As many of you already know, I have been a fan of The X-Files since I was in college twenty-some years ago and I was one of many who excitedly watched when the series first premiered. I was heartbroken when the series concluded, and then ecstatic when the series returned for six episodes earlier this year after almost fifteen years since an original episode was filmed, and eight years since the last film. Suffice it to say that THERE BETTER BE MORE episodes.

I decided to give Gillian Anderson's EarthEnd Saga trilogy a try, especially since her voice is so distinct and frankly, I wanted to extend the series just a little bit more. I was expecting something that was a little X-File-ish, with a brainy twist, and that's exactly what I got. I'm not certain how much of this story is hers, or her co-author, but I'm going with the thought that Anderson had the concept, the idea, and the story is all hers, and Jeff Rovin helped her map it out and clean it up. That works for me.

I won't lie that I was a little surprised that the story was as interesting as it was. When a famous child psychologist is asked to help the young daughter of India's Ambassador to the UN, who begins to start speaking in tongues, I was immediately drawn in. Caitlin O'Hara does everything she can for Maanik, but it soon becomes evident that there is a larger crisis, one that connects people from all around the world in life-threatening situations. Caitlin has to track down the link, leaving her son behind with her father to find out what's happening. Caitlin was a character that I respected and liked, but it was her relationship to her hearing-challenged son that won it over for me. I loved how Anderson voiced Caitlin, and the description of the signing communication between them both was so very sweet and full of heart. There was something special there that extended beyond the actual story.

This was a good story, an adventure with a twisty road full of otherworldly moments and goosebump-inducing scenes. I'm looking forward to the second installment in the saga, and especially the audio version.

To listen to a sample of the audiobook, please click here.

FTC Disclosure: I downloaded this book through my membership at Audible.com 

About the Author and Narrator

Gillian Anderson is an American actress, most notably for her work in The X-Files, Hannibal, The Fall, and one of my favorites, the film adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. 

Jeff Rovin is an American magazine editor and freelance writer who has been on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has co-authored and authored more than twenty books.

I just finished Nick Cutter's The Troop and... and... I...

Without a doubt, this is probably the most stomach-churning, disturbing, and yet totally fascinating story I've read in a while. Even more so because each tough scene was spoken by the very creepy and capable Corey Brill, who was a new-to-me narrator.

Scoutmaster Tim takes five boys every year to a Canadian island to practice survival and wilderness skills, and each time Max, Newt, Shelley, Ephraim and Kent continue their friendship and build memories to last a lifetime. They didn't realize that on this very boat ride to the island, it would be the last one they would all take. Someone, or maybe something, else will be on the island that will change all of their lives.

Told in alternating time periods when the boys first arrived on the island with interviews and articles taken and written after the events on Falstaff Island, The Troop is a horror-filled tale of total and systemic destruction of life, sanity and friendships. When a skinny yet terrifyingly hungry man arrives on the secluded island, Scoutmaster Tim does his best to help the stranger, using his medical skills to treat his unusual patient. He doesn't realize that he's unleashed a disease, a contagious sickness so debilitating that it quickly reduces a person to one very simple, primal urge. Unbeknownst to them, this quiet and thin newcomer carried a man-made weapon that could destroy them all.

This is Lord of the Flies on crack, the even more disturbing and disgusting version. Even Stephen King blurbed, "The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn't put it down. This is old-school horror at its best. Not for the faint-hearted, but for the rest of us sick puppies, it's a perfect gift for a winter night." And he's right. This was horror, through and through, and like the cliched "can't look away from the accident" feeling, I could not stop hitting the play button on my iPhone every chance I got, even though the majority of the story made me cringe and cock my head to try to half-hear some of the truly tough scenes of simplistic annihilation of this sickness. In a lot of ways, this also reminded me of The Ruins, by Scott Smith, particularly one scene that I still remember and which also immediately jumped into my mind when Ephraim was left alone with Shelley, the psychopathic of the group. My heart hurt for them all. (Well, all of them except Shelley.)

This was my first time listening to Corey Brill and it won't be my last. While it took me about twenty minutes or so to get used to the staccato like rhythm of his cadenced narration in some parts, I got used to it and thoroughly enjoyed the story told in his voice. I'll likely pick up The Deep in audio soon to carry on with the horror.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this audiobook through my Audible.com membership. Click here to listen to the sample.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Release Date: 02/25/14
Audio Time: 11 hours, 2 minutes
Narrator: Corey Brill

About the Author
Nick Cutter is the pseudonym of an acclaimed Canadian novelist who has been compared to Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk.

Visit the author:

• On Facebook
• On Twitter

About the Narrator
Corey Brill is a theatre, television and film actor living in Los Angeles. He's got so much to his background that I'd suggest you visit him:

• On his website
• On Facebook
• On Twitter

I usually don't like listening to an author narrate their own work. In my opinion, they are too close to it and someone else is better able to bring the story to life in a way that the author never could. Or, sometimes authors don't have the right voice for audio, and the story ends up being something I just don't like listening to. Even if the reviews of a Stephen King-narrated book are over the moon about it, I still pick something else; I'll be honest that I was never fair about this assumption.

But recently I listened to On Writing and Stephen King surprised me with how honest his voice was, carrying his work to my ears in a way I wasn't expecting. It held my attention and I enjoyed the time I spent listening. So when I realized I downloaded Bag of Bones, I wasn't as apprehensive as I thought I would be.

This story seemed so close and personal (it's also mentioned frequently in On Writing, mostly because it was written/published at the same time). This is a true ghost story from Stephen King and there are elements that will linger with you and just might make you look a few times over your shoulder late at night. Writer Mike Noonan loses his wife suddenly and in his resulting sense of loss, he uncovers she was working on something much more mysterious than his best-selling novels. When he dives into her unfinished investigation, Mike is drawn into something quite unforgivable and disturbing, and, as only good husband-wife teams go, he has to finish what she started. A generational secret is exposed in a quiet town through a web of characters that are never boring and the life of a child is at stake. Readers sometimes complain with some of Stephen King's longer novels that, "it really could have been shorter," or, "too much!" But with this one, it met the mark on every level for me and wasn't too long, too short, or too wordy. It was a story that needed to be told, something that would be worth your time. Typical King has you walking through a story that is full of characters with essential and wild back stories that are all connected, and Bag of Bones is no different. It's a wild ride of creepiness, villains of the most disturbing kind, racism, music, and the noble urge to do something incredibly right after such a tragic wrong. This is good stuff. Stephen King knocks it out of the park and I will never worry about grabbing an author-narrated book again if it's him.

Did you know Pierce Brosnan starred in a two part mini-series? It's on Netflix. I'll have to watch that soon.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this audiobook through my Audible.com membership. Click here to listen to the sample.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Release Date: 05/23/00

Audio Time: 21 hours, 21 minutes

Narrator: Stephen King

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know? So here you go, click here to visit this cool author's official website.

Clearly this is a Stephen King month of books for me. With Mr. Mercedes a couple of weeks ago, On Writing now, and Bag of Bones queued up on my iPhone for my daily drive to the Mayo Clinic to receive radiation targeted at that son-of-a-bitch breast cancer's random floating cell, I'm assured that the reading slump I experienced a while ago is barely visible in the rearview mirror.

On Writing makes me nervous to write this review, though. It also makes me want to go back through anything I've ever put together and EDIT. I've learned a lot listening to King narrate his book, and the most important thing is to not write a lot of crap. Meaning, don't say in ten words what you can say in half of that. Cut it down. (Fans of The Stand or It might raise an eyebrow on that, but you can't tell me that those bajillion pages aren't filled with the greatest characters and story ever and that each word is worth it.) The fluffy extras on a first draft more than likely just amount to a lot of nonsense. Write the story and stick with the first word that comes to mind, don't run to the thesaurus to find a "smarter" word. And for the love of God, stay away from the adverbs! (She cried mightily. Just kidding.)

Part memoir, part writing guide, On Writing is a concise overview of all the things that make Stephen King tick when it comes to the craft and the success that the rest of us drool over. With over four decades of brilliant character creations, (Back story, dammit! Give it back story!) memorable tales, and a legacy that will never die, Uncle Stevie doesn't let us down yet again on what many might think could have been the driest topic he could have written about. But whether it's how he started out in the trade, his ongoing love affair with his wife of forty-some years, advice on an agent, or the accident that came close to ending his career and his life, King keeps the reader/listener thoroughly engaged and many times completely fascinated. And the one fact that cements King's place in the history books? He's not a horror writer at all, he's just a writer, and a damn good one at that.

This is one of *the* books to keep on a writer's shelf; I'll at least keep it on mine. Regular referencing and notations will likely be the thing to do if you have this. And the one piece of advice that sticks with me? Don't let others read your work as you're writing it. It makes no sense to let them see those five pages you think are world-altering. What if they don't like it? Holy hell. Whether or not they praise or criticize, it's really never healthy for others to take a peek. That slight derailment could mess you up. Close the door. Let your words come. No distractions.

Don't despair when you learn King is the narrator, as so many other authors may have been unsuccessful with voicing their own stories. I've always shied away from author-narrated audiobooks, too, but of course it makes sense that King would do it here. And he does a phenomenal job voicing his own work. He was at the right tempo and tone, and I found it thoroughly agreeable. (Because of this, I was convinced that Bag of Bones would not be ruined by an author's voice; so far, so good, too.)

And the absolute most important thing other than to read a lot? WRITE. Write a hell of a lot and always with that damn door closed.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this through my Audible.com membership. Click here to listen to an audio sample.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Release Date: 10/4/00

Audio Time: 8 hours, 5 minutes

Narrator: Stephen King

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know? So here you go, click here to visit this cool author's official website.

I am tying a string around my finger to remind myself that whenever I have a reading slump, I should pick up anything by Uncle Stevie. Whether in audio or print, I've never been let down (well, maybe a wee bit with The Tommyknockers).

But, ahhh, Mr. Mercedes. For the entire month of January, I have a boring commute from home to the Mayo Clinic in the early morning hours so I can receive radiation, and I knew I just couldn't waste that valuable time with any old audio that might make me keep saying to myself, "I'll give it another thirty minutes." I've had to do that so much recently, and it's been trying my patience. Start, stop, download new audio. This seemed to be my recent formula, but Mr. Mercedes certainly was a treat.

Retired detective Bill Hodges has a few cases that he can't quite seem to forget, and one of them is an unsolved spree-kill involving a Mercedes and a group of unemployed candidates waiting in line for the start of a promising job fair. The guy was never caught. But in Bill's retirement, as he sits studying his gun and watching empty reality shows, he just might get the chance to resurrect his love of life because Brady Hartsfield, the killer on that fateful morning, has reached out to Bill and wants to play again. And this time, he might want to go bigger.

It's sort of weird to write that I had a lot of fun listening to this book, particularly when there is a crazed murderer who likes to terrorize people and drive them to the edge. But, I think that's just the way it is with King's works, and either you love this maniacally twisted scenario of alternating viewpoints between nice guy Bill and sinister, aloof Brady, or you find it scary and don't want to continue. I tend to find King's works brilliant because of his uncanny ability to write a character so intensely and with such back story, that you truly feel each moment of their pain and their reactions are understandable. You get to know these messed up and sad folks, and I mean really, really, get to know them. And if you're not willing to dip your toe into the pool of Stephen King's works, then rest assured: Only one scene freaked me out; for the most part, Mr. Mercedes resides more in the 11/22/63 category of non-horror.

Each back story for the primary and secondary characters are thorough and sometimes tough to read/hear, but in this tale, someone must have told Mr. King to lighten up on all the detail and minutiae you would normally find in his books (I happen to like what some people might call the "tedious" details King typically adds to his books to make them so lengthy). Mr. Mercedes, however, is a tightly told story, with strong characters and intense action.

As with most of his books, it ended leaving me absolutely thrilled I had read another of his works, and also wanting more from the other characters. I desperately hope a short story will pop up from Jerome or Holly's perspective one day, the two supporting cast helping Det. Ret. Bill Hodges catch a killer.

Audio Notes: This was my first time listening to Will Patton and he was INCREDIBLE. I'm in love with his voice, a gravelly, gritty, and experienced deep voice that was perfect for a retired police detective, but he also perfectly captures the rest of the cast, everyone from a young seventeen-year-old Jerome to a mid-twenties cold and nonchalant killer, Brady. My personal favorite was Holly, a forty-five-year-old woman with self-described "issues" who still lives with her mother. Will Patton. My new favorite voice.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this through my Audible.com membership.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know? So here you go, click here to visit this cool author's official website.

About the Narrator (from Audible.com)

Will Patton has recorded over forty-five audio books, including twenty titles by James Lee Burke, the 50th anniversary release of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Al Gore's The Assault on Reason. He is a recipient of the Best Male Narrator Audie Award. Click here for his Audible.com page and to see all of the books he's narrated, and click here for the audio sample of Mr. Mercedes.

People. If there is only one scary audio book that you get this year, make it this one, narrated by Campbell Scott. This actor knocked it outta the park.

Everyone knows the overall story, so I'll give you a quick synopsis. Jack is a failed teacher after a startling incident; struggling with alcoholism and regrets, he agrees to take a winter job overseeing a magnificent and sprawling mountain resort in Colorado to get himself back on track. With his wife and young son in tow, Jack resolves to write a book that will get him back in with society and wipe away his past mistakes. What he doesn't realize is that spending the winter at the hotel might release his own demons amidst the haunting of the Overlook Hotel and with his son Danny still wrestling with his telepathic gifts and near catatonic states, the family faces a catastrophe that is eerily similar to the past caretakers of the hotel.

The thing about Stephen King's books and their subsequent adaptations to film, is that a lot of times it never works out well. There's been a lot of debate about Stanley Kubrick's version (which Stephen King did not like) and the TV miniseries from 1997 that Stephen King wrote (which fans did not like). I've seen both versions and while I get why Stephen King didn't like Stanley Kubrick's version, I do like it a little bit better than the miniseries. I do think Rebecca De Mornay from the miniseries was a better choice for Wendy than Shelly Duvall was, though.

Selecting this story in audio was a little worrisome for me, and not because it's scary. I don't mind that part at all. What I was worried about was whether it would be any good in audio, but I shouldn't have feared it one bit. In Campbell Scott's easy and laid-back voice, the creepy story of Stephen King's The Shining takes shape and is riveting. I was spellbound by the many voices that Campbell Scott easily elicited (especially Jack's inner thoughts) and I soon found myself making every excuse to run, do errands, so I could listen to it, even listening to it while I took a shower. Without question, I would highly recommend this frightening story, but I'd almost feel more confident to suggest this in audio versus printed simply because Campbell Scott was THAT good. Just make sure you either keep the lights on or have a buddy around when you listen. Guaranteed to scare ya.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Release Date: 8/12/05

Audio Time: 15 hours, 54 minutes

Narrator: Campbell Scott

Audio Notes: As I mentioned above, Campbell Scott rocked this. Click here to listen to the Audible.com sample and click here for all the books this talented actor has narrated.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower series, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know. So here you go, click here to visit this wicked cool author's official website.

The Stephen King Project. My education (and others') continues! The Shining is another selection for the challenge Kathleen and I are hosting. The site can be found (with other participants' reviews) here.