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Blockade Billy

By Stephen King

(27)

| Hardcover | 9781587672286

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Book Description

Even the most diehard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely.

Critics

This is Reminiscent of Philip Roth's "The Great American Novel"

It’s hard to write good baseball fiction. The game is so unlikely, so bizarre at times, that it’s a challenge to the fiction writer’s imagination to do it justice. Who, for instance, could have invented Johnny Damon’s at-bat in the ninth inning of Ga ... (read full critics)

popmatters published on Wed, 1 Sep 2010

Bookreporter.com - BLOCKADE BILLY by Stephen King

There was plenty of buzz in the mystery/thriller/horror and baseball fiction communities when it was announced that Stephen King would release a novella titled BLOCKADE BILLY. Online book merchants quickly took pre-orders based on King’s reputation a ... (read full critics)

bookreporter published on Wed, 1 Sep 2010

1 Review

First of all - I didn't "abandon" this book (in the Cemetery Dance version) because it is bad. I actually didn't even start it. But still it gets a "four-star" rating. Because, very simply, I read it in a different edition.
Yes, I am one of the idiots who believed what the cheats at Cemetery Dance w ... (continue)

First of all - I didn't "abandon" this book (in the Cemetery Dance version) because it is bad. I actually didn't even start it. But still it gets a "four-star" rating. Because, very simply, I read it in a different edition.
Yes, I am one of the idiots who believed what the cheats at Cemetery Dance wrote - that "Blockade Billy" would be available ONLY through them (until it is printed in a collection, at least). Then it was put on sale by Hodder & Stoughton. With an extra story, too. So I bought that edition and will keep the Cemetery Dance one in its wrap, in the hope that it will be of some value in some years.
The fact that I read it all in one day (in little more than one hour, actually) should already be saying a lot about this book. That it is short, of course, but also that it is good.
Even as an avid Stephen King fan (or "constant reader", as he puts it) I was a bit wary of it initially, as my knowledge of baseball amounts to... nothing, and I already knew that the story is deeply based in that sport.
It is, indeed, and if I knew something more about baseball I would have been able to understand many of the details King throws in to give it a very strong "smell of reality". But really, to enjoy the story (albeit while missing many details) it is enough to know that in baseball a player throws a ball to another player standing behind one who is holding a bat; if the player with the bat hits the ball he is allowed to run around three bases to score a point; if he is touched with the game ball by an opponent player he is out. That's it.
Initially the story is quite touching, well told (King sets it up as a memory of a very old man who was a young coach at the time of the events and is telling it to King himself) and clear, and the turn of events is well positioned, somehow suggested by what had been happening during the story but not too obvious.
"Morality", the bonus story that follows "Blockade Billy" (but not in the Cemetery Dance version), is not as "chilling" as the front-page blurb promises. Vaguely creepy, maybe. And somehow, I think, inspired to "Indecent Proposal" (the only movie I ever slept through at the theatre). Still, not bad and the characters are quite interesting, but "Blockade Billy" is far better and the comparison makes "Morality" seem probably worse than what it really is.
All in all, a good buy.

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Marco Piva said on Jul 2, 2010 | Add your feedback