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TechnoTV - Blaze: A Novel
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $7.30
Your Save: $ 17.65 ( 71% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Audio
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743572705
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 074357270X
Label: Simon & Schuster Audio
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Audio
Number Of Items: 7
Publication Date: 2008-01-22
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Studio: Simon & Schuster Audio
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Would be a good movie
Comment: I do not usually like Stephen King, but I liked this novel. It is not drawn out and overly descriptive like some of his other novels I have attempted to read. This book is about a badly abused, slightly mentally damaged man just trying to make a life. Sadly, he does not go about it the right way and kidnaps a baby in hopes of gaining a million dollars, but he proves to be an incredibly lovable character, growing more so as you get a look into his childhood. I could have done without the dead guy, George, always speaking to him. I feel the story would have been better without that little annoying addition. The ending was predictable. The reader has it figured out about halfway thru. In conclusion, this novel is a quick, easy, entertaining read that has you sympathizing with the bad guy for a change, and would make a pretty good, tho predictable movie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's not wrong to want the bad guy to win!
Comment: You know how, when you meet an exceptional person, you feel honored to have been able to know them? You feel that you were lucky to have known them, to have been able to glimpse their life, to have been a part of it. Well, that is how I feel about Blaze. I feel honored to have known him for such a short time. I feel I was entrusted with the secrets of his past and his innermost thoughts, feelings, and fears.
Richard Bachman is one of Stephen King's alter-ego's I guess you could say. The story of Clayton Blaisdell Jr. (aka Blaze) was almost never published. The foreword of the book is by Stephen King himself, and it tells of how the manuscript had been sitting in a box since the 70's. King would take it out on occasion, read it, and deem it worthless. Finally, he took it out, read it, and thought it was a pretty good story. I, for one, am glad he published this book.
The very first page of the book is a small excerpt from the story. It introduces you to Blaze. Actually, it is not as much about Blaze as it is about another kid, but it gives you a glimpse of the voyage you are about to embark on. After this small paragraph are the title page, copyright page, dedications, and foreword. Then, the real story begins...
The story is about Blaze, a simple-minded giant of a man with a heart bigger than thought capability. Blaze was not always this "dumb," this was a gift from his drunken, abusive father. Blaze was never the leader in a group. He was never the thinker. He ran cons with guys who were smarter than him. However, when his friend George gets himself killed in a betting game, Blaze is left to think on his own. He decides to continue with George's "one big con, and then out" scheme. He kidnaps the 6-month old baby of an extremely wealthy family. The idea is to get a large ransom for the child and then he can retire.
The book jumps from Blaze's childhood to the present situation. As you are reading about his plans to kidnap the baby, you are learning how he came to this point.
I could not help but feel compassion for this big bear of a man. I found myself angry at the way he was treated by the adults in his life as he was growing up. I wanted this man to succeed. I knew throughout the book that kidnapping a baby was wrong, and I knew he would have to be caught...it would have to end. But I could not help wanting him to do well, to be okay.
Blaze was an amazing person (character). Again, I feel lucky to have accompanied him on his journey, however miserable it may have been.
There is a story at the end of this book. It is a glimpse of the next Stephen King book that will be published in 2008. I am choosing not to read this story. I do not want anything to take away from Blaze right now. I want to continue feeling close to him for the moment.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stephen Kings does of Mice and Men
Comment: Really reminds me of Mice and Men. I enjoyed it. Not the best book ever or the worst but was a good read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: BLAZE IS GOOD!
Comment: Blaze was written in the early part of King's career but never published. He dusted it off and released it--and we should be glad. It's top notch; the characters are great and the story is touching, a bit like Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men actually.
So you know, Blaze doesn't read like the first five Bachman books--with a flat mean tone. The writing style is more like Skeleton Crew or Misery; the sentence structure flows smoothly and the story breathes a bit. The story is not horror, nor is it as soft as Hearts in Atlantis or the Green Mile. It sits in the middle somewhere. This is not a bad thing, just saying. It is also a fast-paced read, for those of you that like the story to zip along. I know I do.
If king lost you along the way somewhere, this one could bring you back to the fold.
James Roy Daley, author of The Dead Parade
The Dead Parade
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Trunk Novel, Through and Through
Comment: Stephen King had kept this work in a drawer since the 1970s or so, and recently decided to dust it off and release it, as sort of a "film noir" style work. King himself refers to this work as a "trunk novel", one of those books he tossed in a trunk for years and years before bothering or deciding to publish it. Hint: if an author takes the time and effort to write a book, if they're not publishing it, there's usually a reason.
Blaze isn't a bad book. The characters are pretty well developed, and the plot isn't bad. If nearly anyone OTHER than Stephen King had written this, it would have been a solid effort.
That said, it wasn't someone other than Stephen King. It WAS Stephen King. And, while he was much younger when he completed this-- this was years before Carrie, The Shining, or any of the other works that would make him famous-- it still isn't up to the quality or the standards one would expect from a King novel. It's not paranormal, or even hypernormal, like Dolores Claiborne, Cujo, or Gerald's Game. There are no vampires, mummies, or the Holy Ghost. The characters don't say especially witty things, and while it takes place in Maine, don't expect to recognize many characters... there are scant references to The Rock, but this is a seperate work. What this is, in the end, is a midline work on a petty con. If you like King and want to read it, try to pretend he didn't write it. If you don't like King, and like the sort of crime books you pick up five minutes before your plane takes off, this might be the work for you. It's solid, but just not enough.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The last of the Richard Bachman novels, recently recovered and published for the first time. Stephen King's "dark half" may have saved the best for last. A fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze in 1973 on an Olivetti typewriter, then turned the machine over to Stephen King, who used it to write Carrie. Bachman died in 1985 ("cancer of the pseudonym"), but in late 2006 King found the original typescript of Blaze among his papers at the University of Maine's Fogler Library ("How did this get here?!"), and decided that with a little revision it ought to be published. Blaze is the story of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. -- of the crimes committed against him and the crimes he commits, including his last, the kidnapping of a baby heir worth millions. Blaze has been a slow thinker since childhood, when his father threw him down the stairs -- and then threw him down again. After escaping an abusive institution for boys when he was a teenager, Blaze hooks up with George, a seasoned criminal who thinks he has all the answers. But then George is killed, and Blaze, though haunted by his partner, is on his own. He becomes one of the most sympathetic criminals in all of literature. This is a crime story of surprising strength and sadness, with a suspenseful current sustained by the classic workings of fate and character -- as taut and riveting as Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
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