#meanwhile THIS is an actual outbreak on tumblr

[mellomadness]

WHY IS THERE AN INFLUX OF AI CELEB FETISH PHOTOS ??? IVE REPORTED SO MANY ACCOUNTS LITERALLY CALLED “machine-celeb” “machine-photos” “machine-bot” AND THEY ALL HAVE WEIRD FETISHY PHOTOS WITH CELEB FACES PRINTED ON THEM!! HALF OF THEM ARE CHILD ACTORS???? LITERALLY MOST ARE USING PHOTOS OF THE CELEBS WHEN THEY WERE CHILDREN/TEENAGERS!!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING TUMBLR

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Book Review: Loch Down Abbey

Right, so, I’ve mentioned Loch Down Abbey before, but since this is apparently the year my brain has decided we’re actually going to write down some of the fanfic that it’s been kicking about since...*checks tumblr for first reference*...2022, I might as well write a review. I feel like I probably don’t do enough book reviews. Then again, these days I mostly read fanfiction, but the books I do read are good fun and our modern world could certainly use more of that. So, in this post I will discuss the books, why I like it, it’s flaws, why I don’t mind it’s flaws so much, and so on. In this way people might, at the very least, understand why I’m writing fanfiction for it.

First off, it’s always billed as a parody of Downton Abbey. While this isn’t entirely untrue, I do find it a bit misleading. I mean, yes, the title is clearly a play on Downton Abbey, but it is also a play on “lock down”, having been written during the Covid 19 pandemic and being set during a fictitious outbreak of Virulent Pernicious Mauvaise in the 1930s resulting in, well, lock down, among other things. Functionally the only other great resemblance is that it’s set in a country house relying heavily on upstairs, downstairs dynamics, and an ensemble cast. This means less than you’d think. Beyond that, the dogs are named Grantham and Belgravia, and there the resemblance pretty much ends. Even with Lady Georgiana as the dowager countess being comparable to any character based off of Julina Fellowes’s great aunt, the family dynamic is quite different. The estate set up is different, leading to different issues, even though both families face financial issues. There’s more garish tartan and less lavatory paper. Honestly, if we’re looking at other works by Julian Fellowes, I could make more comparisons between it and Gosford Park given that they’re both country house mysteries.

Above all, it’s Scottish, not English.

In short, I would not bill it as a parody of Downton Abbey so much as a humorous country house mystery with nods to the period drama genera in general and the works of Julian Fellowes in particular that will appeal to Downton Abbey fans and anyone who lived through the Covid Pandemic.

That being said, I will allow that “Downton Abbey Parody” is much shorter and easier to say.

The main plot revolves around two things: the aforementioned outbreak of Virulent Pernicious Mauvaise and the mysterious death of Lord Inverkillen. Your main PoV character is the housekeeper, Mrs MacBain, although it does shift – more on this later. When Lord Inverkillen dies, it’s proclaimed an accident by the local (not overly skilled) constabulary, but that doesn’t sit quite right with her, so she becomes our detective, sniffing out the truth of the matter. This is made much more difficult by the fact her staff keeps shrinking due to the pandemic and that the first person in the house to come down ill of (and promptly die of) the disease was Nanny. Saying the Inverkillen children are a handful is inaccurate. They are six handfuls. Solving the mystery is ultimately far easier than getting the family to make adjustments to allow the house to keep running with a skeleton crew that’s missing a femur, five ribs, six vertebrae, and the skull.

Meanwhile, upstairs, the entire family, with the exception of Fergus, the second son, is attempting to find ways to ignore the fact they’re broke. Completely broke. “Do something or the house goes on the auction block, oh wait, it’s too late for that” broke. They generally accomplish this by fighting with each other, complaining about the pandemic, complaining about the servants, or, in the case of the new Lord Inverkillen and his brother-in-law, spending all of their free time in the tennis pavilion. Oh, or looking for expensive family knick-knacks to make off with in the case of the late Lord Inverkillen’s brother.

Yeah. This family is ridiculous. I mean, beyond ridiculous. I personally suspect that Fergus is a changeling, it’s the only way to explain why he’s part of this group. Of course, according to the “about the author” part of the reason for this book is that she was “hoping it would be enough to get her disinvited from the annual family walking holiday”, so that explains the rest of the family. Alas, it didn’t work.

(Incidentally, I have chatted a little with Beth Cowan- Erskine on Instagram and she seems to be a nice person. She’s answered my questions on how Scottish titles work vs English. She even bought some of the Loch Down tea I made on Adagio and gave it a nice review. So if you live in the Cotswolds and are looking for an interior designer, which is her main profession, you might consider looking her up.)

Now, moving on to the structure of the book. I must stress that this is a first novel, and as such, it’s rather ambitious. That ‘ensemble cast’ I mentioned earlier? Yeah. The opening list of characters has thirty names on it. Now, they aren’t all PoV characters, but still – thirty. If you have ever tried to write an ensemble cast, even if it’s just Downton Abbey fanfic that touches on everyone who was around during the season in question, you know that is not an easy task. In many ways I really hope the rumors that it’s being developed into a television program are true, because there are things that will just work better in a visual format, such as the opening. The opening is probably the most Downton thing in the entire book, following the characters through the arrival of the family home from a local ball in much the same way Downton opened by following Daisy and Thomas through the building. The big difference is that you get the PoV of each character. Yes, in one scene. Yes, that is very difficult to do to the extent that most writing instructors will tell you not to do it. Yes, it gets confusing. And that is, honestly, the book’s biggest failing – the PoV is less “third person limited” than it is “third person wandering”, especially at the outset. It gets better as you go, and then will occasionally backslide. However, particularly bearing in mind what the author is trying to do here (thirty characters!) I feel this is more of a failing on the editor’s part, and even then…yeah, I don’t know you’d do that intro any better. I could probably figure it out if I really worked at it, but dang. That is a doozy of an undertaking.

...okay, you’re not actually meeting all thirty characters in the first scene, but you meet enough of them! Actually, give me a second. I borrowed Mum’s copy since I couldn’t find mine. We have four in the first section, which doesn’t sound like much, but is still twice as many as Downton follows in the same space of time, and we’re doing it with character PoV shifts.

This leads to the second, absolutely unavoidable failing – character development. Some characters get much more PoV screen time than others, which means more development. With a cast that size, this was going to happen. Now, you might think “But it’s a novel! There’s not a one hour time limit! Surely she could have done better!”

Sorry, but no. A novel still has to have good pacing. Giving equal development, or even near equal development, to a cast that large would make it drag. Even half of that cast would make it drag. This book is supposed to make you laugh, not serve as a cure for insomnia. More to the point, while it is a comedy it does have it’s more serious, drama points and there are character arcs that just aren’t funny. At all. In fact, if you dig into them, some of them are straight up kind of depressing, which is why these characters don’t get much screen time. You can acknowledge what they’re going through well enough, but getting inside of their heads would have ruined the entire tone of the book. So there are places you just need to go with the surface knowledge or go write yourself some nice fanfiction. That’s what fanfiction is for, after all.

So! Having covered the flaws, what do I like about this book? Seriously, what’s had me read it multiple times, make tea based off of it (supporting salmon conservation), writing fanfiction, and hoping there’s a TV version eventually?

As a comedy, it succeeds. It really is funny. Visually I want to see what a TV production crew would come up with for the Inverkillen tartan.

It’s also a pretty good mystery. I can’t really say a lot without saying too much, but the mystery works on two different levels. And it stays both a good comedy and a good mystery through multiple reads, which is a bonus.

The fact that the family name is Ogilvy-Sinclair family which reminds me of "Thomas and the Earl of Findlater" by @alex51324 is a personal amusement.

You do care about the characters, even the less developed ones. There’s a list of characters at the end that matches the one at the beginning as circumstances change quite drastically over the course of the book (it serves as sort of an ‘epilogue to the epilogue’), and I can’t say it leaves you needing more, but you’re certainly interested in where everyone’s going. There’s been talk online of a sequel, and while it’s not necessary, you’re definitely invested enough to not say ‘no’ if one comes along. There are more stories to be told of these characters, and you are left suitably curious to what they are.

And, of course, if you were an essential worker during the 2020 Covid pandemic, you connect with the servants. Seriously, trying to convince people who will not listen that, no, there is no more toilet paper in back. No, there’s no flour either. I’m sorry you need fifteen bags, we only have three. No, you can’t have an extra pack of toilet paper either, I’ve already said that, is bad enough when they aren’t the most ridiculous family of aristocrats to ever carpet their house in the Clan tartan. Mrs MacBain’s experience helps put everything else in perspective. Bless the woman.

I need to read it again now that I’ve actually been to Scotland. I suspect there are a few things that will be even funnier, like the rival family trying to buy the estate.

And the ending is just satisfying. Parts of it are predictable, others you absolutely don’t see coming, but it all comes to leave you with that “Ah, yes. That is as it should be” feeling. It’s also a fast read that’s easy to pick up and put down at meal times and for sleep, which I consider a bonus.

Anyway, that is why I recommend it. If nothing else, see if you can borrow a copy from the library.

[redbeardace]

Flattening The Curve

Tumblr has a feature hidden in their “Labs”, called “Reblog Graphs”.  It’s a neat little thing that lets you see how influential you are, and also which blogs have large followings.  It’s a great way to see why your post from three years ago is suddenly getting a thousand notes a day, too.

This is a graph of a couple hundred reblogs from a recent post somebody made.

The original post is the orange dot.  I’m the purple dot one generation away.  You can see how many people reblogged from me, but my following isn’t nearly as big as that large dot off to the right.

Only four people reblogged it from me, while that other person had a cluster of around a dozen.  But you can see that my overall influence was greater.  Their cluster died out quickly, while mine kept going and going.

You could say this post went viral.

That’s what I’m actually here to talk about today...

Let’s go back a slide and change the caption.

Now this isn’t a blog post we’re talking about, this is, say, a novel coronavirus that no one is immune to or something like that.  Now we’re not talking about reblogs, we’re talking about infections.

I know this Patient Zero, they’re a friend of mine.  We get together with another friend, whose sister works in a nursing home.

So now I’m infected.  And so’s that other friend, whose sister works in the nursing home.

And I infect four other people.

It’s just a slight cough, and I feel silly for staying home over just a slight cough, so I go into work.  Same goes for that sister who works in the nursing home.

It is week 1 of the pandemic.

It’s flu season, so none of my coworkers think twice about this fever and cough that they now have.  Meanwhile, over at the nursing home, people start noticing that the flu is especially bad this year.

It is week 2 of the pandemic.

The nursing home realizes they have a huge problem.  EMTs are taking several people to the hospital with trouble breathing every day.  Two have died.  And now Fire Station 27, the one near the nursing home, has several people who are sick.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling fine, and so are my coworkers who had the flu right after me.

And so on...

It is now week 9 of the pandemic.

Each of these circles represents another week in the spread of the virus, with more and more people infected.  You can see that the nursing home and the fire station in the upper right were contained by week 3, because they quarantined and stopped it.  That outbreak made the news.  But what didn’t make the news were all the people in the lower left, the ones who continue to spread it to one or two, maybe three people.  Once in a while, a large cluster flares up, but for the most part, it’s silent.

What you might not see is how much of this graph rolls back up to me and my actions.

Fully 2/3 of the reblogs cases are the product of my infection.  If you take me out of the picture, it’s not just those four people I infected that don’t get it.  It’s the 7 people they infected.  And the people they infected.  And the people they infected.

Without me, it is over in Week 5.  My single infection in week 1 ended up causing this to run for another month.  If I’d stayed home that day instead of reblogging going to the office, it would’ve made a huge difference.  It doesn’t really matter who patient zero was, every person on this graph is essentially patient zero of their own outbreak.

This is why staying home when sick matters.  This is why hand-washing matters.  This is why social distancing matters.  This is why schools are closed and why large companies are having people work from home and why March Madness is canceled.

Because just one infection matters.

[lockdownuk]

Lockdown Diary Part 4

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day91: I can’t post photos to the sister photo diary and it’s fucking me off. Using this as a place holder- last successful pic was 21/06/2020.

Day 92: Still awaiting Tumblr re: day 91′s entry. Meanwhile looking at other blog/diary sites. Very warm today, like it was throughout May. Boris announced a further relaxation in lockdown measures which includes reducing the 2m distancing instruction which paves the way for pubs, restaurants and other places to open on 4th  . It looks like the Ship will open 6th July, George on the 4th. I await to see the measures put in place before deciding whther it’s a goer.

Day93: Typing on day 94 - I received an email from Deryn from RCI HR concerning placement online module attendance, thanking me for my participation. I was somewhat confused. Was this a mistake or was I erroneously not icluded in the initial communications? I fired off an email to HR and WhatsApp’d Jim. He replied that I should take it up with HR.

I am worried by this. Furlough ends this week and I know not what the fuck is going on.

Day 94: Had a few beers last night, ‘cos I was feeling deflated over work. Finished Homecoming S2, which was very good, and cancelled Amazon Prime before the free trial ends tomorrow. Got up @midday but haven’t done jack shit today as my right ankle is playing up - it was twinging last night - apart from press ups. No word back from RCI but there was a notification that the email from Deryn was attempted to be recalled. Had a spat in Co-Op wth two lads who were ignoring the one way system and social-distancing. It makes my blood boil and I had to say something which ended up making my blood boil even more…especially as one of them asked me to ‘crack on’. It’s a pretty cool response actually, since I had them bang to rights but, at the time, I thought I was going to bust a blood vessel. I walked away having told him to not speak to me like that again and that he was a fucking arsehole! Didn’t make me feel any better though. Fog’s chatting later so I’m going to have a few beers right now (just gone 8pm) - I feel like throwing caution to the wind for some reason (probably work more than anything else).

Day 95: Typing on Day 96. I had a lot of beers with Fog the night before last and felt like shit all day yesterday. Still managed to drag myself up to Foggy’s and have socially distanced beers in his garden with Noel and Lord Irish of Michael.

Day 96: Feeling like shit. Third day of no walking ‘cos my ankle is a little sore although I did walk back from Foggy’s last night.

Day 97: Two walks and my usual stair climb today. Felt good to get back to routine. Plus, no booze yesterday, even tho’ it was a Saturday, feel better for it. I heard from Sue Cockings from HR on Friday, btw, still furloughed until further notice.

Day 98: I discovered, yesterday, that today is actually day 99 of lockdown since it actually begun on the Sunday evening that Boris Johnson announced the measures being in place - I mistakenly thought it began on the Monday. Tumblr still haven’t got back to me regarding reviewing why this blog is deemed ‘sensitive’ and I can’t add any more pics. While I am typing, Northampton are beating Exeter 0-2 at Wembley in the L2 play-off final. It’s funny that their fans can’t be there to see it. Football, in general, on its return after lockdown, without fans in attendance, is shit - like watching women’s football - too many empty seats.

Day 100: I have decided to number the days correctly (See prev’ entry). It’s a good time as I had to export , delete and recreate this blog on Tumblr since they have been non-forthcoming in my request for info as to why they deemed it ‘sensitive’. So, this is a restart, altrough seemless to the reader. On top of all that, I am writing this on Day 101! After restarting the blog diary I forgot to add the day’s entry! Bumped into Roger on my second walk, at the top of Basset Ford Place. We chatted for an hour or so. It was really good to see him and talk. We’ve made a promise to interact more...it seems both he and I allow ourselves to get down in the dumps (easy in self-isolation) and, as such, we shall try to reach out as and when. He suggested a walk together every now and then.

Day 101: I heard back from a charitable services company that Barry Haddon (who, coincidentally, I spoke with today) told me about (Auriga)and answered their email questions. BNarry rates them and told me they got him some decent results like he no longer has to pay Council Tax. I tweeted Chris Hawkes on Radio 6 this morning...he was asking for examples of sames names (’cos he had Dave Gorman on) so I told him about The Redlion and the ad the ‘other’ Tim put in the ET. He read it out! I created a photo album of 101 pics I’ve taken in lockdown and put it on FB including the Oundle Chatter group. The comments were great. My right eyesight is worrying, I cannot make out close up detail i.e. reading is blurred. I am going to start doing 10 press ups after each exercise i.e. three times a day. I decided that during my second walk so today I’ve done 20. Lastly, I have new neighbours I do believe. Hmmm.

Day 102: Emailed dad and Rita to have a rant about what dad thought of the Leicester lockdown and to share a link to my 101 photo album. Had a long Messenger chat with Rog.

Day 103: Typing this on day 104. Dad called when I was out ona  walk so we skyped when I got back. He looks really well! Advided me on how to cutt some branches that are hanging low (I asked him in the email yesterday). I then borrowed a saw, secateurs and green bin from Karen. I walked a long way today. My second walk was 9km.I then had loads of beers! The Co-Op car park seems to be the venue for youngsters to hang out. I was gone 2am before they finished partying. I (re)watched Steve Jobs. Wow....just wow. What a film and what a man!

Day 104: It was gone 1:30pm when I got up feeling the worse for wear. A chilli, chorizo and cheese omelette really sorted me out but no beer tonight. How my Saturday frame of mind has changed from just a few years ago. Elliot and Camilla dropped off a jar of japaenos (that Mil had WhatsApp’d me about) and, among other things, we chatted about a photo Tracie Garrett circulated featuring Ell, me her and a few others who met up to have a drink at The Haycock for Ron Gambling. In it was Cath and someone called Ross (who I don’t remember) who have both passed since the pic (July ‘99). I feel strangely saddened by it all. The pic itself is such a reminder of days past - it conjours up shit loads of different feelings.

Day 105: A few beers again last night so another late one (5ish) but up before noon. Finished watching a series called Condor. Pretty good - bit of a messy ending that is the norm with telly nowadays in that it is a little bit of a cliffhanger.

Day 106: The Ship reopened today. I left a nice message on the Virtual Pub group page wishing them the best plus said thanks to Rach. I think it will be the end of the laugh we’ve had on the virtual site now. I expect to go through a bit of a miserabel time with people now venturing out down the pubs.We were once all united in lockdown - that will no longer be the case. Met Rog for a walk - did over 7km oncluding through Barnwell Picnic Park - I don’t remember it being that pretty. defo going to go there again. Got an email from RCI asking for all furlough workers to join a Zoom meeting tomorrow with Paul (MD) and Deryn (HR). Ominous! Went shopping in Asda and Farm Foods. £100 with NO BOOZE!

Day 107: The zoom call today didn’t tell me much other than we are being furloughed still, until further notice. It was susggested that we have a zoom meeting every 2 weeks and that RCI recognise we’ve be left out in the cold somewhat. I appreciate that very much.There were 30 of us on the call plus Paul and Deryn were in the office since they had to make peopel redundant today. Mark was in the office earlier to take receivership of the IT kits from those that left.

Day 108: I am well on the way to doing 1,000,000 steps in theree months (July, August & September) but at what cost. I’ve done well over 11,000 steps each day in July (actually, a lot of days in June as well) apart from one (8k) and I am feeling it. My right leg/ankle is sore! Day 109: I had another mention by Chris Hawkins on Radio 6. He asked for Brian May moments - apparently when he met Brian May he was so starstruck that all he could say was ‘thank you for the music’. I tweeted my story of telling Felicity Kendall to have a good life. Today, both my walks have resulted in me getting fucking soaked. Hanna S2 is on Amazon Prime. Time for yet another free trial (number 4 or 5).

Day 110: I have walked 144,448 steps in 10 days, well on the way to a million steps in three months. The Heist of the Century - an Argentinian film based on true events - watched it last night (well, over two nights, actually). A real life Ocean’s Eleven (but with 6). Brilliant film, brilliat story. I had issues signing up to another Amazon Prime free trial last night so I set up another gmail a/c just now and I think I’m in. I used Danny’s Gmail (which I created over 15 years ago!) and it didn’t like it - I think I must have used it before. I reckon I have probably had loads more free trials than I care to remember. Anyway, off to watch me some Hanna!

Day 111: Very tired as I type. Bed at around 5am, up at 13:30, normal exercises, cleaning kitchen cupbaords and I’m done in. It’s 10:30pm now, just cracked open a beer and about to watch a new Netflix film “The Old Guard”. I would continue with Hanna but Amazon Prime keeps fucking erroring. I will try to go to bed before it gets light (which seems to be my w/e norm nowadays!

Day 112: I have got into the habit of eating dinner far too late. It’s 10:30pm as I type and I am just about to have something eat. I’m not sure why I feel it’s wrong to eat so late but I do, I shall be trying to address it. Late night again last night (gone 4:30am) so today was a lazy day. Only on ewalk but it was 10km and I get up the above 11,000 steps needed for the 1m challenge. My stair climb, at around 9pm, fucking killed.

Day 113: Boring Monday.

Finished watching The Old Guard on Netflix. A Highlander-esque affair with Charlize Theron kicking ass like she did in Atomic Blonde. It was OK. Haven’t manage to lick the late night eating. It’s 10:05pm and tea’s still cooking.

Day 114: I have been looking at planning persmissions on the ENDC site for questions posed on the Oundle Chatter group on FB. There’s going to be two sites with 130 new houses on each and it’s causing concern. And so it should - the planning docs are very revealing. Objections are dismissed in such an off-hand way. It’s really quite insulting. I was awfully down today, during my first walk. I mean, really despondant (too difficult to describe here), which is a lower version of the norm - it’s been a good couple of weeks since anyone’s even asked how I am! A week since that post on my main blog. But, I powered through and am back to the usual depth! I ate at @9:30 pm tonight. Told ya!

Day 115: I am typing this on Day 116 - I ended up hainga  couple of beers last night and forgot to post. I had the most ridiculous toing and froing on FB and Messenger with Rachel (Harris) - it was piss funny. She is the first person in days, actually weeks, who has asked how I am! I watched ep3 of Hanna S2. Absolutely superb. She kills Marissa! Did not see that fucker coming...mind blown! Day 116: I have finally finished the thorough clean of the kitchen. Fucking drama. I am typing at just gone 10pm, about to eat (curry I made yesterday). It’s been a strange day, timings wise, last night’s drinking meant I wasn’t up until just gone noon which obviously didn’t help. I had a call from DSM group - I applied for an IT tech role, they want to see me tomorrow (Friday) for an interview (in Sibson). Interesting! (Although the contact, Helen, hasn’t sent the promised email!)

Day 117: Despite not getting a confirmation email, I attended the interview at DSM. It went OK (I was there for 90 mins). I went booze shopping in Tesco’s afterwards. Spoke to dad today also - he and Rita are well, as usual! I am feeling really knackered and achy today. I do hope it’s not anything to worry about.

Day 118: Up at 1pm. 9.79 km walk. Cooking meatballs, drinking beer, listening to The Blaze about to watch Deepwater Horizon. All good today!

Day 119: Similar to yesterday, up late, bloody long walk, watching Saving Private Ryan (which I started last night).

Day 120: Typing on day 121. Received an email from someone that works at the BBC for Shaun Keaveny’s show - they want me to do small claims court on August 5th. I’m becoming obsessed with getting my steps in - my second walk was extended to round Barnwell Country Park - over 17.5k steps - not the most I’ve done in one day but, for example, most in one day last month (June) was 14.7k. More importantly, I am finding that I can walk further (and for longer) and not have a hypo; not a great deal further, but over an hour.

[aion-rsa]

Stephen King: 10 Best Horror Novels

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From a story about a demonic clown to a haunted hotel, these are the 10 Stephen King horror novels you can't miss!

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There's no doubt that writer Stephen King is best known for the horror novels that haunt his special corner of American literature. But the extremely prolific writer has also written plenty of dark/epic fantasy, science fiction, literary, mystery, and even romance. In fact, there are plenty of examples of genre-mixing in his writing. Books like Lisey's Story (a truly fantastic read), Duma Key, The Green Mile, The Eyes of the Dragon, Bag of Bones, and The Dark Tower series are fantastic examples of what King can do with just about any genre of fiction. 

It can be hard to make a distinction between King's true horror books and those that happen to have some scary moments in them. But that's why we're here. We've made a ranked list of ten pure horror novels by King that we think will keep you up for plenty of nights to come. A Halloween treat!

Related Article: 12 Best Stephen King Movies

We really tried to focus on novels where horror was at the forefront of the story, where without the scares, the book wouldn't be a book at all. That's why you probably won't see The Dark Tower books or The Stand, largely considered to be the King's magnum opus, on this list. But you should read those, too. 

Here we go:

Revival 

In recent years, the King of Horror has taken an interest in hardboiled detective and science fiction novels. Things like the Detective Bill Hodges trilogy, Under the Dome, and 11/22/63 have been among his latest offerings. But his 2014 novel Revival was a return to form for the writer.

This homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the cosmic horror tales of H.P. Lovecraft, and Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan" is quite the revelation, literally and figuratively. The novel tells the story of a Christian minister who uses strange methods to cure the ill. After his wife and son die in a car accident, he denounces God in front of his entire congregation and is forced to leave town. Years later, he's back to bring a dead woman back to "life" in order to learn more about the afterlife. 

What he discovers on the other side is truly terrifying. Revival is must-read recent King. 

The Dark Half

If there's one thing King loves, it's writing books and stories about writers. There have been plenty over the years, including "Secret Window, Secret Garden," "1408," and another novel on this list that we'll get to momentarily, but The Dark Half is probably the most "autobiographical" of the bunch. 

You see, King used to write under a pseudonym, Richard Bachman, in order to publish more than one novel a year without overwhelming his audience. The Bachman books consist of a series of gritty novels that were published from 1977 to 1984, and King has revisited the pseudonym since being outed, too.

Related Article: 10 Best Supernatural Stephen King Villains

The protagonist in The Dark Half has to deal with the death of his own pseudonym in an unexpected way, as his better-selling alter ego comes after the people that tried to kill him off. It's all a fun bit of supernatural horror that includes a lot blood, violence, and some pretty gross body horror. It's an especially fun horror novel if you're a writer...

Watch The Dark Half on Amazon

Pet Sematary

But not as fun as King's ridiculous novel about undead pets. A book that was definitely inspired by EC horror comics (King's early brushes with horror were in the pages of those books), this novel might be classified as a delicious, campy romp with plenty of scares. The novel's B-movie sensibility cannot be understated. 

In Pet Sematary, a family moves to the small town of Ludlow, Maine, where people bury their dead pets in a special cemetery, which is actually an ancient Micmac Indian burial ground. Obviously, that means that these animals come back to life as evil shadows of themselves.

Oh, the setup is so perfect. When the family's little two-year-old boy is suddenly killed by a speeding truck, the father decides to bury the boy in the pet cemetery in the hopes that he will be revived. What happens next is what the best campy horror is made of. 

Watch Pet Sematary on Amazon

Misery

King's best book about a novelist is also a great horror story that is still quite relatable today. A disturbing look at fandom, Misery is what happens when a writer's work becomes a mad woman's obsession.

Paul Sheldon, writer of Victorian-era romance novels, suffers an accident on the road during a snowstorm. He is rescued by Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who is coincidentally Paul's biggest fan. And she's not very happy about the ending of his last book. So Annie decides to kidnap Paul and keep him hostage until he fixes the damage he's done. 

Further Reading: Stephen King's 10 Best Human Villains

Imagine being kidnapped by an angry mob of Ghostbusters fans after telling them that the new team will be made up of an all-female cast, and then forced to rewrite the entire script. That's Annie Wilkes. 

Misery is a fascinating psychological horror tale about the dangers of fandom and a writer's connection to his work. And if you need a great Stephen King movie, the film adaptation is pretty fantastic, as well. 

Watch Misery on Amazon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

This slim novel (to King's standards) has plenty in common with a fairy tale, as a little girl finds herself lost in the woods with nothing or no one to help her find her way except what's in her backpack: a bottle of water, two Twinkies, a boiled egg, a tuna sandwich, a bottle of Surge, a poncho, a Game Boy, and a Walkman. Thankfully, King's little protagonist proves to be quite the survivalist as the book progresses. 

Walking a thin line between an intense examination of loneliness and isolation and a supernatural thriller, as things grow weirder in the woods as time passes, this is a compact horror novel that you can read in one sit-down and you'll get King at his best, as his character exemplifies the meaning of human resilience, even as she begins to hallucinate due to hunger, fear, and thirst. 

Her love for her baseball idol pitcher Tom Gordon allows her to face her fears and even confront the "God of the Lost." This is a really good one. A few years later, a pop-up book adaptation of this novel was fittingly released.

Cujo

Cujo is one of King's more "realistic" novels, featuring a setup that's real enough to send shivers down your spine, especially if you live in the suburbs or ever owned a Ford Pinto... The story goes like this: the Trentons move from New York to Castle Rock, Maine (where nothing good ever happens in the Kingverse). Vic and Donna Trenton, who are having some marital problems, have a four-year-old son named Tad, because children should always be in danger in these books.

Meanwhile, longtime residents Charity and Brett Chambers have a nice St. Bernard named Cujo that loves chasing wild rabbits in his spare time. During his latest safari, Cujo is bitten on the nose by a rabid bat. And, as you can probably imagine, all hell absolutely breaks loose. 

The dog kills several people before feasting its eyes on the ultimate prey: a boy and his mother, who have stopped by the Chambers' place in their little Ford Pinto. What follows are very tense moments of terror inside a little car, as a mom tries to protect her son from the rabid terror that awaits them outside.

King has said in interviews that he doesn't really remember writing Cujo, as he worked on it at the peak of his struggle with drug addiction, but we wish he had. He wrote a fine horror book. Cruel ending and all. 

Watch Cujo on Amazon

Salem's Lot

King's ode to Bram Stoker's Dracula is a classic vampire tale that might even formidably rival the novel it pays homage to. When Kurt Barlow comes to Jerusalem's Lot, Maine (where nothing good happens, either), shit hits the fan, as he preys on the living and ignites an outbreak of vampirism in the town. 

The only guy who can stop him is, you guessed it, a writer named Ben Mears, who already has a strained relationship with his hometown, which he abandoned years ago. Like a modern team of Draculian vampire hunters, Ben teams up with his new sweetheart Susan, a little boy named Mark, and some other townspeople to take down the vampire and his unholy creations. There's also Father Callahan, this story's version of an incompetent Van Helsing, who loses a lot in the novel but redeems himself in King's The Dark Tower series. 

Related Article: A Reading Guide to Stephen King's Dark Tower Universe

All in all, this fat novel holds plenty of scares, including a school bus full of vampire children who hunt down the school bus driver who tormented them. We have goosebumps. 

Watch Salem's Lot on Amazon

The Shining

By now, The Shining, along with the other two entries in the top 3 of this list, has become embedded in American pop culture, whether because of King's book or Stanley Kubrick's excellent movie (King would disagree). Either way, this is the novel that never made you want to become a hotel caretaker.

An alcoholic writer (surprise!) named Jack Torrance brings his wife Wendy and his son Danny to his new job as the off-season caretaker of The Overlook Hotel in Colorado, where he hopes to make a bit of extra cash to support his writing. The job seems easy enough until all the guests leave and the doors shut behind them until the spring. That's when the hotel's ghosts come out to fuck with the living.

Related Article: How The Shining Examines the Immortality of Evil

You'll recall plenty of the spooky ghosts Danny encounters on his treks through the claustrophobic hallways of the hotel. It's because he was born with telepathic powers that allow him to communicate with the lost souls of the Overlook. It unfortunately also triggers the place's supernatural energy, which quickly takes control of Jack, who is convinced into killing his wife and son due to cabin fever and a pretty bad case of writer's block. 

This is one of those special novels that you only get once in a lifetime and an especially good example of King's unique brand of horror. Get to it, Constant Readers!

Watch The Shining on Amazon

Carrie 

The story of how debut novel Carrie came to be a huge hit for the future King of Horror is now as famous as the actual book. King began working on a short story about a girl with telekinetic powers when someone accused him of not knowing how to write about women. He typed up the infamous shower scene while living in a trailer and working as a high school teacher. King didn't love the scene, so he tossed the first pages of his bestseller in the trash. It was his wife Tabitha who pulled the pages out of the wastebasket and convinced him to finish the story. And here we are. 

Apart from all the telekinesis, Carrie is another book that has remained quite relatable. On one side, it's a lot of social commentary about religious fanaticism, alienation, adolescence, and bullying, while the rest is pure horrific fun.

While many will point to the high school cruelty or Carrie's eventual vengeance upon her classmates as the source of true terror in the book, we'd say there's nothing scarier than Margaret White, an unstable Fundamentalist who unceasingly punishes her daughter Carrie for her sins. Waiting to see how their conflict plays out is the best part of the book, as the real moments of cruelty take center stage amidst all the supernatural stuff. 

The 1976 movie from Brian De Palma, starring Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, is quite good, too.

Watch Carrie on Amazon 

IT

Well, here we are. Like the Losers Club, as much as we'd like to forget about Pennywise, we just can't. Sparking a pretty logical (let's face it) fear of clowns, IT is King's terrifying, gruesome, trashy, cosmic, demonic horror masterpiece that we still can't claw out of our minds so many years later. 

Not only does IT, a shape-shifting evil entity, prey on your worst fears, he also lives in the sewers and eats little children. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that IT has stalked the town of Derry, Maine (where nothing good...you get the picture) for centuries, waking up every 27 years to murder and eat everything. 

Related Article: 10 Best Stephen King Heroes

It's up to the Losers, a group of childhood friends, to confront the monster not once, but TWICE in order to finally rid the town of the ancient, otherworldly evil. Watching Pennywise haunt their memories throughout the book quickly becomes a guilty pleasure. Are we bad people?

The true power of this masterful novel is in the all-encompassing evil nature of the villain that we can't quite understand. It not only makes a group of kids desperately aware of their own mortality, but scars them for life in more ways than one. And for what purpose? We may never truly know. 

Watch IT (2017) and Stephen King, IT! (1990) on Amazon 

What are your top Stephen King horror novels? Tell us in the comments!

John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9. 

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Feature John Saavedra

Sep 3, 2019

Stephen King

Carrie

IT

Salem's Lot

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Vaccine wars: Social media battle outbreak of bogus claims

NEW YORK — Like health officials facing measles outbreaks, internet companies are trying to contain vaccine-related misinformation they have long helped spread. So far, their efforts at quarantine are falling short.

The digital scrapbooking site Pinterest — which has been a leading online repository of vaccine misinformation — in 2017 took the seemingly drastic step of blocking all searches for the term “vaccines,” affecting even legitimate searches for information. It was part of the company’s enforcement of a broader policy against health misinformation.

But it’s been a leaky quarantine. Recently, a search for “measles vaccine” still brought up, among other things, a post titled “Why We Said NO to the Measles Vaccine,” along with a sinister-looking illustration of a hand holding an enormous needle titled “Vaccine-nation: poisoning the population one shot at a time.” Search results for “vaccine safety” and “flu vaccine” can turn up posts with scientifically debunked information.

Facebook, meanwhile, said in March it will no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines — and that it will reject ads that do this. This appears to have filtered out some of the most blatant sources of vaccine misinformation, such as the website Naturalnews.com, which had regularly posted anti-vaccine propaganda and showed up high in Facebook searches about the topic.

But even after the changes, groups — such as one with 197 members and more than 10 posts a day seeking to “discuss the dangers of vaccination” was among the first results for a search on “vaccine safety.” A more generic “vaccine” search, meanwhile, turns up the verified profile of Dr. Christiane Northrup, a high-profile physician who’s outspoken about her misgivings about — and at times opposition to — vaccines. On Facebook’s Instagram, hashtags such as “vaccineskill” and accounts against vaccinating children are easily found with a simple search for “vaccines.”

In social media’s battle against misinformation, bogus claims about the dangers of vaccines are the next target. With some dangerous childhood diseases making a comeback due to lower vaccination rates, Facebook, Pinterest and others are trying to put the genie back in the bottle, even as they are hesitant to acknowledge responsibility for spreading falsehoods.

“There has been hesitancy about vaccines as long as vaccines have existed,” said Jeanine Guidry, professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies social media and vaccines. Such sentiment, dating back to the 1700s, was once confined to towns and local communities. Online, it dates back long before Facebook and Twitter. A 2002 study on Google search results found that 43% of the sites surfaced after searches for “vaccination” and “immunization” were anti-vax.

Still, experts in online misinformation say the impact of social networking and its unfiltered, algorithmically boosted dissemination of the most “engaging” posts — whether true or not — have fueled a much broader spread of anti-vaccination propaganda. Richard Carpiano, a professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies vaccine trends, said there is a “disproportionate” number of websites on the topic with misinformation, peddled by “anti-vax activists” and parent bloggers. Researchers have even found Russia-linked bots trying to sow discord by amplifying both sides of the vaccine debate.

“It’s completely understandable why parents would seek out this stuff,” he said. The problem is, they spend a lot more online than they do in a doctor’s office where they are much more likely to receive accurate information.

The bogus notion that vaccines cause autism — kicked off by a now disproven study from 1998 — didn’t start on social networks but it has certainly spread there. Health care officials and experts worry about the echo chambers of misinformation on social media that have become prevalent in the past decade and their role in pushing parents who are on the fence into the anti-vax camp.

While headlines in the past two years have largely focused on fake political news proliferating on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, large swaths of people (along with bots) are also sharing concerns and bogus “research” about the perceived dangers of vaccinating children.

Guidry said social media amplifies these conversations and makes it easier for people to have such conversations in echo chambers that can reinforce misinformation. Her research found that that Pinterest — popular with women — has been especially susceptible to vaccine falsehoods. Nearly 75% of vaccine-related “pins” (the visual posts on the service) were against immunization in her 2015 study, compared with roughly a quarter on Twitter (based on another study). While Pinterest has strengthened its systems against such posts since, Guidry notes that stuff still gets through the filters.

Misinformation on Facebook is more difficult to study since a lot of it isn’t public, especially when people post in hidden or secret groups — where much of the hoaxes and false claims are spread. In such groups, like-minded people congregate to share their views and receive support from their peers. Facebook’s new policies mean fewer people will find those groups, but the company is not going so far as banning them altogether.

Carpiano said it is difficult to study the actual impact social media has had on vaccine uptake, but “we do see decrease in coverage and rise in gaps of coverage,” as well as the clustering of vaccine-hesitant people. This, he said, has correlated with the rise of lots of different sources of information people now have at their fingertips. Despite high-profile outbreaks , overall vaccination rates remain high in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control. But the percentage of kids under 2 who haven’t received any vaccines is growing

Fake news about health and medicine often follows a similar trajectory as fake news about politics. Some of it is for financial gain, some is intended to wreak havoc in the public discourse, some is spread by people who might genuinely believe it. InfoWars, the conspiracy site run by Alex Jones, routinely pushes anti-vax agenda and stories of “forced inoculations,” even as it peddles bottles of “Survival Shield” iodine. Natural News, meanwhile, has built a business on unproven health claims and selling $29 jars of “organic apple peel powder.”

Carpiano noted that even with anti-vaccination activists getting a large share of the public’s attention, much more common are parents who are merely hesitant or concerned about immunization. Understandably, they seek out information — and a lot of what they find is false.

“It is a misinformation campaign,” he said. “Often couched in ‘oh we are for choice, understanding, education,”‘ he said. “But fundamentally it is not open to scientific debate.”

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