Shelf Life — Scott Dickensheets: King of thrillers blasts into cyber space with a ‘Bullet’

Friday, March 17, 2000 | 10:43 a.m.

Scott Dickensheets' books and magazines column appears Fridays. Reach him at dickens@vegas.com or 990-2446.

Picture a day, not long ago, in the life of Stephen King. Let's say the dentist's office just called, canceling his appointment. Suddenly he has an hour to kill so, what the hell, he writes another horror novel. (Imagine if he had a laptop in line at the DMV.)

Another day, another scary story, another pile of money. Ho-hum ... Maybe, he decides, I'll try something different.

And so we have "Ride the Bullet," the frightmeister's first e-book. E-book? Books by e-mail; like everything else in this wired, wired world, publishing is going electronic. Roll over, Jeff Bezos, tell Guttenburg the news.

What it means to you is this: free Stephen King. Yes, freaking free King! What I mean is, you don't have to pay for "Ride the Bullet." Rather, you go to Amazon.com, the online book-seller, which, as of press time, was telling surfers the book was unavailable due to high demand. You enter your e-mail address and in a few days, when things unclog a little, you'll get a 66-page e-mail document containing "Ride the Bullet." Free!

There's not much I can tell you, plot-synopsis-wise: "Ride the Bullet" is the story of Alan Parker, who is driving through the Maine woods -- at night, of course -- to see his mother -- who's dying in the hospital, of course -- when his car breaks down -- of course. Naturally, he hitches a ride with some demonic old man and, naturally, some unnaturally sinister goings-on go on. Somehow it involves a carnival thrill ride called the Bullet. Ready those goosebumps.

This is the author's latest literary experiment, following his first audio-only novel, "Blood and Smoke," and his first serial novel, "The Green Mile." What's next for the resourceful King? Direct-mail novels? Telemarketing novels, with banks of old women and college students cold-calling people and reading aloud? Novels tapped out in Morse code or flagged in semaphore? Tattoo novels? Novels left randomly on park benches and at bus stops?

Other upcoming books to look for that you might not otherwise look for: April will bring a double shot of the redoubtable Nick Tosches. Boxing fans will want to pick up "The Devil and Sonny Liston." Published by Little, BrownPress, it's Tosches' sure-to-be-intense take on the dour, enigmatic fighter.

For a more varied sampling of Tosches' work, the same publisher will also release "The Nick Tosches Reader." It covers his 30-year writing career, and includes fiction, poetry (one hopes it will contain the epic and hilarious, "I, As Robert Stack"), rock 'n' roll writing, investigative journalism and criticism. If you read his introduction to the old "Literary Las Vegas" anthology, you know Tosches writes with an Old Testament intensity mixed with a street-wise lyricism. Check them out.

Also in April, Bantam Doubleday Dell will release Jim DeRogatis' biography of the late rock critic Lester Bangs. Now, ordinarily, I see the words "biography of a rock critic" and I think, Maybe print really is dead. But Bangs is an exception. There are those who believe that, at his prime, he was the best writer, bar none, in America. Next time you're in a used-book shop, look for the extraordinary collection of his work, "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung." It's as good as the title suggests. And his life, lived at full-throttle, is definitely the stuff of gripping biography.

Reading matters

Rebecca Solnit's upcoming "Wanderlust: A History of Walking," contains a chapter on the author's stroll along the Strip. It's excerpted for your reading enjoyment in the April edition of Outside magazine.

Finalists for the National Magazine Awards -- the Oscars of magazine publishing, only less prestigious and generally lacking in starlets wearing low-cut designer peekaboo -- were announced this week. Some highlights:

General Excellence Under 100,000 Circulation: Context, I.D. Magazine, Lingua Franca, Nest, Print, The Sciences. General Excellence 100,000 to 400,000 Circulation: Business 2.0, National Geographic Adventure, Saveur, Teacher Magazine, Texas Monthly.

General Excellence 400,000 to 1 Million Circulation: Fast Company, GQ, Marie Claire, The New Yorker, The Source. General Excellence Over 1 Million Circulation: Entertainment Weekly, Men's Health, National Geographic, Time, Vanity Fair.

The complete list of nominees, too long to publish here, is available at www.magazine.org. The New Yorker led the pack with 11 nominations (monster comeback, guys), followed by Esquire with five and Sports Illustrated with four.

Las Vegas figured in two nominations -- I.D. (a design magazine), chosen for its special "Loving Las Vegas" issue (an honor Shelf Life modestly attributes entirely to the presence of our byline atop a short piece); and Arthur Danto, The Nation's art critic, for his take on the Bellagio art collection, "Degas in Vegas" (an honor he achieved without a significant assist from Shelf Life).