Good for fans of King | Blaze: A Novel

A King by any other name ... well, you know ... Bachman! | Blaze: A Novel | Richard Bachman

books:


	• Blaze: A Novel Richard Bachman Pocket, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 149 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

blaze

Blaze arrive in a timely manner, and was in excellant condition. It was packaged very good. I really enjoyed this book I recommend it to all Stephan KING FANS.

Good for fans of King

Blaze was a decent, short novel by King, though not his best work by a long shot (he says so in the forward). You can't help feeling a little sorry for the lead character "Blaze". His troubled past was really the cause of his present, and you can't help but wonder what could have been.....

A King by any other name ... well, you know ... Bachman!

On the fourth day in my new home, unpacking was going smoothly: I was busy placing my books in bookshelves--"their" new home--when I came across Blaze, a novel written by Stephen King under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. This is the last book from Bachman's "early period"; King says Bachman died in 1985 from "pseudonym cancer." While Bachman was writing slow-selling novels, King was building his reputation writing and selling short horror stories. (As you probably know, after retiring Bachman, King's very first book under his real name was Carrie ... and the rest is history.)

Although King/Bachman wrote Blaze in 1973--King calls Bachman his "younger/smart-assier self"--it wasn't published until 2006 after one of King's assistants found the original typescript among his papers at the University of Maine's Fogler Library. This review is written from a 2007 hardcover edition with a foreword by King; this book and the one I'm posting it under are hard to find, except on the secondary market.

Although nothing Bachman wrote seemed to please King's more mature self, he started reading Blaze and thought it was better than most of Bachman's published novels. He decided to revise and publish it, donating proceeds to the Haven Foundation which supports freelance artists.

And am I glad King published this book! As he hoped readers would, I "came for a good story" and got much more than that. This is a gripping story; a sad tale that grabbed me by the lapels from the first page and never let go. In fact, in between unpacking and a multitude of "moving woes," I finished this exciting book in two days

I'm mesmerized by the main character, Clayton Blaisdell, Jr.--Blaze for short. He's a complex, sympathetic character for whom I rooted from the "get-go." After his mother dies when he's only three years old, poor little Blaze's father does something so horrendous to him that he ends up being a "slow thinker" and is made a ward of the state.

Blaze grows into a "Big Mother" whose appearance is intimidating, but he has a gentle soul, only harming those who mistreat small, defenseless people and his friends. He is loved by all who really know him, but once again suffers abuse by authorities in the boys' institution.

What happens to him in the institution that accelerates his rage, honing his hard edges? What happens to his best friend John? What does Blaze do to avenge John? How does he meet his new friend George who takes him under his wing and indoctrinates him into a life of petty crime? After George is killed, how does he help Blaze pull off the "big, final" crime they had always dreamed of? Why does he end up kidnapping a small, defenseless baby, son of a wealthy family? How could "the bull-simple dummy" do it alone? What happens when little Joe steals his heart? And why, with the cops closing in, is Blaze clutching the baby to his chest as he plunges deeper into the white hell of a powerful snowstorm in the Maine woods?

In Blaze, Bachman/King answers those questions in a series of clever twists and turns, skillfully maneuvering from present to past by masterful use of exciting flashbacks.

In response to King's foreword: Yes, Stephen, I "misted up" ... more than a little; there's nothing in this novel to make people laugh at you. You painted such an accurate portrait of Blaze's character and background that, although I could not condone what he did, I understand the reasoning behind his actions. My heart broke each time Blaze's did. This is a real tear-jerker, a psychological thriller that could be a blockbuster movie.

Knowing full well that you and Richard Bachman are the same person, dare I say I enjoyed this book as much as any you've written under your true name ... and better than some?

It seems that, like a rose, "a King by any other name is still a King." Stephen, you had "IT" then and failed to recognize it.

There are life lessons to be learned from this book ... a book that will linger in your mind long after the last page has been read. Highly recommended with great enthusiasm.

Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, 2008
Author of: Millennium Babe: The Prophecy

for more information click here

poignant

I really wasnt expecting to like this book too much but I was happily mistaken. The character, Blaze, although on the wrong path, elicited my sympathy and I liked him and wished he could have been raised differently. All in all it was a good book.

Dusting off an old tale for the pleasure of his readers

Good little story from Stephen King's dark vault of early unpublished writings. There's quite a bit of balance, nuance, and sophistication for an almost four decades-old story that Mr. King waited until now to publish. For instance, the tribulations of Blaze's early life create sympathy for the title character, but not to the point where we want to excuse or forgive Blaze's later criminal career. In other words, I felt bad for the guy but still wanted him to get caught by the F.B.I. once he crossed over into child kidnapping.

I also liked how, in the story's earlier going, we see that Blaze's friend George was good for him in many ways, but things got mucked up because George was a career criminal and encouraged Blaze to refine and deepen his own clunky (and, until then, mostly harmless) criminal past.

Complex, ironic situations like these deepened this engaging story, making it more than a simple crime-laced morality tale.

I also enjoyed Stephen King's lengthy introduction to "Blaze". In it he talks not only about the history of the book in question, but the many things that were going on in his professional and personal life around the time of the book's writing. It's a fun and interesting piece in itself.

I listened to the 7-CD unabridged audiobook version of "Blaze", which features a wonderful, skillful performance by actor, writer, and frequent audiobook narrator Ron McLarty. However, you don't get the bonus short story, "Memory" which accompanies the print editions of the book.

for more information click here