Mario the lone bookwolf's Reviews > The Outsider

Don´t be too kind to strangers

Because they might be even more inhuman than your parents told you
The creep factor of The Outsider is big, because he starts as a normal killer and escalates towards an old evil being in the Pennywise, big cosmic horror style. That´s what makes it different than the other, mostly crime thriller works King likes to write nowadays, because

The superior evil feels much more like his old, big monsters
One can have different, subjective opinions about King´s writing periods, but I just like the old school, slowly escalating horror, with the paranormality level rising parallel to the plot complexity and speed, much more than the modern stuff. Because, if you

Take away the antagonist, you have a good thriller
But no horror novel. That´s what I´m missing so much in most of the new King works, the combination of the protagonists and the Chekhovs, plots, and MacGuffins united into one big, great, haunting thing. The characters of The Outsider aren´t as integrated into the plot as the characters of King´s older works, but at least he

Again integrated some in universe fun
But the idea of Ka from the Dark Tower series and Holly from the Bill Hodges Trilogy can´t compensate for the fact that King keeps experimenting with writing in a completely different tone than he used to over most of his career. Strangely, his novellas and short story collections keep living up to the old standards, but his newer novels are just so different, and thereby not that good, that I probably wouldn´t have continued reading them if I wouldn´t have already known his amazing, classic masterpieces. The

Old classics also were a perfect circle
Following the time proofed storytelling rules. Here one has this frustrating feeling that King didn´t invest that much time, energy, and black lifeblood to get as much out of it as possible. Maybe he should collect the time it takes him to write 2 or 3 average novels to create one more big milestone to add to his amazing legacy, integrating all the in universe complexity Marvel style, and once again showing who is King God Emperor or horror.

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