Fly Me to the Moon (A Head of the Class Fanfic)

Fly Me To the Moon

See me after class, Dennis, Mr. Moore had said, and now Dennis sat, heart palpitating, pounding against his ribcage like an automatic bellows gone haywire. See me after class, and yet there was no reason for it. No taunts today. No petty extortions. No talking out in class. That could only mean one thing: Mr. Moore had discovered one of his secrets. The only question was: which one?

When the class emptied (Arvid glancing back several times nervously, and Dennis loved him for that), Dennis stayed in back, randomly pressing buttons on his keyboard: I-L-O-V-E-M-R-M-O-O-R-E. Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t so random. And perhaps Dennis did want Mr. Moore to find out about him. Hadn’t that been his fantasy, all along? To have Mr. Moore – Charlie – approach him after class and tell him that he’d been catching all the sideways glances, the stares, the embarrassing adjustments every time Mr. Moore clapped him on the shoulder. Approach him and say that it was all right, that he felt that way, too, that there was nothing to worry about anymore. God, how Dennis longed to tell him that he had videotaped the entire broadcast that night Mr. Moore had been in those silly commercials. That he had watched his teacher leap about in King’s regalia, and how he had masturbated four times, imagining Mr. Moore leaping out of the television and into his bedroom. And how he longed to tell him … well, that other secret. The one that no one knew about, not even Arvid. But that was … that was beyond the realm of possibility. He’d confess his love for Mr. Moore a million times, in front of the whole school, before he’d ever tell him that.

“Dennis?” Mr. Moore asked, approaching him and drawing him out of his reverie.

“Come on, Mr. Moore,” Dennis said, employing his trademark Blunden sideways grin, that mocking tone. All the better to keep hurt away. “Is this gonna be another life lesson, or a plea to be in a school play, or something? Because I…”

“You what?” Mr. Moore asked. That soothing, low voice he sometimes used in class to calm them down. God, was he hairy under that boring shirt and silly tie? Dennis shifted in his seat, desperate to hide the erection that was growing there.

“Nothing,” Dennis said.

“I’ve been watching you, Dennis,” Mr. Moore said, and Dennis’s heart skipped a beat. “Very closely.”

“Oh?” Dennis’s voice squeaked. Dammit.

“And I get the impression that you’ve been watching me, as well.” Oh my God! This was it! My dream come true! Or, wait. What if I’m getting in trouble? What if this is bad? What if this is the worst thing that can happen?

“Mr. Moore…”

“Dennis, just answer me one question.” Dennis gulped, and nodded. It was all he could do. “Would you like to kiss me now?”

Relief and panic merged, exploded, in Dennis insides, bouncing around as if he were hollow. “Oh, God,” he gasped. “More than anything.” And suddenly, before any thought of reality could leap in and rip this fragile dream apart, Dennis leaned closer and felt Mr. Moore’s lips on his. The sensation was electric, intoxicating. Never before had Dennis kissed another man, let alone the man he’d been longing for for two whole years. Never had he imagined this was possible, that anything so wonderful could be possible.

“Mr. Moore,” he said, breaking away. “Oh my God, Mr. Moore, that night you were in those commercials for the appliance place…”

“Dennis,” Mr. Moore interrupted, grinning. Dennis went on.

“…and you played that bugle at the end, and I said to myself, I remember when he told us that he got a bugling badge in the Boy Scouts, I mean, not that I’ve been like thinking about you constantly or keeping a journal of all the cool things you say or anything…”

“Dennis,” Mr. Moore said, putting a hand on Dennis’s shoulder. Oh, God, that comforting hand. How he wanted that hand to touch his flesh. How he wanted… “It’s okay.”

“No,” Dennis said. “Not yet. You don’t know everything, Mr. Moore. And I … well, I love you, okay? I really do, and I know that probably freaks you out because I’m only seventeen (even though I look more like I’m in my mid-twenties) and you’re older and all this is weird. It freaks me out, too.”

“That’s very perceptive, Dennis,” Mr. Moore said, folding his hands across his chest. “Maybe it’s that odd spark of maturity in you that made me … made me fall in love with you, too.”

Dennis’s heart was in his throat. How wonderful it was to have this moment alone, even though it was well past nine and the second class of the day should have begun about ten minutes ago. “You mean it, Mr. Moore?”

Mr. Moore smiled softly and placed his hand – soft, an actor’s hand – on Dennis’s pudgy cheek. “You’re all I ever think about,” he said. “All the time.”

Okay, Dennis thought. Okay, I’m going to tell him. I have to tell him. Because we’re in love. And that love is so pure.

“I have to tell you something else, Mr. Moore,” he whispered. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to tell.”

“Even harder than telling me you’re in love with me?” Mr. Moore asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah. Even more than that. I’ve never told a soul, and I … God, Mr. Moore, I have to tell someone.”

Mr. Moore waited, watching him with those pale brown eyes. “Well?” he finally said, but softly, with a hand on Dennis’s knee.

“After school. I want to show you. Behind the gym. Will you be there?”

“Show me? Show me what, Dennis?”

“Everything,” Dennis said, and wanted to cry.

* * *

It was dark and a late autumn wind had made the night cool. Dennis leaned against a tree and waited, his insides churning. He sipped on a milkshake and begged for Mr. Moore to understand.

Eventually, his teacher arrived, glancing deftly behind him so as to detect any followers. When he saw Dennis, he smiled and looked up. “Full moon,” he said. “Very romantic.”

Dennis looked up, hoping that this moment could be pure, could be without this horrid fright. “It is,” Dennis said, and then stepped closer to Mr. Moore, to his teacher he loved. Leaned down and kissed, and allowed himself to be kissed back. Nothing will ever top that kiss, he thought. Never in my life will anything be as wonderful as kissing Charlie Moore.

Then he stepped back, and began unbuttoning his flannel shirt. Mr. Moore placed a hand on Dennis wrist and looked up seriously. “Dennis, you don’t have to … you know, we don’t have to rush into that.”

Dennis looked at him, wanting more than anything to rush into that, to lie on the ground with Mr. Moore on top of him, holding him, loving him as a man loves a man. That’s what he wanted … but first, this.

“It’s not that, Mr. Moore,” he said. “I have … another secret. Something else besides liking men. Liking you. It’s … I’m not like other guys.”

“No, you’re not,” Mr. Moore said. “That’s why I love you.”

Dennis’s flannel dropped in a puddle by his feet. He removed his T-shirt swiftly, wanting to get that part over. If Mr. Moore really loved him, then he loved the belly part of him, too. Didn’t mind that he was heavy. For a moment, he simply stood in front of his teacher, shirtless, and let Mr. Moore take the sight in.

“Is this okay?” he asked. Mr. Moore stepped forward and lay his hand against the swell of Dennis’s belly.

“More than okay. Beautiful,” he said.

“Okay,” Dennis whispered, closing his eyes. “Now, I have to show you my secret.”

Without allowing himself to believe that Mr. Moore would run away, screaming, he clenched his fists and concentrated. Concentrated on believing that true love, this love, could conquer anything. Could transcend any barrier. Concentrated on his love for Mr. Moore, and his desire to share this most secret part of himself.

Dennis relaxed and let his wings unfurl.

Behind his closed eyes, he heard Mr. Moore gasp. “Dennis!” he said, sounding as if someone had sucker-punched him in the belly. Dennis let his eyes flutter open and looked at his teacher.

“I … I can’t explain it,” Dennis said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His wings beat once, twice, flapping against the breeze. “This is just how I am, Mr. Moore. I … I’m so sorry.”

Mr. Moore stepped closer, gaping at the wings. He reached out and ran his hand over the top of one. Now it was Dennis’s turn to gasp. No one had ever touched his wings before, and he hadn’t guessed that they’d have any sensation … let alone the arousing electricity it sent down his spine.

“Do they hurt?” Mr. Moore asked, struggling with the words.

Dennis shook his head. “No. They’re vestigial, I think. They don’t rip through when they come out, they just sort of … unfold. It feels nice, actually.” He paused. “Mr. Moore, you have no idea how awesome it is to be saying this stuff to you. You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

Mr. Moore stepped back and surveyed Dennis. He’ll run now, Dennis thought. He’ll run and tell Dr. Samuels and my Mom and the police, and that’ll be the end of it. So much for true love. So much for us.

Instead, Mr. Moore said, “They look like angel wings, Dennis. White and powerful. You’re … you’re like an angel.” Mr. Moore smiled, a tear coursing down the contour of a cheek. “A vulnerable angel.”

Dennis stepped forward and wrapped Mr. Moore in his arms. The teacher came willingly enough, pressing his head against Dennis’s bare chest and closing his eyes. This is what I wanted, he thought. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Then, without forethought or consideration, he flapped his wings hard, once, twice, three times, and then they were off the ground.

“Oh!” Mr. Moore exclaimed, his eyes wide open. “Oh, Dennis! Is this too much?”

“Yeah,” Dennis said, feeling his own tears fall from his eyes. “But that’s okay, I think. Too much won’t ever be enough for me.” He smiled and watched Mr. Moore smile back. His wings still beating hard, he lifted his teacher higher, above the school, above the trees.

“I love you,” he said, sailing above New York City with his teacher safely in his arms.

“If you love me,” Mr. Moore said, “then kiss me.”

And Dennis did just that, closing his eyes and opening his mouth and thinking, You were wrong, Mr. Moore. You’re the angel. The beautiful angel who flew into my life.

They flew until dawn, wrapped in each other’s arms, and when they landed again behind the school, they made love for the first time.

Dennis still felt as if he were soaring.

News of Pixar's Demise Is Once Again Premature

Every once in awhile, I'll seek out these types of headlines. This one, as recently as last year, asked, Is the Pixar Brand Failing?

The article - written in the months before Up was released - goes on to quote a lot of stuff about metrics and how inflation is artificially raising the purported box office tallies. Specifically, it targets Wall-E and Ratatouille as indicative of this supposed "failing". But Wall-E cost $180M to make and domestically made $224M - a nice profit. Worldwide it made $533M. And when I look at the worldwide box office for Ratatouille ... look, I just don't understand how a movie that makes over half a billion dollars can be seen as a flop/bomb/failure.

The article quotes a New York Times story that stated, "Richard Greenfield of Pali Research downgraded Disney shares to sell last month, citing a poor outlook for Up as a reason." And once again, this happens because short-sighted bean counters didn't see the potential. Up ended up making nearly $300M domestically and $727M globally, making it the studio's second biggest hit after Finding Nemo. It went on to be the second animated film ever nominated for Best Picture. Pixar's brand is definitely failing.

This weekend, Toy Story 3 garnered $109 million dollars. In literally four days. It's Pixar's biggest opening weekend ever, shooting past that of The Incredibles at $70,467,623. It becomes the eleventh Pixar film - out of eleven - to open at #1 at the box office. No Pixar film has made less than $160M, and the film that did that was A Bug's Life, which had the second-lowest budget of any Pixar feature and was released in 1998, when $160M was still considered a staggering blockbuster. Every Pixar film has been a critical and commercial success. Even its weakest film, Cars, received generally positive reviews, and has generated the studio's biggest merchandising revenue stream - as of last year, over $3M in merch alone. There's a reason why Cars 2 is currently in production.

I'm not sure where the almost rabid desire to see Pixar fail comes from. Professional jealousy? Good old schadenfreude? There was a big to-do this week about "the only two reviewers who hate Toy Story 3," which has received almost universal praise elsewhere. The "reviewers" - I'd hate to call them critics and demean the profession - didn't seem to have really seen the movie. One of them states boldly that, because real branded toys are used in the film, it's not a movie, it's an advertisement. The other one doesn't really discuss the film at all, focusing more on the MPAA rating and the budget.

So it seems that the people who are determined to see this studio take one in the chin are looking at the metrics, the budgets, the ratings, the inflation, the business. In all this, people seem to forget what drives people to Pixar movies: a good story that happens to be unique and universal at the same time. Good writing, good directing, good acting. That's it. That's all. It's simple and it's stupid, but that's the formula. Make a good movie and people will come see it. Maybe it doesn't work out that way for every film - a lot of deserving movies fail and a lot of crap succeeds - but it works for Pixar, and it keeps working for them.

$109 million in a single weekend. Is Pixar's brand failing? What do you think?

Glisk

When I was sixteen, I had what I thought was the most brilliant idea of my entire life. I was going to somehow merge the two overriding elements of my existence - being a homosexual and being a Stephen King fan - into one. I would call my group GLISK (an acronym I went giddy for because I was 1. a huge nerd and 2. a huge gay) and it would be short for Gays & Lesbians Into Stephen King. This was going to be massive, and I'd find other gay fans of King, and we'd hang out and talk about how we all had crushes on Steve Kemp in Cujo, despite the fact that he was pretty much a tool. A sexy, sexy tool.

A few things prevented Glisk (the acronym has now become a regular word due to my familiarity with it, like Epcot) from happening. (1) I'm not really good with organizing, and (2) a lot of gay people think Stephen King is homophobic.

There are a lot of reasons for this, I think. There's a scene in It where a gay guy is brutalized and murdered, and cries of homophobia following its publication were rampant. King explained the scene saying that it was pretty much - no pun intended - straight reporting. An actual gay murder happened in Bangor, and King used it in the book as a way to tie into It's targeting of the fringier members of society. Reading the chapter carefully, you'll actually find a lot of pro-gay sentiment in it, including some thoughts from a straight bar owner who sort of accidentally opens a gay bar and is relieved to find that his clientele "has found a way of getting along that straight men haven't."

In The Stand, a bisexual woman kills herself ... but it's a heroic death. In "Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption," there's a lot of gay rape, but King is careful to mention that there are other, non-rapey relationships that go on in prison that work just as well as straight ones. After King's daughter came out, there was a huge uptick in gay supporting characters, including heroic ones in Insomnia and Cell.

Yesterday, I picked up 'Salem's Lot for the first time in a few years because I need to do a review for an upcoming book. In the first hundred pages, I ran across a number of epithets - fag, queer, sissy, etc. But what struck me weren't the words so much as the sentiment behind them. The characters in 'Salem's Lot are using hurtful words, but people seem to accept "gay" as a fact rather than something gross or aberrant. At one point, one blue-collar worker remarks to another that Barlow & Straker, the new people in town, "are probably queer for each other. Going to redecorate the house and make it look nice. Good for business." And that's it. And that's interesting. They go immediately from the concept that these guys are probably gay to their good business sense. And these aren't high-education people, but grunting moving dudes. Later on, someone mentions he buys his used books from "a sissy fella" a few towns over. It's mentioned, sure, but there's no revulsion or even pause with it. It's like saying he buys his books from an Irish guy.

Now, look. Maybe I'm being overly apologetic. There is a scene in It where the mere suggestion of homosexuality drives someone insane. But I honestly think this is a character-by-character basis. The same character is a racist, half-nuts bully who also poisons a dog and shoots his father, sort of susceptible to going full-on psycho.

I've long thought about writing a book on the subject, or a long essay, but the truth is, it's a really narrow subject. I'm not sure anything like this would sell, or even be interesting to any section of the population. But still, I find it interesting. So maybe I'll write it sometime anyway. Thoughts?

Sex In the City II

There's a reason why Sex In the City 2 is like Grease 2, but we'll get to that in a minute. The real shocker of Sex in the City 2 isn't that it's overlong and borderline atrocious, it's that it's leagues better than the first film. I'm not sure if this fact should shock or dismay, but mostly it just fills me with dull ambivalence.

The first question has to be: is the movie bad? The answer? I'm not sure. It's not good, that much is obvious. But there are good parts, and that's what's most infuriating.

No. No, wait, I take that back. Most infuriating is that Sex in the City 2 features, as its main character, an unlikable shrew of a woman with whom we are all supposed to relate. This shouldn't be hard, I think. I recall relating to her (mostly) on the TV show. Despite her expensive tastes, she seemed somehow earthy and interesting. A little self-involved, perhaps, but still a formidable main character with whom the audience's sympathies could easily lie.

In Sex In the City 2, Carrie is at turns shrill and unbearable, unreasonable and ridiculous. And she wears this one hat that could almost literally house a small, poor family. Her marriage problems almost border on existential, and in a better movie, that angle could have been played up. Every time she says she enjoys something, even slightly, her husband (Mr. Big) chooses to escalate those enjoyments to an unreasonable point. She likes a couch and he makes it his nest. She likes an old movie on TV, he installs a TV in their bedroom. She takes two days off from him to go write in her old apartment, he institutes it as a weekly occurrence. It's not that these aren't valid concerns a wife might have every right to complain about. Instead, she nags that they don't go out every single night, and eat take-out once in awhile. And she doesn't do it in a way that elicits any sort of sympathy, either: she's like a demanding, cartoon shrew.

The other women fare a little better. Miranda's new boss is a sexist (though the utter lack of any other women in her entire office seems suspect), Samantha's fighting off menopause, and Charlotte is finding out that motherhood is not all about baking cupcakes in vintage clothing. (Roger Ebert makes a note about that in his review; after some thought, I think Charlotte wearing a vintage dress making cupcakes actually fits for the character, trying to literally have it all at once.) These all seem like realistic, albeit heightened, problems - all of which are far, far more interesting than Carrie's. To be fair, though, a time-lapse video of plaster hardening would be far more interesting than Carrie's problems.

When, via some plot mechanations, the girls fly off to Abu Dhabi to "go someplace rich," things really start to skid off the rails. (1) New York City, for these women, IS someplace rich. There's lip service paid to the sagging economy, but it's one of those "show, don't tell" moments authors learn to avoid in, say, 5th grade Comp. (2) This is when the movie decides it has a Theme, and that Theme is Women Are Oppressed the World Over. It's not a bad theme, as themes go, and in a better movie with some smart handling, it can absolutely work. In this movie, womens' consciousness is awakened with the subtlety of a jackhammer on asphalt. During one otherwise okay moment where Our Girls sing "I Am Women" at karaoke, a number of Abu Dhabi women watching in the crowd seem to have a spiritual awakening. Oh wait, they seem to be thinking, those American women are right. I AM woman! It's pandering and insulting, not just to women, but all moviegoers.

(Oh, and speaking of insults to moviegoers: a cardinal rule in filmmaking is that you never, NEVER show clips of better movies in your crappy movie. It's why you don't see anyone watching Citizen Kane in Leprechaun 4. SITC2 has the audacity to not only show bits of It Happened One Night, but also rip off one of its central gags. Does it work? Eh, sort of. But mostly we're reminded that It Happened One Night won the Top 5 Oscars, and that we're still watching Sex In the City 2.)

Okay, so here's how this film is like Grease 2: smack dab in the middle of the movie is a scene that belongs in a better movie. Charlotte and Miranda are talking about motherhood. It's a scene they have to themselves. In it, they're bonding about why motherhood is harder than it seems to be, and why it's okay to admit it. The women in this scene seem real. They also seem like friends with a long, storied history. Better: the scene is well-written, with a silly confession drinking-game gag that fits in. The actors even seem to step up their game, knowing that they finally have something fun and interesting and real to work with. Then Samantha gets arrested for causing a boner and the film shrieks back into suck territory.

The main message I took away from this movie is that you can solve equal rights issues worldwide with (a) shaky puns, (b), a steady supply of haute couture, and (c) being over-privileged. I also learned that the best way to relax is by putting on your most expensive clothes and sitting sideways on an uncomfortable couch and flipping through a magazine so far away from your face that reading it is likely impossible. I am woman!

Iron Man 2: A Ridiculous Review

Okay, so I just got back from Iron Man 2 with Shawn. As I stated on the Twitters, the early reviews were ranging from, “What a terrific film, balanced by action and intense character work,” to, “it’s like Hitler came to life and started raping babies.” I will seriously never understand the entitlement aspect to fanboys, and the concept that if a film isn’t exactly their vision, they have been betrayed and let down and I’m never reading comics again and I’m taking my ball and going home. I mean, seriously? Daredevil was a mediocre film but I got through it somehow.

Anyway, in your Kev’s humble opinion, Iron Man 2 is not only a wonderful film, it’s the best of the year. It’s got a few new characters, but it never feels overcrowded. We get deeper into Tony Stark’s neuroses, and his way of using his image as a shield to hide behind. Somehow, Gwyneth Paltrow is appealing, and Scarlet Johanssen kicks a bunch of ass, and there’s a lot more of John Favreu on the screen. This is never bad, though I would have preferred shirtlessness. Plus, Mickey Rourke is a believable bad guy, and the action sequences are delightfully actiony, and there’s exposition but it never goes on forever, and Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Furying just enough, and it’s all awesome. Just awesome!

But that’s not the main reason I loved this movie. No, I loved this movie because it’s so Disney I had like seven nerdgasms in my seat. And not obvious Disney. Not anything that will distract anyone who hates or doesn’t know Disney. But for Disnerds, you guys, this is a treasure trove. There’s a whole thing about the Stark Expo ’74, which is a near-exact replica of Disney’s pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in ’64. There’s a video showing Tony Stark’s Dad and he looks exactly like Walt Disney doing his promotional videos. And biggest of all? There’s a song associated with the expo that plays early in the movie and then again over the credits. I whispered to Shawn, “This is like a re-write of ‘A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,’ which was in Horizons and the Carousel of Progress.” Then the song credits rolled and I actually shouted in the theater. “SHAWN IT WAS WRITTEN BY RICHARD SHERMAN! WHO WROTE ‘A GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL TOMORROW’! AND ALSO ‘IT’S A SMALL WORLD’!”

He looked at me. “You know, I know who the Sherman Brothers are.”

Me, wide-eyed. “You do?!”

“Dude, I bought you that CD for Christmas!”

You know, I know a lot of people were crazy nervous when Disney bought Marvel, but if this is the direction? If they’re going to do things cleverly and interestingly without being obvious and stupid, I am on board. I am so excited about this movie. I want to see it again, right now! OMG and then there was a post-credits thing! SERIOUSLY STAY FOR AFTER THE CREDITS, especially you, Dave P. ESPECIALLY YOU!

OMG there was also a Spaceship Earth! YOU GUYS WAY TOO MUCH SQUEE!!!

Okay, better.

EPCOT!

Seriously, better now.

Blockade Billy, by Stephen King: A Review

A simple story, well told.

Blockade Billy tells the tale of William Blakely, perhaps the greatest baseball player ever to put on the gear, and who was summarily erased from the record books and forgotten by the world. King’s novella is primarily concerned with the questions raised by these opposing histories: why Blakely was the greatest, and what made him disappear. The answers lie in George Grantham, former third baseman coach and equipment manager for the New Jersey Titans. Grantham – Granny – spins his story of the 1957 season that introduced William Blakely to the big leagues. It’s an uninterrupted first-person narrative, the kind King used to great success in Dolores Claiborne, and that success is matched here. Only Granny isn’t speaking to fictional, off-screen listeners is Blockade Billy; instead, King cleverly inserts himself as the one taking dictation. While King’s presence doesn’t intrude (he is only mentioned by name three or four times), it adds a certain verisimilitude to a story one believes actually, tragically, could happen.

Clever, too, is the setup. King tackles old-time baseball the way he tackles prison life in The Green Mile or “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” or the way he tackles small towns in ’Salem’s Lot or Needful Things: he assumes the reader knows nothing about it, and builds from there. One of the subtle pleasures of Blockade Billy is that readers don’t have to be baseball fanatics to love the story; similarly to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, the reader is given just enough information so that one cares about the outcome of the game as much as the characters do. Unlike in Faithful, King does not overwhelm the reader with baseball lore and stats. He is instead concerned with getting you invested in the suspense of what’s happening, and why.

That suspense lies at the heart of Blockade Billy. Stephen King has long been a master of the action sequence, those amped-up moments of intensity that make the rest of the story feel like a single held breath. Witness the dog attacks in Cujo, the painting sequences in Duma Key, or the psychic flashes in The Dead Zone. Here, the same treatment is given to Blockade Billy’s baseball games … and what happens when someone on the opposing team goes up against Billy directly. Billy’s single-minded devotion to baseball and to his team drives these scenes, spiking in what seems to be inevitable violence. It’s not whether the Titans win or lose, it’s how Blockade Billy plays the game. And the crowd eats it up.

So many of King’s fascinations are on display here, and it’s a delight for longtime readers to see them deconstructed and reassembled into this fantastic new book. Blood sport has been central to King’s imagination since The Long Walk; even though Blockade Billy focuses on baseball instead of dystopian-future game shows, blood does indeed spill. In his depictions of the crowd’s enthrallment with violence, King recalls The Running Man and, again, The Long Walk. A startling scene near the end brings to mind certain scenes in Hearts In Atlantis, and King’s ongoing interest in the William Golding book Lord of the Flies. If the technique is reminiscent of Dolores Claiborne, the voice is similar to that of Paul Edgecombe’s in The Green Mile, or even the older men describing the central mystery of The Colorado Kid.

In fact, Blockade Billy – whose cover, like that of The Colorado Kid, was painted by the amazing Glen Orbik – almost works as a spiritual cousin to King’s Hard Case Crime outing. Though the stories are wildly different, they read the same, and have the same feel. There are two essential differences here, though: first, the mystery of Blockade Billy is never asserted as a mystery. The reader has only just begun asking serious questions about the central character before the truth begins to emerge. And second, the truth does emerge. Unlike the origins of that body on the beach in The Colorado Kid, just where Blockade Billy came from and how he got there are startlingly revealed.

Coming so close on the heels of a mammoth novel like Under the Dome, Blockade Billy is refreshingly slender. It’s short enough for a reader to gulp down in one sitting, and compelling enough that he or she is helpless to do anything but. A small masterpiece of voice, pacing, and situation, Blockade Billy once again proves that Stephen King is a master of the novella.

Wetware: On the Digital Frontline With Stephen King

Cemetery Dance Publications Announces WETWARE: ON THE DIGITAL FRONTLINE WITH STEPHEN KING, by Kevin Quigley

WETWARE: On the Digital Frontline with Stephen King
a chapbook by Kevin Quigley

About the Chapbook:
Stephen King has long been at the forefront of experimental publishing. As the world grows more digital each day, King has consistently remained on the edge of breakthrough trends and technology, finding new ways to publish and interpret his stories. King's digital journey has been strange and fascinating. Wetware is your guide.

From the prehistory of King’s involvement with digital media such as the Dark Half video game and F13 to his online release of the lost work, The Cannibals, Wetware covers it all — in a concise and engaging pocket history. Explore the controversy surrounding King's online serial publication, The Plant. Relive the groundbreaking excitement of King's landmark e-book publication, Riding the Bullet. If you ever engaged in interactive fiction with The Mist, were intrigued by the Kindle-only release of "UR," or terrified by the motion comic "N.," Wetware is essential reading.

To read more about Wetware or order your copy today, visit the Wetware purchase site on Cemetery Dance today!

About the Author:

Kevin Quigley's website, Charnel House has been a premiere Stephen King resource for nearly fifteen years. Charnel House was the first website to feature full-length reviews of every Stephen King book; today, it also includes up-to-date King news, a section focused on books about King, and a comprehensive listing of unpublished and uncollected shorter works. Quigley is also the author of two previous chapbooks on King — Chart of Darkness and Ink In the Veins — and co-wrote the upcoming Stephen King Illustrated Movie Trivia Book. In addition to his works on King, Quigley is also the author of several novels, and has recently published a collection of poetry, Foggy At Night In the City. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his partner, Shawn.