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I'd say my favourites are Misery and The Dead Zone, with Misery probably coming first. It's King at his best and in his element - purely situational writing, with a single idea explored in-depth through two really great characters. The Dead Zone is still fantastic, but it's plot-driven and King struggles a little with pacing and development. Even being a plot-driven book it has that hallmark of just one theme being explored - I can't remember if he actually says it in On Writing, but it's clear that he started by asking whether anyone could ever justify a political assassination and worked backwards from there. My first King novel was Needful Things, which was awful. Then I read Nightmares and Dreamscapes and got more of a sense of just how good a storyteller he was. Leovinus fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jul 7, 2011 |
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Jul 7, 2011 22:13
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Leovinus posted:I'd say my favourites are Misery and The Dead Zone, with Misery probably coming first. It's King at his best and in his element - purely situational writing, with a single idea explored in-depth through two really great characters. The Dead Zone is still fantastic, but it's plot-driven and King struggles a little with pacing and development. Even being a plot-driven book it has that hallmark of just one theme being explored - I can't remember if he actually says it in On Writing, but it's clear that he started by asking whether anyone could ever justify a political assassination and worked backwards from there. I'm pretty sure that almost verbatim form On Writing. For me the first was The Gunslinger followed by The Drawing of Three which I could not get through. Now 12 years later I'm on Wolves of the Calla reading them all back to back. My favorite book is Different Seasons. My favorite novel was Insomnia.
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Jul 7, 2011 22:45
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It's been said, and I've probably read nearly every book he wrote, but The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was awful. It's the worst book I've ever read, and the only reason I finished it was that I was on a plane, and it was short. I haven't read any SK for several years, but TGWLTG is still with me. Not that I could tell you what it was about mind you. You know how sometimes while reading your mind just wanders, and you finish a few pages and realize you didn't 'read' a single word? I think I did hat for the whole book. I don't know why or how it was published.
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Jul 7, 2011 22:52
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? Carrie. I was probably late junior high or early high school. I remember finding it extremely difficult simply because of the way he formatted the story. I gave him another try with Night Shift and was hooked. I read most of his output religiously (except the Dark Tower stuff) up until he did Insomnia. I gave up right there, and only returned when a new title sounded interesting (with mixed results, gently caress you Dreamcatcher).
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Jul 8, 2011 02:38
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Umph posted:It's been said, and I've probably read nearly every book he wrote, but The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was awful. I disagree. It was almost my family book by King. I loved everything about it. E: If you "wandered" for the entire book you have no reason to give judgement on it.
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Jul 8, 2011 04:20
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? My first was either Pet Sematary or Thinner... my dad's then girlfriend lended me both when I was 13-14 years old. After that I was hooked and regulary borrowed King's books from the library/bought some until I was up to date. I've read everything from King up to Cell (except Black House), so I can't talk much about his later stuff. I remember having trouble to get past Roadwork's first chapters, it was the first book I didn't finish. Maybe I was too young? I finally read it entirely a few years ago and it was ok. It may not be the "worst" book, but Bag of Bones was a pain to get through. The recurrent description of "lines" running under the TR, and the fact that I couldn't help but imagine the feeble old bad guy looking like Mr Burns and other stuff I don't remember kinda ruined it for me. Cell was great at first, I really enjoyed it until the "flock" started their telepathic thing and began to brainwash survivors. Oh, and I was very let down by Dreamcatcher too. The begining was mysterious and scary (I've read most of it on a night shift as a security officer, alone in a dark factory), the "poo poo weasels" didn't even bother me... Really, a good start. But from the moment the aliens were introduced it all went downhill... I wont even talk about the magical retard here. I think that would be my worst King's story.
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Jul 8, 2011 04:26
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My first exposure to anything by Stephen King was that awful miniseries of The Langoliers. Then a few days later I saw Four Past Midnight in a newsagent on a ferry and I begged my mum to buy it for me. Pretty lovely book to start on King with, but I ended up a fan anyway  edit: yeah, being 11 and reading The Library Policeman was pretty hosed up. Although i don't think I entirely understood what was happening with the "red hot poker" :P
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Jul 8, 2011 04:33
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Safe Driver posted:The Stand is my favourite King book, I usually re-visit it every other year. It was my first Stephen King book, but The Stand is my all-time favorite. I'm about 700 pages in now and it's grand stuff.
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Jul 8, 2011 04:36
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? Thinner. Yeah. It's amazing I ever gave any one of his other books a shot at all.
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Jul 8, 2011 05:03
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First book was Salem's Lot. I read it in the late 1980's and was the first novel a youngin' like me read with absolutely no effort what so ever. So, of course I read everything King had published all the way up until Misery came out. Then I picked up Eyes of the Dragon and never read another King book until Under the Dome...
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Jul 8, 2011 07:35
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Safe Driver posted:Does Firestarter pick up any ? I'm about 75 pages in and it is just so ho-hum so far. Pick up? Doesn't this book literally start in the middle of a chase sequence where a man with magic brain powers and his pyrokinetic daughter are trying to escape some shadowy government agency. If that doesn't do it for You, you're almost at the farm sequence where poo poo gets real.
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Jul 8, 2011 09:12
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? The Gunslinger, which I liked but didn't love. Then I read the next two, which really got me into the series. Then my first non Dark Tower King was 'Salem's Lot.
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Jul 8, 2011 09:31
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Jeece posted:Oh, and I was very let down by Dreamcatcher too. The begining was mysterious and scary (I've read most of it on a night shift as a security officer, alone in a dark factory), the "poo poo weasels" didn't even bother me... Really, a good start. But from the moment the aliens were introduced it all went downhill... I wont even talk about the magical retard here. I think that would be my worst King's story.
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Jul 8, 2011 14:20
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The Gunslinger was my first King book too. This was back in highschool, I had never read a Stephen King novel because I figured he was just another crappy popular author by virtue of how prolific he was, but a person who usually hates fantasy novels kept gushing about it so I read it and got hooked. The next one after that was The Green Mile. I finally got around to reading The Shining, one thing that surprises me is that a lot of people complain that in the book Jack was a decent guy who underwent a slow descent into madness while in the movie Jack was more obviously psychotic from day one. Jack in the book is a guy who broke who his toddler son's arm, beat a student into a blind pulp in a blind rage, was always teetering on he verge of a rage, and the only reason why he could be interpreted as stabler than his movie counterpart is because everyone is an unreliable narrator: chapters from his perspective are obviously sympathetic to himself, Wendy is an emotionally abused spouse who has internalized his unacceptable behavior, and Danny is the same age that Jack was when he talks about how even though his own father was a monster he was too young to do anything but love and adore him unconditionally.
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Jul 8, 2011 15:28
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The Shining is a perfect example of how a movie can get characters wrong. They are named in the book the way that they are for a reason: Jack Torrence "This is the house that Jack built." Wendy: Grew up and didn't leave Never-Never land (her naivety and willingness to believe the best when the worst is the most likely outcome) and Danny, Daniel in the lions den. There: All you need to know about the characters and how the Overlook worked on them based on their names. Now look at the movie: Jacks broken and doesn't even try and get over his past and there's no sense that the Overlook is spoiling any chance he has of doing so, Wendy isn't so Peter Pan she's Valium personified and Danny, instead of being stuck as the infant who has to go into this place with this incredible power because his parents (and the doctor in Boulder) continually refuse to believe his gifts and he himself sees this as his fathers last hope of redemption, is merely a conduit for the viewers experience of the creepy 'ol hotel. The mini-series got it right in so many more ways. Jack is broken but trying to mend, Wendy is doubtful but hopeful in a situation that is obviously their last chance (and she wakes from her listlessness in a way the movie Wendy never really did) and Danny is who the hotel wants; a kid with enormous psychic powers that can extend the reach of the hotel beyond its grounds. Forget the Kubrick version, read the book or watch the mini-series if you want to understand the shining beyond horror that is external to a family in economic and emotional distress trying for one last shot at redemption that is repeatedly denied them. First King novel I read? The Dead Zone. Highly recommended. Poor Johnny Smith. For such an average guy he had such a hosed up life.
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Jul 8, 2011 15:55
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? If I remember right I started with Cujo. That was a long time ago but if I remember right I liked it enough to start looking into his other books (which I liked a lot more).
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Jul 8, 2011 20:15
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Asclepius posted:This was the first King book I read. It was ages ago, but for some reason I remember it being that the aliens were actually just a hallucination and that the movie sort of missed the point. Am I completely wrong/misremembering? No. I'm pretty sure the book was very much grey aliens trying to take over the planet, and starting in the rural North East. There is a lot of hallucination/surreal scenes when the one main protagonist gets hi-jacked by an Alien and ends up stuck sa prisoner in his own mind. The poo poo-weasels were something like the drones or viral form of the aliens. I can't remember if they show up again after that first one that takes out a bunch of the interesting protagonists that don't last past the first quarter of the book. I forget. Duddits was ALSO an alien or something, but he just made the unfortunate mistake of hi-jacking a mentally impaired earthling? The whole story, I think, was written just so King could use the metaphor of that one guy "nurturing his own mental warehouse" thing because he got hit by a van and it sucked.
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Jul 8, 2011 21:30
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Having read Dreamcatcher in the last year all the grey aliens are hallucinations based on what people think aliens should look like. The real aliens are the poo poo-weasels born from people infected with the Ripley (red fur growing everywhere)
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Jul 8, 2011 21:35
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Ridonkulous posted:Having read Dreamcatcher in the last year all the grey aliens are hallucinations based on what people think aliens should look like. The real aliens are the poo poo-weasels born from people infected with the Ripley (red fur growing everywhere) Eeesh. I forgot all about that Ripley stuff. I apologize for giving bad information. Duddits was still an alien hi-jacking a human right? hatelull fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jul 9, 2011 |
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Jul 8, 2011 21:52
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? The first one I read was Four Past Midnight. I was eight and loved the Langoliers, haven't read it since so I don't know how much those feelings hold up now.
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Jul 9, 2011 00:41
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hatelull posted:Eeesh. I forgot all about that Ripley stuff. I apologize for giving bad information. Duddits was still and alien hi-jacking a human right? Nah, just a magical retard if you are talking about the book. King uses him in the same way he uses the turtle in IT by saying that duddits was the boys dreamcatcher and kept them together in the web far beyond how long they would have stayed friends along with being part of both the group at its finest and its worst. Duddits actually uses them to kill the bully in their sleep. You may be thinking of the alternative ending to the movie. I though the real alien force in dreamcatcher was the Byrus, the red-cloud that Jonesy got caught up in. Didn't Mr Grey say something like, "We always come in the bodies of the old ones"? I took that to mean that's how the aliens repopulate, kind of like an inter-stellar virus.
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Jul 9, 2011 01:55
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You guys have a few points wrong. The aliens were a type of fungus/parasite. The grays weren't hallucinations, and Duddits was just a magical retard.
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Jul 9, 2011 10:39
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cheerfullydrab posted:I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? I read Carrie when I was about 12, but I date my first real introduction to Stephen King with Misery, after seeing the film.
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Jul 10, 2011 04:56
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My first intro to King was actually a copy of The Wastelands that my mom bought. I was really young and reading snippits of that book, and then when I got into the sixth grade I started the Gunslinger. I didn't love it, but I immediately read The Drawing of the Three and was hooked.
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Jul 10, 2011 06:02
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cheerfullydrab posted:You guys have a few points wrong. The aliens were a type of fungus/parasite. The grays weren't hallucinations, and Duddits was just a magical retard. Then what where they?
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Jul 10, 2011 17:58
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Ridonkulous posted:Then what where they? They were either some form of the fungus or a species that had been taken over by the fungus.
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Jul 10, 2011 21:22
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I think the first King I read was Salem's Lot. After that, I was hooked. I recently re-read a few of his books and wanted to blurt out a few comments: Lisey's Story. All I could think of was "wtf did Scott even see in her?" (Does that make me an Incunk?  ) As others have noted, the childish language is really grating: "smucking", "bool", and so on. I get that it's supposed to be somewhat infantile, as that's the language Scott and his brother used in childhood, but kee-rist, give it a rest.Having said that...my ex-boyfriend's father was A Very Big Name in academia, and when he died (the father, not the ex...more's the pity) the university was startlingly aggressive in wanting his papers. Two guys in suits basically showed up a short time later saying "Give us his stuff, we have a truck outside." King at least got that right, and I can imagine that the University of Maine or whoever probably has dibs on his papers when he finally leaves this earth. Duma Key. I think that even if you took out the spooky element, it works as a mainstream novel of a guy recovering from an accident and reinventing himself as an artist. I was still pissed when Wireman died offscreen, and the plans Edgar made for the future (beach in Mexico) was reminiscent of The Shawshank Redemption. Christine. I was struck by how, for King, this book had a relatively simple denouement that didn't drag on for a hundred pages. It almost felt like a letdown. The Shining and It -- can't really improve on what's been said, and I really like Local Group Bus's analysis of the names. No, wait, I do have a gripe. I hated that "beep beep, Richie" the kids would use all the time whenever that kid, as King himself surely put it, Went Off On One. Where is that from? Is that another Boomer thing I'm too young to get? Like the babytalk in Lisey's Story, it never rang true for me as something people would actually say with any degree of naturalness and I don't recall him ever explaining where they picked it up from. As for books I haven't read, why are Firestarter and Cycle of the Werewolf so hard to find? I've never seen the latter in any used bookstores and it's rare to see it in a regular one. Drimble Wedge fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jul 16, 2011 |
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Jul 15, 2011 23:32
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Currently reading The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah and I think the first 3 chapters (~50 pages or 1hr20m of narration) rate among the best in the entire series. Not the best, but top 10, around say 8-9. This is a relief considering the amount of hate that exists online here, at Amazon and elsewhere. The last book jumped the shark, fur sure, but it wasn't "as bad" as people had mentioned, I suppose. This book may turn out as bad as some have mentioned, but for now it is quite interesting: We witness an event which Roland theorizes is the potentially cataclysmic destruction of any number of universes/realities with the crashing of a beam. The goodbyes between Jake and Oy (with Oy being his only living 'friend') and Rosalita and the Gunslinger are emotional and honest. With regard to the second relationship, I don't mind them having some kind of emotional connection. I'm not completely turned off to her treating his wounds with medicine or him revealing his vulnerability to her. I would often read comments in discussion board threads about Wolves of the Calla where people described "Mr. Sensitive of Gilead getting his old man cream rubbed on his joints and balls by a Mexican washer woman." It's more than that. Roland is deteriorating as a consequence of his quest. Most men have a tendency to reveal weaknesses or insecurities to two sources: other men they consider brothers and women they share their bed with. This book did both and I don't see anything wrong with Roland having sex or talking about physically breaking down. Meanwhile, as Roland breaks down, other characters are taking on characteristics that once defined him (especially Eddie). So maybe it slows down and there is another sidestory. I'm not really concerned. I'm one of the guys who loved Lost because occasionally as=n episode didn't reveal anything at all, serving as nothing more than a good standalone story. The writing seems crisp and avoids a lot of the overt "hey, remember when the characters experienced these events? that seems to relate to this new experience" that he began in Wolves of the Calla. Shammypants fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jul 16, 2011 |
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Jul 16, 2011 20:00
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I never thought that Song of Susannah was "bad" per se, just that overall it's dull and pretty much all of the important parts could have been split between Wolves and The Dark Tower. I did think there were some interesting bits with Mia, and the ambush and battle in the store in Maine was a pretty good action sequence.
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Jul 16, 2011 20:39
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I remembered enjoying It when I was a kid (apart from that scene) and being befuddled but entertained by The Stand (at the end: Wait, what was the point of any of that then?) so I picked up Salem's Lot and The Shining and man, were all of his earlier books these wailing confessionals about alcoholism? Everyone is either a drunk, an author or a drunk author. That said, The Shining was superb until the ending got all hyperbolic and Salem's Lot is really good in places. Then there's some awful cod-philosophy jammed in that serves no purpose, like the book is being interspersed with a Stephen King opinion column.
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Jul 19, 2011 00:03
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Evfedu posted:Everyone is either a drunk, an author or a drunk author. "Go with what you know"
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Jul 19, 2011 00:16
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Evfedu posted:like the book is being interspersed with a Stephen King opinion column. My favorite example of this is The Sun Dog, when it's getting toward the climax of the story and he suddenly takes a 10-page derail to pretend he's Dave Barry and bitch about drug stores.
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Jul 19, 2011 00:37
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Are there any King books where there isn't at least some self-medication going on? Even after he booted the drugs he wrote characters in who were addicts and Dome is more about how dangerous cooking meth is than how horrible it is to live within a confined space or the rise of authority within a closed system.
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Jul 19, 2011 00:56
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Fascist Funk posted:My favorite example of this is The Sun Dog, when it's getting toward the climax of the story and he suddenly takes a 10-page derail to pretend he's Dave Barry and bitch about drug stores. I think my favorite was in Duma Key where for no reason at all he puts in a few pages about the protagonist reading a book about how Bush is a war criminal and Iraq was fought based on lies. And then his next book, Under the Dome, is about how Dick Cheney (Big Jim Rennie) hides behind George Bush (Andy Sanders) to manipulate people for his own benefit without getting called out on it.
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Jul 19, 2011 01:33
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Bad news everyone, The Dark Tower adaptation is now completely stalled as Universal has passed on backing it. http://www.deadline.com/2011/07/universal-wont-scale-stephen-kings-the-dark-tower-studio-declines-to-make-ambitious-trilogy-and-tv-series/
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Jul 19, 2011 04:00
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muscles like this? posted:Bad news everyone, The Dark Tower adaptation is now completely stalled as Universal has passed on backing it. So they passed on The Dark Tower and At the Mountains of Madness, and instead decided to make a movie based on Battleship and a remake of The 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves? Yeesh.
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Jul 19, 2011 04:15
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Chairman Capone posted:So they passed on The Dark Tower and At the Mountains of Madness, and instead decided to make a movie based on Battleship and a remake of The 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves? Yeesh. Board games are the new comics? Can't wait to see who they cast as the Monopoly guy. 
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Jul 19, 2011 05:15
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Here's something that's at least a bit of a counterbalance to the possible Dark Tower cancellation: The Stand movie could be a trilogy instead, and David Yates is interested in directing. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/07/harry_potter_dark_knight_rises.html Personally I think a trilogy is a much better idea than just a standalone movie based on the book. No way that would have turned out well, or at least anything like the book. Of course that also means the studio would have to take a much bigger risk in funding it in the first place.
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Jul 19, 2011 05:43
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JustFrakkingDoIt posted:Board games are the new comics? Can't wait to see who they cast as the Monopoly guy.
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Jul 19, 2011 10:10
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Local Group Bus posted:Are there any King books where there isn't at least some self-medication going on? Even after he booted the drugs he wrote characters in who were addicts and Dome is more about how dangerous cooking meth is than how horrible it is to live within a confined space or the rise of authority within a closed system. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon?
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Jul 19, 2011 14:25
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