adult fiction Archives - Page 56 of 56

I’ve been meaning to read Fahrenheit 451 for a while now, but never got around to it because of the hundreds of other books that I’ve been meaning to read. And truthfully, I finished reading it about three weeks ago, but have only now found the time to sit down and write this review.

I was thinking of studying it for my Honours degree, and I used that as an opportunity to read it. Now that I’ve read it, I’m not actually going to be studying it, but at least I can cross the novel off my list (I don’t actually have a list – who has time to write one?).

You’re probably noticing a pattern. My last review was a dystopian novel as well; that’s because I am a dystopian fiction writer. Or, a speculative fiction writer, but they really mean the same thing. Regardless, I read a lot of dystopian fiction (Margaret Atwood will probably feature a lot on this blog).

Set in a futuristic world, Guy Montag is a fireman, and in this dystopian setting, firemen actually start fires, instead of putting them out. That is, they’ll burn down houses if the person living inside owns outlawed books. Guy doesn’t doubt his job, but when he meets new neighbour, free-spirited Clarisse, and then a woman willingly burns herself alive in her own home (with her beloved books), Guy starts to second-guess his morals. And so Guy starts to hide books in his house, and read them aloud to his wife. And then he gets caught, and murders his boss, and then is on the run.

This novel is not too long, so for all those ‘I don’t read’ people, you have no excuse. Even though I’m not using this novel for my Honours thesis, I’d thoroughly recommend it.

My Score: 8/10
The Next Novel on my List? 1984 by George Orwell

I’ve broken my King virginity, but not necessarily by choice. My Honours study requires an exegesis, and I’m exploring duality within dystopian fiction protagonists. This means that I need example novels to review and critic in my thesis – enter, Stephen King. Gunslinger, published in 1982, is the first novel in a five-book dystopian series. It also took King twelve and a half years to write Gunslinger, which makes me feel better that I’m still working on my novel as it ticks over to three years.

Gunslinger has all the elements of a typical dystopian novel: few characters, melancholic atmosphere, depressing setting, and tragedy. And when I say tragedy, I mean death, of course. You can’t have a dystopian novel without a few deaths. The story itself is a little slow and confusing, not much information is given about Gunslinger, or his rival, The Man in Black. But the setting is established well through the interactions between Gunslinger and Jake Chambers, a young boy who died from being pushed in front of a car. He’s alive in the book, but that’s because the setting is almost a parallel universe, which I guessed is somewhat like the ‘afterlife’ and The Man in Black is actually the grim reaper. But, to find out if I’m right or wrong, I’d have to read the rest of the novels. And for the time being, I think I’ll leave it at Gunslinger.

Gunslinger, whose real name is Roland, is quite the anti-hero. He sacrifices Jake, but Roland knew he was going to have to do that from the beginning of the book. So did Jake, but he went along with Roland anyway. Roland also had to kill every person in a small town because The Man in Black placed a curse on him. Among these people was Allie, Roland’s short-term lover.

Roland is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, which he’ll probably get to in the final novel. In Gunslinger, Roland ventures through towns and across deserts, mostly by himself. And while he does this, very little information is revealed about anything. My edition starts with a quote by Stephen King himself. He wanted to create an epic like Lord of the Rings. Gunslinger is no Fellowship, but it definitely is the beginning of an epic tale.

My Score: 4/10
The Next Novel on My List? Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.