My Pretty Pony/Machine's Way

[perfectpawn]

I was once kinda obsessed with this aborted novel and my interest in it has just been reborn...

It's been a good decade since I re-read the Dark Half, but as with my first reading in '89 what's stuck with me most is the excerpted material from "Machine's Way" -- ie, the wedding hit, etc.

I might be a little rusty on this, but as I recall it, all of that material was from a planned Richard Bachman novel titled "My Pretty Pony" which would've been published in the early '80s. King felt it wasn't working and junked it, but excised the "My Pretty Pony" flashback and made a short story out of it. And then later he took more of the material and fashioned it into "Machine's Way," which was to be a George Stark novel.

As I recall, there was a time when it was rumored that "Machine's Way" would come out as an actual novel by "George Stark."

I guess it's safe to say that won't happen; it was all too long ago. But still, I'd love to read this, or even the original go at "My Pretty Pony." I love King/Bachman's crime fiction; I really enjoy the "men's adventure novels" of the '70s and I've always felt that King could've delivered a fabulous one -- I'm talking about series novels about ultra-violent mafia-killers and the like, such as The Executioner, the Sharpshooter, etc.

Again I figure this will never come out, but then again, "Blaze" was "rediscovered"...

[jcadams]

thought My Pretty Pony was a short story about time?

[perfectpawn]

Long story short -- "My Pretty Pony" was originally the title of a Bachman novel; the title came from a flashback main character Clive Banning experienced shortly before carrying out a hit on a group of mobsters at a wedding. If you've ever read the "Machine's Way" excerpts in "The Dark Half," then you've read this portion of "My Pretty Pony," however Banning's name was changed to Machine.

Anyway, "My Pretty Pony" the story is just the excised flashback Banning had before killing all those mobsters -- he was flashing back to a story his grandfather told him, many years before. It's funny in a way because "My Pretty Pony" the short story implies that the little kid is all sweet and innocent...however as originally envisioned in the unfinished novel, he grew up to become a professional assassin!