THE PLANT (Part I) - STEPHEN KING

The Plant (Part One) (2000)

Philtrum Press

Format: Electronic Book, 20pgs.

ISBN: N/A

-Reviewed by Joe O'Leary 

Stephen King released his latest online experiment, The Plant (Part One) on Monday July 24, 2000. For all the details, check out our news item, but here's the basic scoop: you can download The Plant (Part One) from King's site. You must send King $1.00 every time you download it. If 75% of the fans downloading it send King the money, he will put up part 2 in August and part 3 in September. If less than 75% send the money, the experiment ends. Is this 20 page installment worth your $1.00? Read on...

The Plant (Part One) is cleverly written as a collection of memos and letters between the main character, John Kenton, and the other characters in the story. Kenton is an Associate Editor for Zenith House Publishers, which ironically is the worst paperback publishing house in the industry. One day he gets a submission letter from a Carlos Detweiller, who wants to know if Kenton will publish his book True Tales of Demon Infestations, which he claims is written from first hand experience. Kenton wants to give this nutty Detweiller character the brush off, as does Kenton's boss Roger, but at the last minute Kenton decides to invite Detweiller to submit a few chapters. After all, maybe the nut can actually write!

Wrong.

Not only is Detweiller a terrible writer, he includes something disturbing in the package with his submission that makes Kenton think Detwieller may be more than just a harmless crackpot...

This story is easily worth the $1.00 cover charge! King loads it with lots of cynical laughs, as Kenton and his boss pick apart their daily submissions from wanna-be-writers. Things slowly become uncomfortable though when Kenton starts to realize that Detweiller may actually be psychotic, and this builds to a creepy cliffhanger ending.

Along with King's easy writing style, the other star of this story is the format itself. Since it is written as a collection of memos and letters between characters (no email since the story takes place in the early 1980's), the story is written in different fonts and formats, depending on who the author is. For example, all of Detweiller's letters are in a tiny font, chock full of spelling mistakes. This adds to the development of all the characters, and a charm to the story itself.

As you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed The Plant (Part One) and can't wait for the second installment. For those who haven't paid for the download yet: put the crowbar in the wallet and cough it up pal! It will easily be the best $1.00 you've ever spent.