 Hello everybody! E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we are in front of the Stephen King shows, so of course that means it's a Stephen King themed review, kind of, it's Richard Bachman. Today we are talking about Blaze, which is the final Richard Bachman novel. It was published, and I actually don't know when it was published. Give me a second. Let me look this up. Let me look back here and way back into way back. It was published in 2007, but it was originally written between 1966 and 1973, at least that's what it says in the introduction. It also says in the introduction that it was a trunk novel that he didn't like it. He didn't think it was good enough for publication, so he put it in a box. He thought he lost it, and he ended up coming back and finding it again, or his assistant found it for him. I'm not sure which. But yeah, so it's a trunk novel, all that stuff. This is going to be a spoiler free review. If you want a spoiler discussion, I have one in the making, or not in the making. I'm going to record one and get that one up, but this one rest assured that I won't spoil anything for you. The first time that I read this book, I absolutely hated it, several reasons why it's kind of a tribute, or ode, or Stephen King's riff of Mice and Men, and I think Steinbeck's novella is a perfect experience. It doesn't overstay its welcome, it's just a perfect book in my opinion. I mean in this one, the dumb ones, I guess he's not really mentally challenged as much as he's slow. His friends named George, you can't get any more obvious than that. I'm not a big fan of literary reboots, same reason I didn't like Paul Tremblay's Head Full of Ghosts, same reason I didn't like this the first time I read it. This time I read it, I adored it, I liked it a lot. The only reason I didn't give it a full five stars is because there are some plot holes, there are some conveniences that I had a problem swallowing, even though I didn't know where the book was going, but I was nowhere near hating this book. There's a lot of great character writing, there is some stuff that King has reused over and over again in his career, nowhere near as bad as, let's say, like a Dean Coontz, you know, having him talk in every single book. But there are certain characters that he's reused, certain phrases that you're going to find. It's just kind of like Stephen King's signature kind of deal. But with this one I found myself wanting to continue reading and never, never wanting to put it down, whereas the first time I read it I had a problem even finishing it. You know, even getting halfway through it I recall was a big, big issue for me. This time I blew right through it. I had the goal, and the reason why you're getting this video as soon as you are, I had a goal of only, I think, 30 pages a day, and that would have put me right at about 11 days, because the book's 340 pages long, so 330 pages, 340 pages, roughly 11 days. But I ended up reading it in only five because I blew through the last 100 pages. I would give it a chance, if you are Stephen King completionist, I would at least give it a chance. Like I said, I didn't like the first time around, but also, most Stephen King fans who read this book don't like this book. It was also around the time we had, I think, I don't know, what is it, a Duma Key, Leasy Story, all that stuff, and people had started to get upset with King because he was no longer writing horror. I don't think he was ever a horror writer. He was just a storyteller, and he's a literary novelist that leans to the horror side, that leans to the dark side. I don't think he's general fiction. I don't think he's speculative fiction. Well, he is. He's all those things, really, but he's far more to the literary side because he actually gives a damn about theme and character and all that stuff. But you're going to find all that in here. You're just not going to find the horror. And I think that's what really pumps the brakes for a lot of people is the fact that there isn't too much going on. There's really only two big scenes in here, and I don't want to spoil them here. We'll talk about them in the spoiler discussion, but there's only really those two scenes and not much else going on, so you really have to have strong characters to carry the book. And I think this book does. So I'm giving it four stars out of five. The only reason I'm knocking that one off at the end, that last star, is because there were some plot conveniences that I thought were a little too convenient. But that's the only thing that kept me from absolutely loving this book and saying that it's one of his best. It's the same way with Mr. Mercedes. That book has problems, but I had so much fun reading it. I ended up giving that one five stars, but the conveniences were a little too much for me in this one, so I'm going to give it four. Have you read Blaze? What did you think? Let me know down there in the comments below. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been another Stephen King book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!