Customer Reviews

Blockade Billy

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(45)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

I'm going to keep this as spoiler free and as informative as possible.

"Blockade Billy" is the latest release from Stephen King. Its announcement in March 2010 was a surprise for everyone, and I know that I wasn't expecting any new King for another six months or so.

First, some info about the book itself:
Overall, this book is a novella, the physical book clocks in at a little over 100 pages with some excellent Alex McVey illustrations (in the Cemetery Dance and Lonely Road Books versions only).

There are a few editions of this book (some forthcoming). Cemetery Dance Publications had the 1st edition 1st printing of Blockade Billy with only 10,000 dust jacketed copies that was officially released April 20, 2010. This came shrink wrapped with a bonus William "Blockade Billy" Blakely baseball card (that looks like a Topps 1957 card, very cool). They also had a limited slipcase available at an additional cost. Cemetery Dance will also be doing a second printing of 10,000 that is for libraries only.

Scribner's version of Blockade Billy will be a non-dust jacketed trade hardcover edition and it will be coming out at the end of May, 2010. Sadly, it will not have the awesome Alex McVey illustrations, but they are adding Stephen King's short story "Morality" that was released last year in Esquire magazine.

In the summer of 2010, Lonely Road Books is releasing a Signed Limited Edition and a Lettered Edition of Blockade Billy. Both of these will come with the same William "Blockade Billy" Blakely baseball card that came with the Cemetery Dance Publications version, and they will also come with a SIGNED Stephen King baseball card (how cool is that!?)!

There will also be an audio book read by Craig Wasson (Blockade Billy Audiobook), a Kindle version (Blockade Billy for Kindle), and other e-reader versions.

Now, to the story.... Yes, this is a baseball story. If you aren't a fan, some of the passages will go over your head like a foul ball, but the thing is, you won't care. You'll be too engrossed in the story. The next thing you'll know, the story will be over and you will feel a sense of satisfaction and completion.

This novella is a very fun and very fast read. For sports fans that love King, this book will probably be a dream come true. For King fans that don't like sports... it is a new King story! I'll admit, I don't really care too much for baseball. I know it. I've played it, but I don't watch it. Yet, I still really enjoyed this story. In the end, it is a story about the people, not just the game.

Yes, the book is short, but you will enjoy it. This is a lot more than can be said for many much longer books out there. Stephen King told the entire tale that he wanted, and ended it where it ended. There are no rabid beasties, Dark Towers, or possessed cars, but you will revel in the telling of this tale as if your grandfather were telling you a story about his childhood (one of the good ones that make all the grandkids gather round).

I don't want to give away the plot, but here are the basics: A baseball team loses their catcher. They gain a new one. He is kind of an odd duck, but he plays really well. But... he has a dark secret. Hey, it is Stephen King, you know. That is all I'm going to give you. Buy it and read it. If you like King, you HAVE to get this. I think this book goes beyond King-lovers though. It isn't so... gruesome... as some of his other tales, and I could see people of all ages enjoying this one... well... maybe no under 13 should be admitted without their parent or guardian. Ha ha.

Though I consider this "book" to be a minor addition to Stephen King's vast literary canon, I found myself enjoying it. Some of King's books could be a bit of a slog trying to get through. This novella is definitely not one of those. I enjoyed the descriptions of the old time baseball scenarios. The story centered on the super-talented catcher "Blockade" Billy Blakely, whose name was inexplicably removed from the records book (the constant reader does not learn why until near the end of the story). It is a fairly straightforward baseball fantasy up to the time it arrived to its Stephen King trademark twist ending. I really enjoyed it for the fast reading and the thrills. I also read this story from the standpoint of being a potential movie script. I was able to see this story fitting nicely as a cinematic offering. If handled correctly by the right director and actors, it will be a viewing experience that few will forget.

To get it out of the way early, it is best to know that Blockade Billy is a short story. It is not a short novel or even a novella, it is a short story. Weighing in at only 730 locations on the Kindle, it is extremely hard to justify the eight dollar price tag. It is more than twice the price of King's UR while less than half the length.

The good news is that if are a King completist, Blockade Billy is another nice addition to his baseball stories. The narrator, Granny, a former third base coach and equipment manager for the New Jersey Titans is a funny narrator and tells the story well. He is apparently telling this story to King himself while sitting in a nursing home after a life in baseball.

After losing their first two catchers in spring training, Billy is called up from their Double A squad to fill in until a seasoned pro can take over the catching position. But Billy puts in a great month, making numerous stops during plate collisions (hence the name Blockade Billy) while hitting at a good pace as well. The team's ace pitcher thinks Billy is his good luck charm.

Billy is also either dumb, crazy or both. He talks to himself in the third person and players get injured while playing against him. Eventually, as in all great stories, the little incidents add up and boil over, but you can discover that for yourself.

It's a good if minor addition to King's work. But it remains hard to justify the high price for such a slim work.

I love almost everything by Stephen King - especially his short stories since hardly anyone seems to promote or even write in this genre anymore with much consistency. His short story anthologies have some of the best I've ever read (and occasionally happily re-read).

However, this was advertised as being a new "novella". The length hardly qualifies, as many have mentioned here. I read it in about an hour - maybe less. Also, I have a feeling it will show up in the not-too-distant future in one of his aforementioned short-story anthologies - which would, indeed, be worth at least the $7.99 currently being charged for this one "entry".

If this is merely another of his somewhat adventurous forays into the currently somewhat "fledgling" electronic and other newer forms of publishing (which I also admire his doing in many instances), then I think it was a big mistake to allow it to be promoted as a "novella". I hope he (or his publisher or WHOEVER) seriously reconsiders the way these things are put forth in the electronic-reading arena from now on.

We love ya, Steve, but don't try this on your "Constant Readers" too much more or we may not be quite so constant and instead be much more circumspect about how we acquire and what we are willing to spend for what you have to offer from now on. I, for one, will research and wait for more reviews before I feed my SK addiction so quickly again.

That being said, the story was OK. Not one of my favorites, but definitely has the right King "flavor". The reason I gave it 2 stars is that the "price to entertainment-length ratio" was just way out of line.

I read this Novella in one sitting. consider it a short story, interesting but
certainly not edge of the seat, page turning, grab you by the gut, wishing it would not
end interesting. It was nice reading for a long flight but hardly worth the price.

Another great story by Stephen King, I enjoy baseball and as a former catcher from New Jersey I found the storyline to be personally appealing. I think this story would make for a great screenplay of an episode for the Twilight Zone or some other 30 min tv mystery type show. It's easy to read, keeps you interested and if you are a fan of baseball you will recognize some of the old time names used in the story. It's a short story so I dont want to give away too much in a review.

However as others have noted, I think the price was entirely too high for a story that could not have been more than 50 printed pages. I read the story in about 45 minutes. I have bought 400+ page kindle books for less. I think the price point for this story should have been around $3.

Stephen King has written some of the greatest masterpiece novels of all time, such as It, Christine and Misery. He can write a great short story too, The Mist, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption are just two examples of King's brilliance. With Blockade Billy and Morality (the other story that comes with this) your fighting a strong urge to just stop reading due to boredom, only continuing on because it's Stephen King and hey there must be at least a great scene coming up. There isn't.

Don't waste your time on what is simply a boring baseball story and another that's just trying a glorifying pointless violence to shock and be a talking point. Borrow it from the library, but don't waste any of your hard earner money obtaining these two stories that wouldn't even make the filler list in King's other short story collections.

I love Stephen King and for decades I've been purchasing his books the moment they come out. I even ordered the limited edition of this book from Cemetery Dance so I could get the bonus baseball card. I am sad to admit that Blockade Billy is a huge disappointment. As some have noted, this is first and foremost a short story, not a novella. The trade edition comes with a "bonus" short story called "Morality", which was featured in Esquire magazine and is 52 pages long (Blockade Billy is 80). It is a tiny book with large font, which is the oldest trick in the proverbial book. I read both stories in about 40 minutes. Surprisingly I found Morality to be a lot more engaging than the titular Blockade Billy, which is a lot of build up for a mildly interesting punch-line. I'm sure King will include Blockade Billy in some future anthology and I would recommend waiting until then to read this story.

I have to agree with the previous reviewers that $7.99 is a bit steep for such a short story. I've been looking forward to getting it from Cemetery Dance publications but I wasn't excited about paying their $25 asking price for a limited edition hard cover (and based on the length I'm glad I didn't). Still, being one of King's more Constant Readers, I knew I had to get my hands on it and was delighted to be able to read the story for 66% less than I thought I was going to have to shell out--especially since I know this won't be reprinted in any of King's future collections.

As far as I know, this is the first Cemetery Dance exclusive that has made its way into the eBook world. I'm hoping that the price tag was a gross mistake on their end that they will reconsider if future works wind up on the Kindle store.

That being said, the story itself is a quick read (I doubt it hits the standard 45,000 word count of a true novella) about an old time equipment manager recounting the story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely to Mr. King himself. It's a decent, very straight forward story made enjoyable by a colorful narrator and King's expert knowledge and love of The Game. Personally, I cannot stand baseball--it's just not for me. I can appreciate why others love it so much and, to his credit, King held my interest throughout. I think it could've been expanded further but for what it is, it's quite enjoyable.

The star rating was penalized once for price. Better luck next time, CD.

I am a Stephen King fan and have been since I read Thinner and have bought each and every hardcover since then. I enjoyed most very thoroughly, others are decent reads, but lately they have been just okay reads, but Blockage Billy is clearly the worst and bottom of the barrel and it is strikingly easy to see why.

First, we start off with a 5" by 8" book, unusually small for a King book, and made worse by having only 132 pages and still worse with the fairly large print. I don't know what the word count is, but it does not qualify for a King Novel and a short story.

Why is this the worst? All of his excellent works have an enthralling story with numerous twists and turns and excellent character development and a complicated plot with numerous carefully crafted characters to carry the unexpected turns in the plot. This is hard to do in a little book of only eighty pages for the Novel(a). There is little plot to Blockage Billy which takes 80 pages. You are kept in the dark almost all the way to the end with a baseball story that holds your interest, barely, and then at the end stalls completely leaving hardly a plot at all. You feel badly cheated if you are expecting something dramatic to happen with developed characters involed, but there isn't and at the end, you wonder why the Blockade Billy (he sudonly becomes a major league catcher and he blocks the plate on a close play at home. The story ends with a whimper and a truly simple plot and you wonder why you even took the time. It is a real disappointment.

The second part "morality' is only 50 of these small pages and has the skinniest plot that was obvious from the start, the skinny plot is even more silly and boring. You get to the end of the story finding out what you already knew and the story ends abruptly with no explanation of why. The most plotless story ever to come out of King's fertile brain. I can't tell any more without giving the micro-plot away except to say that an ageing priest wants to do something of a sin, but wants somebody else to do it. Why!! Not even at attempt to explain. The story ends so suddenly that you can't believe it because almost nothing happen at all.

It is a total waste of your reading time (which is thankfully short), but you will feel like you sat down to a nice dinner and ate air and then the dinner was over. Wha!

Avoid this because you will be disappointed in Mr. King and wasted about 90 minuts of your time that you can never get back and you feel cheated.

I felt cheated.