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JammyLammy posted:"Perhaps you should cut down on the amount of magical retards. We got enough to fill up a small town in New England" That'll just give him an idea to write an all-magical-retard book
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Aug 9, 2010 02:48
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Tommyknockers WAS a book about a village of magical retards yo.
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Aug 9, 2010 02:56
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JammyLammy posted:"Bodily functions aren't funny if you are older then 7" If farts ever quit being funny to you it's time to lie down in front of a train, because you're just plain tired of living at that point.
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Aug 9, 2010 04:14
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I found Tommyknockers strangely exhausting, as if I were getting sick and weak along with the characters.
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Aug 9, 2010 04:57
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fishmech posted:Tommyknockers WAS a book about a village of magical retards yo. Although so far, I have to admit, I'm liking Haven, I just don't understand how they could 'base' it on the Colorado Kid.
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Aug 9, 2010 14:18
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Haven is hit or miss for me. The Colorado Kid is going to be the most tedious back end to each episode and I'd like them to drop it and maybe get a more interesting arc happening. I'm reminded of early x-file episodes where Scully would wrap the episode up while writing her report but being spoonfed little bits of information on something that isn't that important seems premature and clumsy this early on. Maybe it's because I'm not sold on the characters yet. Build them up a little first and then maybe I would care a little more. Speaking of Haven, I'm sure in a post-Tommyknockers book a character was reading the new Bobbi Anderson novel. Anyone recall which novel that was in?
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Aug 9, 2010 15:07
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I really wish he would stop the foretelling of somebody's death. I've noticed he started doing this awhile back and does it quite often, he'll end a section of the story with something like "...and he didn't know that he only had twenty minutes longer to live." or "..that's the last time he'll ever kiss his wife's cheek." He used to be real good at setting a hook into you to keep you reading but this is just a lame cop out...hmmm, can't think of anything to keep the reader captivated here so I'll just let them know this character is about to die.
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Aug 9, 2010 16:43
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I think it worked really well in bag of bones because it was a major character and it wasn't expected. He dropped it right into the middle of a paragraph if I remember correctly and it worked. You cared about the character and there was a real sense of oh gently caress that's horrible The worst of his foretelling is in Duma Key. It's clumsy because the character is only a minor one and King later spends a chapter trying to build suspense around the attempts to save her life which would be great if that characters death had not been announced earlier because there was a real momentum to that suspense and the sudden phone call later would have really delivered. Instead we knew that character was going to die and any power was removed because, goddamn it, you went ahead and told us what was going to happen you idiot.
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Aug 9, 2010 16:56
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Not to bring the guy up AGAIN, but you would forgive Stephen King for all of that if you had damaged yourself by reading/listening to that one Dean Koontz book that ARRRGHGHGHGHG The.. the one about the evil secret society bent on killing optimistic Christian writers or some poo poo. With the magical genius kid. I HATE HIM SO MUCH  And within 20 minutes he would be DEAD. "oh good, I hate this book" *character dies* KID BUILT A TIME MACHINE LOL, BACK ALIVE, NO ONE DIED. Also there may or may not have been a magic dog Locus fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Aug 9, 2010 |
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Aug 9, 2010 16:59
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Oh god, is that the series of novels about the guy with some kind of light sensitivity? I think that was a try out prior to the Odd Thomas poo poo and I got through half of the first book. It's a shame how Koontz ended up. Phantoms and Watchers were really good, and even if the latter had WonderDog in it I didn't mind because it was engineered that way. The Outsider was also great in that book; basically the same level of compassion and intelligence only it's not a lovable dog so it decides to be evil. I remember reading Watchers when I was in my early teens and yeah I cried near the end. Shame Koontz went on to write paranoid protagonists versus the evil corporation/psychiatrists/modern life because if he could have reined in the insanity I think he might have made a good pulp writer. Edit: Just went to the Dean Koontz site. Wow, guy's totally unhinged. Take a look if you feel like a laugh. Especially this part of his site. What the gently caress? Local Group Bus fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Aug 9, 2010 |
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Aug 9, 2010 17:09
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Local Group Bus posted:Oh god, is that the series of novels about the guy with some kind of light sensitivity? I think that was a try out prior to the Odd Thomas poo poo and I got through half of the first book. Ugh. No, this one was "Relentless" which although godawful, was thankfully not part of a series. The fact that my description can apply to more than one of his books is pretty telling though. Also I could only handle about 10 seconds of that Trixie page before closing it.
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Aug 9, 2010 17:39
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I love me some pulp, I'm a big fan of cheesy action and horror movies. I'm a "it's so bad it's good" kinda guy but holy poo poo, I tried to read a Koontz book and couldn't believe what I was reading, it was horrible. I forget it what it was, I read a couple of chapters and put it down. It wasn't even so much the material, it was more of the style of his writing that put me off. Anyway, I guess that's all a bit off topic. I've read most of SK's books, got a little less than 100 pages to go on Under the Dome, then I'm going to start Duma Key. I do like his style of writing, some things irritate me but looking at his whole style, I'd have to say he's my favorite author. So, it's kind of hard to pick what I think is the "worst" SK novel but if I were to pick I'd probably go with The Girl that Loved Tom Gordon. It just didn't feel like SK and I have a sneaky suspicion that maybe his wife wrote a lot of it or something.
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Aug 9, 2010 18:25
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Locus posted:Ugh. No, this one was "Relentless" which although godawful, was thankfully not part of a series. The fact that my description can apply to more than one of his books is pretty telling though. I own a copy of The Taken or Taking or whatever the gently caress it's called because it has all 3 of Koontz's endings in one book.
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Aug 9, 2010 20:37
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Local Group Bus posted:Edit: Just went to the Dean Koontz site. Wow, guy's totally unhinged. Take a look if you feel like a laugh. Especially this part of his site. What the gently caress? I tend to not finish King books that don't interest me so I can't say in conscious that any of those would be his "worst", but of the ones I did read, I'd probably say the fifth Dark Tower book Wolves of the Calla. I never really thought about it before, but reading this thread I'm apparently not the only one. Again, it's a bit unfair because I remember almost nothing about Song of Susannah; of the fifth I just remember some kind of Snitch reference in a corn field and the rest of it was people saying "riza" every five sentences. After that I realized the entire series was comprised of people saying the same ten words every five sentences, but it had never really bothered me up until that point. I did like the ending of DT. But I read all the books in one go, so it's not like there was a several year lead up. (What was that one King short story about the kid who was obsessed with Nazis? That one had some good moments, but the ending didn't feel like it had anything to do with the rest of the story.) Automatic Jack fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Aug 10, 2010 |
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Aug 10, 2010 01:01
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Automatic Jack posted:(What was that one King short story about the kid who was obsessed with Nazis? That one had some good moments, but the ending didn't feel like it had anything to do with the rest of the story.) Apt. Pupil I think.
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Aug 10, 2010 02:02
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That's the one. So he has dreams in which he really really wants to mess Jews up bad, and sinks progressively deeper into his twisted Nazi fantasies. Then in the end, he grabs a rifle and starts picking drivers off the highway or something, and the police take him down. I tried really hard to convince myself that one had anything to do with the other, but I gave up. Maybe someone here knows what the ending is supposed to mean.
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Aug 10, 2010 02:42
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Automatic Jack posted:That's the one. So he has dreams in which he really really wants to mess Jews up bad, and sinks progressively deeper into his twisted Nazi fantasies. Then in the end, he grabs a rifle and starts picking drivers off the highway or something, and the police take him down. I tried really hard to convince myself that one had anything to do with the other, but I gave up. Maybe someone here knows what the ending is supposed to mean. He just started seeing everyone as subhuman. It started with his dreams, then progressed to the homeless (which, even as he murdered them, he didn't think of as human) and finally ended up with him snapping, killing Rubber Ed, and going to the highway. It's old school King, where the protagonist ends up insane and doesn't have a happy ending.
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Aug 10, 2010 03:13
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Automatic Jack posted:That's the one. So he has dreams in which he really really wants to mess Jews up bad, and sinks progressively deeper into his twisted Nazi fantasies. Then in the end, he grabs a rifle and starts picking drivers off the highway or something, and the police take him down. I tried really hard to convince myself that one had anything to do with the other, but I gave up. Maybe someone here knows what the ending is supposed to mean. Did you really miss how during the months he spent with the Nazi dude,he was killing bums at an increasing rate? Kid was a latent psycho just waiting for an excuse to really snap!
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Aug 10, 2010 03:14
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iostream.h posted:And Haven's a TV show about the same thing. I hadn't heard of Haven at all until I saw it mentioned in this thread, so I watched the first two episodes. I haven't read the Colorado Kid before, so I was expecting the show to be about the aftermath of the Tommyknockers, but it doesn't seem to be. Is it even the same Haven, or some alternate universe thing? It's an ok show but I'm kind of disappointed. A show about finding all these crazy gadgets and maybe a bunker full of Tommyknockers who rigged up an atmosphere machine would be cool. Gardener could have crashed on Mars or something. Unlike some of the folks in this thread I really liked the Tommyknockers, although it definitely dragged in places. The premise was good, and it actually had a good ending which is different for a King novel. As far as "worst" books go, I would definitely have to say Gerald's Game. A big thick book with one unlikable character in one room for most of it? I think the people not listing it as their worst are the smart ones who didn't read it.
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Aug 10, 2010 19:49
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Local Group Bus posted:
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Aug 10, 2010 20:27
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Kind of a random question about The Tommyknockers, but in either the introduction or closing King mentions that if you've been paying attention the news, you'd see that something like this book is currently happening. I was a six when the book was originally published and read it about 15 years later and have never been able to figure out what King was talking about. Can anyone shed some light on this?
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Aug 10, 2010 21:31
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Ornamented Death posted:Kind of a random question about The Tommyknockers, but in either the introduction or closing King mentions that if you've been paying attention the news, you'd see that something like this book is currently happening. I was a six when the book was originally published and read it about 15 years later and have never been able to figure out what King was talking about. Can anyone shed some light on this? He says the reader shouldn't doubt that the Tommyknockers are real. He's referring, I think, to people who have gone insane with unchecked power and too much technology, the kind of people Gard railed against in the book. Seeing as it was published in 1987: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987
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Aug 10, 2010 21:55
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edit. never mind.
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Aug 11, 2010 21:13
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Automatic Jack posted:(What was that one King short story about the kid who was obsessed with Nazis? That one had some good moments, but the ending didn't feel like it had anything to do with the rest of the story.) It's funny, because while the movie adaptation was kind of weak I liked the ending it used: When the counselor confronts Todd after realizing that Dussander is not his grandfather and was the Nazi prisoner of war in the newspaper, Todd scares him into keeping it quiet by implying that the counselor was a pedophile (his attention to Todd, giving him his home phone number, etc all letting Todd make it look like his interest was beyond being a consummate professional and his response being shocked enough to imply there was some truth to it) and that if he goes to the press he'll tell them as much. I liked it because Todd is introduced as cold and calculating, getting a dozen prints before even approaching Dussander, that him just snapping and going on a rampage at the end didn't seem to fit him even if he was a violent psychopath, plus the idea that a Nazi-worshipper who killed hobos and blackmailed an old man to the point of near-death from stress got away scott-free and would go on to live a successful, influential adulthood is way creepier.
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Aug 12, 2010 05:28
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brylcreem posted:Well, it happened again. I started reading The Dark Tower (on the Kindle this time), and once again I've come to a dead stop in Wizard and Glass. Wizard and Glass was a really tough read for me. I breezed through the first three books in a week. That book took me over a month to finish. I really felt like it was the book that would never end. I think the story that it tells is a good one, but it is probably twice as long as it needs to be. It could have been half the length.
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Aug 15, 2010 17:21
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I bought Pet Semetary based on recommendations here, but does it still hold up after having seen the movie first? I seem to recall (movie spoilers) that his little kid is killed by a truck, and then his dad buries him in the cemetery, and later the kid knifes the old guy next door. At some point after that, his wife dies (I think? Maybe gets buried too) and eventually Pops has to off the little kid. Anyone else read the book after seeing the movie? Was it good?
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Aug 17, 2010 12:42
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Chinook posted:I bought Pet Semetary based on recommendations here, but does it still hold up after having seen the movie first? I seem to recall (movie spoilers) that his little kid is killed by a truck, and then his dad buries him in the cemetery, and later the kid knifes the old guy next door. At some point after that, his wife dies (I think? Maybe gets buried too) and eventually Pops has to off the little kid. Yes. The movie will seem like a pile of complete poo poo after reading the book. The movie missed the very thing that made the book so hard to stomach.
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Aug 17, 2010 13:20
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Perhaps the same could be said of all movie adaptions! Well, except The Shining. That was pretty great.
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Aug 17, 2010 15:44
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Harashaw posted:Perhaps the same could be said of all movie adaptions! But especially so in Pet Sematary...the movie amounted to ZOMBIE TODDLER AND EVIL CAT, WOOOOO whereas the book was basically a long, disturbing meditation on grief. Also, slow, stupid zombie Church was infinitely creepier than Evil Cat Church.
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Aug 17, 2010 17:12
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:But especially so in Pet Sematary...the movie amounted to ZOMBIE TODDLER AND EVIL CAT, WOOOOO whereas the book was basically a long, disturbing meditation on grief. Plus the ending. Way, WAY better in the book, even if it was almost the same.
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Aug 17, 2010 17:24
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Locus posted:Plus the ending. Way, WAY better in the book, even if it was almost the same. They also overdid Victor Pascow and just went for the zombie factor with him. There was nothing scary about him in the movie. As with most book adaptations, the movie had too short of a time frame to tell the story.
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Aug 24, 2010 02:04
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They got Jud perfectly though. Possibly the best casting in the movie. The creepiest part of the book was the grave robbing scene though. Which the movie totally missed out on.
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Aug 24, 2010 02:40
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I vote for The Stand, specifically the last half of the novel. IMO King started out very strong, then blew off the second half.
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Aug 24, 2010 03:17
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Local Group Bus posted:They got Jud perfectly though. Possibly the best casting in the movie. I'm not a person who finds books or movies scary at all, really. The only things that scare me are things that deeply unsettle me...for example, the only movie to ever really gently caress me up was Jacob's Ladder. The only things I've ever read that hosed me up and left me feeling a bit shaken? The graverobbing scene and Jud's brief encounter with Timmy Baterman. Oh God just the mental image of his vacant, stupid face grinning into a sickly orange sunset 
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Aug 24, 2010 04:39
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Harashaw posted:Perhaps the same could be said of all movie adaptions! I'm still slogging my way through It so I decided to give the movie adaptation a go. God, it's awful. Scary, but I cannot stand the acting. The adaptation of Misery (James Caan) is pretty great too though.
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Aug 24, 2010 23:43
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I actually liked the film adapts for The Dark Half and Christine. I never got through the novel for the latter half; I'll admit, I wanted a lot more car-on-body action and the book had a bunch of backstory with the origins of Christine that I didn't care about. Also it seemed a lot more vague and insinuating than I was expecting from a story about a car that kills people. The film, on the other hand, opens with the murderous vehicle, brand-spanking fresh off the assembly line and already playing ironic music on the radio while killing off workers with her deadly exhaust. And there's some nice Duel-esque stuff with her acting out, trying to run over haters at a gas station. AWESOME. Did anyone read Blaze? I remember picking it up and then turning the last page, and nothing about what happened between those two events.
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Aug 25, 2010 05:39
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I wish he would go back through the Dark Tower series and clean it up, especially the last 3 books. I realize he was trying to chug them out after he realized "oh, crap, I might actually die before I finish this thing" but I think he would be doing a huge service for the people who have stuck with him over the process to go back and fix what was rushed.
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Aug 25, 2010 08:06
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Automatic Jack posted:Did anyone read Blaze? I remember picking it up and then turning the last page, and nothing about what happened between those two events. It was pretty bland. Didn't help that it was such an obvious Of Mice and Men/Lindberg baby kidnapping pastiche.
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Aug 25, 2010 11:48
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I...I liked Dreamcatcher, shitweasels and all. Sorry guys  But the epilogue really sucked. Having characters sit around and explain poo poo to the reader is the worst way to end a book.
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Aug 25, 2010 17:20
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I just finished reading It and gee, it was amazing. The first couple hundred pages are dull, but after that I sped through it. There were a couple of things I didn't like - the turtle who vomited out the universe and the child sex orgy; that was just creepy and felt as though King had been looking for an excuse to put it in at least one book. Other than that, I really loved it. Poor Eddie though.
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Aug 31, 2010 09:05
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