The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (2002) Stephen King, Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99, hrdbk, 252pp, ISBN 0-340-82558-8
This is, depending on your point of view, a prequel, or background, or spin-off, or pendant, to Stephen King's ABC TV movie Rose Red, a haunted house story. I would guess, as I've not seen the movie, that the supposed editor of this volume, Joyce Reardon, and the erstwhile diarist's offspring, Steven Rimbauer, are characters in the movie. Either way, this is a work of fiction, just in case you were wondering, and I'm assuming that King was the author. From the way things are set up I would further assume that the movie will be a bit like Richard Matheson's Hell House (a wonderful book and film), with a dash of King's own The Shining, and the house itself is reminiscent in some respects of Alan Moore's creation, the Cambridge Mansion, in the episode of the Swamp Thing comic, "Ghost Dance" (issue #45, Feb 1986), in that construction on the house must never stop. This volume tells the story of the construction of Rose Red and of Ellen Rimbauer's years within it, but has no plot as such. Whether or not you think this book is worth £12.99 of your hard-earned cash is your own affair, but I'm glad I didn't pay for my copy...
Tony Chester
[Up: Fiction Reviews Index | SF Author: Website Links | Home Page: Concatenation]
[One Page Futures Short Stories | Recent Site Additions | Most Recent Seasonal Science Fiction News]