When I was in university, I wrote an article for my school paper on books that should be adapted into TV shows. One of the books I chose was Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events which, a few months later, was picked up by Netflix and became a wonderful adaption of a beloved book series. Am I psychic? Possibly. But it’s more probable that the entertainment industry had just started becoming aware of the potential of book to TV adaptions.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and you know what that means: Christmas trees, mulled wine, presents, and . . . ghost stories? If certain songs are to be believed, they’re an integral part of the celebration. But we don’t seem to engage in them much (save for certain classics). It’s a shame, considering ghost stories are actually perfect for the holiday season in their own weird way. Fortunately, if that’s the sort of thing that tickles your fancy—which, if you’ll give me a moment of your time, I think it might—there’s an easy way to jump right into the tradition with a healthy backlog.
I’ve grown up on Stephen King’s writing. It all started with a book report. As a lonely kid with no real friends at first, I felt pretty lost in life. I didn’t have a favorite band, never read a single issue of Tiger Beat, and fashion was a foreign language to me (I wore sweatshirts with kittens in hot air balloons on them until middle school). I can’t remember how old I was when my teacher assigned me my first book report, but I know I was young. Young enough that when I went to my mother’s bookshelf and grabbed a book at random, I didn’t know what I was in for. My mother loved to read horror and I distinctly remember her paperbacks from Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft. The book I had chosen to read and write up was Stephen King’s Thinner.
I got some interesting looks from my teacher that year.
I love. Love love. Love love love. Interactive entertainment. I love escape rooms, I love ARGs, I love crazy theatre experiments. It’s the closest you can get to safely living all your weird daydreams, and the more I see, the more I want.
That’s how I fell into following YouTuber Nick Nocturne. His Night Mind channel pieces apart everything from Wham City’s experimental Adult Swim vids to indie-created horror series — but his focus is absolutely on the latter.
I have some pretty strong feelings about this book, and I hate that they aren’t all positive. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, so let’s dive right in.