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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:So what was changed in the revised Gunslinger? Wiki dump (PROBABLY SPOILERS): quote:King revised The Gunslinger in 2003. In his introduction to the new edition, King stated that he felt that the original version was 'dry' and difficult for new readers to access. He also made the storytelling more linear as well as making the plot of the book more consistent with the series' ending. Other changes were made in order to resolve continuity errors introduced by later volumes. The added material was over 9000 words (35 pages) in length.[3] edit: If you really want to  out about it, then this page has every single change: http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?15058-The-Gunslinger-Revised-A-Side-by-Side-Comparison
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Oct 17, 2013 |
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Oct 17, 2013 04:03
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After finally catching up all the way through this thread, I just wanted to weigh in as a long-time King fan. It seems I'm in a bit of a minority as Firestarter is my absolute favorite King book of all time. I understand people in this thread generally think it's ok, but I usually end up re-reading this book at least once a year. After that, the other King works I find my self going through multiple times are The Running Man, Salem's Lot, and Pet Semetary. I've read nearly all of King's other books, short stories, etc. and I just find that these ones use a pacing that just works for me. Plus, The Running Man is just a little too long to be called a short story, so I can make it through that one in a few sittings usually.
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Oct 17, 2013 04:19
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Hedrigall posted:edit: If you really want to Ugh, this 15 [9] - Brown says that the bird-man ( Taheen ) was on his way to a place called Algul Siento, a place of importance in book five. perfectly sums up everything wrong with the revision. Part of the magic of that first book was the enormity and mystery of Roland's world, having no clue what else might be coming. This is the equivalent of sticking a bunch of CG into scenes that were actually stronger without it.
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Oct 17, 2013 06:52
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Install Windows posted:Additionally some things were added to foreshadow later events more clearly. It's less foreshadowing and more beating you over the head with it.
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Oct 17, 2013 09:36
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Finished Dr. Sleep, and I really loved it. I had only a few complaints, and I think everyone else covered those. But, to rehash: Measles? I'm really confused by this. Some of these guys had been alive for thousands of years, and all of a sudden, measles out of nowhere? What. I know they talked about Baseball bat boy not having his MMR shot, but wouldn't that have been an issue way back before the MMR was invented anyway? And by that logic, how was abra supposed to inoculate the ones who hadn't caught it? Just go get the MMR shot, It's $15. I think at one point the knot speculated, "I don't know why", but was this something obvious that I missed? My second problem was that the villians weren't scary. It felt like a revenge flik where Dan and crew were like the punisher, knocking enemies over en masse while cracking badass lines. They felt like the hunters, not the hunted. I remember the book being advertised as "a return to balls to the wall, screaming terror", and that really didn't fit the mood. Meow Tse-tung fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Oct 17, 2013 |
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Oct 17, 2013 11:28
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The Berzerker posted:It would be weird as hell (for me) to have a series of 8 books, read the first 3, enjoy them, and then stop because some stranger on the internet said the rest suck. You can read the Gunslinger alone and enjoy it, but you'll probably want to read more, and the 2nd and 3rd books are the best in the series as far as I'm concerned. It's so odd to me that book 6 gets so much hate; it was the favorite book of the series for both myself and my late wife (who was the most erudite, literate person I've ever known. If there is a classic you can think of, she had read it. Her personal library was north of 2000 books. She probably had more poetry collections than I had books total when we got married), and we reached that conclusion independently. We read the series concurrently but didn't discuss our thoughts until we had each finished and we both loved book 6. I think it's easy to sneer at the meta-fictional aspects but he makes himself into such a shithead when it'd be so much easier for him to portray himself in an aggrandizing or at least neutral manner. It also has some of his most intriguing writing as far as affecting the reader. My wife and I were both almost half-convinced, in a doublethink way, that he literally believed all this stuff was true. It would have been so easy for the meta-fictional stuff to go off the rails and that was my full expectation when it was first introduced, but I'll be damned if he didn't navigate every obstacle and pull it off.
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Oct 17, 2013 12:11
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I don't dislike all of book 6. I actually like the self-insert because I think it makes sense in the context of the world that had been created. I also love the cliffhanger ending of the 6th book, especially since the 7th came out only a few months after it. I just find all of the Mia/Susannah stuff boring after the first time reading it. That and it leads to Mordred, who is one of the worst villains ever in my opinion, so I like reading it even less.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:43
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I think the basic idea of the revised The Gunslinger isn't bad, since there are some bits that just didn't fit together with how the series went. Its just that he did too much and wrote the new parts in his current style.
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Oct 17, 2013 16:40
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Thanks for the advice on The Gunslinger and the other books in the series. Here's how dumb I am: I didn't realize that "The Running Man" was based on a Stephen King novel. 
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Oct 17, 2013 16:54
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"Based" pretty loosely though. Arnold was just completely miscast and it doesn't help that the movie killed most of the actual story which was more the main character against the system itself than the people hunting him.
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Oct 17, 2013 17:58
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M.C. McMic posted:Thanks for the advice on The Gunslinger and the other books in the series. The only King movie more liberally adapted than The Running Man is The Lawnmower Man (which itself was forced to remove attribution due to how little it had in common with the story). The greatest similarity between The Running Man as written and The Running Man as filmed is the name of the main character.
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Oct 17, 2013 18:37
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A good actor friend of mine told me he was filming a "Gray Matter" adaptation about 9 months ago. They just came out with the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USR8sq1F-kE&hd=1
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Oct 17, 2013 18:43
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That looks fun, although I don't remember any spiders in that story.
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Oct 17, 2013 19:15
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eyebeem posted:I have a 3 hour round trip commute every day, so I spend a lot of time listening to audio books. I had never read King (either as a kid or during the last 4 years of audio book listening), but 11-22-63 intrigued me, so I gave it a go. It ended up being one of all time favorites, so now I'm on a King binge. The first 3 or so Dark Tower audio books are fantastic. After that, the original voice actor got in an accident or something and the new guy wasn't really that great. First three (maybe it was four, it's been a while) were absolutely wonderful though.
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Oct 17, 2013 19:20
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muscles like this? posted:Arnold was just completely miscast You are the wrongest wronger who ever wronged a right. He might have been miscast for the book Ben Richards, but the film is so ridiculously different. It's like saying Arnold was miscast as Mr. Freeze; maybe if they had gone with Michael Ansara's version, not a hilarious, over-the-top version spewing one-liners about low temperatures in a variety of situations. Arnold is perfectly cast in every film he's done, because he plays Arnold Schwarzenegger every time.
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Oct 17, 2013 22:52
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Hedrigall posted:
Psh. More like ''King books I never read'' list. Tom Gordon is pretty good, Insomnia is great too. From a Buick 8 is divisive, but it's definitely not his worst book. I agree about Gerald's Game though. That one deserves the last spot.
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Oct 17, 2013 23:26
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Along with Song of Susannah, Lisey's Story is another work I'm totally at odds with the fanbase on. I loved that book; some of his best writing, and simultaneously accomplished the separate goals of being an epic love letter to his wife and once and for all answering his most asked question ("Where do you get your ideas from?"). But it's not ~scary~ so of course people hate it. e: Totally on board with #s 4, 6, 9 and 10 though
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Oct 17, 2013 23:31
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regulargonzalez posted:Along with Song of Susannah, Lisey's Story is another work I'm totally at odds with the fanbase on. I loved that book; some of his best writing, and simultaneously accomplished the separate goals of being an epic love letter to his wife and once and for all answering his most asked question ("Where do you get your ideas from?"). But it's not ~scary~ so of course people hate it. It's really, really slow. I was also put off by Lisey getting assaulted in that one scene. Too messed up.
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Oct 17, 2013 23:35
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Finished Dr. Sleep, and while I liked it I need a few days to process it. I wished he went a different direction with the story instead of the True Knot. It almost felt like I was reading a Joe Hill novel instead of King. What I loved about The Shining (and Salem's Lot) was the focus on a place so evil that it stayed in my memory forever. I loved learning parts of the history of the place while leaving enough unsaid that it was a mystery. I can see the influence of Shirley Jackson's masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House of not letting the reader in on everything in both The Shining and Salem's Lot (it is scarier not to know what is behind the door). Dr. Sleep lacked any mystique of those books. Simply put it just wasn't scary one bit, but I hope even King knows this. I would love just once more for King to write about an evil place (Pet Cemetary did this well also), and flesh it out with history while scaring the poo poo out of me.
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Oct 18, 2013 00:12
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The Berzerker posted:That looks fun, although I don't remember any spiders in that story. I can't remember if it was in Grey Matter or One For The Road, but there's a mention of a guy who worked as city maintenance or as a sewer worker or something but one time he was down a manhole and he saw a spider as big as a dog with webbed up kitties and such. He walked off the job and drank himself to death because it broke his brain to see something like that.
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Oct 18, 2013 18:55
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nate fisher posted:Finished Dr. Sleep, and while I liked it I need a few days to process it. I wished he went a different direction with the story instead of the True Knot. It almost felt like I was reading a Joe Hill novel instead of King. What I loved about The Shining (and Salem's Lot) was the focus on a place so evil that it stayed in my memory forever. I loved learning parts of the history of the place while leaving enough unsaid that it was a mystery. I can see the influence of Shirley Jackson's masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House of not letting the reader in on everything in both The Shining and Salem's Lot (it is scarier not to know what is behind the door). Dr. Sleep lacked any mystique of those books. Simply put it just wasn't scary one bit, but I hope even King knows this. I don't think SK is involved in this, but: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/28/entertainment/la-et-mn-heres-johnny-again-wb-exploring-a-shining-prequel-20120727 The bits & pieces of The Overlook's history that were included in The Shining were fascinating, and in the right hands, it could be pretty great.
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Oct 18, 2013 19:46
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M.C. McMic posted:Is "The Gunslinger" worth reading on its own, or does it just kinda end up going nowhere without the rest of the series (which I understand only gets worse)? On its own it would fit in with New Wave Sci-Fi from the 60s... you could see it as a lesser Micheal Moorcock Eternal Champion book or something by Roger Zelazney. The first 4 books are brilliant though.
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Oct 19, 2013 08:20
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Hedrigall posted:edit: "Worst Stephen King" list, 313 voters:
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Oct 19, 2013 09:08
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regulargonzalez posted:Along with Song of Susannah, Lisey's Story is another work I'm totally at odds with the fanbase on. I loved that book; some of his best writing, Bool. Babyluv. Smucky. Please do not troll.
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Oct 19, 2013 17:54
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Of that worst 10 list, I have to disagree with Insomnia. I know all of the others have a ton of detractors...but I thought Insomnia did some interesting things, and liked the elderly heroes. It was kind of over-long...but still...I thought it was a lot better than anything else on that list. Oh and I liked Buick 8, so what the gently caress do I know? It had a weak plot, and little resolution...but all of the completely alien happenings in such an absolutely mundane setting was pretty neat.
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Oct 19, 2013 18:39
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I feel like From A Buick 8 would have fared better if it was sold as explicitly a collection of related short stories instead of a novel. I like it, but it definitely feels much more like that than a novel.
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Oct 19, 2013 19:02
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M.C. McMic posted:Is "The Gunslinger" worth reading on its own, or does it just kinda end up going nowhere without the rest of the series (which I understand only gets worse)? Gunslinger is really a book that you try to hurry up and get through to get to the next three in the series. Luckily, it's short.
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Oct 19, 2013 19:24
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jfjnpxmy posted:Bool. I MADE A BOOOL
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Oct 19, 2013 19:32
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For possibly the first time in his career, the ending to a King book made up for any issues I had with the preceding story details. Finished Doctor Sleep and while yes, like I mentioned earlier, I was anticipating and hoping the story would focus in a different direction I ended up being extremely happy with it, with the character development and especially, ESPECIALLY with the ending overall. I still can't stop laughing at 'THE SHINING 2: SHINE HARDER' remark tho', that's possibly the best thing ever.
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Oct 19, 2013 20:45
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The revised version of the Gunslinger is garbage, stick with the unedited version. It is weird, sparse, and beautiful in an ugly way and all of these qualities are screwed up by the heavy-handed foreshadowing he added in.IT BURNS posted:Needful Things is actually pretty hilarious. It's hardly a horror or thriller novel; I got the sense that he was enjoying destroying the world he created. Needful Things and Castle Rock are the literary equivalent of building a massive metropolis in SimCity, and then cackling as you click the tornado and meteor buttons repeatedly. I too found it hilarious.
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Oct 20, 2013 03:26
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It really cracks me up that the revised Gunslinger basically has its own "Han shot first" controversy with Roland mercilessly gunning down that girl from Tull in the original edition getting switched to her begging him to kill her in the revised one. Given that one of the themes of the books is an attempt to problematize Roland's obsession with reaching his goals its a little strange that King went out of his way here to cast Roland in a more positive light in that particular situation. It seems like the original sequence of events fits much more closely with his character. Sorta seems like King is getting a little soft in his old age.
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Oct 20, 2013 19:34
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ganthony posted:Oh and I liked Buick 8, so what the gently caress do I know? It had a weak plot, and little resolution...but all of the completely alien happenings in such an absolutely mundane setting was pretty neat. This is what I enjoyed about the book. I've always wondered about the incidental characters in King's books that aren't really central to the plot, but experience a little bit of the supernatural as story unfolds. He builds just enough of the world to pique my curiosity about how those peoples' lives are affected, and Buick 8 is a nice little glimpse into what might happen.
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Oct 20, 2013 20:02
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I liked the revised edition, actually. Not because of King's stated goal (he wanted to both make it easier to read and make it sync up with the world-building in the later books, both of which strike me as unnecessary), but because I read it after finishing the series and considered it the start of Roland's next loop. He's walking the same path but doing things a little differently, and he's(nominally) changed from who he was in the original. A lot of the additional material makes Roland more introspective. (edit: I know he doesn't have the horn in the revised edition, so my conceit here is pretty contrived, but gently caress it.) Still, though, the original edition has its own set of charms. The Dark Tower works an examination of King's life as a writer and the different phases of his writing (the Gunslinger, Drawing, The Waste Lands, and Wizard are each tonally different, and none of them sound alike until books five six and seven) and changing the younger voice to match the older does the original a disservice. Asbury fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 20, 2013 21:08
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That's why I have a copy of each.
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Oct 20, 2013 22:08
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I can't agree with that bottom 10 list... Some of them, like Gerald's game and Insomnia were just terrible for me to read through, but others, like Tommyknockers, i enjoyed. Well, Tommyknockers was kind of odd, actually. It seems so slowly paced but I was really liking how weird everything was. And i just finished reading Cujo (one of the only King novels I hadn't read yet) and I loved it. Whoever posted the worst 10 book list, is there a corresponding top 10?
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Oct 22, 2013 01:46
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GreyPowerVan posted:Whoever posted the worst 10 book list, is there a corresponding top 10? It was the same post. Out of the ones that I've read, I disagree with the placement of Insomnia, Cujo, and Needful Things. Insomnia takes a long time to get going, but the second half makes up for it, and it's the rare example of one of his books with a fully satisfying resolution. Cujo is a little rough, but by no means terrible (at least, from what I remember). Needful Things just rubbed me the wrong way, and I'm pretty sure that even people who liked it didn't like the ending. Also, I think Hearts in Atlantis (the titular novella, if not the whole collection) belongs in the top 20.
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Oct 22, 2013 02:45
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I just finished Doctor Sleep the other day. I found it really compelling for the first 75%, then texted my best friend who is also an avid King fan, saying "Kindle says I'm 75% through. Disappointing ending incoming." and wow was I ever right. After the "and then Billy did a cartwheel and Dan and Abra killed everyone yay" bit, there was still some book left, and I was expecting a real showdown. Nope. I will say though, the bits with Conchetta getting sick and being in the hospital were really loving heartwrenching to me, especially Lucy's conversation with Dan where she has no idea how to tell him how she truly feels, and wishes Conchetta would just die so she stopped feeling pain. There's a line, something like "and she hoped the shot would kill her" that really pushed me over into an ugly-cry. I lost my grandmother this summer when she was in the hospital with a shattered arm (and dementia) so holy gently caress did that part just kill me. Everything Lucy was thinking just hit home. I do love that King has always been able to make me feel things though - Reading IT, one of my first King books, when I was 16 made me scared at times, angry at Henry Bowers for killing the dog, and so much more. I'm glad (in a bittersweet way, of course) that Stephen King can still affect me in those ways. I felt sorry for a lot of the members of the Knot, to be honest. Andi, then Sarey once Andi was dead, Grampa Flick who couldn't stop making GBS threads himself... Rose was an evil bitch, but lots of her "followers" were misguided, sad individuals who just wanted a family. *I don't know if the book is still new enough to put in spoiler tags, so I figured better safe than sorry.
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Oct 22, 2013 03:38
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RoeCocoa posted:It was the same post. Thanks, i only saw a partial quote so I didn't see the top 10. And Needful Things is actually one of my favorite books by him, but the ending was, as you say, weaker. Duma Key, for all it's weirdness, is still my favorite book from him though.
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Oct 22, 2013 07:07
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I might be the only one but I actually liked Cell. Agreeing with the love for Duma Key, I just reread that a month or so ago. Also, gently caress Dreamcatcher. Tried reading that again and barely got 100 pages in before I gave up. Though, shame on me, I've yet to read Salem's Lot (and I've been reading King for about 12 years now). That's my next book in line.
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Oct 22, 2013 13:46
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ShadowedFlames posted:I might be the only one but I actually liked Cell. I liked Cell. I just finished Under The Dome and it was pretty decent except for that part where suddenly we're the ghost of dome present looking around the town. I wish he'd gotten into the aftermath of everything once the dome was up though. Started Full Dark, No Stars because I saw it's a story collection and so far 1922 is decent. Gonna reread Cell after I finish Full Dark.
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Oct 22, 2013 14:22
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