Lowly’s Book Blog

Years ago I read another scifi novel by Greg Bear. So when this book arrived, I knew it was going to be another quality book to read. But I also knew that it would not be a light, easy read purely for entertainment. Bear was going to challenge my thinking. And he did.

What is humanity going to be like at the very end of existence? Or for that matter, how is existence going to end? What would it be like to be a part of that process? What is going to cause the end of everything? Like I said big questions.

The blurb promotes this book as an adventure tale. Three modern humans are guarding stones that seem to have mystical powers. Two of these humans dream about another person living far in the future. In the future, these two humans are disturbed by the occasional voices in their mind, voices they have named their visitor. Confused yet? Well there is more…

Kalpa, the city of the title, is slowing being destroyed by Chaos. It’s binding force is weakening and it will not be long before Chaos consumes the city. But what is the future for the humans that live there? That depends on Tiadba and Jebrassy and their mysterious visitors. 

I liked the idea of the book, and as it reached the climax, everything made sense. However, I will admit that I found the book very difficult to read and I blame it’s structure. The book is 467 pages long with 129 chapters. That averages a little over 3 pages a chapter. Each chapter takes another character’s point of view, and at the start of the book there are 6 different points of view. I’m sorry, but I got dizzy changing point of view so often.

It is always so hard to review a collection of short stories. It is almost impossible to maintain the reader’s interest every time. And many modern authors depend on literary symbolism and other conventions to help them tell the story while reducing the word count.

But Stephen King is unashamedly a popular author. He will never win a literature prize. He is happy to write for his readers, meeting them at their own level and carrying them away in the story. This he does very successfully in this collection of 12 stories.

Picking my favourite from this collection is hard. I actually rationed my reading in this book. Only 1 story a day. And as a result, I thoroughly enjoyed every single story. Each one is very different, but all delicious.

Probably it would be best to compare this book to The Twilight Zone, not the silly 70s remake, but the original Rod Serling series. Each week a strange tale would be revealed, some scifi, some horror, and some just spooky. But each week you lined up for more.

This book is very much like that series. King’s tribute to 9/11, The Things They Left Behind, was warm and personal, but with generous lashings of the supernatural. Willa is really a love story, but with a twist that verges on the macabre. 

I am very glad that King has returned to writing short stories. I just hope he continues.