Desperation by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While so much of modern (and not so modern) horror is filled with religious terror, that unholy flipside to the noumen, there will always be a subset of horror devoted to scratching out particular aspects of it and developing it.

So, rather than going all tentacle monsters, we get down to the heart of the matter and terrify ourselves by saying that ALL is horror. :) Maybe it doesn't make for the most spectacular action tale, but it certainly bites you in the ass after a good long read.

Wait... did I just say this book doesn't have tentacular horrors from the vicinity of the Red King? Oh, sorry, no, this absolutely does. The beastie is beautiful. And the plot? It's everything you might want in a spaghetti western so long as you don't mind massive (and good) flashback-like sequences that give us the full story of this little town of Desperation.

Honesty time.

It was good but not quite as good as MOST of King. I always prefer his big supernatural bits in general, but not all of them are even in their quality. I grew bored with bits of this even tho, ostensibly, there wasn't really a REAL slow moment in it.

Maybe I just didn't care for the whole surface religious aspect (as opposed to crazy nutjob religious characters or a big twist on the source of the holy) even though, in the end, I am forced to think. The rest of it got a bit annoying.

But Good News, ye Faithful! I think you will find that this particular horror will suit your needs quite well!

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