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Oh yeah, so I forgot that in Pet Sematary, that one really awkward sex scene happens at a really awkward bizarre time. I had to stop and make sure I hadn't somehow skipped ahead despite the break happening on the same page. Picture this. Worst first day on the job. You have to watch someone die from massive head trauma while their fiancee cries and screams in another room. Then seven hours of cleanup and red tape. Wife calls and says she heard about it, and that you should come home. Wife opens the door wearing only sexy underwear, with a bathtub loofah glove handjob in mind, and a stroganoff cooking in the oven, and says you have two and a half hours in which to screw before the kids get home. She thought this was a good idea. You think it's a good idea. Stephen King thought this was a good idea. I mean, realllly?
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Feb 28, 2012 06:47
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Yeah, that loofah thing is AWFUL. While re-reading dreamcatcher, I looked something up on wikipedia and saw a bit about how it was handwritten as it was his first big book after the accident. You'd think that would cause him to be less expansive, but no...
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Feb 28, 2012 07:01
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Ozmaugh posted:Yeah, that loofah thing is AWFUL. I firmly believe rear end-weasels are just a symbol for how constipated the pain killers he was on after his accident must of made him.
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Feb 28, 2012 07:42
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All this talk about Pet Sematary going on in the thread, and what do I happen to spy at the used bookstore for $2.50? I also grabbed Desperation and Thinner while I was at it. I nearly own every major release this man has written. Good god.
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Feb 28, 2012 15:10
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Seaniqua posted:
What you're missing is that between Dark Tower 3 and4 and 5-6+7, we had something like 10 tie-in books written. Those books expanded on the mythology a great deal, and were "while Roland and his ka tet are doing this, the Crimson King shows up in Derry," etc. 6 and 7 especially do not match the tone established in the in-between tie ins, and are obvious that he scaled back his original goals due to the fear of his own mortality due to the accident (or changed outlook due to it). You won't get this obvious shift change reading them in a row, as you do with the tie ins and breaks in which they were originally written. If you liked DT4 a lot, read Salem's Lot, the flashback in DT4 is written in a similar structure to that, and Salem's Lot is one of his best books.
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Feb 28, 2012 20:12
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I feel alone in not being that crazy about 'Salems Lot. I mean, it was good, but I wouldn't rank it amount my favorite King books. Maybe it's just my general dislike of vampires. I've just never found them that interesting as a literary or cinematic monster and don't get what thee big fascination is.
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Feb 28, 2012 20:36
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For me, at least, vampires are insidious. Forget romance or sexiness, they're a cancer. Handled properly, they are unbelievably creepy and terrifying. Salem's Lot does it well, with the town emptying out as more and more people are turned. It got really creepy in a way a lot of other vampire poo poo misses out on, because they're too focused on TITS and NECKING and SPARKLY. Lost Boys has that same kind of bleakness, for me. They're just inhuman monsters, there's nothing redeeming about them in any way. My favourite style of vampire, however, has got to be the ones in the Necroscope series. Body horror galore 
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Feb 28, 2012 21:04
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Darko posted:If you liked DT4 a lot, read Salem's Lot, the flashback in DT4 is written in a similar structure to that, and Salem's Lot is one of his best books. That's good to hear, because I was thinking that would be my first book after finishing DT. Then probably The Stand. I know Dark Tower deals with a ton of Stephen King novels, but is there a short list of other books that are relevant more than tangentially that I might be interested in reading afterward?
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Feb 28, 2012 21:20
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That was the creepiest part of Salems Lot for me as well. Seeing how easy it is for a town to just disappear as it is taken over was scary enough, but knowing that the good guys can't win is worse.
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Feb 28, 2012 21:21
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Seaniqua posted:That's good to hear, because I was thinking that would be my first book after finishing DT. Then probably The Stand. I know Dark Tower deals with a ton of Stephen King novels, but is there a short list of other books that are relevant more than tangentially that I might be interested in reading afterward? Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and Black House are I think the main ones that tie in with The Dark Tower.
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Feb 28, 2012 21:31
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Chairman Capone posted:Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and Black House are I think the main ones that tie in with The Dark Tower. Awesome, thanks. My wife has already finished the Dark Tower series so maybe I'll start picking these up for her to read, and I can get started on them after I finish the series. Also if I'm exhausted after Song of Susannah I might pick up one of them to read as a break.
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Feb 28, 2012 22:22
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:For me, at least, vampires are insidious. Forget romance or sexiness, they're a cancer. Handled properly, they are unbelievably creepy and terrifying. Salem's Lot does it well, with the town emptying out as more and more people are turned. It got really creepy in a way a lot of other vampire poo poo misses out on, because they're too focused on TITS and NECKING and SPARKLY. Lost Boys has that same kind of bleakness, for me. They're just inhuman monsters, there's nothing redeeming about them in any way. 30 days of night did this pretty well too in my opinion.
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Feb 28, 2012 22:58
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quote:The Wind Through the Keyhole audiobook will also offer an exclusive audio preview of King’s upcoming novel, Doctor Sleep, the eagerly-awaited sequel to his classic, The Shinin, to be published in 2013. Stephen King will also read the excerpt from Doctor Sleep. 2013? I was hoping for end of year. Maybe we'll get some more short stories. Here is a transcript of King reading the first few pages of Dr Sleep just to tease the hell out of us. Local Group Bus fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Feb 29, 2012 |
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Feb 29, 2012 00:38
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Seaniqua posted:Awesome, thanks. My wife has already finished the Dark Tower series so maybe I'll start picking these up for her to read, and I can get started on them after I finish the series. Also if I'm exhausted after Song of Susannah I might pick up one of them to read as a break. Note that Black House is the sequel to The Talisman. It's a good book, and it uses a lot from the Dark Tower series. but there's a lot you'll miss if you haven't read the Talisman (which is a better book anyway)
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Feb 29, 2012 01:06
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Ok thanks, added that to the list.
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Feb 29, 2012 02:54
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Stroth posted:Note that Black House is the sequel to The Talisman. It's a good book, and it uses a lot from the Dark Tower series. but there's a lot you'll miss if you haven't read the Talisman (which is a better book anyway) Black House, like Insomnia, works well on its own merits (once you accept the writing style, which is Peter Straub as gently caress: present-tense, fourth-wall breaking) but the tie-in to the Dark Tower drags it down. Spoiler about that connection: The build up to the end, the Crimson King, a little more info on the Breakers, all that poo poo, that's great, but like Insomnia, it all gets retconned and otherwise ignored. It's like books six and seven of the Dark Tower were so disappointing that they retroactively make most tie-in books a little worse. But on the other hand, there are some awesome loving characters (bikers who make their own beer and rant about Derrida), some real suspense, and an ending that, for once, is narratively and thematically solid.
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Feb 29, 2012 16:57
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I see a lot of people complaining about King's endings. I'd have to agree after reacquainting myself with two of his books. It's ending was weird and hard to follow; Existential tongue biting followed by punching a spider to death. I found 'Salem's Lot's final confrontation to be pretty anti-climactic; basically don't look in his eyes and let's stab him with a stake. So what King books have the worst endings and which one's have good endings?
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Feb 29, 2012 17:42
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zoux posted:So what King books have the worst endings and which one's have good endings? Gorsh. Plotwise, a lot of them follow a pattern: the story gets overwhelming and the evil seems unstoppable except by a major disaster that is either 1) caused directly by the protagonists, 2) a Chekov's gun that's been set up early in the story, or 3) a side-effect of victory. Despite this pattern, a lot of them still work either thematically (evil destroys itself) or emotionally (the characters find catharsis). Personally, the endings I liked are: The Stand (this is very debatable, but to me it fit the Biblical theme perfectly) The Shining Black House Dark Tower 1 2 and 3 (none of which have standard King Endings) Carrie Misery (even if it was a little unrealistic, it's good for the soul) The Green Mile Black House Hearts in Atlantis (emotionally wrecking) Ones not so great: It (got metaphysical as gently caress) The Dark Tower 5 6 and 7 (two cliffhangers followed by an anti-climactic battle, but the Coda of book 7 is really the only way it could have ended) Under the Dome (stereotypical King ending) 11/22/63 Emotionally brilliant, but it's a loving reset button in a book that's all about consequence Tommyknockers (see also: Under the Dome) That's all I can think of off the top of my head. There'll be a huge disagreement with a lot of this list, I'm sure, but like I said, this is subjective as hell. My only real rubric for judging an ending is if it's satisfying on three levels--emotion, plot, and theme. The good ones nail all three; the bad ones might get one or two.
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Feb 29, 2012 18:45
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3Romeo posted:Gorsh. Can you give name some of his books you feel end in 2? I have read a lot but can only think of 1 or 2 that fall under that category.
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Feb 29, 2012 19:00
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Seaniqua posted:That's good to hear, because I was thinking that would be my first book after finishing DT. Then probably The Stand. I know Dark Tower deals with a ton of Stephen King novels, but is there a short list of other books that are relevant more than tangentially that I might be interested in reading afterward? If you can, read the title stories from Hearts in Atlantis and Everything's eventual before DT7. Insomnia and Black House were essentially proper Dark Tower spin-offs, but as mentioned, King essentially just threw them out when it came to writing DT7. It was disappointing to say the least.
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Feb 29, 2012 19:38
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zoux posted:I see a lot of people complaining about King's endings. I'd have to agree after reacquainting myself with two of his books. It's ending was weird and hard to follow; Existential tongue biting followed by punching a spider to death. I found 'Salem's Lot's final confrontation to be pretty anti-climactic; basically don't look in his eyes and let's stab him with a stake. I thought that It was one of his best endings, and don't see why people have a problem with it. It was a dual finale, as it showed the showdown with both generations, with it being purely a psychic/soul/mystical battle (with a little distraction on the physical side and a push from the creator being in one case), which is completely what it was built up to be. With a nice epilogue with Audrey. It's not like the Stand, where the finale doesn't match the buildup, or DT, where the epilogue/last page is fine but the last half up to that goes contrary to all of the buildup.
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Feb 29, 2012 19:58
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Ridonkulous posted:Can you give name some of his books you feel end in 2? Other examples: From A Buick 8. Plot's mostly unresolved, I didn't really care about the characters, there's a cheap emotional ploy near the end. Also, there really wasn't a whole lot else to the book besides "Sometimes strange and unexplainable things exist." That whole story was just kind of...off kilter. Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Good emotional ending; climax leads to a rabid bear she throws a walkman at, hunter shoots bear, girl survives. Theme and setup (baseball) are kind of resolved, but man, that hunter came out of nowhere. Since I'm not writing an essay, I'll just list some others (but I'll be happy to talk about specific ones, if you like): Eyes of the Dragon, Needful Things (another town-sized disaster)*, Desperation and the Regulators, Wizard and Glass, Dreamcatcher. I seem to recall Rose Madder being another problem ending, but I've only read it once and that was like fifteen years ago. *I need to reread this, but I may give it a pass--from what I recall, Gaunt intends his mischief to destroy Castle Rock. So in this case, the King Ending is an organic result of the plot, not something introduced early on to end it. Asbury fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Feb 29, 2012 |
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Feb 29, 2012 20:57
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3Romeo posted:Oddly, I think The Stand fits in that category. Like Darko pointed out, it doesn't match the 1000 page build-up of plot. But I think the ending works so well thematically and emotionally that it makes up for it. I'm not trying to sound argumentative because you gave some good examples (aparently I can't remember how stories end) but can you also explain Desperation I thought they destroy the mine with generally mining equipment to bury the void from which tak came through and in Wizard and Glass the disks are introduced relatively early and built on because of the groups lack of weapons, I thought a checkov's gun implied it came in almost at the conclusion of certain events to save the day but I may misremember what that element actually is.
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Feb 29, 2012 21:08
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It's cool, dude. Also, I'd like to apologize for suddenly turning this thread into 3Romeo's Opinion on Things. First, Wizard and Glass. You mention disks and lack of weapons, neither of which I recall. Are you talking about Lady Oriza's Dish? If so, that's Wolves of the Calla, the next book in the series. Wizard and Glass ended with the ka-tet finding Oz and Flagg and the inconsequential death of the Tick-Tock man. But I can't really fault that ending because that's just the bookend of the real story, which was about Roland and Susannah (which, taken alone, was loving awesome). Desperation just left me feeling cold. This may partially be my fault, since I read The Regulators first, and since the characters shared the same names (if often not the same traits), I had a problem thinking about them as new, individual people. So when they died (again) or lived (again) I was never quite able to empathize. That particular pair of books is a strange literary experiment. King loved being Bachman; he loved the idea of a pseudonym so real that it was a whole actual person.* So he has this pair of books with the same germ of characters--each one branching out in its own way, depending on "who" was writing it. There's a kind of existential mirror-image story that bloomed out of that idea, which is kind of cool I guess if you're a book and/or lit nerd (I am), but the stories themselves suffer because you see the trick the author is trying to pull. And as King himself said in On Writing, the story is the most important thing. He broke his own rule there and the novels suffered for it. *You'll notice this as a pretty common point, if not theme, across several novels and short stories, the most obvious being The Dark Half. He also has more than a passing interest in twins. I'm more than a little surprised there hasn't been a twincest orgy in any of his books. Edit: One day I'll actually ask the department if I can teach a course on Stephen King, and I know that they'll hoot n holler about how awful of a writer he is, and posts like this, I suppose, make it seem like I agree. But that's far from the truth. When the man's on his game, he's nothing less than stellar. Asbury fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Feb 29, 2012 |
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Feb 29, 2012 21:50
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Favorite endings: - Pet Sematary - The Long Walk - Rage - Thinner Hated: - Firestarter (perhaps it's really not out of place and perhaps it's really more of just a sign of the times in which it was written, but after all that, she's going to tell her story to Rolling Stone?)
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Feb 29, 2012 22:04
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3Romeo posted:It's cool, dude. Also, I'd like to apologize for suddenly turning this thread into 3Romeo's Opinion on Things. I was not paying attention, I agree (somewhat) about Wizard and Glass. I had the opposite reaction to Desperation and The Regulators because I read them in the opposite order.
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Feb 29, 2012 22:06
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Hated: King always writes about the times. If you read his books chronologically, it's kind of cool to see what he mentions, because in its own way, it defines America at any given time over the last forty years. Firestarter, like you mention, uses spiked LSD as its catalyst, mentions Rolling Stone, references free drug use--the whole thing is late 70's as hell. Compare that to Under the Dome, which among its other themes and points, references and uses political tribalism,* the ongoing meth epidemic, the Iraq War, loving LCD Sound System, and skater grrls (ugh). *Big Jim Rennie and Andy Sanders are about the worst-veiled caricatures of Bush and Cheney since Oliver Stone's W.
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Feb 29, 2012 22:18
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It also makes his novels as dated as hell. Things like technology are really dated in even his middle-career novels like IT and Needful Things. Calling long distance via operator is so antique that the books suffer for it if you do not just write it off as a time period piece. I guess that's just his style though. As you said, he is a writer of his time and naturally things become outdated.
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Mar 1, 2012 01:00
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Local Group Bus posted:It also makes his novels as dated as hell. Things like technology are really dated in even his middle-career novels like IT and Needful Things. Calling long distance via operator is so antique that the books suffer for it if you do not just write it off as a time period piece. IT is explicitly set in 1957-58 and 1984-85. Kinda bizarre to insult a book with specific times as the setting in it as being "outdated".
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Mar 1, 2012 01:04
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Yeah that was a bad example of mine. Take something from around those times though and you'll get some outdated technology. Paul Sheldon would have been found a hall of a lot quicker had Annie found him last month, but because of the time period national databases and police work that would have linked the two hadn't really been in effect. They are as mentioned before almost time capsules. It just concerns me that some of the things in them seem so irrelevant that younger fans might not be able to see past having to use a credit card to place a long distance call. It's the tiniest nitpick of an annoyance but still .. sometimes it will take me out of the book.
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Mar 1, 2012 01:26
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Local Group Bus posted:Yeah that was a bad example of mine. Take something from around those times though and you'll get some outdated technology. Paul Sheldon would have been found a hall of a lot quicker had Annie found him last month, but because of the time period national databases and police work that would have linked the two hadn't really been in effect. Technology doesn't bother me much, but King's ignorance can. Like in Dark Tower when he didn't know the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, or in The Talisman where a 12 year-old boy growing up in San Francisco was so used to being propositioned for sex by gay men that it was a non-event for him.
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Mar 1, 2012 01:34
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Eh, they're mostly not meant to be science fiction, so trying to not use present technology/society in them wouldn't make sense. And when you use present-day technology in the setting, it's always gonna end up sounding outdated eventually. Back in the day, of course the guy making a long distance call (when was the last time you actually referred to making a long distance call in your life by the way? everything's just a call now) has to find his card to do it, it's how it's always been up to then. Imagine how much easier a time the anti-vampire dudes in Salem's Lot would have had if they all had cell phones! Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Mar 1, 2012 |
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Mar 1, 2012 01:34
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I have to say that I enjoyed Under the Dome because it went back to the feel of his earlier works. Some of his stuff post van-assault has been mediocre at best. As for things becoming outdated, I think it shows how long King has been writing. Going from the type-writer age (hell one of his character's still wrote stories by hand [The Dark Half]) to cell phones in The Cell. I kinda like watching how his stories changed as the times did, with the occasional anachronism character mixed in.
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Mar 1, 2012 01:38
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He lost his ability to write as a teenager since the accident though. I can't remember being impressed with any of his teens since IT, really. I felt he got thee speech, actions, wants and desires right in that book (Excluding THOSE parts) whereas now teens are either hackers or skater grrls or withdrawn and sullen. Maybe not having kids around the house dulled his ear for their conversations or King is finally getting old and past writing about kids. Edit: I lie. The college kids in the second novella Hearts In Atlantis felt authentic, but that's a time period thing. King clearly remembers the sixties fairly well. Local Group Bus fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 1, 2012 |
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Mar 1, 2012 01:44
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Local Group Bus posted:He lost his ability to write as a teenager since the accident though. I can't remember being impressed with any of his teens since IT, really. I felt he got thee speech, actions, wants and desires right in that book (Excluding THOSE parts) whereas now teens are either hackers or skater grrls or withdrawn and sullen. How old are you? Obviously old enough to concentrate on decade old fads. It's perfectly reasonable for an author to write as a teen regardless of age. In fact the trick is to focus on the sort of common experiences everyone remembers and leave out "omg Tommy is a totes cul sk8er boi". Almost every kid deals with bullies, lots of them deal with abusive or neglectful parents. These things I feel are the core themes when king tries to write kids. I was very impressed with Jake Chambers as a well written teen, and I can't really remember any badly written teens, with the exception of any character under the age of thirty in The Stand. I have a question, who enjoyed Cell, and why? I love King, and I want this book to be better, but it feels like a whole different author.
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Mar 1, 2012 03:01
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It looks like Stephen will be doing the audiobook for the next Dark Tower book. I have the first three books he did on cassette. His voice takes a little getting used to, but I did enjoy his readings.
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Mar 1, 2012 04:22
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Farbtoner posted:Technology doesn't bother me much, but King's ignorance can. Like ... in The Talisman where a 12 year-old boy growing up in San Francisco was so used to being propositioned for sex by gay men that it was a non-event for him.  Oh, Stephen. Oh, Stephen, Stephen no.
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Mar 1, 2012 05:13
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Inyourbase posted:I can't really remember any badly written teens, with the exception of any character under the age of thirty in The Stand. I'm just curious, have you read Under the Dome? I'm not usually too critical of a reader (at least, not with King) but the kids in that book were insufferable.
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Mar 1, 2012 06:55
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Seaniqua posted:I'm always curious about how many callbacks to other stories he's making. I've caught the obvious ones so far (The Stand, Salem's Lot) but I'm sure, since I've read such a small amount of his stories, that I've missed a lot of references. I'm pretty sure there's an entire book dedicated to the various DT references and history and whatnot, and at least a handful of internet sources for the same. The thing that I'm wondering is how many non-DT books reference other, older works. Like the Loser's Club memorial at the old standpipe location in Dreamcatcher, for example, or Cynthia Smith from Rose Madder making a guest appearance in Desperation. 3Romeo posted:From A Buick 8. Plot's mostly unresolved, I didn't really care about the characters, there's a cheap emotional ploy near the end. Also, there really wasn't a whole lot else to the book besides "Sometimes strange and unexplainable things exist." That whole story was just kind of...off kilter. I don't see how this book fits Story Ending Style 2. I agree with the strangeness of the story itself and its general theme, but I saw it as more of a jab towards people who want the whole story explained all the time and those who hate cliff-hanger endings in short stories. My Ex was a huge Stephen King fan, but hated any of his books or short stories that didn't explain everything by the end. The worst, to her, was The Moving Finger from Nightmares & Dreamscapes. It involved something bizarre and unexplainable an improbably-long, multi-jointed finger rising out of a sink drain, with an ending that simply stated the story's protagonist was going to face the threat (after a dopey one-liner) with no guarantee of success or failure. She went on an hour-long tirade about how terrible the story was, merely on the merit of never finding out what the thing was, why it showed up, or what happened at the real, unspoken conclussion of the story. I figure that From a Buick 8 is basically a literary "gently caress YOU!!" to people like that while still being a well-written work that has a satisfying (if dull) conclussion. Farbtoner posted:Technology doesn't bother me much, but King's ignorance can. Like in Dark Tower when he didn't know the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, or in The Talisman where a 12 year-old boy growing up in San Francisco was so used to being propositioned for sex by gay men that it was a non-event for him. Also from The Talisman, a well-educated child warns another about the volatility of plastic explosives. Later, they blow up said cache of C4 using gunfire.
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Mar 1, 2012 11:20
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spixxor posted:I'm just curious, have you read Under the Dome? No. I have not. I'll have to pick it up and see if it changes my opinion.
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Mar 1, 2012 11:27
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