As mentioned last time, I listened to the audio book (audio theatre, really) of The Mist, by Stephen King. Bottom line?

I liked it. It was pretty fun listening to the actors & sound effects surround me with depth and immediacy. Hearing someone deliver a line and then get a response from somewhere “behind” you and to the left – well, that’s just cool.

The downside? Because it’s presented in a theatre format without narration, they often had to resort to having the characters describing what was happening.

It would go something like this:

“That thing! It’s hideous! It looks like a giant housefly with a stinger!”

or

“It… It’s dragging him down the aisle!! Slamming him into the shelves!! Help! Someone help him!!!”

You get the idea. :\ But overall? A rare find, and one I recommend, if only for the novelty of it all.

It occured to me the other night exactly why I’m interested in The Mist so much. In addition to the creatures I mentioned earlier, there’s also the elements of a top secret government experiment involving other dimensions. And THAT, if you haven’t gathered, hearkens back to The Philadelphia Experiment.

And The Philadelphia Experiment is of great interest to me. Few other events in American history have been so thoroughly documented and vehemently denied. Did it happen? There’s no doubt. WHAT happened, however, is up for interpretation. Teleportation? Dimension-hopping? Invisibility? All of the above? It’s an intriguing mystery, and one I hope to work into my writing someday. (Hey, I gotta use all this mystery trivia SOMEHOW, you know?)

Now I’m gonna go buy Stephen King’s “Skeleton Crew” so I can read the novella of “The Mist” before the movie opens in two weeks on November 21st. (And I should note, it’s directed by Frank Darabont, who also directed King’s adaptations of “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile.” So there.)

Kevin