I started across the street, then pulled back as an inner-city bus snored toward me. Here's "11/22/63" at it's MOST evocative: It's too bad King didn't learn more of Finney's craft. Finney's book, in which his protagonist travels to Manhattan in 1882, has such a feeling of verisimilitude that, when it came out, some people thought Finney was a real time traveler. In an afterward to "11/22/63," King acknowledges Jack Finney's "Time and Again" as the best time-travel story ever written, and as the inspiration for his book.
Great novelists do this by hurling tons of sensual details at you. What great historical novels do - and what great sci-fi and fantasy novels do, for that matter - is to make you smell the smoke from the muskets and scrape your knees when you fall down on cobbled streets.
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I just finished his latest novel, "11/22/63." It is basically a historical novel wearing skin of sci-fi. The funny thing is, when King is writing about anything gory, gross or violent, he is VERY, VERY good at doing this, which is one of the things that helps him transcend being "just a hack." But when he strays from his obsessions, it's as if he only has access to a blurry world and can only describe it in general terms. Kings can also be wretched at one of the things great fiction writers do best: putting you, the reader, IN the scene. I don't know about you, but I find "pinpoint nozzle" both surprising and thrilling.
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