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"I have seen the future of horror and its name is Clive Barker" or it was something like that that the disingenuous Stephen King once complimented his fellow horror/fantasy writer. As I've traversed the years with my reading in the horror genre, one of the constants spanning those decades has been the phenomenon that is Stephen King. So when I read a recent article that his son - pen name: Joe (Joseph) Hill - was about to break into the big league with his first major novel, I got a sense of dynasty about to move into a new era. In many ways, recent events have tied in with my own feelings that SK had long since gone past his sell by date and, indeed, the only reason I read "Lisey's Story" at all was because my good lady mistakenly assumed that I was still in the habit of reading every single tome to be published by the most famous, populist, literary son of Maine, U.S.A. and bought me the book as a present.

Lisey Landon is the recent widow of the famous writer, Scott Landon. Following his death, she has the problem of dealing with his unpublished works as well as an increasingly regular encounter with his spirit. Stalked by the crazy Jim Doolan who wants carte blanche regarding the rights to her dead husband's work (allegedly, although it appears that he may simply want to maim her for his own ker-azee reasons) and battling with her unstable sister's self harm, Lisey is a woman in an emotional flux faced with real danger as well as the metaphysical story of Scott's tragic past unfolding through her ephemeral experiences with Scott's thoughts and feelings.

"Lisey's Story" is an honorable project. Intended to reflect on a writer's metaphorical well of inspiration depicted in the book by the fictional refuge "Boo'ya Moon", Stephen King paints a reflective picture of the post apocalyptic output following an important writer's death and mashes it into a tale of angst and family friction. Anyone that's read any of King's previous work will recognise his pre-occupation with spinning a tale about a writer's experiences and, in this sense, this latest effort seems as self-referential as ever "The Dark Half" or any of his other author driven tales were. King delivers in the expected imaginatively gory episodes around both Lisey's encounters with the crazed Jim Doolan and the surreal landscape of the Boo'ya Moon and its yum yum trees that hide a dark secret that sits on the borderline of reality and imagination. This is King at his best; suspenseful, imaginative and foreboding

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