though Son gave it a run for its money.

His 1991 novel Sliver feels like something that would have come from the feverish fingertips of Dean Koontz, with its themes of obsession, control, and abuse of technology. Levin’s gift was always injecting the macabre into the mundane. Making the outlandish seem not only quite possible, but ordinary.

Levin wasn’t exactly a prolific writer. There was a 14-year gap between A Kiss Before Dying and Rosemary’s Baby. During which he wrote a handful of plays. He wrote only a total of seven novels. One of which, The Stepford Wives, is really more of a novella, at all of about 120 pages.

Son of Rosemary is Levin’s final novel. And it’s a disappointing sour note to a very long and distinguished career. Levin is one of my favorite writers. He’s like Hemingway, with sparse, minimalistic prose, but with the adrenalin of a Frederick Forysth. A literary Stanley Kubrick, with a cold, intellectual style powered by unforgettable high concepts that examine human evil within the confines of a tightly structured thriller format. His words eating across the page like the tapping of a snare drum, building to a crescendo.

“The Devil Downtown.” Made with Midjourney.

Son of Rosemary picks up about 25 years after the events of the original novel. Rosemary has been in a coma for almost three decades. During this time, her son Andy has risen to global prominance as a popular leader of a charitable organization. Apparently due to his infectious charisma, Andy appears on the cusp of political ascendency. He’s admired by world leaders, constantly recognized on the street. He even resembles Jesus Christ (or, at least the Western image of him) with his blonde locks and blue eyes. His mother’s remarkable return from the dead only raises his (and hers) status even more. Now, with the new millenium fast approaching, his organization wants to unite the world in peace with a special candle lighting ceremony. But does this agenda contain a sinister purpose? All signs point to yes.

This was a book that took me way longer to read than it should have. I actually took it out from the library twice, having had to return it early the first time due to a move. It shouldn’t be difficult to read an Ira Levin book. But I think the reason I did with this one is because Levin’s formula was pretty obvious. It almost follows the same beats as the original, staying with Rosemary’s POV, while throwing a few wrinkles along the way to spice things up, before the final big twist.

Levin makes a half-hearted attempt to show Andy’s struggle as a “half-breed,” being both human and the son of Satan, and therefore imbued with certain demonic capabilities. But it’s all minor, superficial stuff. He can grow horns, and his blue eyes turn tiger-striped when the devil in him comes out. He has insatiable lust, even going so far as to make out with his mother at one point, in a bizarre moment early on in the story. But despite his genetic predisposition to eeevil, Andy’s still a “good guy” overall, or tries to be.

It would have been more interesting to be in Andy’s POV than Rosemary’s, and explore more of that inner struggle. How does someone reconcile a human heritage with the Prince of Darkness? It would have been more compelling narratively speaking also. Rosemary is largely passive and reactive throughout the story, observing Andy and his quasi-political apparatus from afar. All the while Andy works behind the scenes.

But sadly, Levin seems more comfortable sticking with boring old Rosemary, despite the fact that her story has largely been told. We follow her around as she acclimates to all the cultural and technological changes of the ’90s. Watch her elevated into a celebrity as the mother of Andy. Get wooed by an older gentleman. Interesting stuff, sure. But it’s like sticking with an Oldsmobile when you’ve got a Porsche collecting dust in your garage. That POV made sense in the original, as the entire plot spun around her being the unwitting victim of a demonic rape so she could give birth to the devil’s spawn. In Son, she’s less involved. The evil conspiracy isn’t happening against her, but (apparently) against the whole world.

Regarding that, it’s never really made clear what the devil’s scheme is against earth. There’s something about the candles being poisoned with a virus. On New Year’s Eve, durng the countdown to midnight, in a coordinated televised event, everyone is supposed to light them. In effect wiping out millions in one go. A plot that reminds me a lot of the one from Halloween III, where an evil company plans to use a TV signal to activate Halloween masks on children, that will turn the kiddies’ heads into bugs.

But why wipe out humanity, especially in a plot that will certainly place the blame squarely on Andy’s nonprofit organization (and Andy himself), for promoting the candles? Would make it hard to set up an antichrist or rule the world when you’ve just blatantly killed millions.

Another issue I had was Andy’s inexplicable popularity. Everyone goes around wearing “I Love Andy” buttons. Everyone on earth is conveniently sucked into his cult of personality, with but a few anti-Andy stragglers. But it’s never really made clear what makes Andy so popular, or what he did to earn such a distinction. Especially at so young an age (33). Even Prince William doesn’t have that kind of clout, and he’s been a royal celebrity in the public eye for four decades.

Then there are the two twists at the end. One pretty good. The other nonsensical.

:::Spoilers:::

Turns out, the gentleman who’s been seducing Rosemary the whole time is the devil himself, in disguise. And not only does he still want a relationship with her, he’s an abusive father. Not surprising, he is Satan, afterall. When Andy tries to defy his father’s scheme to destroy the world, the Devil nails him to the wall in a crucifixion, and then drags Rosemary to hell (I think).

The second twist is a ludicrous cop-out, and bears similarity to the ending to the The Devil’s Advocate, which also came out in 1997. On the verge of the apocalypse, Rosemary suddenly finds herself back in 1965, married to Guy Woodhouse, the actor who sold her out. It was all a dream. Or perhaps this is purgatory. Almost like the ending to Advocate, where Keanu Reeves’ lawyer character finds himself unknowingly back in the courthouse where he was at the begining of the movie. Destined to repeat the same steps toward meeting devilish Al Pacino in Manhattan.

Deus ex machina is when God suddenly intervenes. What is it when the Devil pushes the big reset button? Diaboli ex machina? That sounds like an Italian dish.

It’s hard to tell what Ira Levin was trying to accomplish by writing an update to his 1967 classic domestic thriller. It’s not like the world was clamoring for a sequel. Rosemary’s Baby’s power lay in its dark implications, and subtle themes of marital deception and feminine vulnerability, not in explicit spectacle or world-building.

It’s not scary, and it’s far too tame and timid to be thrilling. This Is the End, the 2013 apocalypse-comedy starring Seth Rogen, has more frightening moments, not to mention a far more satisfying ending.

In the end, the only horrifying thing about Son of Rosemary is that it constitutes a portrait of a novelist who lost his magic touch. Even the best can lose their fastball. I’ve never quite agreed that every author really only has one story inside them, and merely writes variations of that one story again and again. But I do think that every writer has a certain fixed number of stories they were “meant” to write. Then afterwards, it’s all going through the motions, coasting on momentum as it were.

If you’re desperate to see what happened to Rosemary after the events of the first novel, or you like ’90s pop literature, or anything devil-related, then give Son of Rosemary a shot. Otherwise, you’re better off sticking with Netflix.

La Planète des Singes aka Monkey Planet aka Planet of the Monkees aka Planet of the Apes

On February 17, 2023February 17, 2023 By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Fiction Affliction #2: Planet of the Apes

Like a lot of people, I had no idea that the film Planet of the Apes was actually based on a book. And that really goes to show the power of a big name in Hollywood. I always knew Rod Serling had a hand in it. I mean, that’s obvious. The movie is like a big budget Twilight Zone episode, complete with a classic twist ending. I actually thought he wrote the whole thing. I didn’t know it all came from a best-selling novel written by a French guy named Pierre Boulle, who also wrote another popular work that got the big screen treatment, The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

So, when I saw an actual book with the title Planet of the Apes on its cover sitting in the library, I almost didn’t believe my eyes. This is the curse of living in an age where literally everything is adapted from some stupid comic book or graphic novel, or a remake of a show or movie. You tend to forget that for most of Hollywood’s existence, it was books (classic ones, even) upon which everything was largely based. That’s not say that best-selling popular fiction doesn’t tickle H’wood’s G-Spot nowadays still, but it seems like most of the books pipelined into features are calculated for that exact purpose. Blame that on Michael Crichton. The guy who could sell movie rights to his books in a matter of seconds.

While we’re on the subject of movies, Boulle’s apes book makes a strong case for inspiring the largest amount of cinematic content from a singular literary source. There are currently nine Apes movies, with the tenth on the way in 2024. The franchise started with the Charlton Heston-starring original in 1968, continued with four more sequels through the early ’70s. Then there was that Tim Burton remake in 2001. Followed by the rebooted franchise films that began in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, starring pre-sex scandal ruined James Franco and the stellar CGI services of Andy Serkis. The Apes franchise has certainly reached over a billion dollars in box office revenue, plus whatever merchandise might have been sold. I mean, you know EVERYONE is clambering for a Dr. Zaius action figure.

Source: https://costumes.com/products/planet-of-the-apes-7-scale-action-figure-classic-series-2-dr-zaius-v-2-n29999?gclid=Cj0KCQiAxbefBhDfARIsAL4XLRox_4SG-tC2wnHovRas0dIxHTEvm9-SoK7xI3Mw6X6VlZZ8UZtIDmAaAqWKEALw_wcB

Hey, that’s not bad for a relatively short novel published way back in 1963.

But we’re not here to talk the Apes movies. We’re here to talk the Apes book. Which is a clever, high-concept story with some humorous sci-fi anachronisms (it was written before Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon), a likable if rather bland lead character, an odd and arguably pointless narative framing device, and not one, but two twist endings.

Suck on that Rod Serling and M. Night.

This was a good, breezy book that felt like a fun science lecture delivered by your favorite professor. Not too long. Not too short. It only clocks in at a short 250 pages or so. And that’s with a LOT of white space, mind you.

The book employs a weird framing device. We meet a rich couple “sailing” through space using some form of solar power or wind as a propulsion system. Space travel is now so commonplace that the leisure class now does it for going on vacation and honeymooning. This couple, Jinn and Phyllis, somehow, inexplicably happen across a message in a bottle floating in the endless void of space.

Yes, a literal message in a glass bottle hurling through space. No matter the trillion to one odds of such an event occurring. And in this bottle is a hand-written document containing a crazy story about human astronauts who lands on a faraway planet from earth that is populated by intelligent apes. The story is written by a journalist named Ulysse (no doubt inspired from Odysseus) who was invited by a professor and a physician on an interstellar journey in a rocket ship capable of reaching near-light speed. Due to a complicated time dilation function, as the rocket reaches the speed of light, time inside the ship behaves normally, while outside centuries pass. This allows the trio of men to reach the star Betelguese. Once they arrive on a habitable planet, the astronauts find some water. They throw off their clothes for a swim. But it isn’t long before they’re accosted by a tribe of humans, who ruin their clothing and their rocket ship.

Making matters worse, a gang of gorillas come along and capture two of the astronauts (one is killed in the attack), where they are taken to a lab for study. Ulysse makes friends with Zira, a chimpanzee researcher, and her fiance, Cornelius. But the journalist’s biggest challenge will be convincing the ape world he is actually intelligent and deserving of equal rights as the apes. A tall task considering the high-ranking orangutans, led by the hard-headed Dr. Zaius, are convinced the human is just mimicking them, and really could just use a good ol’ fashioned lobotomy instead.

Ulysse eventually escapes the monkey planet with a hot (human) native girl he names Nova, whom he’s gotten pregnant during his long period of incarceration. He jumps forward in time again, and eventually arrives back on earth. Only to discover that his home world has ALSO somehow become overrun by smart apes.

We then jump back to the rich vacationing couple to reveal that they are actually apes themselves, who find the story they just read so unbelievable, that they just laugh it off and keep heading into space.

Planet of the Apes is packed with a lot cool ideas. The ebb and flow of civilization. Special relativity. Science versus superstition. The staunch bureacracy of the scientific establishment. The ethics of animal experimentation, in this case using humans to help advance medicine for apes. Genetic memory. But the idea I find the most interesting concerns mimicry behavior. As Ulysse and his ape allies discover through the process of research and discovery, the apes didn’t so much become intelligent as became sophisticated copy cats of human behavior. Or copy apes.

The book proposes the troubling existential idea that true creative consicousness, and genuine originality — that unique candle flicker that defines humanity — is itself a rare and somewhat unquantifiable thing. The apes, for all their societal advancement, are almost no better than flesh and blood ChatGPT automatons covered in hair. Though most humans are essentially the same thing. Hence the common online put-down “NPC” (non-playable character) used against simpletons who float along with the crowd, uncritically mimicking the majority. As though plugged into some kind of hive mind. Ulysee uses the example of how once a century a true work of genuis is written, and then everyone else copies it, which begets more copies.

Naturally, this eerie and disquieting realization perturbs the ape intelligentsia. And it’s understandable. No one wants to know they’re essentially a puppet. But when you take a good look around, you can’t help but realize that this kind of explains why everything tends to be so screwed up. Because real thought and developing a true individual identity are hard to do. It’s much easier to copy and go along with the current status quo. Don’t agree? Okay, what language do you speak? Do you use money? Do you wear modern clothes? If you’re working, are you saving for retirement? Are you aware of the laws in your community? If you’re attending school, why are you attending school? For a job? Because it’s what you’re supposed to do to “make something of yourself?” Okay, now stop and think about who put all those ideas in your head about those things in the first place, and whether you really ever had a choice as to whether or not you were going to follow that societal programming.

The concept of mimicry is actually kind of scary the more you think about it. It makes you doubt whether you even have a free will. Or your own mind. I’m not saying it’s all bad, or that it’s all some evil conspiracy. Most of our copied behavior is essential training that keeps us safe and alive. But it is alarming to realize how little we really think about what we’re doing as much as we’re coasting on a set of predetermined coding.

Not far behind the mimicry idea is genetic memory, also known as racial memory. Ulysee encounters a human subject who somehow is able to recount the entire history of the human/ape conflict that ultimately lead to the simian takeover by accessing traumatic memories hidden in their genetic code. It’s a rather bizarre scene altogether, and scientifically questionable. It may as well as be a psychic seance. But it’s a clever way for Boulle to provide some needed exposition to explain how the apes came to be.

I’d strongly recommend checking out Planet of the Apes. Not only is it intellectually stimulating, original, while also being enjoyable, but it’s also a classic. And I don’t know about you, but I’m always fascinated by cultural watershed works that inspire a franchise or a major milestone within its genre. Apes has that in spades.

Pet Semetary (Or, That Creepy Ancient Indian Burial Ground BEHIND the Pet Semetary)

On February 9, 2023February 9, 2023 By Dean Brooks3 Comments

Fiction Affliction #1: A review of Stephen King’s 1983 meditation on death, despair, and the heavy cost for refusing to let sleeping dogs (and cats) lie.

Realtor: Hi, yes, Dr. Creed? Oh, I have the perfect house for you and your family.

Dr. Creed: I can’t wait to see it. My wife and two young kids, whom I’m dragging from their lifelong home in Chicago to Bangor, Maine for some reason, can’t wait to move.

Realtor: Well, firstly, and I just want to get this out of the way, it’s located right by a super busy road where giant trucks driven by idiots who don’t pay attention come rumbling by at 100 mph every minute of every day, all day and all night. There’s no fence or barrier by the road, so it would be really, really dangerous if you happened to have a kid who’s highly mobile and not old enough to recognize the danger of crossing the street yet. Is that okay with you?

Dr. Creed: Absolutely. I am a doctor.

Realtor: Also, and I just want to throw this minor little thing out there. But there’s a pet cemetary behind the house.

Dr. Creed: Oh, that’s interesting.

Realtor: Yes, many of the pets killed by those trucks over the years are buried there.

Dr. Creed: Well, I’ve been meaning to finally talk to my daughter about the facts of death, so this will be a good conversation starter.

Realtor: Great! Let’s schedule a showing for tomorrow!

This is the inaugural piece in a new series that I’m tentatively calling Fiction Affliction. This series will be mostly devoted to book reviews. But I’ll also be including screenplays, short stories, and basically anything EXCEPT TV shows and movies. There are enough people out there talking about stuff in the frame rate medium. I’m more interested in the written word. The boring black and white.

I’m also a novelist myself, having self-published two books, with more on the way. Fiction Affliction is my way of learning and reflecting on various novels and other written works I’ve read, and sharing them with everyone else. All wrapped in an informal, humorous, and always brutally honest style with a touch of irreverence. I’m trying to focus on stuff that’s either lesser known or niche, or if it’s by a popular author, something that’s not one of their marquee works. Pretty much everything by King is popular, obviously. Especially these days, when Hollywood is instantly making everything he writes into a movie. They even made a movie off a story he wrote about evil grass. The Maine man truly is the Main Man. You’ve got a better chance avoiding getting hacked to pieces by Jason Voorhees while you’re in the middle of having sex than not seeing some obscure King work get made into a series or feature film.

Pet Semetary was always a back burner King book for me. Over the years I’ve read pretty much all of his classics. The Shining. The Stand. Carrie. The Dead Zone. Salem’s Lot. I even read Insomnia, a forgotten door stop about some guy who somehow develops super powers because he can’t sleep. I still haven’t read IT, though I’ve tried twice. Clowns don’t scare me, and King is especially rambly in that one.

But Pet Semetary. That’s more like a cult classic of King’s. It’s not his best, though I’ve often seen on Reddit threads people mention it as their favorite. I can see why. It’s his purest meditation on death. The story has a cozy and intimate feeling notwithstanding. It’s like being slowly strangled by a warm, fuzzy blanket. There are some passages that are not only great in a literary sense, but also scary as hell. The chapter where Louis’s daugher Ellie comes to him and asks him about death, for example. And how that interaction triggers his wife Rachel to remember her horrifying ordeal with her dying sister Zelda.

The whole Zelda sequence could have almost been a seperate novel in and of itself. This was King in his prime. Back when he was a cocaine-fueled boozing maniac pounding away at the typewriter in the basement, and everyone was afraid he was going to finally go nuts and hack his family to pieces.

Man, I miss that guy. He used to riff off little stories within his stories like the way a carnival barker raffles off tickets to some ungodly (and unsafe) amusement park ride. You think of the numerous stories telling the history of the teleportation equipment in his short The Jaunt. That’s a story that should get reviewed on here at some point.

King used to be encyclopediac. His books used to be little labyrinthes packed to the gills with all kinds of frightening shit.

Now King is just another Twitter tweeting avatar.

Which reminds me. Fuck Twitter. Not only is it a morphine drip distraction, but I hate how it has sucked in so many great writers into its event horizon. I think social media has a way of watering down good writing, and reducing otherwise solid writers to time-wasting clout-chasers. How many good books have been lost, their creative energy transformed into worthless tweets? You hear that giant sucking sound? That’s the sound of Twitter sucking all the brain cells out through everyone’s ear holes.

Anyway, back to Pet Semetary. A novel about a doctor named Dr. Louis Creed who moves his family from the Land of Deep Dish Pizza to Bangor, Maine in order to take a job at a local university as the school physician. He moves into a nice house in the country, which happens to be right alongside the most dangeorous road in the universe. Where giant trucks come lumbering along regularly, killing pets and other wildlife. But those trucks are nothing compared to the creepy AF pet cemetary tucked behind his house down a trail. But even that’s small potatoes compared to the ancient Indian burial ground that’s located behind the pet cemetary. Man, if this doctor prescribes drugs as well as he picks houses, he’ll have you taking shots of hydrochloric acid for the common cold.

I am a slow reader. I like taking my time. Or as I like to call it, my eyes prefer a tantric experience with the ink and paper. But I have to say, Pet Semetary really slowed me down. The book is like wading through molasses wearing cement shoes. And I think that’s because it’s a deceptively heavy book. It’s all about death and despair. It’s unrelentingly sad. It’s an existential crisis hiding within the trappings of mass market horror. There’s a subtle nihilism that creeps through. Digging deeper, it’s not only about death. It’s about the fact that after death there really is nothing. Just a void. And to try to cheat that — to bring something or someone back — is just fooling yourself. The hardest part about losing someone isn’t just that they’re gone. It’s that you’re never going to see them again. That there is no happy afterlife where we’ll see each other. It’s as if King is saying the scariest part of life isn’t anything supernatural or otherwordly. It’s the simple fact that when the light goes out, that’s it. And all you can do is accept it.

Pet Semetary is a gut punch. It’s a middle finger to the religious minded confident in their inevitable Laz-E-Boy recliner cloud awaiting them in the sky post their final raspy breath. It’s about denial and the consequences of refusing to accept reality. It’s also a metaphor for psychological trauma, as seen in the Zelda story. Of the inability to get past some tragedy or loss.

This book hurts to read. Because you’ll find yourself thinking about loved ones you lost. It’s a smart choice to explore the concept via the death of Ellie’s cat Winston Churchill, or Church. Everyone’s lost a pet at some point. I found myself thinking of my beloved Himalayan ragdoll Napoleon Cataparte. A cat who who was there for me my last year in high school, my first few years in college, and then my entry into the real world. Napoleon was a regal feline with a strong personality. He was a boss. I loved that cat. When he got on in years, we were fortunate to find a home for him with a nice older lady who only adopted Himalayan cats. He passed away peacefully one evening, perched atop his lounge by the window. A king on his throne to the end. Long live Napoleon.

“KING NAPOLEON CATAPARTE” (Made with Dream by WOMBO)

Structurally, Pet Semetary is kinda wonky. The first act takes up almost the first half of the book. The second act is basically the event and aftermath of Gage’s (Creed’s two-year old son) death. And then the third act is told in one pulse-pounding one-night sequence where the doctor goes to dig up the corpse of his son and rebury him in the Indian burial ground so the toddler can be reanimated. The whole sequence is written like a heist.

Which makes me wonder…have the Ocean’s 11 writers ever considered putting a horror element in their franchise? Like instead of robbing just another boring bank or casino, they have to rob an Egyptian pyramid, or a South American crypt? And George Clooney gets killed by a mummy or something?

Anyway…

Pet Semetary is deeply morbid, depressing, soul-crushing stuff. It’s one of those novels that goes there. What else can be said about a book that features a two-year old getting run over by a semi-truck in grisly detail. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.

There’s also one hell of a stinger at the very end.

I recommend Pet Semetary, but only if you’ve got a cast iron mind. Reading it is like swallowing a razor blade.