Rage

I really enjoyed Rage because of its first-person clutter-free perspective. This Stephen King outing as Richard Bachman works because he writes with more abandon and in a looser style.

Some of the hard language and controversial ideas are surprising and its refreshing to read Stephen King in this way instead of his more conservative brand of commercial horror.

Rage has gained infamy because of the school shooter material and the subsequent decision by Stephen King to pull it from mainstream publication. Try finding a modern copy on Amazon, for example - good luck with that!

I chose to read this as part of the sequential Stephen King reading marathon on Horror or Heaven.

Naturally, the subject material causes debate about the morals of glorifying a sensitive subject for commercial benefit, hence Stephen King's distance, but if you care to read the book it does not glorify the matter.

I was expecting a rampant siege scenario in the vein of a Tom Clancy thriller, perhaps, including AK-47 firefights between police, troops and antagonists, rampaging from classroom to classroom gunning down dozens on the way.

It's not like that.

It's more understated and subtle. There's plenty of reflection and narrative offshoots into stories about student experiences as Stephen King does his character development thing instead of veering into action-packed gun-blazing mayhem.

Funnily enough, it's the slow-paced reflective narrative that drops this down to a four-star read from the dizzy stellar heights, as the moralizing sometimes gets stiff and conservative.

You don't need to worry about Rage going too far.

Better than expected but not quite the elephant in the room history has made it out to be.