Blaze by Bachman

I am definitely in "Stephen King" mode right now, and I just finished Blaze, which is another Bachman book. It was originally written in 1973, but was only published in '07, with some minor updating. I do think it's interesting the way the timeline was weaseled...for example, King says in the into he didn't want to do a rewrite to include things like cell phones, so set it "in the recent past." So there are some post 1973 references (like to Regan as president) but none to modern devices like cell phones, or even PC's and microwaves.

I'd have to say this wasn't one of my favorite King books. I wonder if it's part of the "Bachman" style to have flawed characters that you can't really like. This is my third. Thinner had a distinct Stephen King air, but the character was not likeable. He can't take any blame, and in the end plans to kill his wife to save himself. The Running Man, as I just mentioned in the last post, featured a character who killed a number of innocent people. In some respect, you want to root for these guys, so that everything turns out OK...but they are not good people, and their own flaws make things worse.

Blaze is like that. He's simpleminded, so it's hard to hate him, and you can see that he's pliable, easily thrown into a life of crime, but that does not in any way absolve his actions, including several killings. His back story makes it sad, because it reveals how he wasn't a bad person, and with the right direction things could have been different. But this is Stephen King. You see downward spiral, and know where it will end...and in no way does this take away fom the story!

One minor note. 1973 was even before Carrie. King was only 26, two years younger than I am now, and he was already more polished than I could ever dream of being.