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Bev Vincent reviews ‘Sleeping Beauties’ by Stephen King and Owen King

Bev VincentSeptember 25, 2017September 24, 2017Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneBev Vincent, Owen King, Reviews, Sleeping Beauties, Stephen King, Stephen King News, The Stand2 Comments

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King
Scribner (September 26, 2017)
720 pages
Reviewed by Bev Vincent

The world has ended in many ways in post-apocalyptic fiction, but Owen and Stephen King have created a scenario unlike any other. It happens all at once, around the globe. Women who go to sleep (or are already asleep when the epidemic begins) won’t wake up. They form cocoons and go into a kind of hibernation. Disturbing sleeping women is a bad, bad idea: they attack anyone who breaks through the gauzy material.

Apparently pitching story ideas is a thing in the King family. Sleeping Beauties came about because Owen King suggested this idea to his father; it sounded like a Stephen King kind of story. The elder King immediately thought of all the possible ramifications of this concept, but told Owen he should write it. Eventually they agreed to work on it together.Continue Reading

The Letter I Wrote to Stephen King, and the Response that Changed My Life

Cemetery Dance OnlineSeptember 8, 2017September 8, 2017What I Learned from Stephen KingColumns, It, Jason Sechrest, Stephen King, What I Learned from Stephen King17 Comments

When I was 10 years old, I sent Stephen King the first thing I had ever written.

It was a short story called “Murder on Washington St.”

The reply I received changed the course of my life forever. Continue Reading

Bev Vincent explores It (2017) – Chapter 1

Bev VincentSeptember 7, 2017September 7, 2017Reviews, Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneAndy Muschietti, Bev Vincent, Carrie, derry, It, Losers Club, Pennywise, Reviews, Stephen King, stranger thingsLeave a comment

Welcome to the Losers’ Club by Bev Vincent

There are a lot of monsters in Derry, Maine during the summer of 1989. These are in addition to the lurching leper, the toothy creature from the painting, a boy who lost his head during the Easter Explosion of 1908 and, of course, Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

The monsters to which I refer are the citizens of this long-troubled, perhaps cursed town. They include people who drive past without offering to help a boy being savagely beaten by bullies, the mother who lies to her son about his health to control and manipulate him, and the sexually abusive father. To the extent that there are adults in Derry (and in some ways, this reality resembles the world of Charlie Brown where grown-ups are seldom seen and hardly ever heard), they are abusive, neglectful or emotionally absent.
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The Flexible Bullet of Madness

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 25, 2017August 19, 2017What I Learned from Stephen KingColumns, Jason Sechrest, Stephen King, The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet, What I Learned from Stephen KingLeave a comment

“This is a story about the genesis of insanity.” – Stephen King, The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet

PROLOGUE: LOADING THE GUN

If I try really hard, I can remember it all.

If I close my eyes and really concentrate, it’s almost like I’m right there. I can nearly smell the smells, and hear the sounds of what it was like. The soft elevator music that played in the lobby, and those halls that reeked of aged bodies. I can see myself as a 12 year old boy, visiting my great-grandmother in the old folk’s home. I can recall how she thought my mother was her daughter, or that it was December in the heat of June. Continue Reading

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #200

Bev VincentAugust 9, 2017August 9, 2017Stephen King News from the Dead Zone11/22/63, Bev Vincent, bill hodges, brady hartsfield, Haven, Mr. Mercedes, News from the Dead Zone, Pet Sematary, Ramones, Stephen King, The Mist, Under the Dome7 Comments

Control…Chaos…Darkness: A Preview of Mr. Mercedes by Bev Vincent

Over the past few years, TV series based on the works of Stephen King have taken different approaches with varying degrees of success. One of the best was 11.22.63, which stayed reasonably close to the source material and did not continue past the novel’s conclusion. At the other end of the spectrum was Under the Dome, which started out okay, but struggled as time went on. Rather than film the novel, they decided to stretch it as far as it could go, and it broke.Continue Reading

7 Movies You Must Watch While Reading ‘The Dark Tower’

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 5, 2017August 8, 2017Paper CutsAdam Cesare, Dark Tower Week, Stephen King, The Dark Tower1 Comment

Well. Yeah. That headline is a little misleading. A little clickbaity. Sue me. These definitely aren’t films you must watch while you’re reading the Dark Tower series.

But still, hunker down and let us palaver for a secondContinue Reading

Review: ‘The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film’

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 4, 2017August 2, 2017ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Daniel Wallace, Dark Tower Week, Reviews, Stephen King, The Art of the Film, The Dark Tower1 Comment

The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film text by Daniel Wallace
Scribner (July 2017)
208 pages; $27.19 hardcover
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Some might view books like The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film as big, expensive brochures for upcoming movies, but for me they’ve always provided a fascinating glimpse into the process of bringing these large-scale extravaganzas to our screens. Even when they come from the kind of rich source material of, say, an eight-book series written by Stephen King, there’s a lot of designing and refining that goes into the look of a movie like The Dark Tower. This volume gives us a glimpse of that, but I’ll confess that it left me wanting much, much more.Continue Reading

Bev Vincent reviews ‘The Dark Tower’

Bev VincentAugust 3, 2017August 3, 2017Breaking News, Reviews, Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneBev Vincent, Dark Tower Week, Easter Eggs, idris elba, Jake Chambers, Keystone Earth, Mid-World, News from the Dead Zone, Roland Deschain, Stephen King, The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger, The Man in Black3 Comments

I was fortunate enough to see The Dark Tower on Tuesday evening at the Bangor Mall Cinemas 10, an event sponsored by Zone Radio. The audience was filled with people who won tickets from the station. In addition to getting a chance to see the film early, attendees also won some King-related merchandise as door prizes, including Dark Tower novel sets, audio books and signed ARCs of the final three volumes in the series. Dark Tower t-shirts were flung into the audience, too.Continue Reading

Robin Furth and the Comic Side of The Dark Tower

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 2, 2017August 2, 2017InterviewsComics, Danica Davidson, Dark Tower Week, Interviews, Marvel Comics, Robin Furth, Stephen King, The Dark Tower2 Comments

Robin Furth doesn’t live in Mid-World, but it could be argued she knows it better than the characters themselves. After working as Stephen King’s research assistant, Furth published Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Concordance, has written the graphic novel adaptations of The Dark Tower series for Marvel Comics, and is a consultant for the new film The Dark Tower and the TV series that will follow. As an avid folklorist, a fan of comics and King’s own go-to expert on all things Roland Deschain, Furth is the perfect person for all these jobs. She spoke to Cemetery Dance Online about her books, graphic fiction as a medium, and what she thinks about the upcoming movie and Idris Elba as the lead.Continue Reading

An Interview with ‘The Dark Tower’ Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman

Bev VincentAugust 1, 2017July 31, 2017InterviewsAkiva Goldsman, Bev Vincent, Damon Lindelof, Dark Tower Week, JJ Abrams, marvel, Mejis, Ron Howard, Stephen King, The Dark Tower, The Dark Tower Companion, The Gunslinger, The Road to the Dark Tower, Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla1 Comment

In March, 2012, while I was writing The Dark Tower Companion, I spoke with Akiva Goldsman about his plans to adapt the Dark Tower series with Ron Howard. Clearly things have changed significantly in the past five years, but his thoughts at the time show where he was coming from and might indicate where the adaptations could be headed. As we anticipate this week’s release of The Dark Tower, enjoy this excerpt from that interview.Continue Reading

Ka Like a Wheel, Time Like a Circle

Cemetery Dance OnlineJuly 31, 2017July 31, 2017EssaysDark Tower Week, Essays, Kevin Quigley, Stephen King, The Dark TowerLeave a comment

Ka Like a Wheel, Time Like a Circle
by Kevin Quigley

The notion of circular time is ancient. Hebrew interpretation of the Bible forwards the concept of “cycles,” of time moving in a loop like the orbits of the planets or the sweep of the hands of a clock. The Rolling Stones mention the concept in their song “Sway,” from the album Sticky Fingers: “Did you ever wake up to find / A day that broke up your mind / Destroyed your notion of circular time / It’s just that demon life has got you in its sway.”Continue Reading

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #199

Bev VincentJune 19, 2017June 19, 2017Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneBev Vincent, Haven, Spike TV, Stephen King, The Dead Zone, The Mist, Under the Dome1 Comment

There’s Something in The Mist

Bridgeville, Maine is a pretty little town.

Unless you look closely, that is.

Spike TV’s THE MIST, based on a story by Stephen King, premieres Thursday, June 22 at 10 pm ET/PT.

For one thing, it seems to have a major bug problem. Bugs are one of the main motifs in the first episode of the new series The Mist, which premieres on Spike TV on June 22, the first of ten 1-hour episodes. Heck, the first thing we see is a full-screen shot of a spider, and then we see the spider crawling across a guy’s face. Seriously creepy.Continue Reading

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #198

Bev VincentMay 3, 2017May 3, 2017Breaking News, Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneBev Vincent, Columns, idris elba, Jake Chambers, Matthew McConaughey, Mid-World, News, News from the Dead Zone, Pennywise, Randall Flagg, Roland, Stephen King, Stephen King News, Taheen, The Dark Tower, The Shining8 Comments

The Dark Tower trailer we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Let’s get that out of the way straight off:

However, before the trailer showed up at 9:19 am Keystone Earth Time today, we were treated yesterday to some Twitter banter between Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey as they laid the groundwork for a couple of teaser trailers that contain some footage not found in the official trailer.Continue Reading

‘Thinner’ and the Blame Game

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 21, 2017April 12, 2017What I Learned from Stephen KingColumns, Jason Sechrest, Stephen King, Thinner, What I Learned from Stephen KingLeave a comment

What I Learned from Stephen King by Jason Sechrest

“There are no curses, only mirrors you hold up to the souls of men and women.” – Stephen King, Thinner

A disclaimer before we begin: As is the case with most of these doo-dads, there are spoilers ahead for those who have not read Thinner. More spoilers than usual in fact, as I found it necessary to employ the book’s end in my final analysis. If you, Constant Reader, should wish to check out now, we will hold no grudge, nor lay the blame. For if there is anything to be learned from Thinner (and I believe there is, or I would not have written said doo-dad), it is that blame is like a spinning wheel. Round and round and round she goes… Continue Reading

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #197

Bev VincentApril 5, 2017April 5, 2017Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneBev Vincent, Cujo, Gwendy's Button Box, It, Mr. Mercedes, my pretty pony, Pet Sematary, Richard Chizmar, Robin Furth, Sleeping Beauties, sony, Stephen King, The Dark Tower, The Dead Zone, The Eyes of the Dragon, Throttle3 Comments

There’s been so much news lately, I hardly know where to begin. What merits top billing? Let’s start with that trailer for It. First we had a teaser for the trailer, that stirred up interest. And then we got the 2-½ minute trailer itself, and boy what a beauty that was. In its first 24 hours, it racked up an astonishing 197 million views around the world, smashing all previous records. That speaks a lot to anticipation for this movie.Continue Reading

Welcome to the Losers’ Club by Bev Vincent

Control…Chaos…Darkness: A Preview of Mr. Mercedes by Bev Vincent

Ka Like a Wheel, Time Like a Circle by Kevin Quigley

There’s Something in The Mist

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Ka Like a Wheel, Time Like a Circle
by Kevin Quigley