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Count Chocula posted:This is great! Tell me more about stuff like this, please. One of the weird things about Stephen King, at least from the standpoint of horror/weird fiction/sci-fi/fantasy, is that the genuinely seems to be A Good Dude. Like everything I hear or read or see about him makes him sound like a nice guy who loves the Red Sox and classic rock and who you could genuinely hang out with. Most of my other favorite writers are kinda prickly and weird, and King's biggest New England horror inspiration, Lovecraft, was just a horrible person all around. I know part of that is a persona SK has built up but I think it goes a long way to why I excuse his authorial tics like adding self-inserts to every book. Friend of mine grew up in Brewer and Bangor, and claims that he's a pretty regular guy that no one really pays much attention to. Says his most memorable interaction with him was sitting next to him during Bram Stoker's Dracula and discussing it afterward. He says you would run into him at the movies just about every weekend. He didn't much care for Tabby though.
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Nov 5, 2013 03:34
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Aquarium Gravel posted:So, advise me here, as I feel like I'm in a unique position to do this either way. Do I want to read the next 6 DT books? I've got everything else under my belt, now. Would you go back and unread them, just having the idea that it all ties in somehow, or do you want to see the gears and guts of it all? I kind of want to, and I kind of worry it would be a mistake to do so. I would read them if I were you. There are big flaws in DT, and I hated reading Song of Susannah - I skip it on my re-reads, and I was pissed for a few weeks or even months after I finished the last book in the series, but... I still love them. Upon re-reads, I can skip the weird bits that I hated, and look forward to the bits that I loved. Drawing of the Three is such an amazing book that it would be a shame for you to miss out on it. Hell, I even liked Wolves of the Calla, though it's regarded as pretty much filler. I grew to love Roland as a friend, and the ka-tet as a group that I never wanted to see split up (even though I really didn't care for Susannah). I wouldn't give up my experience of being immersed in the Dark Tower world if I could go back and change things, even though it would unshed so many tears. Have you read Cycle of the Werewolf? I feel like it's a work that often is completely forgotten about when discussing King, that I find completely and utterly meh. But what do I know, I loved Eyes of the Dragon!
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Nov 5, 2013 03:35
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Aquarium Gravel posted:
I would just try (if possible) to read them without tonnes of expectations. I don't say this for the sake of being a completionist, but in the sense that pretty much no one would say they are his worst books, pretty much everyone would agree that at least a couple of them are really quite good, and, really, what it comes down to is the fact that having a chance to freshly read books by an author whom you really like, when you've read 99% of his other stuff, is just plain really nice.
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Nov 5, 2013 03:45
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uptown posted:I would read them if I were you. There are big flaws in DT, and I hated reading Song of Susannah - I skip it on my re-reads, and I was pissed for a few weeks or even months after I finished the last book in the series, but... I still love them. Upon re-reads, I can skip the weird bits that I hated, and look forward to the bits that I loved. Drawing of the Three is such an amazing book that it would be a shame for you to miss out on it. Hell, I even liked Wolves of the Calla, though it's regarded as pretty much filler. I grew to love Roland as a friend, and the ka-tet as a group that I never wanted to see split up (even though I really didn't care for Susannah). I wouldn't give up my experience of being immersed in the Dark Tower world if I could go back and change things, even though it would unshed so many tears. I thought Cycle of the Werewolf was just ok - I had to brain-check myself to see if I'd read it. I think I can leave my expectations behind and read the DT books, then, and hope I find a lot of good stuff. I have held off, because it seems like a big project...and I got into Stephen King the year before the 7th book came out, and there was a lot of screaming and complaining about it then. For me, I think I just want the completion badge, anyway...here's hoping! God help my GPA. I'll re-read Gunslinger first - do I want the revised version or the original? I have both in cheapo thrift-shop copies.
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Nov 5, 2013 03:52
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Aquarium Gravel posted:So, advise me here, as I feel like I'm in a unique position to do this either way. Do I want to read the next 6 DT books? I've got everything else under my belt, now. Would you go back and unread them, just having the idea that it all ties in somehow, or do you want to see the gears and guts of it all? I kind of want to, and I kind of worry it would be a mistake to do so. I say go ahead and read them and judge for yourself. You can always stop any time. I've gone through the entire series 5 or 6 times. Yes, the last three books feel forced (that's because they were), but I they were interesting enough to finish. And if it hadn't ended the way it did, I would have been pissed. The ending is the only possible ending if you pay attention.
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Nov 5, 2013 04:15
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Aquarium Gravel posted:I'll re-read Gunslinger first - do I want the revised version or the original? I have both in cheapo thrift-shop copies. If you want a laugh, find the audiobook of the original version read by King himself. That's how I got into the series. I bought it on cassette in 1988 without knowing a thing about it. At that time, spending $30 was a risky gamble.
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Nov 5, 2013 04:18
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uptown posted:I would read them if I were you. There are big flaws in DT, and I hated reading Song of Susannah - I skip it on my re-reads, and I was pissed for a few weeks or even months after I finished the last book in the series, but... I still love them. Upon re-reads, I can skip the weird bits that I hated, and look forward to the bits that I loved. Drawing of the Three is such an amazing book that it would be a shame for you to miss out on it. Hell, I even liked Wolves of the Calla, though it's regarded as pretty much filler. I grew to love Roland as a friend, and the ka-tet as a group that I never wanted to see split up (even though I really didn't care for Susannah). I wouldn't give up my experience of being immersed in the Dark Tower world if I could go back and change things, even though it would unshed so many tears. Just want to say eyes of the dragon is one of my favorites.
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Nov 5, 2013 06:26
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I just finished Dr. Sleep. I enjoyed it over all, took a bit for me to get into it. but I did. A woman asked me if it was as good as the shinning today when I was returning it to the library. No. It was a good read but, the Shinning goes well above it. I remember feeling no so much fear when reading the Shining but.. dread. Dr. Sleep didn't do that. I just got Under the Dome. Didn't realize how long it was. Almost makes me want to buy it so I can take my time with reading it. I can read fast when I want to but I also like enjoying a book. I have until the 26th to finish it and I should be done in that time. Likely I can read it in about a week or week and a half.
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Nov 5, 2013 21:54
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Look, as I see it, you have nothing to lose. Are there people who *hate* this or that in the DT series? Of course there are. Find me a work that doesn't. I fully believe that the last few books were rushed an didn't fulfill expectations that the previous books set up. But would I just give up and not read them? No, I would not. Read the Dark Tower series. Take the good with the bad. Understand what the author was going through as he wrote them. It's still not a bad story and it still has high points.
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Nov 5, 2013 23:42
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Dr. Faustus posted:Look, as I see it, you have nothing to lose. Thanks everyone. I really feel like it's all that's left of the mythos, so why not tackle the big mountain? I can't swear I'll love them, we'll see. I may be in love with the idea that it ties together, more than the actual execution - but I have read to the end of everything SK has written, so surely I can do so with these. Re-reading pre-revised Gunslinger now...
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Nov 6, 2013 00:30
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Also posting in support of Eyes of the Dragon. Did people actually not like that book? ^^ Under the Dome was really, REALLY, good.
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Nov 6, 2013 18:12
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Yeah, I hear poo poo slung about Eyes of the Dragon all the time online. I have always loved it!
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Nov 6, 2013 18:42
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Pendergast posted:
It's really good. I thought it would take me a week or so, but I got sucked into it and read it in like a day-day and a half. There's a point in there where I both could not put it down because it was so riveting, and wanted to throw it across the room because I hated Big Jim so much. What's the general opinion as to when King came out of his post-accident phase? Duma Key seems to be where he got his old writing voice back.
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Nov 6, 2013 18:46
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Ugly In The Morning posted:It's really good. I thought it would take me a week or so, but I got sucked into it and read it in like a day-day and a half. There's a point in there where I both could not put it down because it was so riveting, and wanted to throw it across the room because I hated Big Jim so much. I would agree with Duma Key being the divider between post-accident and post-post-accident King. It was the first book in a long time that felt like Stephen King (albeit Old Man King) instead of Stephen King (traumatized and in pain).
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Nov 6, 2013 19:34
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I believe Cell and Lisey's Story were both pretty well-reviewed when they came out actually, though Duma Key doesn't have as many detractors. The thing with the "pre-accident" and "post-accident" narrative people build up in their minds is that his output has been of really uneven quality since the early 90's, maybe even earlier. I'd say he had far more hits than misses up through Misery, but his batting average drops pretty sharply after that. E: I guess that sounds more like I buy into the perception that he got worse when he stopped doing drugs, since the timing lines up. There might be some truth to both that and the accident lines of thought, but I think it's also worth keeping in mind that any writer who has a decent amount of output is going to have peaks and valleys. I can't really think of another writer who is as prolific as King has been for as many years and not had similar cold streaks. Schlitzkrieg Bop fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Nov 6, 2013 |
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Nov 6, 2013 20:09
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Schlitzkrieg Bop posted:E: I guess that sounds more like I buy into the perception that he got worse when he stopped doing drugs, since the timing lines up. There might be some truth to both that and the accident lines of thought, but I think it's also worth keeping in mind that any writer who has a decent amount of output is going to have peaks and valleys. I can't really think of another writer who is as prolific as King has been for as many years and not had similar cold streaks. I think it's just ups and downs that all writers have, and I'm really not sure that you can fairly look at King's personal life and apply it to his career. I mean, didn't he write a good deal of fantastic stuff after he got clean, before the accident? As I recall Needful Things was his first "clean" book which was 1991, and after that but still before the accident was when he wrote stuff life Hearts in Atlantis, The Green Mile, Insomnia... Hell, I actually think Needful Things is a totally awesome book, too. The movie wasn't terrible either as I recall since any movie where Max Von Sydow plays some Lovecraftian demon or Satan or whatever is pretty cool. And another thing about his post accident phase (and I don't know if this is common knowledge) is that he had effectively fallen off the wagon because for... I don't know how many years after the accident he was taking a lot of pain medication and got addicted to that again. That was the rumor around town back then anyway and I remember listening to an interview with him on Fresh Air or something post-accident where Terri Gross asked him about this straight-up (the pain meds he would have to take and how he dealt with that as a former addict) and he was very honest (as I recall) and said that it did make him feel like a junkie again initially, and what he said was that he dealt with it by only taking exactly what is prescribed and no more and not crossing that line - god knows how much he was exact prescribed, though. This was like a year or two after the accident I think. So I thought it was pretty revealing because it did indicate that in some sense he was effectively no longer "clean" for quite a while following the accident. Not that it was his fault! Not that it was his fault when he was a substance abuser in the first place, or anybody's "fault." Anyway.
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Nov 6, 2013 20:56
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Needful Things and The Green Mile are both amazing, and i was unaware that he did those while clean. So when did he finally get back off of painkillers, anyone know?
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Nov 6, 2013 20:59
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Its also just crazy to think about how a guy can write something (The Gunslinger) that is regarded as some of the best work he's ever done at age 19. When you write for decade after decade, and everything you write is one of the most scrutinized pieces of media that year, its only natural that there will be some ups and downs. Think about how much his mind has almost certainly changed since he was in his early 20's, its gotta be impossible to maintain a consistent quality over that length of time. King is also a pretty naturalistic(not sure if that's an appropriate term) writer in that he kind just lets it flow, his process doesn't sound a whole lot different than what his character experiences in the Dark Tower books. He doesn't seem like the type to actively set out to recreate a previous work or style from his past.
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Nov 6, 2013 21:14
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While reading Under the Dome the voice I kept hearing in my head for Chef was Uncle Ruckus from Boondocks. The only problems I had with it was that one perspective switch and that it didn't touch on the aftermath of the dome.
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Nov 6, 2013 21:46
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Basebf555 posted:Its also just crazy to think about how a guy can write something (The Gunslinger) that is regarded as some of the best work he's ever done at age 19. He said in, I think it was On Writing, how it's kind of depressing that most fans tell him the Stand is his best novel. A book he wrote decades ago, and he hasn't done anything better since. That's a definite back-handed compliment, intentional or not.
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Nov 6, 2013 21:52
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kaworu posted:Ok, holy poo poo. That's the Wicked Good Store in the trailer there (the gas station) and that is unmistakeably Center Lovell, Maine. Which is where Stephen King's summer house (and my family's summer house) is, on Kezar Lake. After being truly shocked by that I did a bit of googling and two of the kids who made the film were Maine kids like me who had houses on Kezar, so it definitely makes sense. Stephen King has always just been a fixture there - it's a tiny town where maybe 700 people live in the summer (and even less in the winter I think) so yeah. I grew up in southern Maine, but more in the Sanford and Portland area. My mom had a lakeside cabin off of Mousam Lake within sight of the Acton Trading Post, which is the area I pictured when reading Gerald's Game and Bag of Bones. I've never met King, but I had a dream where I met him and chatted with him when I was around ten, so good enough I guess! I agree that his work has always had ups and downs, but some of his more recent stuff has really impressed me. I really enjoyed Duma Key and Under the Dome, but absolutely LOVED 11/22/63. Seriously it's now my favorite King novel.
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Nov 6, 2013 23:38
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Schlitzkrieg Bop posted:The thing with the "pre-accident" and "post-accident" narrative people build up in their minds is that his output has been of really uneven quality since the early 90's, maybe even earlier. I'd say he had far more hits than misses up through Misery, but his batting average drops pretty sharply after that. It's not even quality, really, when I refer to the post-accident stuff, there's a definite change in the way his prose "feels", I guess the word is. I don't know if it's a word choice thing or sentence construction or what, but it always feels different to read it. Grillburg posted:
11/22/63 was so good. While I was anticipating Dr. Sleep, I knew there was no way it would be as good as the book before it.
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Nov 7, 2013 00:49
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Finally reading Doctor Sleep now. Only 180 pages in but goddamn am I hooked. I'll be back when I've finished. If you're on the fence about it, I think it's safe to say, "Get it!"
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Nov 7, 2013 02:18
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Dr. Faustus posted:If you're on the fence about it, I think it's safe to say, "Get it!"
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Nov 7, 2013 04:05
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:He said in, I think it was On Writing, how it's kind of depressing that most fans tell him the Stand is his best novel. A book he wrote decades ago, and he hasn't done anything better since. That's a definite back-handed compliment, intentional or not. I can feel worse telling him Salem's lot is his best.  He wrote a bunch of clunkers while high. While they have interesting concepts there are many many flaws with his early and mid 80s books. Sober, I think Tommyknockers was a serious miss, but Needful things knocked it out of the park. The earlier works also benefit form simpler concepts that stick in your brain more. Technically I think Bag of Bones is his best written work, but it doesn't have a clear reductive thing that sticks in your brain like Vampires or Evil Car.
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Nov 7, 2013 04:10
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iostream.h posted:I have to repeat the phrase 'the Shining Pt 2: MORE SHINIER' because it's awesome Blade_of_tyshalle posted:I don't really know what made you think Doctor Sleep would be The Shining II: Shine Hard With a Vengeance. And yet you can't remember the awesome title? Come now, comalla. 
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Nov 7, 2013 05:52
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:And yet you can't remember the awesome title? Come now, comalla. I'm pretty sure the unofficial official title is The Shining II: Shine Harder.
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Nov 7, 2013 22:52
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The Shining II: Shinement Day
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Nov 8, 2013 20:25
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I finished Tommyknockers, and I liked the ending. The story felt... contained. Besides the references to his other books, it didn't have some grand cosmic apocalyptic ending. It took a premise (kinda borrowed from Lovecraft, but King would be the first to admit that) and followed it through to the end. There's some real human tragedy with Gard's addiction and
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Nov 9, 2013 06:48
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Count Chocula posted:I finished Tommyknockers, and I liked the ending. The story felt... contained. Besides the references to his other books, it didn't have some grand cosmic apocalyptic ending. It took a premise (kinda borrowed from Lovecraft, but King would be the first to admit that) and followed it through to the end. There's some real human tragedy with Gard's addiction and I didn't like it too much when I read it, but it sticks with you. Two words. Coke. Machine.
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Nov 9, 2013 07:10
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Part of me is convinced that King's accident is the reason that he chose to handle the Randall Flaag and Mordred plotlines in the fashion that he did (i.e. anticlimactically. Sorry folks! Sometimes the clearing at the end of the path is a car smashing into you while you stroll down a backroad in Maine, deal with it). But then I think of how he handled the Tick Tock man from a few books earlier and I think maybe I'm just trying to find an explanation for why King is constantly inventing bad-rear end villains and then losing all interest in them by the time the next book rolls around. It happens in IT too and probably some other books I'm forgetting about. He establishes a villain, keeps reminding you they exist, and then awkwardly kills them off screen or something when he suddenly realizes he doesn't have anything for them to be doing when the book's climax happens.
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Nov 9, 2013 16:20
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Which villain was treated that way in IT?
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Nov 9, 2013 17:46
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ConfusedUs posted:Which villain was treated that way in IT? Although they weren't killed off screen, he's probably talking about second-string clowshoes like Henry Bowers and Tom Rogan. But they both served a story purpose, since Henry takes Mike out before the final showdown in the sewers and Tom's responsible for Audra getting kidnapped by Pennywise (before he looks into the deadlights and has a stroke or whatever). Henry's a gently caress for most of the novel and ends up owned by (of all the Losers) Eddie, which I suppose marks him as similar to Flagg in 1) being taken out unexpectedly and 2) kind of a turd, when you get right down to it. Edit: That being said, if there's one common theme in the majority of King's stuff, it's an examination of evil, and most of his stories come down to two perspectives: either evil is horrible and beyond the human ability to conquer and the best we can hope for is escape from it (Pet Sematary, The Shining, 1408), or evil is weak and builds itself up with illusions and tricks (The Stand, The Dark Tower, Doctor Sleep). Asbury fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Nov 9, 2013 |
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Nov 9, 2013 19:07
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I was thinking of Tom Rogan. I felt like given how his impending arrival was built up it was sorta anticlimactic for him to die 'off screen' of a heart attack. Don't get me wrong, I loved IT and think its King's best book, so this is a fairly mild complaint.
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Nov 10, 2013 18:34
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I'm about 40% of the way into Duma Key. Without spoilers, can someone tell me if there ends up being some logic or rationale behind the wife being the world's biggest bitch? I find it impossible that Edgar was married to this woman for decades when the most innocuous of interactions with her turns her into a raging oval office. It's not like they had a bitter divorce. Her behavior just seems completely unrealistic and absurd and makes it seem like the book was written by a vehement misogynist
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Nov 10, 2013 20:23
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regulargonzalez posted:I'm about 40% of the way into Duma Key. Without spoilers, can someone tell me if there ends up being some logic or rationale behind the wife being the world's biggest bitch? I find it impossible that Edgar was married to this woman for decades when the most innocuous of interactions with her turns her into a raging oval office. It's not like they had a bitter divorce. Her behavior just seems completely unrealistic and absurd and makes it seem like the book was written by a vehement misogynist It's been a while since I read Duma Key, and I only read it once (for some reason I can't bring myself to re-read it, something about it just turns me off) but I think she wasn't really a bitch, but rather he had a huge violent anger problem because of his inability to speak the way he wanted to (couldn't remember words correctly) and the loss of his arm, she was therefore understandably hurt and frightened by him and so she distanced herself from him even after he got somewhat better.
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Nov 10, 2013 21:36
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Pheeets posted:(for some reason I can't bring myself to re-read it, something about it just turns me off) The story is pretty decent (though it seems a bit like 1 part Bag of Bones, 1 part Tommyknockers and 1 part The Dead Zone but other than my aforementioned issue, the biggest problem is that it needs some serious editing for length. Every single event is over-described and it starts to feel like a moment-by-moment recap of every day. It's weird because it didn't have that issue early on, but at around the 30% mark it just started to become more and more overly descriptive.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:14
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Helsing posted:I was thinking of Tom Rogan. I felt like given how his impending arrival was built up it was sorta anticlimactic for him to die 'off screen' of a heart attack. Don't get me wrong, I loved IT and think its King's best book, so this is a fairly mild complaint. Tom Rogan had way more than a heart attack. I still remember the passage vividly; he dropped dead of shock, his face grey, eyes filling with blood where his brain had burst in a dozen places. That for me made up for any anticlimax regarding Tom. Jesus.
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Nov 11, 2013 02:08
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regulargonzalez posted:The story is pretty decent (though it seems a bit like 1 part Bag of Bones, 1 part Tommyknockers and 1 part The Dead Zone but other than my aforementioned issue, the biggest problem is that it needs some serious editing for length. Every single event is over-described and it starts to feel like a moment-by-moment recap of every day. It's weird because it didn't have that issue early on, but at around the 30% mark it just started to become more and more overly descriptive. See I actually didn't mind the length issue, I kind of enjoyed hearing about Edgar's life.
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Nov 11, 2013 03:01
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Working through Doctor Sleep, one thing I love is that it's (mostly) set in modern times after nearly half a decade of period pieces from King. The way that King captures the eras his books are written in is one of my favorite little things to look for, and seeing references to The Avengers, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, and Sons of Anarchy makes it feel very "now". Compare that to Under the Dome, which had a fictional Lost sequel and his awkward old man impersonation of what teenagers think is cool.
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Nov 11, 2013 09:14
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