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The Talisman is the best of those four. Four Past Midnight is a series of four novellas, two of which I liked, one I was ambivalent about, and one I didn't much care for (The Library Policeman, which ended like some 80s movie). Insomnia isn't bad on its own, but a lot of it ties around a villain in The Dark Tower series, and the joke is that King flat-out disregards what happens in Insomnia anyway, so you're kind of left asking why you read it at all. And DC, while not as bad as it's made out to be, is one of the triumvirate of woman-as-protagonist books King wrote in that stage of his career (DC, Rose Madder, Gerald's Game), which means they aren't as compelling as some of his other stuff. (Note: that's a riff on King's ability to write women, not women themselves.) So go with The Talisman. The sequel (except for a weird writing style that's more an influence of Straub, I think) isn't bad, either, but it does that Dark Tower thing again, and the series ended so poorly that it tends to color everything involved with it. (I can ramble on more about that if you care at all, but I wrote most of this post on a phone.) edit: If you read Four Past Midnight, you should absolutely go watch the mini-series of The Langoliers, which is pure-strain cheese. Even has a freeze-frame jumpshot at the end! Asbury fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 16:50
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My rankings: - The Talisman - excellent. Wolf! Right here and now! - Insomnia - good, but I seem to be in the minority around here who like it. - Four Past Midnight - two good, two not-so-good stories. - Dolores Claiborne - Not bad but it's not one I'll reread anytime soon. Still worth a read!
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Nov 22, 2013 16:50
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Library Policeman owns bones. But yeah, read The Talisman, I love that book.
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Nov 22, 2013 16:58
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I wouldn't want to have a life where I hadn't read the Talisman.
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Nov 22, 2013 17:35
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ravenkult posted:Library Policeman owns bones. It's weird. There's a lot that I admire about that story. Sam's a pretty good Larry Underwood/Eddie Dean type of character, and the thing that Ardelia is, it's terminally creepy. My problem is that King tries to explore a powerful idea (the link between victimhood and memory) but doesn't do it as well as he did in other books. The Library Policeman comes off like a shorter and less nuanced version of It. (Though to be fair, I did happen to read Four Past Midnight right after reading It for the first time, so it was a lot easier to see the similarities. Probably would've enjoyed it more if I'd LP it on its own.)
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Nov 22, 2013 21:20
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3Romeo posted:It's weird. There's a lot that I admire about that story. Sam's a pretty good Larry Underwood/Eddie Dean type of character, and the thing that Ardelia is, it's terminally creepy. For what it's worth, I read FPM several years after IT and it still seemed like a repeat performance. That said, I enjoyed it for precisely that reason -- you mentioned earlier that it gets very "80s movie" by the end, and in a way it seemed like King was engaging in a sort of gleeful self-plagiarism. The actual content of Sam's trauma, which ends up being pretty horrible in its own right, is the only thing that stops me from saying it was possibly an attempt at self-parody. I wonder if there's anyone out there who actually read "The Library Policeman" before reading IT.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:39
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Dolores Claiborne feels like a weaker version of The Shawshank Redemption in that it's about a nice old lady getting shat on by the universe for most of her life but overcoming it through cleverness and determination and winding up on top in the end. For better or worse it's the most grounded and consistent of King's weird 90s grrrl power books, it's not as  -worthy as Gerald's Game and it doesn't have the tacked-on supernatural elements of Rose Madder.
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Nov 22, 2013 23:13
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Amazon put 11/22/63 on sale today for the fifty year anniversary. $2.99 I believe. Buy it, read it, it's a good book.
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Nov 23, 2013 01:25
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The Berzerker posted:I recently moved, which involved boxing up all my books and reorganizing them on new bookshelves. This act led me to realize I have a few Stephen King books that I've never even read. Out of the following, which would you recommend I read first?: I would read Four Past Midnight first, then the rest in whatever order you want. I found The Library Policeman kind of awkward to read, there's a scene in there that I'd love to scrub from my brain but can't. I liked Langoliers, and the movie is, as someone else said, wonderfully cheesy. Secret Window, Secret Garden is great, and for some reason I always forget that The Sun Dog even exists, but upon re-reads, always love it. ...well, I guess I'm going to read Four Past Midnight again soon. I want to do a re-read of 11/22/63 first, though. What a good book.
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Nov 23, 2013 01:35
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uptown posted:there's a scene in there that I'd love to scrub from my brain but can't theady
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Nov 23, 2013 03:30
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Count Chocula posted:Really? My brother's a horror nerd and he's been following the Horns movie and said it looks good. I liked the book, though I think it was stronger before the central plotline/mystery was set up (it got a bit rapey). And the main character's father being the most famous I don't know, Harry Potter just doesn't seem like he'd be a good Iggy.I don't think he's a bad actor, just not a great fit for this part. I'll definitely give it a shot, but my hopes aren't high. I just started reading the Talisman again. God I love this book. Black House has a fairly rough start, but after it get's going it's really good.I wonder if the third one will ever get written, I'd really like to know what Richard got up to.
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Nov 23, 2013 12:41
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Drunk Tomato posted:Amazon put 11/22/63 on sale today for the fifty year anniversary. $2.99 I believe. Buy it, read it, it's a good book. The Amazon website has it as a download for $2.99 and the store on the Kindle device has it for $9.99. I just thought I'd give a heads up.
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Nov 23, 2013 19:02
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The Berzerker posted:- Insomnia
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Nov 24, 2013 16:11
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janklow posted:the Talisman is easily the best of those. Insomnia i personally hate (although i don't like anything DT-related, really, so there's that); Four Past Midnight has its moments but is basically mediocre; and i think Dolores Claiborne is underrated because i know some people who REALLY hate it, which seems unjustified... but then they hate it so strongly i have to figure it just isn't for everyone. Insomnia's my favorite of the four. The Talisman never gripped me like it did almost everyone else - it's kind of neat I guess, but I never found it engaging. The Langoliers is great, can't say I remember the rest of Four Past Midnight very well. And Dolores Claiborne...well, I read all of Gerald's Game and couldn't make it very far into DC, so take that as you will.
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Nov 24, 2013 16:39
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I love Insomnia if I'm in the right mood. Kind of a lazy afternoon sun is shining in the hammock mood because Insomnia is a very slow book that loves to set up the world and sometimes it seems like the actual story isn't that important to King.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:02
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I think I'll probably like all of them and I'll either start with Four Past Midnight or The Talisman. I love anything DT-related so I'll like Insomnia despite King having it thrown away in DT.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:24
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rypakal posted:I wouldn't want to have a life where I hadn't read the Talisman. It was both the first King book I read and the first book over 300 pages I ever read. All at the tender age of 12 
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Nov 25, 2013 19:08
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:It was both the first King book I read and the first book over 300 pages I ever read. All at the tender age of 12 I think this is a big reason so many people love the Talisman. I think I was 11 or 12 when I first read it and related with Jack quite a bit. Most of the people I know who didn't read it until later weren't as keen as those of us who read as teenagers. One of my nieces is a voracious read, I can't wait to give her my battered copy of the Talisman when she turns 11.
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Nov 26, 2013 16:08
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I always wind up trying to sell people on The Talisman by bringing up Wolf. God pounds his nails, after all.
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Nov 26, 2013 16:36
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Jazerus posted:Insomnia's my favorite of the four. The Talisman never gripped me like it did almost everyone else - it's kind of neat I guess, but I never found it engaging. The Langoliers is great, can't say I remember the rest of Four Past Midnight very well. And Dolores Claiborne...well, I read all of Gerald's Game and couldn't make it very far into DC, so take that as you will.
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Nov 26, 2013 23:57
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Drunk Tomato posted:Amazon put 11/22/63 on sale today for the fifty year anniversary. $2.99 I believe. Buy it, read it, it's a good book. The 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination or of Doctor Who? I haven't read that book yet, but there's a great Red Dwarf episode with the same premise. And The Talisman owns. Jack Sawyer shows up in Tommyknockers too.
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Nov 27, 2013 00:40
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Man, I wish I could have read The Talisman as a kid. Things are a bit better now that Young Adult fiction is in a boom and reading stories about children bloodily murdering each other is commonplace, but as a kid who grew up on Animorphs it would have rocked my poo poo.
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Nov 27, 2013 00:46
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I have read a few King books and not really liked them. Is there one of his novels that would really show me why people like Stephen King so much?
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Nov 27, 2013 05:22
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crowfeathers posted:I have read a few King books and not really liked them. Is there one of his novels that would really show me why people like Stephen King so much?
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Nov 27, 2013 05:24
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iostream.h posted:Which ones have you read? I've read Eyes of the Dragon, The Gunslinger, and The Regulators (which might be the worst book I've ever read in my life).
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Nov 27, 2013 05:26
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Dead Zone is one of my favorite books and its really good.
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Nov 27, 2013 05:30
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I second the recommendation for The Dead Zone. Misery is also really good, as are his short story collections (especially the oldest ones, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew).
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Nov 27, 2013 05:39
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RoeCocoa posted:I second the recommendation for The Dead Zone. Misery is also really good, as are his short story collections (especially the oldest ones, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew). Different Seasons is also really good, but really different then his usual work. Their are no real supernatural elements other than the evil that is in a persons heart also the fact that Vern is now banging a supermodel.
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Nov 27, 2013 05:41
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crowfeathers posted:I have read a few King books and not really liked them. Is there one of his novels that would really show me why people like Stephen King so much? He isn't for everyone. I'm gonna go with the grain here and suggest Misery. It's relatively short, has no supernatural elements (what King's known for but what he somehow does worst), and it's absolutely loving terrifying. My favorite is The Stand, but that's not really an intro-level King book, just by virtue of its size. Same thing goes for It or Under the Dome or any other of his doorstops.
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Nov 27, 2013 07:34
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crowfeathers posted:I've read Eyes of the Dragon, The Gunslinger, and The Regulators (which might be the worst book I've ever read in my life). You picked probably the three least representative works in King's library. Most of his other works tend to fall into a couple of categories: A bad place attracts a bad thing and everyone involved is right hosed. In these books, the location is drat near as much a character as anything else in the book. There are good people and bad people and just plain old people, all of who have to deal with the bad thing and each other. I'm a pretty big fan of most of King's work in this category. Most of King's best supernatural horror can be found here, including The Shining, Salem's Lot, and It. Of those three, I'd recommend you start with The Shining, but all three are excellent. Good people stumble into something bad and are right hosed. Curiosity, or just bad luck, starts a chain of events that leads to disaster on some scale great or small. The characters in these books are typically helpless in the face of whatever has befallen them. They have agency and act, but their actions are never the right action. Sometimes there simply isn't a right action. I feel that Pet Sematary is far and away the best book in this category, on top of being the scariest book in his entire body of work. Something inexplicable happens, and people have to deal with it. What happens when a man can see the future, or when a manmade virus wipes out 85% of the population? If you found a time machine to the late 1950s, would you stay and try to stop an assassination years later? Where do you turn if your entire town is cut off from the rest of the world by an impenetrable forcefield? Most of these books have a simple premise that is taken to an extreme. I feel that most of King's best stuff fits in here. To me, the best part of these novels is that the characters aren't hosed the moment they run into something weird. They have greater agency and can make real changes that affect their futures. King's best novel (The Stand) and best novella (The Mist) both fall into this category. The Dead Zone, recommended above, is another good book. 11/22/63 is one of King's most recent novels, and is the best thing he's written in a decade. It too falls here. King has plenty of other works, and not all of it falls into easy categories. If you just want a blind recommendation, start with one of these, depending on what theme catches your eye: The Shining (psychics/ghosts), Salem's Lot (vampires), Pet Sematary (the living dead), The Stand (apocalypse/post-apocalypse), or The Mist (Lovecraftian monsters).
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Nov 27, 2013 08:14
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ConfusedUs posted:You picked probably the three least representative works in King's library. This post is fantastic, but don't read the stand yet. It's way too long and has its flaws that might turn you way off. The shining truly is one of the best to start with because it's one of his best and it feels quite like most of his other work.
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Nov 27, 2013 08:25
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I'll 3rd the recommendation for The Dead Zone. And while Pet Sematary is effective, it has such a grimy and dark miasma of darkness and despair that I would hesitate to recommend it to someone trying to "get" Stephen King. It's not a pleasant book to read -- which on the one hand is great, it accomplishes its goal, but it's sure not something that you're glad you read it. In my opinion anyway. As an alternative to The Dead Zone (and Pet Sematary, for that matter) you can look into Different Seasons. It's a book of four novellas that kind of cover a wide range of his works. One supernatural story, one story that is similarly dark, tone-wise, to Pet Sematary (letting you try out that dark, despairing feel in a shorter format), and a couple that have moments of horror or terror but are mainly about exploring an idea (innocent man in prison) or feel (coming of age in the 1950s) in an engaging and interesting way. None are terribly long so if you don't care for any one of them, at least it won't overstay its welcome.
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Nov 27, 2013 12:10
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You didn't like The Regulators? I have no suggestions for you, you hate fun. (Read The Long Walk)
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Nov 27, 2013 12:29
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Chiming in for The Shining as an intro. The first book of King's I read was It, but I'd watched the TV movie when I was a kid and really wanted to see what the book was like (I read it about 17 years I first saw the movie). It's one of my favourite books now. It, as 3Romeo says, is a bit of a gargantuan read if you're just wanting to dip your toes in, but The Shining, to me, has a perfect balance of story, character and creepiness, and pace simply by virtue of its length.
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Nov 27, 2013 13:47
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ravenkult posted:You didn't like The Regulators? I gotta push, tak, tak en lah *smears self in faeces and pasta sauce*
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Nov 27, 2013 13:59
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I'm a King superfan and I couldn't even finish The Regulators. It and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon are the only two books of his that have that honor.
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Nov 27, 2013 14:02
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...of SCIENCE! posted:I'm a King superfan and I couldn't even finish The Regulators. It and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon are the only two books of his that have that honor. I don't understand - you're a King superfan and you've only finished two of his books, or am I reading this wrong?
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Nov 27, 2013 14:35
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WattsvilleBlues posted:I don't understand - you're a King superfan and you've only finished two of his books, or am I reading this wrong? No, he claims to be a superfan that never finished It. It's •worse•.
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Nov 27, 2013 14:39
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crowfeathers posted:I have read a few King books and not really liked them. Is there one of his novels that would really show me why people like Stephen King so much? The Shining, salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary are all good starting points. I think The Shining might be his best written novel, so start there. Stay away from a lot of the newer stuff, and the longer stuff right now. The Stand is an excellent read, but make sure you really want to read King first.
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Nov 27, 2013 15:24
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I'll chime in an agree with recommendations for The Shining, The Long Walk, Misery, and The Dead Zone. The Shining: It's the longest of the four listed, so there's that. It does an excellent job of world building, character building, and slowly mounting up the suspense/terror. Most people that I talk to that don't like King say that he takes too much time describing details that seem pointless. While I don't see that, this book is the one that might be a valid argument for. The setting, The Overlook, is a character itself (much like the house in House on Haunted Hill), but it's handled very well. Overall, it's an amazing book. The Long Walk: Near-Future setting. I swear that The Hunger Games stole ideas from this book. There's nothing really supernatural in the book, just kids put in a situation to outlive each other. It's probably the one book in this thread that everyone can agree is amazing and a must-read for King. The Dead Zone: The main character is a psychic. Instead of making him a superhero, he's just a likeable guy that's been given a poo poo hand in life and it's about him getting through dark times. Hearing "Psychic" might be a turn off, but it's handled very well, and I would argue it's one of King's most heartfelt novels with a real character going through real struggles. It's really good, and one of the best early King novels. Misery: Gruesome, disturbing, and a great read. The only thing that makes me hesitate to recommend Misery is the romance novel chapters. I love Misery, and I can't stand the romance chapters after a while. But that's just my personal preference. The rest of the book is top-notch, and the main villain is one of the best in King's catalog, let alone horror lit (and movies) in general. If you don't like these, you just might not like King.
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Nov 27, 2013 15:45
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