Stephen King – Page 2 – The View From Sari's World

Dear Barnes and Noble,

My name is Sari Nichols. I’ve been a Barnes and Noble card member since 2004. Since then I’ve received countless announcement e-mails from you. Your company is really good about announcing book sales and alerting members about new releases. Hell, I have to endure Barnes and Noble ads while surfing the web, because I buy books from you. Everywhere I look, there you are; hoping to entice me to buy yet another book. And yet, despite the fact that I buy Stephen King books from your company, you failed to alert me and every other loyal card member about how you were going to handle the hosting of the Stephen King book tour; the first in many long years. You didn’t think this was worthy of even one lousy e-mail notification? It’s STEPHEN KING, for god sake! In case you didn’t know it, he is considered a literary giant among those who he loving dubs his “Constant readers” and these people are legion.

When the tour was announced early this year, I scanned your website to see how one would go about getting tickets to hear him speak. In fact, I checked it for months. Shockingly there was no mention of his tour. In fact the only reason I knew about it is because I follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Could you have a least put a notice somewhere on your website? Did you know, according to his on-line biography, Stephen King has sold over 350 million copies of his books? Would it have hurt you to announce how you would choose the lucky ones? Because, as it turns out, scoring tickets to see King hinged on two things; knowing which Barnes and Noble Facebook to look at and on which day.

To be fair, maybe it was not up to you how the lottery would go down. Perhaps it was up to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, but as a partner in the tour and as the host, the least you could have done was alert your loyal Stephen King buy book members on how to watch for the official announcement.

As it so happened, customers had to read their local Barnes and Noble Facebook page on a particular day, as there was only one brief announcement. The posting directed those wishing to see King to e-mail their local B&N on a certain day between certain hours. You couldn’t have just announced up front that you would be doing this?? Jesus, you’d think you were hosting Edward Snowden, freshly smuggled back into America to give a talk on spying.

So as you can guess from the tone of this letter, I missed the announcement. I found out the day after customers were to e-mail you. My son’s fiancé posted that she scored two tickets on Facebook. See, I follow her on Facebook because I know her. I had no idea Reno’s B&N even had a separate Facebook account! How many does your company need??

Now, here is where my rant really begins, here is where you’ve lost me as a customer. I am not so much upset that I didn’t get to see King speak, I am upset by what happened next and how Reno’s B&N handled the event.

Once I found out about the cloak and dagger approach to seeing King live, I called my local B&N in the hopes that a last minute e-mail was possible; that as a loyal card member I might have the opportunity to see him if Reno did not receive an overwhelming number of e-mails (which it turns out they did not). I was told in no certain terms would a last minute e-mail be accepted, and under no certain terms would I be able to see King live (which turned out to be lie).

I don’t fault the young man who answered my phone call. I am going to assume he was passing on the information he was given. And at the time, this may have been the plan. That only those who e-mailed on the day of instruction and prepaid for a signed book would see King live. And when I called a couple of weeks ago to see if there was even a small chance, I was told no. Again, only those who prepaid would be get to see King live. Keep this in mind as you read further. I was told there was no chance to see him.

So imagine my surprise, when I received a text message from my son on the day of the event that read, “Hey mom, if you can get over here, B&N are allowing the shoppers to stay to see King”. WHAT??

As it turns out, on Saturday, as instructed those with e-mail conformations lined up at 8AM in order to get their wristbands and signed books. These King fans waited in line for two hours for the doors to be open to them. But then, after they got in, weekend shoppers, who had no idea Stephen King would be speaking, were allowed in. Worse, they were allowed to stay, even though callers (turns out, I was not the only one) were told that this would not be possible.

Now understand, if I lived in Reno I would have jumped in my car and headed over as quickly as the speed limit would’ve allowed. But unfortunately for me, Carson City is my hometown and with summer road construction getting there in time would have been impossible.

So thanks to Reno’s B&N decision to tell callers there was no chance to see King without an e-mail conformation, yet allow just anyone into the store that day, I twice missed a chance to see my favorite modern fiction writer. Thanks, B&N, thanks for nothing.

Well, I got something out of it. My son gave me his signed copy of “The End of the Watch”. A fitting title as this is the end of my loyalty to your company.

Sincerely,

Sari Nichols,
Ex- card member of B&N

Have you ever awoken feeling a little shook up, or out of sorts because of a bad dream, one you can’t quite remember? I’m sure you have. You try to recall the details if only to sort out why it bothered you, why this particular dream…

If you started a book in 2015, but finished it in 2016, does it count as your first read of the new year? Let’s assume yes, only so that my yearly review is once again a Stephen King book. Last night I finished, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, a collection of short stories, some previously published, one redone, and one expanded.

After finishing the book, I turned on HBO-Go, hoping to finish the night with a laugh, when I noticed that they finally brought back season one of True Detective. I’ve longed wanted to watch this ever since I caught a partial viewing of one of the last episodes, one that had me curiously riveted. I am only one episode in, so no spoilers please.

In one scene, Matthew McConaughey’s character says something deeply profound about the state of the town he has just moved it. He looks around the parking lot of a grown over boarded-up strip mall, outwardly dejected by what he sees. The mall’s condition is a metaphor on his feelings towards his new surroundings; “This town looks like someone’s memory of an American town, but the memory is fading”.

This quote struck me in many different ways and could be applied to many different ideas, most being political in nature, yet, as I started to write my review, I found that it also applied to King’s latest offering. Substitute the word “memory” for “dream” and you may get a feel for this book.

Have you ever awoken feeling a little shook up, or out of sorts because of a bad dream, one you can’t quite remember? I’m sure you have. You try to recall the details if only to sort out why it bothered you, why this particular dream…

King writes an introduction to each story, telling his constant readers how and why he came up with this particular story idea. I found these tidbits often more entertaining than the actual stories they produced. For me, these stories /dreams felt one-dimensional and wispy around the edges, as if they were fading or had never been fully formed to begin with.

King has always been a favorite of mine (long time readers know of my young adult obsession) because he magically creates well-rounded characters from which deep wells of emotions can be drawn from, even if their lives are only found in a few pages. This time the well turned out to be dry.

This first story, Mile 81, is the only exception, but having been previously published as a Kindle offering, long time readers are left with a collection of stories involving stories that don’t quite work, either they end poorly as with Ur or would have worked if they were longer as with Bad Little Kid and The Dune.

King’s constant readers may find pleasure in a few of these stories, Afterlife, the story of a recently deceased man who finds himself in an office and with a choice, is classic King, but most of others may disappoint. There is no running theme in this collection, other than to say they are a look into the dark side of life, but we expect that from King anyway.

These stories are King’s idea of bad dreams; perhaps they don’t work because he usually offers us up nightmares. These we hold on to, these don’t always fade with time. We constant readers cannot get Quitter’s Inc. or Stand by me out of our minds. The memory of these older stories are what keeps us up at night or have us thinking and talking about long after they end.

King says of this collection, “The best of them have teeth”. I wish that this was true, but the best of them do little more than nip at your brain. One or two may have you thinking, but not for long. The memory of the discomfort leaves you as swiftly as it arrived, leaving you wondering if you were truly uncomfortable in the first place. I’d gladly trade these bad dreams of Kings for his nightmares.

If you feel the way I do, I’d skip this book. If you need a King fix, go back and revisit Night Shift or Skeleton Crew, the best of these stories have fangs.

Tag: Stephen King

Dear Barns & Noble, this is how you treat your loyal customers?

King’s Bazaar of Bad Dreams, more like a nap of fleeting thoughts

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