Misery

I mentioned in my Firestarter post that I was in the middle of another Stephen King book I was enjoying much more, and here we are with Misery. As we all know Misery got turned into one of King's more popular movie adaptations so most of us probably have some rough idea of the plot- a famous author gets into a car crash (written a decade before King's own brush with death!) and is rescued by a psychotic woman who happens to be a big fan, who doesn't bother taking him to the hospital but instead kidnaps him and forces him to write a new book, just for her. A scary prospect for sure, but there's a lot more to this book than that famous Annie Wilkes character Kathy Bates won an Oscar for playing; Stephen King peppers this one with all sorts of little details about how he comes up with his stories and how to get past writer's block and lots of info about what life's like as a famous author that I just find fascinating. Seriously, sometimes I think I like the little prologues he does before most books talking about writing that story than the story itself. The author in Misery is famous for writing a series of best-selling but cheesy historical romance pieces, feels like he's tied down to characters he doesn't even like anymore, and wants to branch out of his comfort zone, but is afraid of his audience's reaction. It's not hard to see the parallels with King who became a superstar for his horror novels, but received major negative feedback when he tried to write a classic fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon. And yet in Misery, the author is forced to bring a character he killed off back from the dead for one more adventure just to keep the ravenous reader (his psycho kidnapper) satisfied. So yeah, Misery managed to pull off a bit of meta-autobiographical fiction while still delivering a very tense story.

Anyway now that I've finished off Misery it feels like I've read a shitload of Stephen King. I took a look back and realized that if you count the four novellas of Four Past Midnight as separate pieces (they're long enough, they count), then I'm up to 25 books read. It's high time to check in with an overall ranking! Feel free to comment and criticize, I know there will be some disagreement from my fellow posters!

1. It
2. Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower IV)
3. The Long Walk
4. The Talisman
5. 11/22/63
6. The Waste Lands (Dark Tower III)
7. The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower II)
8. The Stand
9. Misery
10. The Wind Through the Keyhole (Dark Tower VIII)
11. The Langoliers (Four Past Midnight)
12. Christine
13. Secret Window, Secret Garden (Four Past Midnight)
14. Under The Dome
15. The Dark Tower (Dark Tower VII)
16. Gerald's Game
17. The Dead Zone
18. Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower V)
19. Firestarter
20. The Library Policeman (Four Past Midnight)
21.  The Sun Dog (Four Past Midnight)
22. Black House
23. The Gunslinger (Dark Tower I)
24. Insomnia
25. Song of Susannah (Dark Tower VI)