Cause we dearly love our Uncle Stevie, who've give us countless wonderful hours of entertainment in his books and the films made from them.......
And God Bless 'Im (and J.K. Rowling too) for the epic twitter takedowns of Baby Orange......
But sorry, Uncle Stevie.........charging 20 bucks for a slightly elongated short story.....and not a particularly good one either?? You're pushing the limits of your fans' love for no real reason we can figure out......
King's dedication reads "Thinking of Richard Matheson" and we've no doubt of that, since 'Elevation' is a riff on Matheson's classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man"........even borrowing the original Shrinking Man's name, Scott Carey.
King's version of Scott Carey isn't shrinking.......he's rapidly losing weight.
No, it's not that simple.....(this book's major problem). What Scott's really losing is gravity.......as his weight drops, so does his firm hold on planet earth......physically he doesn't look like he's gained an ounce. But at the rate he's going, he'll soon end up as buoyant as a helium filled balloon.......drifting ever skyward.
Huh? Say what? How does that work exactly? What's more, as a bonus, anyone who Scott touches automatically gets a case of the floaties too.....making him a sort of Superman/Mary Poppin combination.
While he deals with this cockeyed affliction, our hero makes strenuous attempts to befriend one his prickly, angry neighbors.......one half of a lesbian couple whose failing restaurant has been shunned by the anti-gay Castle Rock townsfolk.
Remarkably restrained, King takes only a few swipes at the town's Trumpian, bigoted mindset toward this married couple....(or 'lesbeans' as they're insultingly called.....)
You'll come across a few heart-tugging moments here and there, but overall, this little story seems as slight and weightless as King's incredible floating man......
Just about any tale in King's other novel-sized collections of short stories is infinitely better than this one. 1 star (*) If you're a King completist, wait'll it lands on the library shelf or wait till BookBub makes the e-book available at 0.99 cents......Come on, Uncle Stevie, you can do better than this......
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