The Institute is a bit of a mixed bag. There was a lot that I liked in this novel, but there were some really serious negatives as well. In this stories, children who display telekinetic or telepathic abilities are kidnapped from their homes and transported to a remote location in Maine where they are first tested and given various stimulus and are later transferred to the “Back Half” portion of the facility, where the children collectively are being used to assassinate people.
I’ll start with the parts of this novel that I liked. The writing, of course, is very good. That’s always a given with Stephen King, as he is a master of his craft and I would expect no less of him. The characterization is also very good. Stephen King is not only a master at writing but his children characters are always so well developed and this novel is no exception. The characters are really strong.
Now to the bad. The logic behind this story is abysmal. Spoilers ahead so beware. So, I’m supposed to believe that an organization that is mostly staffed by ex-military and former law enforcement officials are willing to kill parents and kidnap children where they are used up and eventually die as well. And that they are willing to do this on some vague notion with absolutely no supporting evidence that what they are doing is saving the world. I’m also supposed to believe that this has been going on for roughly six decades and hundreds if not thousands of these children have been kidnapped and their parents murdered, and in all of those cases there was never a single competent detective or police force that couldn’t connect the dots that this was happening repeatedly all over the country and then trace it back to this institute. There are other preposterous leaps in logic and every time the author tried to explain this ridiculousness, he made it worse because it made no sense. Other than that, the novel drags a bit in the middle.
In the end, this was an entertaining novel with some significant holes. If I could give it three and a half stars, that’s how I would rate it. It’s worth reading.
I’ve had the pleasure of reading a number of Jeff Strand novels, and if you are anticipating the generally light-hearted humorous novels that you get out of Strand, Pressure is most certainly not that. This novel is dark. Really dark. Every time I would get to a scene thinking there would be some sort of not so bad outcome for the character, it turned out far worse for them than I would have anticipated. This book is a pretty rough read.
Having said all of that, I enjoyed reading it. Even when I would have liked it to be a bit more cheery and humorous, the novel delivered, just not how I thought it would. The story starts off with Alex Fletcher being sent to a boarding school where he meets Darren Rust, who is a budding psychopath. After an incident involving mutilating a fellow classmate’s dog, they part ways only to be reunited in college. Alex makes the worst possible decision of befriending Darren, which turns out to haunt him both in college and later in life as Darren is hell bent into turning Alex into a fellow psychopathic killer.
The writing is strong as is the characterization. Even after experiencing the worst possible outcomes in his life from his interaction with Darren, he still never succumbs into being what Darren is and shows strength and resiliency, even while still gaining the revenge that he seeks. So, although I would not put this at the top of the Jeff Strand heap of books, it was an enjoyable read that I would recommend.
When all you seem to get these days in terms of big releases that hit the theaters are sequels, prequels, or something that’s tied to an existing platform, it’s refreshing to watch an original movie. Sinners was definitely that. It was a movie that I had high expectations for based on what I had heard about the movie and the strong reviews, and the movie lived up to those expectations.
Set in the 1930’s in Mississippi, the Smoke Stack twins (both played by Michael B Jordan) go back to their homeland after having spent time working for Al Capone in Chicago with a good bit of cash in hand and the intention of creating a night club. They buy and convert an old saw mill, and on the first night are invaded by a trio of vampires who are enthralled by the music wizardry of their nephew, who was playing at the club. This starts a battle between the vampires and the people inside the club as they try to survive the night.
Sinners was a very entertaining movie. Not only was it not some sort of sequel, but it had originality. Besides the time and location setting, what made this movie was the way it incorporated music and dance into it, something you typically get in horror moview. Also what worked well was that the interaction with the vampires didn’t take place until the movie was more than halfway through. The first part of the movie was loaded with character development, so when it came to the time for fighting for their lives against these vampires, it made me care more about the characters. The action and the fighting was also top notch. About the only thing I didn’t care for came after the conclusion of the fighting with the vampire, when the movie went to a story line that had absolutely nothing to do with vampires. Without spoiling, it was gratuitous, over the top, and didn’t fit in with the rest of the movie. Otherwise this was a quality horror movie that I would recommend.
It’s been a few years since I read Fated, the first novel in Benedict Jacka’s Alex Verus series. I thoroughly enjoyed that book so I was eager to read his second novel in the series. It took me a bit of time to refamiliarize myself with the characters and the story world created, but Jacka does a great job of bringing readers up to speed like me who had taken some time off before reading the second novel or even for those who did not read the first book in the series. Even in that case, it wouldn’t be too hard to read this and pick up what was going on.
There are a few different storylines going on in this book, and they all converge, even though at the time I was reading them, it didn’t seem as if they would. First, was the discord between Alex and his apprentice, Luna, as they couldn’t seem to develop a good working relationship. The second being Luna’s sort of new boyfriend getting ahold of a Monkey’s Paw, despite Alex warning him against it. The third was an enchantress showing up at Verus’s store while being attacked by a golem, and Alex having to fight off the golem. The story lines converged on different groups of mages developing a method to extract magical abilities by draining them from magical creatures, something that Alex is desperate to stop, given his close relationships with some of these creatures.
It’s been a while since I read the third book in the Destroyermen series, so much of the book for me was trying to remember who all of the characters were and what all of the situations were with the battles that took place and the political wranglings. That made reading this book more challenging than it would otherwise be. Because of that I felt lost half of the time. Setting that aside, this book had a lot of what I like about this series. The characters are well developed and likeable. The quality of the writing is quite high and the battle scenes are well done.
Besides not being up to speed on everything going on, the only real negative is that this is a long novel where not a whole lot happens in the first two thirds of the novel. Most of the intrigue and action happens in the final third of the book. It’s okay to set the table and then deliver later, but the bigger problem was that the novel is both very long and there was little happening for most of the book. The pace should have been quicker and parts of the novel should have been trimmed to make this a tighter read. Overall, this was a fun and enjoyable novel and I look forward to reading the next book in the series without waiting so long.
