The A-Z Blog Challenge, Letter J

Letter J of My Favourite Books by title

Two books - same author

Different Genres

Yep, another double Stephen King post, but they're the only J titled books I have in my collection that rank. But this will be the last time he features for several letters, so bear with me.  

The first is Joyland. Here's the blurb:

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever. 


This was a different style for Mr King, and the second attempt at these 'Hard Crime' books - the first, Colarado Kid was a bit lacking  but with Joyland it was more complete.

The story covers just a summer for college student Devin and his experiences at the fairground where he works for the first time. 

There is plenty of suspense and a few chills to boot. I got a real sense of the fairground and of a 'carny'. He creates characters you care about and feel like you are stepping into their lives.

***

The second is The Jaunt. Here's the blurb:

The story takes place early in the 24th century, when the technology for teleportation, referred to as "Jaunting", is commonplace, allowing for instantaneous transportation across enormous distances, even to other planets in the solar system.

I'm cheating a bit here, as this is a short story that appears in his collection Skeleton Crew - that was initially published in the Twilight Magazine. And this is a fake book cover mocked up by someone on Deviant Art as an example of what they could do. Looks pretty good.

This is another story that blew my mind. While they are waiting to teleport - which is a bit like in an airport but someone comes round to inject you and put you under to go through the teleportation process - the father of the family of four relates the history of how teleportation came into being and why they have to be put under to go, and it is the outcome of that that is the kicker - I can't tell you, it would ruin the story - suffice to say that it's a terrifying concept!

I love the idea of something like teleportation being possible, and I remember discussing it with a friend that was doing a masters in Astrophysics. He was actually able to theoretically transport us from one room to another, but sadly the technology doesn't yet exist. Mind you, if it's anything like in Stephen King's tale, you might not want it to!

More tidbits about Stephen King: When filming his series Creepshow, in 1982, Stephen played the main character in one of the stories (The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill), where a meteorite lands and he touches it and sort of turns into this grassman - so they had to cover him completely in a green suit, and at one point he had to show his tongue, so they made a green latex tongue cover. He said, after filming he had to go to the shopping mall, but he left the tongue cover on. When he went into one shop, an assistant asked him if he needed any help, and he stuck his green covered tongue out at her and she ran out of the store screaming! He thought it was hilarious - he definitely likes to scare people! 😂