UR

And so we finally come to this.

To be honest it wasn’t supposed to go like this; the review on the cards for tonight was Blockade Billy, a stunning novella by Stephen King, about baseball – one of the things he loves so.

However, by virtue of the fact that the title of this blog professes to contain the views of a so-called bastard of the cynical variety, it wouldn’t have been kosher, so to speak.

You see, this blog was originally started with the intention of bashing upon badly-made films and badly-programmed video games and (perhaps most cathartically) badly-written books. We’d have us a couple drinks (cold coffee, if you must know), lounge about in the living room, and make light of the things that piss us off.

The first two entries veered more towards the Oh-Look-Here’s-A-Lesser-Known-Jewel persuasion; and while that is not a bad thing for a blog to be, the readers (yes, someone did read the goddarn thing already – my shock exceeded yours. Honest) found the less-popular subject matter a bit too obscure for their liking.

And that brings us to tonight’s rant. For the novella I am about to bash (spoiler alert) is not too well known, either. But it is Shite. So we get to cut loose.

UR is a rather recent work of fiction by (hold your horses, folks) Stephen King. The same guy who gave us sublime horror and literary fiction and a most enlightening guide for the aspiring author called On Writing. UR was released as a promotional title for the Amazon Kindle, and was exclusive to that platform-and therein lies the crux of the matter.

You see, UR is nothing but a two-hundred-page-long love letter for the Amazon Kindle. The book meanders through a vague (or mediocre, if we follow the author’s lead and slap the word upon every page) account of an English teacher whose girl leaves him because he does not have an... Amazon Kindle. The book begins by him attempting to spite her by buying an... Amazon Kindle (which, incidentally, has to be the most mediocre way of spiting someone I’ve ever seen. Kinda like putting a horsehair brush in a jockey’s bed to send a message). The whole tale revolves around something that is off-kilter with his... Choice of Lifestyle. Oops, sorry folks, I meant his motherlovin’ AMAZON KINDLE.

Stephen King has already forayed into the realm of e-literature by releasing a story called Riding The Bullet as an eBook exclusive (it has since appeared in the collection Everything’s Eventual and is pretty darn awesome, all things considered). However, he noted with displeasure that people were more interested in his choice of medium than whatever it was he actually had to say.

I can’t say I don’t sympathize with him; writers need to take a firm stand regarding the treatment of their creative output. but UR is the literary equivalent of bending over and praying one doesn’t stay sore for too long afterwards. The lead character is shown to be a traditional Books-Belong-On-Paper sorta guy, but subsequent events bury his preferences under a torrent of Hemingway and Poe and a bunch of other guys, all of whom have undiscovered works in some phantom dimension that happens to be KINDLE-EXCLUSIVE.

A couple of moments were chilly- the take on world events in other worlds, for example-but one expects King’s work to be packed with such moments; any relevant message he might have had is buried under walk-on characters mouthing a single line about how THE KINDLE IS THE EARTHLY MANIFESTATION OF GOD and YES, YOU NEED TO USE A LITTLE LUBRICANT BEFORE THINGS GET GROOVEH (pardon the cringe-worthy metaphors but the picture that pops in my head is even more disturbing) before vanishing somewhere in the background –a Chinese sweatshop where they make Kindles for an angry population, most probably.

Anyway, apart from the blatant advertising spots, there were a couple more irksome things that I despised.

Firstly, why thrust supernatural creatures of judgement into an otherwise-sane story at the eleventh hour (Spoiler Alert)? The way they kept referring to the circular notion of things and the significance of the Tower were both sickening, to say the least. I mean, obviously your regular fanboys won’t really buy something so derivative; and those unaware of the Dark Tower mythos will only pick their noses and ponder for a brief moment before going back to reading their SPANKING NEW STEPHEN KING EXCLUSIVE on their AMAZON KINDLE.

Secondly, after everything has died down and the guy has finally disposed of his Kindle on grounds of sanity, what do you get? A picture of his girl in the local paper (Spoiler Alert!) And a pathetic desire to call her up right then. I mean, you take the one likable character in a crappy story (that's the english teacher's girl), build them up to the point where a satisfactory conclusion would do verra-well, thankee, and then abandon them with no sense of closure whatsoever.

The cumulative effect is that of banging your head on a wall, if the wall were a freight train and your head was, oh, I don’t know-THE AMAZON KINDLE?!?!

In conclusion: This is a crappy book that serves as a crappy advertisement for a device that was outdated the second it rolled off the conveyor belt. I read this whole novella on the Kindle app for Android (it has a 16-bit colour display and can-gasp!-access the internet and play music, among other things) and am now thankful I did not pay for it.

Seriously, though, if you’re looking for a mad old time, you could always print the story out on paper and then read it-a book about the Kindle read by a bunch of guys with no electronic assistance.

Way to be ironic, Danny boy; now pass the bottle of absinthe.

Meanwhile, I shall finally call it a day-thank you for reading this far. Do drop in from time to time, and pray keep your eyes open for Blockade Billy. He’ll probably make his appearance after my brain stops feeling as clunky and overheated as, say, an AMAZON KINDLE.

Peace.