Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Lost Book Club - "The Langoliers" by Stephen King


Oh the Langoliers. (If my spellchecker keeps thinking I'm trying to spell gondoliers we are going to have problems.) Stephen King never ceases to amaze me with the weird things that he comes up with, even though he turns out books at an alarmingly fast pace.

Here's your summary:

There's a red eye flight leaving from Los Angeles to Boston. It's a plane basically like any other filled with an assortment of people going places for their own reasons.

One of the passengers wakes up and realizes that their companion is gone. Since she's ten years old and blind it doesn't take long for her to start panicking. She moves through the plane to try to find someone to help her, but the plane is oddly empty. Her panic wakes up the approximately 8 other people who are left in the plane. There's no trace of their missing co-fliers but there are things left behind. Suitcases and purses, watches and jewelry, but then more oddly: metal surgical parts, metal teeth filings, and a toupee.Perhaps most alarmingly they realize that both of the pilots are gone and the plane is on auto pilot. Since they are over the Rockies it's a bit alarming. Luckily one of the surviving passengers is a pilot, so that at least takes care of one pressing issue! Most of the passengers aren't that interesting except for the blind girl, the pilot, a British man with a shady past but with great leadership qualities and a man who is just crazy. He's important later. As they look out the windows they see no towns, no lights, no planes, nothing that gives any indication of life outside the plane. They have to land, because there isn't enough gas to just fly around forever but there isn't anything to calm their fears when they do land......

My only qualm was that I felt like there was at least 1 too many background characters for me to keep track and care about. A couple of the random people I kept getting confused. Maybe because so many of them were men? (Pointed look) It was kind of just a random, interesting book by Monsieur King, I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars!

It's also a movie, like a made for tv movie. The langoliers look like flying meatballs and they are not scary but it actually follows the book pretty close, so points for that!

What does this have to do with LOST? Scary plane troubles, yo!

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6 comments:

  1. I saw the made for TV and it was pretty strange...the creatures totally looked like meatballs! Haha!

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    1. They are the least scary looking thing that King has ever made up. Like, they're threatening because they're gobbling up time (or the past? or something?) but they basically make me just want garlic bread and some red wine.Ha!

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  2. Oh boy, I never read the book but I have hilarious memories of the TV movie. This actually makes me want to go back and watch it for the hilarity!

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    1. The movie looks ridiculous, but it's actually pretty close to the novella. (Which is also a little ridiculous but that's what makes it fun!)

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  3. Hmmm, I do enjoy a good Stephen King novel, or I did in my youth, but now I find him so wordy. Maybe one day.

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    1. He is pretty wordy. But this is just a novella so if you want to dip your toe back into the King madness at least it wouldn't be a whole book commitment!

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Thank you so much for your comment. I'd love to talk books with you!