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David McK (3692 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

David McK (3692 KP) rated In Our Stars (The Doomed Earth #1) in Books

Jan 31, 2025

If you were to ask me to name a Jack Campbell series of books, or main character in said series, I probably would have said somebody like 'Black Jack' Geary, the main protagonist of his 'Lost Fleet' series and it's spin-offs ("Beyond the Frontier" and "Outlands", with guest appearances in "The Lost Stars" or following his ancestors in "The Genesis Fleet").

Which mad it all the more surprising, to me, that there is absolutely no mention (yet) of him or his ancestors in this, the first in the latest series by the author.

What we have, instead, is a sci-fi (natch) time travel romance action-adventure, following the 'Alloy' (Human with non-Human DNA) Genji who is somehow thrust back in time following her witnessing of the destruction of Earth, and is now on a self-imposed mission to change the circumstances leading to said destruction.

In the 'present day' (our future) of the novel, she meets semi-disgraced officer Kayl Owen of the space fleet the Earth Guard, who - unlike his superiors - is not concerned about the non-human DNA in her make-up.

Surviving numerous assassination attempts and growing closer along the way, the two characters are attempting to change the future (I was getting shades of The Terminator here, with "The future is not set ... There is no fate but what we make..."), uncertain if even doing so will lead to Genji no longer even existing.

I'll be following this series with interest.