I love flying. Now sitting still for hours in a crowded aeroplane nourished only by that strange substance called "aeroplane food" is not particularly enjoyable on it's own. Nor do I get any satisfaction out of the uncomfortable changes in air-pressure that lock your ears on takeoffs and landings. No - the best thing about flying is that on a plane, you get a moment to finish that book that's been half-read for a month, or maybe to start a book that will remain half-read until your next session of being-forced-to-exist-without-a-computer-for-a-while.

So when preparing to board a 7 hour flight a few years ago I noticed to my horror that I had forgotten my half-read book home, I almost panicked. I was threatened with the unimaginable fate of having to resort to the on-board magazines to pass the time. The horror! The pain! With the boarding already having begun, and precious little time to spare, I rushed to the tax free shops, crossed my fingers, and grabbed the first novel that had a decent looking cover. Anything has to be better than an on-board magazine. On the plane, I opened up my fresh copy of "Gerald's Game" by Stephen King.

I have to admit that I've never been much of a Stephen King fan - I had the prejudiced picture that he only wrote books where you get your ordinary mix of ghosts and goblins, you have your share of supernatural hogwash before the ending where everything nasty explodes in a grand fireworks display. Didn't sound that appealing to me. That's why I was so pleasantly surprised by Gerald's Game - it caught my attention from the beginning, and had all the elements I like to see in really scary horror.

Gerald's Game relies on much simpler, subtler, realistic means of creating suspense than what I expected from King. No monsters in your face this time, no stereotypical horror characters, and - what I was pleased to discover - no dramatic explosions in the end. No, Gerald's Game utilises what I consider the most effective weapon available to a good writer: without much sparkle and fireworks, within an almost Spartan setting it manages to get your imagination going. The seven hours on that flight really flew by, in more than a literary sense.

(Worry not, I won't steal from your reading pleasure by revealing anything critical about the plot, I'll merely explain the basic setting)

The events of the book all take place in a single room of a remote cabin, far from civilisation, with no neighbours close by. Jessie and her husband Gerald are looking to spice up their sex lives, and for that purpose, have chosen this remote location to have a little fun with a pair of handcuffs. Only that Jessie, being the one handcuffed to the bed posts, is having second thoughts - from the very beginning, it was Gerald's idea, and it was Gerald who had persuaded Jessie to play along.

As her pleas for Gerald to let her go fall to dead ears, in fact, only excite him more, the fear inside her takes new proportions. A new voice is born inside her, an honest voice she hasn't heard before, and that voice is angry and unrelentingly frank - that voice knows that Gerald is going to have his game, and that she is helpless to stop him. That voice tels her how Gerald would pretend ignorant afterwards: "I thought it was just part of the game!", "You can't say you didn't enjoy it a little…".

Except that things didn't quite work out as Gerald had planned - a swift, angry kick to where it hurts the most puts an end to Gerald's sexual fantasies… not only for now, but to Jessie's horror, for good.

So what would you do handcuffed to a bed, naked, in the middle of nowhere, with your dead husband on the floor? Your cries would only echo empty to the woods… and to whatever hungry creatures of night out there…

The real suspense, the real horror is created in the scenery of Jessie's frightened mind, with her inner voices being the only real characters of the book. Thirst, desperation, her vivid imagination and some external threats that I will not reveal in this review are the elements that make up her personal nightmare.

From these simple ingredients King cooks up a feast for the imagination, and gets the reader hooked, living through the whole experience with Jessie.

I had read "The Shining" from King before this book - I had received it as a gift, and it didn't really leave much of an impression in me - sure it had suspense, was scary at points, but… it was not my kind of a book, and didn't leave me anxious to read more.

I think that Gerald's game, in turn, might not have enough "special effects" (can you say that about a book?) to impress the fans that look for those grander elements in fiction, but for the rest of us, Gerald's Game is a thrilling ride and a prime example of how you don't always need to go beyond the natural world to have the reader's heart racing.


Recommended: Yes