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David McK (3623 KP) rated 11.22.63 in Books

Oct 31, 2022

11.22.63

Stephen King | 2012 | Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller

8.8

(47 Ratings)

Book Rating

I don't know why, but for some reason I've never really taken to Stephen King's novels all that much.

I don't know whether that's because he's best known as a horror writer (with that being my least favourite genre), or whether because as a UK native I don't have quite the same cultural touchstones as King himself (or other American readers/writers), but there you have it.

(And, as an aside, I find that date format of 11.22.63 to be very disconcerting - I'm more used to dd/mm/yy i.e. 22/11/63 instead of 11.22.63)

Anyway, with all that said, I decided to give this a chance after it was recommended to me by a friend as 'a bit like Quantum Leap. I would have thought it was right up your street' (and I'm paraphrasing there somewhat).

I can see where he was coming from - this is a time travel novel, after all, here dealing with the JFK assassination - with the hero of the piece out to stop that assassination after finding a 'wormhole' back in time to the late 1950s.

Now that I've read it, I can say that it is definitely immersive with some solid world building, but boy does the middle section draaagggg: I was tempted, at one point, to just skip forward a good chunk (I didn't) to see if anything of note would happen ...

In short? Enjoyable enough, yes, but not enough to make me want to change my outlook on other King novels.

Kudos

ClareR (5996 KP) rated The Book of Guilt in Books

Jul 17, 2025

The Book of Guilt

Catherine Chidgey | 2025 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I absolutely loved The Book of Guilt. I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for when I started: identical triplets in a children’s home with a distinctly 1950s feel to it, even though it’s set in the 1970s. I think that’s to do with the fact that there is an alternative history - WW2 does not go quite the same way.

Everything about the atmosphere in the home, from the three shift-working “Mothers” (Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night), to their lessons from the Book of Knowledge, to their dreams being recorded in the Book of Dreams and their misdemeanours in the Book of Guilt.

Life begins to change in the Sycamore Home, and as it does, it raises so many questions about the things that the boys have been told.

I couldn’t put this down, and read it in two days. It gave me Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go vibes (not too much of a spoiler!). The boys are regarded with suspicion and fear, which made me feel for them even more. The addition of the Minister for Loneliness (a great idea, by the way) added an outsiders view to the concept of the Sycamore Homes.

The writing is mesmerising, the characters are rounded and very human (regardless of other characters opinions), and both the setting, the plot, and the ending were just perfect.

This is only my second Catherine Chidgey novel (the first was Remote Sympathy, and that was also a top read for me), and I really need to read more!

Kudos

David McK (3623 KP) rated The Eagle of the Ninth in Books

Jan 28, 2019

So, this is history (and told in the foreword of this novel): Sometime about the year AD 117, the Roman Ninth Legion marched north to deal with an uprising among the Caledonian tribes (in what is now Scotland), and were never heard of again. Also, nearly eighteen hundred years later during excavations at Silchester, a wingless Roman Eagle was dug up, buried under the fields.

But how did it come to be there?

While no-one knows for certain, those 2 facts together form the starting point for this story, which sees the son of the last commander of said Legion traveling North 'beyond the [Hadrians] wall' to search for and return said Eagle after his partial recovery from his laming during an attack on his outpost, and after he hears rumours of an Imperial Eagle in the Celts hands.

He is accompanied on this journey by his freed slave, whom he had previously (before the journey, during his recovery) rescued from the Arena.

While I had previously seen the 2011 film of the same name, I'd actually never read the source material before, so was unable to say how truly it stuck to the same.

Now I have, and I have to say: said movie does stick remarkably close, even if not entirely faithfully. the book, I found, could be a bit slow at times, and also tended to gloss over the less pleasant (shall we say) aspects of Roman society, with the Romans largely portrayed as civilized as compared to the uncouth Barbarians.

But then again, this is -supposedly - a children's book, and also a product of its time (first published, remember, in the 1950s).