Did you see The Outsider?
Or read it?
I saw the first episode on an HBO free weekend on TV.
And then grabbed the book to read it first.
I’m a huge Jason Bateman fan.
Even more so since OZARK on Netflix.
He produced The Outsider and directed some episodes, as well as starred in the first one.
I was thinking about Jake Burbank in A Pint of Problems and you know how the mind works.
It jumped to The Outsider.
I was thinking about one of the stories half finished for the Jake Burbank series, Death by a .45 and the brain did as the brain does moving from topic to topic.
Stephen King has a villain.
A trope, if you will.
A lot of his bad guys do bad things to children.
An instant reminder that evil exists.
What I like in that book are the layers.
The guy investigating Marty, the supposed villain, had a kid who played baseball on the team the bad guy coached.
A kid who committed suicide, and now the Dad spends all his time wondering if Marty is the reason why.
He’s supposed to be investigating him, but he’s torn on the inside.
I mean, it’s really brilliant, if you like Stephen King.
I do.
I’ve been a fan forever.
I don’t know that young teens should read THE STAND, but I can promise it shaped my world.
Made me always be ready in case I survive Captain Trips.
Maybe the most influential is THE TALISMAN, where a boy goes on a quest to save his mother from a monster, Cancer, and flips back and forth from one world to the one next to ours.
Quantum travel.
Against another kind of evil that hurts children.
I forget who said it, but never trust a man who doesn’t carry a book.
I’ve almost always had one.
First in the car, then in a backpack and now on my phone.
Always ready to grab a drink and grab a read and mind travel for an hour or so.
They say readers are leaders so that must put you in a special class.
No matter what genre you prefer.
Because when you read one thing, it may spark you to think of an alternative.
At the very least, it makes you more open to various possibilities.
Like sleeping creatures coming out of hibernations every hundred years or so to assume someone’s identity, commit a horrific crime and disappear again to slumber.
Leaving an innocent man to pay the price.
And people to wonder about the face of evil.
Though there are enough examples of that that we don’t really need fiction to remind us of them.
Maybe fiction is just a way we deal with the evil.
A way for us to process it, and explore solutions to it.
If there ever is one.
Evil finds a way.
It’s our job to learn how to fight it and fend it off.
Books are just one way of doing it, though books, by definition, are magic.
You look at scratches on a piece of tree pulp, and they form pictures or images in your mind.
I don’t know that any kind of evil can stand up to that kind of magic.
What are you fortifying your mind with this week?
You are subscribed to the free version of 9AM.
I hope you find some inspiration out there.
If you’d like to upgrade to the paid version, you’ll get access to exclusive content, including even more free books, excerpts and snippets. Your support is awesome.
Want to read my love of X Files and Midnight Run as a sci fi road comedy? MOON MEN is free.
I was also thinking about Eldridge Sample and one of his adventures called DEAD SHOT that got slotted up to go out this summer. You can grab a western adventure here just to get ready to cowboy up for JUDGED BY TWELVE I’ll send you free next week.
Plus
Go subscribe to YOUTUBE for a ton of free AUDIOBOOKS
For your weekend free reading:
Agent Zero (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #1
To Win a Throne: Epic Fantasy Box Set
Exile – a space opera thriller
The Eye Thief (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 1)
Ambushed by a Bloodthirsty Gang: A Historical Western Adventure Novel
Once to Die (The Other Side of Dead Book 1)
QUICK QUESTION
Well so much for that comment. I can just imagine what the thoughts will be on Star Wars. I personally do not read Steven Kings books. Not my cup of tea. But I enjoys reading very much. BTW Chris. I like how you think.