|
Cujo is kind of a funny book for me because I ended up reading it when I was eleven years old or so. My aunt was a sweet, well-meaning dummy who bought it for me because it had a dog on the front.  Most of the domestic turmoil was completely alien and confusing to me but as you can imagine the "twist" at the end hit me incredibly hard, and reading about the downward slip into rabies-induced madness from the cute doggy's perspective is pretty harrowing as a kid.
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 20:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 18:01 |
|
|
Spring Mint posted:Cujo is kind of a funny book for me because I ended up reading it when I was eleven years old or so. My aunt was a sweet, well-meaning dummy who bought it for me because it had a dog on the front. I was nine. My mom let me read the book after we'd seen the movie together. I was okay with the graphic violence, and the existential terror slipped right by me, but the oblique reference to fellatio weirded me out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 20:52
|
|
|
nate fisher posted:Looking back I think Cujo and The Shining are King's finest novels. They are not my favorite (I think Salem's Lot would be), but quality wise these books are better. I really enjoyed the Long Walk too, but it doesn't approach those two books. Maybe it's just from knowing what was going to happen, since I had seen the movie, but the lead-up to Cujo getting bitten and turning rabid filled me with dread in a way reading rarely does. Especially with the way Cujo's painted to be just a big ol' happy dog at first (yes Cujo is like a 30 year old book, I've forgotten what the spoiler policy was in this thread so I want to be safe). The movie scared the poo poo out of me as a kid, though. I couldn't finish it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 02:54
|
|
|
Went to this used bookstore across the street from my local comic shop, picked up the hardcover Cujo for 2 bucks.  Had a chance to pick up From a Buick 8 and Cell too but decided to wait (reading queue's getting a bit backed up anyway). Are those two worth picking up? How about Rose Madder or Duma Key?
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 03:25
|
|
|
ruddiger posted:Went to this used bookstore across the street from my local comic shop, picked up the hardcover Cujo for 2 bucks. Duma Key is quite good. Personally, I liked From a Buick 8, but some folks don't seem to care for it. I really didn't like Rose Madder, but it has been a long time since I read it, so I should probably give it another try one of these days and see if it's any better the second time around. Cell was interesting for about the first third to half of the book and then just got ridiculously dumb from there to the end. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're really trying to to read everything King's ever written.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 04:15
|
|
|
ruddiger posted:Went to this used bookstore across the street from my local comic shop, picked up the hardcover Cujo for 2 bucks. Cell is alright. From a Buick 8 is one of his worst.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 04:19
|
|
|
I thought Cell was pretty much The Stand re-written in 2010ish. I enjoyed it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 08:40
|
|
|
Kingnothing posted:Cell is alright. From a Buick 8 is one of his worst. Hells no. I loved From a Buick 8. I love the vague/mysterious nature of the story. The fact that you never learn WTF the car is or why it's there adds to the intrigue. Cell was OK and worth a read once but I've no need to re-read it again, whereas I've read Buick 8 three or four times. Duma Key was good. Rose Madder was meh. Post your most re-read King books: The Stand The Waste Lands IT
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 13:17
|
|
|
I don't remember the Cujo cover being so silly. If anything that dog looks like it has a big drooly smile.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 16:32
|
|
|
Kingnothing posted:Cell is alright. From a Buick 8 is one of his worst. You have this backwards.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 18:18
|
|
|
I didn't think Cell was bad in comparison to his recent books (it was better than Under the Dome but not as good as 11/22/63). At one time I was curious about what Eli Roth would do with it (it fell through after Hostel 2 bombed), but the plot is a little played out now. Also I feel like the movie The Signal covered the ground better than King's work could of.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 19:51
|
|
|
Canuckistan posted:
I would say mine are The Stand, The Long Walk (probably the most re-read by a large margin) and The Running Man. They all have this sense of intrigue with the setting, where you want to keep learning more and more about it (the first four DT books had this for me as well). The Bachman Books dystopian style really piques my interest, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 21:13
|
|
|
nate fisher posted:I didn't think Cell was bad in comparison to his recent books (it was better than Under the Dome but not as good as 11/22/63). At one time I was curious about what Eli Roth would do with it (it fell through after Hostel 2 bombed), but the plot is a little played out now. Also I feel like the movie The Signal covered the ground better than King's work could of. Cell's opening was just brutal and left you with so many questions. So many poorly answered questions. It's like he had a great short story idea but, welp, it's been a few months better publish another 600 page paperweight. That said, I enjoyed it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 22:03
|
|
|
syscall girl posted:Cell's opening was just brutal and left you with so many questions. So many poorly answered questions. Cell would have been an amazing short story or Novella that ends when they hit the road.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 22:14
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:You have this backwards. Nope. The first 75% of Cell was okay. 99% of Buick was crap.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 22:46
|
|
|
The beginning of Cell was pretty fantastic but after things kicked into gear, it goes downhill pretty fast. Buick isn't amazing by any means, and there isn't a whole lot that actually happens, so I can see why people might dislike it, but I remember really enjoying it. It's been quite some time and I've been thinking about re-reading it. I really like how King writes people. He can do some kooky things sometimes, but I've always appreciated how his characters feel like actual human beings, and you get a big dose of that here. I'm trying to think of what I re-read the most. It's hard because I'm not very big on rereading (it's not that i'm opposed but when there are so many things I haven't read...) I'm getting to the point where I really need to go back and re-read some of the things I really loved. I actually just started re-reading The Shining in anticipation of Doctor Sleep and it's like falling in love all over again. I read a lot of this stuff the first time when I was like 12, 13 years old. I hesitate sometimes to pick 'em back up because they made such a strong impression on me as a kid and I'd hate to lose that. I'd have to say The Stand The Talisman (I loved the poo poo out of this book as a kid and I'm anxious to give this a re-read soon) and probably Tommyknockers and Needful Things. I rather like his books with large casts, when whole towns of people feel the impact of what is going on.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 23:14
|
|
|
Mister Kingdom posted:Nope. The first 75% of Cell was okay. 75 is a bit generous. I would say 50 percent. There's a sharp downturn in quality once they blow up the herd.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2013 23:14
|
|
|
Ugly In The Morning posted:75 is a bit generous. I would say 50 percent. There's a sharp downturn in quality once they blow up the herd. I agree. If Cell was a novella that ended with that scene as a pyrrhic victory, it would have been some of his best.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2013 14:33
|
|
|
Surprised to see Buick 8 getting some love round here. I always get flack for liking that book. I really appreciated that he just left the mystery open instead of explaining it. If Under the Dome hadn't explained why the dome came down it would have been awesome. But if you want Cell, go to a bookstore, sit down with it, read the first few chapters then put it away without buying it. The book really should have ended with them blowing up the stadium. After that it just gets so bad Febreeze fucked around with this message at 20:33 on May 8, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2013 20:36
|
|
|
For the first half of Cell, I was gripped in a state of terror that I don't think any other Stephen King novel has induced (save for maybe Pet Semetary). So I actually appreciated the second half jumping the shark and being and so silly, because it was a nice way to transition to being a normal functioning human being again.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2013 21:14
|
|
|
I think Buick 8 is a really great little taste of something otherworldly and completely alien intruding on 'real life'....which is when King is at his best, I think. It just happened to be on a much more limited scope than most of his novels. I loved it. And the general consensus on Cell seems to be pretty accurate....I don't think I've ever been so let down by a novel's opening.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2013 05:57
|
|
|
I never understood the Buick 8 hate, it's like the book was tailor-written to go against most of his usual writing crutches: It doesn't explain everything or have a terrible ending, it isn't set in Maine, and the main character isn't a middle-aged writer. Especially compared to something like Under the Dome where everybody acts like an idiot for no reason, it was refreshing to see a group of small-town people that respond to inexpiable otherworldly horror in a calm and rational way even though they're in completely over their heads. On that note, I finally got around to reading Thinner and good lord I cannot believe that Richard Bachman didn't get outed sooner. Every single King-ism, from hearing a click in your throat when you swallow to arc-sodium streetlamps to Bangor, Maine is used so much that it almost feels like self-parody.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 01:21
|
|
|
I also like From a Buick 8. It always makes me think of the minor characters in King's books that round out the cast, like maybe a random Derry resident from IT or someone mentioned once or twice in The Stand as a pilgrim to Mother Abigail's farm. Basically like an expanded version of the vignette chapters we all love. These people really have no part to play in the bigger story, but they have to cope with the effects of what's going on just the same.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 02:45
|
|
|
...of SCIENCE! posted:On that note, I finally got around to reading Thinner and good lord I cannot believe that Richard Bachman didn't get outed sooner. Every single King-ism, from hearing a click in your throat when you swallow to arc-sodium streetlamps to Bangor, Maine is used so much that it almost feels like self-parody. And it contains a line (to the effect), "like a Stephen King book." The book is what outed him nationally, but it was apparently pretty well known in fan circles. I think I've linked somewhere in this thread to the full retrospective by Steve Brown, who broke it, but here's a version of the tale. Oh, found it: Bachman Exposed, by Brown. In retrospect, The Long Walk is a no-doubter, too. Maine-based and Ray Garraty's number - which is odd, considering it's alphabetical order and everything - is 47. King was born in 1947.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 03:51
|
|
|
I've been listen to my Dark Tower audiobooks again, it's such a shame what happened to the narrator who did books 2-4. He was fantastic. The guy who did the last three was good, but nowhere near the same level. I was surprised that King read Wind Through the Keyhole by himself though, he wasn't half bad.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 16:21
|
|
|
notZaar posted:I've been listen to my Dark Tower audiobooks again, it's such a shame what happened to the narrator who did books 2-4. He was fantastic. The guy who did the last three was good, but nowhere near the same level. I was surprised that King read Wind Through the Keyhole by himself though, he wasn't half bad. I believe you mean books 1-4. The revised edition gunslinger and its audiobook don't exist. Sorry.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 16:29
|
|
|
notZaar posted:I've been listen to my Dark Tower audiobooks again, it's such a shame what happened to the narrator who did books 2-4. He was fantastic. The guy who did the last three was good, but nowhere near the same level. I was surprised that King read Wind Through the Keyhole by himself though, he wasn't half bad. The only problem I have with King doing Keyhole was his Susanna voice, but now I'm listening to Rose Madder on audiobook and the bits that King reads work way too well for the same reason; he reads when the perspective is from a psychopathic racist cop and his awful attempts at doing a "black" voice actually work for a character who views them all as gross subhuman caricatures.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 16:35
|
|
|
kenlyric posted:I believe you mean books 1-4. The revised edition gunslinger and its audiobook don't exist. Sorry. I didn't even know that was a thing, but now I got another book that he read to listen to, so thanks!
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 17:25
|
|
|
notZaar posted:I've been listen to my Dark Tower audiobooks again, it's such a shame what happened to the narrator who did books 2-4. He was fantastic. The guy who did the last three was good, but nowhere near the same level. I was surprised that King read Wind Through the Keyhole by himself though, he wasn't half bad. I have the first three audiobooks read by King. The Detta voice is...difficult...to listen to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 23:24
|
|
|
RC and Moon Pie posted:And it contains a line (to the effect), "like a Stephen King book." The funny thing is that King has stated that he started getting letters asking if he was Bachman after the very first book was published.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2013 23:30
|
|
|
Cuchulainn posted:I'm a big fan, but I've got to go with Gerald's Game. I couldn't tell you exactly why, only that it's the only book of his I don't believe I've ever finished. I own a copy, and about every six months or so I pick it up, and generally a day or so later I put it back on the shelf. The description of his last breaths just....urgh, made my spine crawl and I never read the rest. I kind of liked Delores Claiborne, for what it's worth. Pet Sematary was genuinely creepy for the first two-thirds. Recently I picked up a little anthology of three of his short stories--Rage, the Long Walk and something else (I forget what) and I remember thinking Rage started out strong and then just kind of petered out. The Long Walk was just nasty all the way through.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2013 06:56
|
|
|
From A Buick 8 is an underrated novel. The use of dual timelines is a nice framing device, just from a writing perspective. Secondly, it evokes a sense of otherworldly, Lovecraftian-horror, which is when King is operating at his absolute best. Little things, like the mysterious driver, the wheel of the car being too large? They work. They put the reader into a sense of unease. Someone else mentioned the practicality. That too is a significant factor. The characters act as cops: they investigate. When they don't find satisfying answers, they protect. It speaks to that "old boy" mentality of that kind of work (my grandfather was head of homicide in his department and Buick 8 just smacks of his old stories). I've read pretty much every King novel out there, and hold the man in high regard. That being said, I recognize his faults. From A Buick 8, in some ways, feels kind of like a "lost" novel, during his big idea and cocaine heydey. This ain't Under The Dome or Cell, it ain't after all.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2013 08:27
|
|
|
SuitcoatAvenger posted:From A Buick 8 is an underrated novel. The use of dual timelines is a nice framing device, just from a writing perspective. Secondly, it evokes a sense of otherworldly, Lovecraftian-horror, which is when King is operating at his absolute best. Little things, like the mysterious driver, the wheel of the car being too large? They work. They put the reader into a sense of unease. Someone else mentioned the practicality. That too is a significant factor. The characters act as cops: they investigate. When they don't find satisfying answers, they protect. It speaks to that "old boy" mentality of that kind of work (my grandfather was head of homicide in his department and Buick 8 just smacks of his old stories). I've read pretty much every King novel out there, and hold the man in high regard. That being said, I recognize his faults. From A Buick 8, in some ways, feels kind of like a "lost" novel, during his big idea and cocaine heydey. This ain't Under The Dome or Cell, it ain't after all. Ayuh.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2013 16:13
|
|
|
Is there any news about the It remake that is supposedly going to happen? IMDB lists it as being in development, but I'm doubtful it's ever going to get made. It is one of my favorite books ever and while the mini series holds a lot of nostalgia for me, it would be cool to see a super scary R rated version (minus the pre-teen gangbang). A remake of Pet Sematary was also in talks for a while, but I think the original is a pretty good adaptation. I can't imagine a better Judd Crandall and it has one of the best ending credits songs.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2013 15:17
|
|
|
Man, it's been literally decades since I've read It but I do NOT remember a pre-teen gangbang scene.  Just finished the Wastelands. That ending was pretty loving harrowing. Think I'm going to break up my dark tower read with Cujo though. Reading the Long Walk between books two and three felt like a good breather, hopefully Cujo will be the same. Also, I'm REALLY surprised there hasn't been a movie adaptation of The Long Walk. The premise is soooo good and it's such a lean story. If I'm ever at another Darabont panel, I'm going to bring that poo poo up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2013 23:55
|
|
|
ruddiger posted:Man, it's been literally decades since I've read It but I do NOT remember a pre-teen gangbang scene. If it makes you feel better, I don't remember it and I read the book when I was a pre-teen.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2013 00:17
|
|
|
I had "It" when I was in high school, but my mom threw it away after I lost interest. I did eventually get another copy and read it many years later and, yes, there is a pre-teen sex scene. I don't understand how King was allowed to publish that (or anything else afterwards.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2013 00:55
|
|
|
syscall girl posted:If it makes you feel better, I don't remember it and I read the book when I was a pre-teen. That's how bad the preteen sewer gangbang is, it's an evil that (much like IT itself) your young mind forced you to forget for your own protection.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2013 01:00
|
|
|
Submitted without comment, here is the dedication at the start of IT... This book is gratefully dedicated to my children. My mother and my wife taught me how to be a man. My children taught me to be free. NAOMI RACHEL KING, at fourteen; JOSEPH HILLSTROM KING, at twelve; OWEN PHILIP KING, at seven. Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2013 01:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 18:01 |
|
|
A drop of water gathered at the lip of the shiny chromium faucet. It grew fat. Grew pregnant, you might say. It sparkled. It dropped. Plink. He had dipped his right forefinger in his own blood and had written four words on the blue tiles above the tub, written them in huge, staggering letters. A zig-zagging bloody fingermark fell away from the last letter of this final word — his finger had made that mark, she saw, as his hand fell into the tub, where it now floated. She thought Stanley must have made that mark — his final impression on the world— as he lost consciousness. It seemed to cry out at her: BEN HANSCOM'S BIG DICK Another drop fell into the tub. Plink. That did it. Patty Uris at last found her voice. Staring into her husband’s dead and sparkling eyes, she began to scream.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2013 01:38
|
|