Skeleton Crew #6 – The Jaunt…

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13440Word count – 9, 900

The Jaunt is Stephen King with his sci-fi hat on, a genre which he dabbled in a lot more back in the first half of his career than he has done since, which is fine by me as even the hint of that stuff sometimes makes me groan.

The Jaunt is set hundreds of years in the future, in a world where teleporatation – or jaunting – is a thing. The story has echoes of The Fly in a mad-scientist-in-a-lab kind of way, but ultimately it swerves in a different (but still memorable) direction.

We are six stories in to this anthology and King is yet to deliver something below par. The sci-fi here is limited, and with a family at its core it feels more grounded as well… which helps me get over the potential hurdle that the genre often throws in front of me.

Recommended ⇑

Serious – Review…

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61KL-FncAOLWith the cancellation of Wimbledon this year there has been an absence of tennis in my summer schedule, but these biographies (along with the TV coverage culled from the archives) have helped fill the gap. After a healthy dose of Jimmy Connors in his own book last month I figured where better to go than to his nemesis John McEnroe, and his own book from 2002.

If you are coming to this biography expecting the wild bandanna-wearing loose cannon from his heyday in the early eighties, you may leave a little disappointed. Johnny Mac has chilled in his later years, and this is a reflective look at a more mellow character a decade removed from retirement. He’s aware of his faults (pun intended), and he knows the tantrum-throwing and the racquet-hurling is a large part of his schtick, and why audiences have stuck around with him for so long, and he although he doesn’t excuse his actions, he does at least attempt to explain where he was coming from.

But, histrionics aside, John McEnroe is one of the greatest players the sport has ever known. In 1984 (inarguably the best year of his career) he played 85 matches and lost only 3, which is still the best winning percentage any player has ever had.

He spends some time discussing his sometimes brutal marriage to actress Tatum O’Neal, as well as his even more brutal loss to Ivan Lendl in the final of the French Open in 1984. One thing he shares with Connors is his outright admiration for Bjorn Borg whose retirement from the game in 1981 at the age of just 26 opened the door for McEnroe to become the guy that all the others were chasing. We should all wonder how the tennis scene would have developed in the eighties had the Swede continued.

Give this one a look if you want to check out the life and career of someone who many describe as the first true genius of the tennis court.

Skeleton Crew #5 – Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut…

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13440Word count – 11,400

Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut hangs on the familiar King format of using a minor character to narrate the tale. King is particularly good at this, and he often manages to add a little spice into the story that otherwise would not be possible. This attempt is no different.

Mrs. Todd likes to drive, but more than that she likes to find the quickest route to wherever she is going. It’s fun listening to how she manages to shave miles off each of her journeys by taking different roads, and the fact that it doesn’t really go the way I had expected doesn’t matter.

Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut is a good tale, but unfortunately it’s not as well done as I had hoped. The premise is fun and interesting, but the execution is a little long-winded for my liking, and it nearly outstays its welcome. If some of the detail here was trimmed I think King may have had a story that stays with you more.

Recommended ⇑

What I’ve Done This Month #June…

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It took a long time, but I finally finished printing out all my stories in May. There are a few stragglers – a couple of drafts that for whatever reason I don’t have saved on my laptop, and anything I wrote before I was thirteen or so. But everything is there that should be…

…including all the mistakes I have made over the years. The poor grammar, the missing apostrophes, and my god the flowery language. If there was an opportunity for me to say something in three words you can be assured that I chose to say it in thirty.

The funny thing is that I distinctly remember thinking the more convoluted I could make a sentence, the better a writer I was. The density of the prose is what makes a story sing, right?

It took me a while to get out of that habit – years, probably. Sometimes I catch myself circling that literary drain again and I’m reminded of that teenage writer who thought there was nothing better than the flourish of his own pen.

I was going to take a few examples and slot them in here so you could see what I’m talking about, but once it’s out there online, I can’t take that shit back. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Now I just have to organise what I’ve written, and I can concentrate on the new stuff.

Bored With Board Games…?

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The imposed lockdown that most of us have had to endure has been a curious part of 2020. It has encouraged people (and sometimes forced them) to leave their comfort zones and to think outside the box for a while. I mentioned before that I have sat down in front of many a jigsaw over the last few months, but as a family we have also been playing more games during our extended time at home.

Recently I have been playing a lot of the strategy board game Ticket to Ride (although the version I am playing is on the Playstation 4). It’s a game I didn’t even know about until The Fianceé© introduced me to it earlier this year. It’s all about trains and connecting destinations across the country (or, in some cases, continent)… but it’s really much more fun and involving than I have made it sound there.

The original version uses the USA template, but the guys over at Days of Wonder soon realised the potential and have since spewed out a bunch of different expansions and stand-alone sets – from France to Japan and a lot of places in between. There’s a UK edition, but there’s no Scotland specific map…

…so I got it into my head that I should make my own.

And just because I was in that frame of mind, a couple of days ago I decided that I could reinvigorate the classic game of Monopoly a little by renaming the properties on the board, and writing my own (better) ‘Chance’ and ‘Community Chest’ cards, so that the whole experience feels more personal.

Both of these are currently works-in-progress, so I’d better get back to it before my furlough finishes.

The Outsider – Review…

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51qwZb3c42L._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_I recently finished reading Jimmy Connors’ autobiography, The Outsider, published in 2013. It was a great insight into a fiery and fascinating character – truly one of the biggest names in tennis in the seventies and eighties.

I started watching the sport when his career was winding down, but I still caught a lot of his matches before he hung up the sneakers for good. Even as a kid who had never picked up a racket at that time, I understood his passion for the game and I admired his full-throated desire to win at all costs. Like him or not, he really was an inspirational player.

True to his image Connors had a lot to say about a lot of people – from his ill-fated relationship with Chris Evert, to his respect for Bjorn Borg. Apart from some light-hearted jabs there was little vitriol – even for John McEnroe, a player he famously butted heads with constantly throughout their professional playing careers. There is also a heartfelt chapter towards the end about his friend and fellow player Vitas Gerulaitis, who tragically died at the too-young age of forty.

Even now, Connors has much love for the game, but what really comes across in his words is how close he was to both his mother and grandmother, both of whom had passed on when this biography was written.

I don’t read many biographies, but this is well-worth a read if you enjoy the sport, and if you appreciate the insight of someone who was at the top of the mountain for longer than most.

Skeleton Crew #4 – Cain Rose Up…

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13440Word count – 1,900

Cain Rose Up is a very brief story about a school shooting, written in the late sixties – before school shootings, unfortunately, became far too commonplace in the real world. This would likely be a controversial story in these sensitive times, and King (who has mellowed somewhat in recent years) probably wouldn’t write this in 2020.

Curt is a troubled college student who decides to snipe his way out of his funk from his dorm room… and that’s all there is to it. As short as this piece is, I certainly can’t say that that it outstays its welcome.

Cain Rose Up is very brutal in its stripped-down nature. It doesn’t pull any punches, and it wouldn’t be any better if it did. You don’t get a happy ending here, and that is why it works.

Recommended ⇑

Perhaps I ought to chalk it…

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Willie-Thorne-dead-How-did-Willie-Thorne-die-1296963Today would have been my grandad’s 91st birthday. Like a lot of guys of his generation, he didn’t like to celebrate it, but now that he is gone it’s a day I always recognise, and I try to take the time to remember the good times that we shared.

Today is also the day that snooker legend Willie Thorne died. He was 66 years old.

It’s not a name that will mean anything to a lot of people but as a long-time snooker fan, I found myself very saddened by his departure this morning. I am old enough to have watched him while he was still an active player, but too young to have seen him in his heyday. Coincidentally, snooker was a sport that I always enjoyed watching with my grandad. In fact, Willie Thorne was one of his favourites.

Willie Thorne honed his craft in the eighties – in an era when snooker was exploding in the mainstream, and there were a lot of larger-than-life personalities in the game, from Jimmy White to Dennis Taylor to Alex Higgins, and many others. Chas & Dave even reached the UK Top Ten with their song, Snooker Loopy in 1986 – that’s how big the game was in those days.

Although he would not be in the conversation as one of the sport’s all-time greats, with his polished head and thick moustache Willie Thorne was certainly one of snooker’s biggest and most recognisable characters, and he will surely be missed.

Now old Willie Thorne, his hair’s all gone, and his mates all take the rise
His opponent said, “cover up his head cos it’s shining in my eyes”
When the light shines down, on his bare crown
It’s a cert he’s gonna walk it
It’s just not fair, giving off that glare
“Perhaps I ought to chalk it”

Skeleton Crew #3 – The Monkey…

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13440Word count – 15,000

The Monkey is a fairly chunky short story about one of those old spooky looking mechanical monkeys with the cymbals, and how this particular one has a tendency to reappear in protagonist Hal’s life.

The Monkey is a basic horror story that has been stretched almost to the point where it is in danger of really losing me. I think King could have excised half of the words here and been left with a better story as a result.

Having said that, ultimately there is something worthwhile reading in here. I just wish that there was a little less fat in between all the good stuff. I’m just out of the blocks, but this the weakest entry I have read in Skeleton Crew thus far.

Recommended ⇑

The Last Dance – Review…

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I don’t get to play it or watch it these days, but I have always appreciated basketball, and the skill and energy that the game takes to play at the highest level.

For a couple of years, I played for my school as a teenager in Sydney. We were pretty good. I played centre, and was usually the leading scorer on the team. I enjoyed it immensely, but I never took it any further than that.

A few years later – as the Dream Team were taking the Barcelona Olympics by storm in 1992 – I got into watching the NBA on TV. For whatever reason, I gravitated towards the Utah Jazz, and my favourite player was their power forward, Karl Malone. But as the nineties tailed off, so too did my interest in following the sport in any depth.

Recently I watched The Last Dance on Netflix, a ten part documentary focusing on the 1997/98 NBA season of the Chicago Bulls. It tickled my nostalgia bone and reminded me why the game is so exciting to watch, especially when Michael Jordan has his hands on the ball.

Because as much as the documentary is about the whole cast of characters, it’s really primarily about Jordan’s rise to fame in the eighties and subsequent ascent to super stardom in the nineties. And there’s nothing wrong with that – the guy had a charmed career.

The narrative flips back and forth through Jordan’s timeline and intersperses it with features about the other important characters in the story – Pippin, Rodman, and coach Phil Jackson, amongst others. And it’s all done with great aplomb too.

So if you want a trip down memory lane, and go back to watch the circumstances surrounding the Bulls’ ‘repeat threepeat’, this is really as good as it gets. For fans of the sport, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And even if you don’t like basketball, it’s still an interesting watch, if only to appreciate the genius, determination, and dedication of one of the greatest sportsmen the world has ever seen.