#blockade billy

[theawkwardadorable]

Shelfconfidence BPC

Day 24- A League of Their Own

[carassiusanis]

[myhikari21things]

Title-Blockade Billy

Year of Publication-2010

Format-Novella collected in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Summary-Back in the 'good old days' of baseball a player arrived who despite his low IQ was a genius. William Blakely who will be known as Blockade Billy is as dumb as they come, but put him on the field and watch out. But as his team enjoys their winning season something comes out about Billy. He isn't who he says he is.

Pros-The metafiction approach of telling the story was interesting. The twist when it finally did come wasn't something I could have guessed.

Cons-I would have enjoyed this more if there was less focus on baseball and more about Billy's story. I honestly forgot about Billy a few times because so much more effort was put into let's talk about the games.

Overall Rating-3.8/5

[my-kindle-bookmarcs]

[grizzle75]

Blockade Billy

King book club, book #3 – normal warning SPOILERS AHEAD Blockade Billy Published in 2010, this is King’s inevitable answer to the pleas, “write a baseball story”.  And so he did. It is gritty, hard, fast-paced, and well-versed in the vernacular of the time it is set in. In 1957, William Blakely joins a team floundering and, through his stellar play and stoic demeanor, stirs the team to rise above…

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[luxtenebrisblagh]

‘Blockade Billy’, de los peores libros de Stephen King

LUX TENEBRIS |

Hace un par de meses salió a la venta en México un libro inédito del famoso autor Stephen King, titulado Blockade Billy. Dicho libro es una más de las obras que Random House Mondadori (RHM) haría bien en publicar en conjunto con otras —si acaso— ya que Billy solo trae dos historias muy cortas, cuya trama deja mucho que desear.

La primera historia es el misterioso relato de un extraño jovencito, que ayudó a su equipo de beisbol a casi ganar el campeonato, pero han habido algunos accidentes muy inusuales a lo largo de la temporada que indican que el joven, Billy, es algo más que un talentoso jugador de beisbol.

Al final, los elementos que pudieron haber sido sobrenaturales no lo fueron, simplemente se trató de la maestría de King para narrar y hacernos creer que su historia tomaría un giro diferente.

La segunda historia trata de cómo un anciano reverendo le hace una rara proposición a su enfermera —no, nada sexual— y de cumplirla, le pagaría suficiente dinero como para vivir sin preocuparse de sus gastos por un tiempo. La propuesta no es nada del otro mundo, aunque al final destruye el matrimonio en el que se encontraba la enfermera. A decir verdad, la historia se titula Moralidad.

Ambas historias son simples, abrumadoramente planas y vagamente entretenidas; no existe ningún elemento que las haga destacar de forma positiva, y cuando uno termina de leerlas no existe esa sensación de querer más, solo hay una total indiferencia por lo que uno acaba de leer.

Después de escasas 176 páginas, con una tipografía exageradamente grande, uno se arrepiente de haber tomado este libro para pasar el rato; no aporta absolutamente nada a la ya larga trayectoria de King, y hubiera sido preferible que RHM nos hubiera traído otro libro del autor como La Torre Oscura: El Viento a través de la Cerradura.

Blockade Billy es malo, así de simple.

Bibliografía: • King, Stephen (2013) Blockade Billy. México: Debolsillo

[travisjarrodsmith]

#CBR6 Review #138: Blockade Billy by Stephen King

I didn't want to go home from the library empty handed yesterday, and every other option I looked into had to be requested from other libraries, so I picked up this, the first Discworld book, and a couple other books asking for a re-read (The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Sound and the Fury). This just happened to be shortest, thus making it first in line; in the 15 minutes it took me to walk home from the library, I'd already read about half.

That far in and this story, which weighs in at just over 100 pages, had yet to really get going. Just another underdog story told in faux non-fiction style, King writing it as if he had actually been told this by an old ball player. There were moments I started to wonder if any of this was even in the same realm as reality, if King wasn't making it all up, if a Blockade Billy really existed, but I could tell by the hokey dialect of King's "interviewee" that only he could've written someone that sounds like this, as he's the master of making people talk like they never would in real life.

Once that realization was out of the way, I started to see Blockade Billy for what it is, a "grown-up" Goosebumps book. Just like in every entry of Stine's series, you know all along something is about to happen, and that thing is teased plenty, but it's held off on until the end when it all comes in a rush and goes just as quickly.

On top of that, it leaves multiple questions unanswered. Was there something supernatural at play, given the constant mentions of Billy sucking the luck from everyone? How did no one from his hometown catch wind of his taking the league by storm and come forward to say something (King attempts to brush this one aside, but does so rather feebly)?

I'd rather King have avoided the urge to go to his horror well and written this as just a drama, just an underdog story, because the great reveal, like I said, just opens the story up to even more scrutiny. It felt like he wanted to write a love letter to his favorite sport, then decided later to throw in some "classic" King touches because he feared readers wouldn't care for it otherwise.

To be honest, I don't know that any reworking of this story could make me like it, as I'm just growing to dislike it more and more as I write this review. After finishing it, I felt like being kind and gave it 2 stars, but I'm now going to have to reduce it to 1. Just a failure all around.

[riveliciousx]

Es algo gracioso eso de hacerse viejo. Cuando eres joven, la gente siempre quiere escuchar tus historias, [...] Solo que, cuando eres joven, no tienes tiempo para contárselas. Y ahora que me sobra todo el tiempo del mundo, parece que ya nadie se interesa por aquellos días.

Stephen King, Blockade Billy (2010)