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Pentaxium posted:Oh you think they meant Cell in that whole scene? I always thought they were making fun of Pulse, the movie with Kristen Bell where ghosts come through the phones. I thought that the Gunslinger was pretty decent; but I would never want to slog though the other 5,000 plus pages of the series just to get one of King's patented blue-ball endings.
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Jul 8, 2009 16:45
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Izzy Mandelbaum posted:I think I'm the only one that enjoyed the flashback. It was kind of like taking break from the series to read a short fantasy novel, before picking up where I left off. I loved Wizard and Glass. It's probably my favorite in the series.
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Jul 8, 2009 18:47
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I've been really turned off to Stephen King for a few years, and I have to admit that part of that has been just looking at the covers / titles / descriptions and emitting a 'meh.' I just checked his list and haven't read anything of his written since 1996. I'm seeing a lot of the more recent titles popping up on here...Is there anything recent that is any good?
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Jul 14, 2009 08:32
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I really enjoyed Hearts in Atlantis, which (except for the first story) really downplayed a lot of the supernatural in favour of some interesting personal stories written about students growing up in college during the Vietnam War. Was made into a movie with Anthony Hopkins, David Morse and a nice cameo by Alan Tudyk.
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Jul 14, 2009 18:14
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Gold Teef posted:I've been really turned off to Stephen King for a few years, and I have to admit that part of that has been just looking at the covers / titles / descriptions and emitting a 'meh.' I just checked his list and haven't read anything of his written since 1996. I'm seeing a lot of the more recent titles popping up on here...Is there anything recent that is any good? Like Astfgl said, Hearts in Atlantis is pretty good. Especially the title story. It reads a lot like a college-set version of The Body. Everything's Eventual, another collection of his short stories, is also worth reading. There are a few duds in the book but the majority of them range from pretty good (Autopsy Room Four, The Man in the Black Suit) to excellent (The Little Sisters of Eluria, 1408). In the way of novels, he runs about 50/50 from 1996. Of particular note, and ones well worth reading, are The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, and On Writing (which I recommend you read even if you aren't interested in the craft). Unfortunately, like you said, a lot of his poorer novels are also from the last decade or so and most of those are the ones mentioned here.
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Jul 14, 2009 21:50
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Hearts in Atlantis was great, and yeah, the title story was the best. I'm still kind of annoyed that only the first story in it was adapted for the film, they should have done a TV miniseries like The Stand.
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Jul 16, 2009 14:25
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I liked Cell a lot more than The Stand. Not because The Stand was too long or had too many characters, but because all the characters were dull as gently caress. Aside from the singer and the deaf kid, I didn't really care at all whether they lived or died. Cell at least had an interesting cast.
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Jul 18, 2009 00:45
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One of the books I've liked recently is Duma Key. I know that the injured artist thing got old after a while, but I liked the Florida setting versus the Maine thing. Also, it's true that I found myself caring more for (and being able to keep better track of) the cast of Cell, but the last third of the book turned me off too. I wouldn't say it's the worst out of everything he's written - that distinction goes to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I know it's been mentioned before, and I didn't ever read it again after finishing it for the same reasons mentioned before. I got into Stephen King young and I still remember sitting in a waiting room with it and wondering to myself, '...really? A bear?' I can't really hate any of his books, though. It's always more like a distaste for ones I didn't like rather than a soul-burning hatred.
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Jul 19, 2009 03:17
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Sorry for all the spoiler tags; I'll remove them if it's too much but I prefer to have them on.Mister Kingdom posted:I got seriously creeped out by "Mrs' Todd's Shortcut" and "Survivor Type" from the same collection. "Survivor Type" was the one in which the guy ends up shipwrecked with nothing but heroin and a journal and writes about cannibalizing himself, isn't it? If so, it creeped me out so badly I had a hard time finishing it. Neenski posted:I liked Cell a lot more than The Stand. Not because The Stand was too long or had too many characters, but because all the characters were dull as gently caress. Aside from the singer and the deaf kid, I didn't really care at all whether they lived or died. Cell at least had an interesting cast. Until he killed off two of the better ones. I was really getting to like the headmaster, though I can understand why he had to go. Alice, though... that was so unfair. I guess the point was to illustrate the brutality of their new world, but it still upsets me on some level. I guess I'll go with the second half of Cel since I've only read it, The Stand, and King's short story collections. I started to wonder what the hell King was thinking when he had the phoners "rebooting" nightly while listening to terrible music, even though some of the jokes about being retarded enough to listen to Michael Bolton were okay, but by the time the phoners began to fly, I actually looked up from the book and said, "Oh, come on!" I finished it, but everything after the bigass explosion could have been deleted and it wouldn't have changed at all. Even though he found his son, in the end, it didn't make any difference at all. It's open-ended and all, but I didn't think Clay's idea at the end of the book was going to work.
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Jul 26, 2009 06:59
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little green jewel posted:"Survivor Type" was the one in which the guy ends up shipwrecked with nothing but heroin and a journal and writes about cannibalizing himself, isn't it? If so, it creeped me out so badly I had a hard time finishing it. Yeah, its one of King's most disturbing works. Especially as it doesn't involve the supernatural at all so there's no real suspension of belief in the horror. It does suffer the same problem of most first person journal horror though in that by the end you're wondering why he's still writing in the journal when everything's gone to hell.
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Jul 26, 2009 07:35
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muscles like this? posted:It does suffer the same problem of most first person journal horror though in that by the end you're wondering why he's still writing in the journal when everything's gone to hell. I figured he was doing it to ground himself and give himself something to do as he wasted away on his little strip of barren land. By the end it was probably more habit than anything. The last entry, IIRC, was something like "lady fingers they taste like lady fingers", giving the impression that he only stopped writing because he'd eaten his hands. Very creepy.
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Jul 26, 2009 15:58
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Dreamcatcher is without a doubt my vote, because poo poo weasels and magic retards. I think its the only King book I've started that I never finished. Honorable mention for me is The Eyes of the Dragon. At least at the time King didn't have the slightest grasp on fantasy or court intrigue or any of the subjects he touched on, though I think he improved some in that dept later in Dark Tower. Still, Randall Flagg is used to almost no good effect, and without any additional insight or depth added to the character, something I found maddening as I waited years and years for the 4th Tower book.
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Jul 26, 2009 19:26
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little green jewel posted:Sorry for all the spoiler tags; I'll remove them if it's too much but I prefer to have them on. And you've gotta love Clay's bullshit fuzzy math near the end where be basically goes: "Ah gently caress, there can't be many more of these things left; if I blow up this nest, the world will be ok."
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Jul 27, 2009 02:06
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What I'd really like to know is what people actually do not like about King's writing. Occasionally, it's slightly wooden, but I've always been under the impression that his prose was quite good.
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Jul 27, 2009 06:48
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Aturaten posted:What I'd really like to know is what people actually do not like about King's writing. Occasionally, it's slightly wooden, but I've always been under the impression that his prose was quite good. He captures intensity quite well, I think. When the monster is right behind you breathing hellfire down your neck and snapping at your heels oh my god nearly out of air coppery taste in mouth death sweat pouring off face run faster goddammit, he's extremely good at putting you right there in the moment. My problem is pretty much the same everyone else has pointed out. He'll have an interesting idea (man-eating oil slick? haunted camera? the gently caress?), bang out a short story's worth of chilly suspense or horror, and then meander for five to twenty more chapters before getting tired, tacking on an ending, and sending it to be published. Maybe not structuring anything usually works for him, but from what I've read, he could stand to pretty much chop his works into thirds and remove the last third completely.
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Jul 27, 2009 07:05
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little green jewel posted:He captures intensity quite well, I think. When the monster is right behind you breathing hellfire down your neck and snapping at your heels oh my god nearly out of air coppery taste in mouth death sweat pouring off face run faster goddammit, he's extremely good at putting you right there in the moment. Well said. King excels at making a snappy synopsis and first couple of chapters to draw you in, but he never seems to be able to follow though; and his stories fall apart in the 2nd or 3rd acts.
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Jul 27, 2009 07:20
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little green jewel posted:I figured he was doing it to ground himself and give himself something to do as he wasted away on his little strip of barren land. By the end it was probably more habit than anything. The last entry, IIRC, was something like "lady fingers they taste like lady fingers", giving the impression that he only stopped writing because he'd eaten his hands. Very creepy. Well, and he also started writing things like "March 40" and "Febba 3" and misspelling everything, so his deterioration was clearly shown. Man, was that a creepy story. Definitely one of his best shorts, no question.
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Jul 27, 2009 18:07
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Gerald's Game. Why god, WHY, would anyone want tot read a book about someone handcuffed to a bed for a long time, in a fit of bondage gone wrong? Read the book and lemme know, cause I sure as gently caress didn't get it. Boring as hell. Come to think of it though, the only book I really liked from him (back when I was into reading alot of his stuff; missed of the stuff he's written in the last few years), was The Stand.
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Jul 28, 2009 13:54
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The only King I've tried to read has been Cell. Looks like I picked the wrong King introduction, which I read half of then gave up on, and maybe I can try something else and forgive him.
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Jul 28, 2009 22:27
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Little_Yellow_Duck posted:The only King I've tried to read has been Cell. Looks like I picked the wrong King introduction, which I read half of then gave up on, and maybe I can try something else and forgive him. Maybe it's ADD on my part or the whole "King doesn't know when to stop writing" thing, but I'd recommend his short story collections over his books. Skeleton Crew seems to be a thread favorite, so maybe start there and see if a few of those grab you.
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Jul 29, 2009 01:16
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I would also recommend Night Shift, just about every story in there was gold in my view. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is pretty good also, I love the Sherlock Holmes story (Stephen King doing Holmes is a concept that blew my mind at first but I think he did it better than the majority of the non-Conan Doyle authors I've read).
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Jul 29, 2009 01:49
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Little_Yellow_Duck posted:The only King I've tried to read has been Cell. Looks like I picked the wrong King introduction, which I read half of then gave up on, and maybe I can try something else and forgive him. Despite the fact that I'm sure almost every King book has been recommended to a new reader at some point in this thread: - 'Salem's Lot - a short classic, very much in contrast to any vampire fiction nowadays - The Long Walk - short-ish creepy story that doesn't stray too much into the supernatural, or sci-fi territory. If you haven't heard of it, "One hundred teenage boys (picked at random from a large pool of applicants) are chosen to participate in an annual walking contest called "The Long Walk". Each walker must maintain a constant speed of no less than four miles an hour or risk being shot by soldiers monitoring the event. " - It - extremely long but epic story which I think is better than The Stand. Stays scary throughout and just tells a great story. In my opinion, one of the most technically accomplished stories King ever wrote. I don't really know much of his new stuff after Dreamcatcher, but that list is what I'd recommend to someone trying to get into him. His short fiction works too, but that's been endlessly recommended in this thread.
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Jul 29, 2009 16:58
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I'd recommend The Shining but I'm gay for that book, and a better answer would probably be "any of his short story collections", especially Skeleton Crew, which also contains the unfathomably excellent novella The Mist.
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Jul 29, 2009 17:13
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I'd recommend popping down to your local library, taking out as many King books as you can and just going through until you find one you like.
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Jul 29, 2009 20:47
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Astfgl posted:Despite the fact that I'm sure almost every King book has been recommended to a new reader at some point in this thread: It is a wonderful book, but again, right up at the end it goes loving bonkers. They defeat the extradimensional monster that feeds on fear by imagining things? They escape the maze of tunnels by a pre-teen mind-meld GANG BANG?? It goes absolultely loving wacky when they get to the lair in the sewers.
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Jul 30, 2009 16:33
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NosmoKing posted:They defeat the extradimensional monster that feeds on fear by imagining things? Uhh...yeah? The monster that feeds on imagination is defeated by them imagining things that help them? I don't see how that's even a little bit ridiculous.
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Jul 30, 2009 17:59
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Different seasons would also be a pretty good place to start. four reasonably long stories that includes Rita Hayworth & the Shawshank redemption and The body which I think are two of the best of his works. Not that much horror but very good writing.
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Jul 30, 2009 18:24
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Lisey's Story. Dear, sweet God. between the "Big Sissa" talk, and the OXO can opener on her tit, I couldn't finish it. Duma Key, on the other hand, was one of the books that I really enjoyed recently. It was a bit stale in places, but the last 100 pages or so made up for it.
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Jul 30, 2009 21:59
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CELL... I bought the book thinking "wow, this will be just like The Stand" and 50 pages in I thought "wow, this will not be just like The Stand". Someone tell me if this book is worth finishing cos its been on my shelf for a year now and im not even 100 pages in.
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Jul 31, 2009 01:26
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Dantou posted:CELL...
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Jul 31, 2009 03:47
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Aturaten posted:What I'd really like to know is what people actually do not like about King's writing. Occasionally, it's slightly wooden, but I've always been under the impression that his prose was quite good. I'm a big fan of literary fiction and pretentious stuff, but I think King writes well. I think he's one of the best authors of genre fiction around. What grabs me most is how amazingly naturalistic his dialogue is, especially when he's writing in his Maine dialect, seeing as he's so familiar with it. He has such a knack for a realistic dialogue, and it tends to flow well. But yeah, he does get a bit wonky when it comes to stopping the verbal diarrhea and writing a decent ending.
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Jul 31, 2009 11:46
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Ortsacras posted:Uhh...yeah? The monster that feeds on imagination is defeated by them imagining things that help them? I don't see how that's even a little bit ridiculous. Like The Stand when there's 2 pages of "I just stuck this gun up your rear end, now jerk me off or die, human being." Eyes of the Dragon had a phrase or two where the King explained to his WAY young bride something like "Oh, it's just a mythical snake... don't get it angry!!" or some such creepy "old man talking to tiny girl about cocks" thing. Or The Long Walk, where the boys decide that if they weren't walking, why, yes, they'd go ahead and do things to each other. I mean why not, right? There's other examples, and I wish I'd made a list at some point. But whenever King mentions sex, he seems to write from this sorta "outsider" perspective", like its something that HE'S not really comfortable with, and it shows. I wish the Shining actually HAD the creepy furry giving a blowjob part in the book, because it would've jived with pretty much every other time he's talked about loving.
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Jul 31, 2009 12:21
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Does anyone else get the impression that Stephen King was abused as a child? There seems to be a lot of weird sexual stuff in his books, particularly where kids are concerned. Child abuse comes up a lot, often tangentially and unrelated to the story, and his perception of adult sexuality seems awkward. There's also the stuff in Lisey's Story about the dead husband being unable to gently caress. And he mentions little boy's penises way more than seems normal.
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Jul 31, 2009 13:35
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Ortsacras posted:Uhh...yeah? The monster that feeds on imagination is defeated by them imagining things that help them? I don't see how that's even a little bit ridiculous. To retort: IIRC, it doesn't feed on imagination. "It" feeds on fear and terror and the physical bodies of those who have been scared with their own worst fears. "It" can see inside your mind and use the thing that scares you the most to drive you loving bonkers. It tends to pick kids because the fears of children are easiest to distill into a specific image rather than the more vague fears and concerns of adults. Just because you say your fake inhaler is battery acid doesn't make it so. You aren't an extradimensional immortal superpowered embodiment of evil. You are a kid with an overprotective mom. That's why its dumb. It wasn't as simple as "Hurr, Imagination VS Imagination!" Also, the fat kid had the biggest cock, and it hurt the pre-teen girl's poon. loving hell, Steve-o.
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Jul 31, 2009 14:15
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NosmoKing posted:
Wait, there was lines about this? I thought it just sorta ended a chapter with "alright everyone, lets get to this" and then they didn't really mention it again. Ewww.... Dammit Mr. King. oh, maybe off-topic a little, but Joe Hill (King's son) has written some decent stuff, I really liked Heart-Shaped Box. Check it out!
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Jul 31, 2009 15:02
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Quad posted:Wait, there was lines about this? I thought it just sorta ended a chapter with "alright everyone, lets get to this" and then they didn't really mention it again. Oh, it's the entire text from Page 1081 through 1086 After reading it again, not only does Bill pack the most heat under his squishy gut, but he makes Beverly come like a fountain when he's loving her. Ick.
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Jul 31, 2009 15:39
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Well it is a horror novel. 
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Jul 31, 2009 18:03
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HorseHeadBed posted:Does anyone else get the impression that Stephen King was abused as a child? There seems to be a lot of weird sexual stuff in his books, particularly where kids are concerned. Child abuse comes up a lot, often tangentially and unrelated to the story, and his perception of adult sexuality seems awkward. Try the short story The Library Policeman. I think it's in Four Past Midnight. The main character, an adult, is forced to confront the fact that a retarded man raped him when he was a little boy. It was relevant to the plot and went a long way toward explaining some of the man's personality quirks and strange fears, but King goes into some uncomfortable loving detail.
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Jul 31, 2009 18:40
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little green jewel posted:Try the short story The Library Policeman. I think it's in Four Past Midnight. The main character, an adult, is forced to confront the fact that a retarded man raped him when he was a little boy. It was relevant to the plot and went a long way toward explaining some of the man's personality quirks and strange fears, but King goes into some uncomfortable loving detail. I'm a poleethman. But yeah, this story is basically IT-lite. What's weird, aside from all the sexual abuse, is how fathers are almost always horrible monsters or assholes. King's dad ran off and left the family when King was a wee baby, so you'd think his handling of fathers-as-characters would be a little more ambiguous. But nope! Basically every father ever is an alcoholic, child-molesting beast. Unless the father is a main character, of course, in which case he's just trying to do the right thing in a crazy world even if it could get him killed or be boring as gently caress (I'm looking at you, Cell).
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Jul 31, 2009 18:48
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NosmoKing posted:Oh, it's the entire text from Page 1081 through 1086 It's that scene alone that keeps me from recommending It wholeheartedly. The book is great at scaring the crap out of you, developing great characters, etc., and then at the end there's a completely out-of-nowhere and frankly disgusting orgy.
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