J. Ducharme

Sure - short story, not bad.

Of course. I am determined to read / listen to every Stephen King book ever written. I'm almost there...

Better than some readers, worse than others. There were only a couple of characters in this book so not the most impressive performance in the world but he did a fine job.

No. It already seemed like it was a follow-up book.

This book seemed like the Cliff notes to "Children of the Corn". While I enjoyed it, I had this sense of Deja Vu for most of the book. It was still good but seemed recycled.

I really enjoyed Stephen King's perspective on Guns in this essay. I'm not sure I agreed with it 100% but it wasn't presented in a way that made the reader feel like they must agree but rather presented a perspective and opinion that certainly was balanced with practicality. It's very easy to get emotional about this issue of Guns but unfortunately it's not an issue solution. I think this essay presents a constructive start to the dialog.

I thought this book would not be very good to be honest especially after being disappointed in the movie Zero Dark Thirty but this book was great. It wasn't just a lot of fluff around the mission itself but rather went into the preparation and training for the mission from a SEAL perspective. The details of the mission itself were much more in depth than I expected and wasn't just an account of what happened but I felt like I was in the head of the SEAL that was telling the story.

Well I had waited all these years to start the Dark Tower series because I wanted to be able to get through the entire series without stopping for years in between books. Then this book comes out and places itself in the MIDDLE of the saga. I was worried that reading it "out of turn" would be confusing, etc. but also appreciated the fact that it was published way out of sequence.

Turns out that this book can really be viewed as a pit stop along the journey that is the journey to the Dark Tower. Really there is little to do with our main characters of Roland and the rest of the Ka-tet but instead a completely different story with completely different characters set in the same world.

It was a good story with fresh ideas but all set in the same Dark Tower universe.

So don't get too hung up on the Dark Tower aspect of it and if you haven't gotten through the entire series of the Dark Tower I wouldn't worry too much about the order in which you read this book.

I enjoyed this short story by Stephen King. The performance was good and the story kept moving pretty good. I think this would have made a great Twilight Zone episode.

The worst part about this book was the performance. Bill O'Reilly's reading just gets old quick and I feel like I'm being lectured to. I found that odd given in the intro he talks about how they turned the book more into a suspense type novel but yet it reads like someone reading the US Tax code.

I was also disappointed by the embellishment of the "story". Meaning, in their attempt to make the book more of a suspense they left me saying "now how do they know that happened???" too often.

Also, the first 3rd of the book was mostly about civil war battles and didn't even mention Lincoln for chapters on end... At one point I was beginning to think I was listening to the wrong book... But Bill O'Reilly's grating voice quickly brought me back to reality.

Lastly, I didn't feel I knew more about Lincoln or his assassination than I did before listening to this book. I felt they spent more time on civil war battles than they did on the plot to kill Lincoln.

I was really looking forward to this book as I love learning about Lincoln but it left me unsatisfied and was a big let down.

I am a huge Stephen King fan but I found this book to be one of the worst I've read / listened to in some time. I really looked forward to this book as I thought the premise had a lot of promise. I thought the book started off very strong and setup what I though would be a great story. The middle of the book dragged on and it felt like the author got lost and forgot where he wanted to take us. I felt like I was just wondering around this book observing things that I wasn't sure were relevant and it turns out most of it wasn't. The ending of the book was a huge let down. I am not going to spoil anything but I thought this would result in the usual "good vs. evil" King novel (that I enjoy so much) but it never happened. I remember thinking at the end of this book: "That's it???" Pretty surprising for a 1,000+ page book.

What I found interesting is during the author's notes, Stephen King said he actually started this book a long time ago and put it down. I feel like the best part of the book was that early start he did so many years ago. Once he picked it back up again, I don't think he had a great place to take it and it probably should have stayed at rest.

Again I am a huge King fan and have read / listened to the VAST majority of his work but this one is towards the bottom of the list for me.

I'd suggest if you are looking for a great recent Stephen King book I'd go with 11-22-63 - incredible. Of course his classic works like "The Stand" and the Dark Tower series are still his best works.

The performance of this book was ok. Nothing that memorable but it wasn't horrible.

The audio performance of this book was VERY well done. The reader created a great experience and really brought the book alive.

Harry Dunning - his story (all of the verions of his life) were very touching in the book and impactful. The reader did a great job of portraying him as well.

The MANY different voices that he used for the various characters. This was the most impresses span of voices I have heard from a single performer on an audio book and he really made a connection with each character. This is the first time I've read an audio book and want to look up the *performer* to see what other books he has done.

The past is obdurate.

I've read / listened to the VAST majority of Stephen King books and like most readers of his work, my favorite is still "The Stand" closely followed by the Dark Tower series however I put this book in that same class. I've always enjoyed King's books but this one was one of those impactful books that re-energizes my appreciation for him.