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3Romeo posted:did i call it or did i call it Yes, you did, but to be fair, it's like calling that the sun will rise tomorrow.
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Jan 25, 2014 18:28
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GreyPowerVan posted:I actually loved Needful Things enough that the ending didn't bother me all too much. Just the visuals of some old, evil thing/man selling antiques and being generally a bad guy engrossed me. I used to say that whatever my opinion of a King book was, the movie or miniseries would be the opposite. Needful Things was my prime example. Book = Loved it, hated the ending. Movie - Hated it, loved the ending. kaworu posted:But of course he got hooked and is (reluctantly) enjoying the hell out of listening to it. He finally got to the first set of 1958 flashbacks and is now *really* loving it. But he is also obviously quite disquieted. Something he mentioned was that he really liked the first Derry Interlude chapter, and that at least one of the oral historian sorta guys Mike Hanlon "talks" to was a real person, which I found amusing. It always is fun to read King as a Mainer because the amount of in-jokes and references that only Mainers would understand is pretty shockingly great. One of the last times I spoke with my grandfather over the phone before he died, we discussed King's writing. Grandpa said he thought King was a hack, because in one of his short stories someone had a bird fetus growing inside their skull (I have no idea what story that's from if accurate), so he'd never read another story by King since. (We're both from Maine, too, though we'd never lived close enough to run into Mr. King ourselves.) I explained that though he had a lot of weird and creepy stories like that, he'd also written some great fun stories, like a Sherlock Holmes one where Watson figures out the mystery first, or about two brothers who try to save humanity but end up destroying it instead. He acknowledged that he might have been hasty in his judgment, and might get around to reading one of King's books afterward. If he did, I didn't get to talk to him about it, but it was a fun conversation...one of the very few subjects we talked about in detail besides painting.
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Jan 27, 2014 22:05
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Grillburg posted:or about two brothers who try to save humanity but end up destroying it instead. Which story is this?
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Jan 27, 2014 22:40
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WattsvilleBlues posted:Which story is this? That sounds like The End of the Whole Mess.
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Jan 27, 2014 22:44
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The End of The Whole Mess, in Nightmares and Dreamscapes. There was a movie made out of with with Ron Livingston which was actually pretty good for a network Stephen King adaption (not that that bar is particularly high).
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Jan 27, 2014 22:45
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Its such a goddamn depressing short story too.
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Jan 28, 2014 01:44
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Grillburg posted:Grandpa said he thought King was a hack, because in one of his short stories someone had a bird fetus growing inside their skull (I have no idea what story that's from if accurate), so he'd never read another story by King since. This sounds like a misremembering of The Dark Half, maybe. The guy has a tumor and he sees birds when it causes problems?
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Jan 28, 2014 01:47
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The Berzerker posted:This sounds like a misremembering of The Dark Half, maybe. The guy has a tumor and he sees birds when it causes problems? I'm pretty sure that's The Dark Half with the writer and his alter-ego and all the birds. That was one creepy book.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:16
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Pheeets posted:I'm pretty sure that's The Dark Half with the writer and his alter-ego and all the birds. That was one creepy book. Yeah, it's the way I like Stephen King - not a lot of hope, hella bleak, like Pet Semetary and The Bachman books. Bachman stories might be over-the-top and pulpy, but they didn't pull a lot of punches or introduce aliens/magical retards to get resolution.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:18
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I agree, I like King either at his darkest, bleakest, and most pronouncedly disturbing... or the stuff where he goes in another direction and decides to do subtle character pieces (The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Hearts in Atlantis). I honestly think the short story version of Shawshank almost gets short shrift at times because it happened to be adapted into what is probably the most loved film made in the last 40 years at least. But it was one drat fine story underlying that film and all the other things that makes it great, and part of it is that Stephen King has this wonderful to draw up the most loathsome, archetypally evil villains and then give them the most satisfyingly just comeuppance possible in the end... If he feels like it. I guess it wouldn't be special if it happened all the time. Oh, and my dad continues to trudge slowly through IT, and I am sincerely proud of him. I think he is really, truly shocked at just how disturbing and how extreme the material in this book is; the truth is that King just goes in places in books like IT that most authors wouldn't loving dare approach, because it's so disturbing and so upsetting and so dark. I've always been so impressed by King's willingness to just let his psyche go there and open himself up to these horrid things. My dad is definitely feeling that, several hundred pages through IT now, heh.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:34
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I think I can speak for the thread when I say that we'd all like to hear more of your dad's thoughts about IT and King as a writer. I've been reading him as far back as I can remember and so I'm interested in the perspective of someone not familiar with his work, or, I presume, with horror in general.
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Jan 28, 2014 05:19
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kaworu posted:I agree, I like King either at his darkest, bleakest, and most pronouncedly disturbing... or the stuff where he goes in another direction and decides to do subtle character pieces (The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Hearts in Atlantis). Another reason that Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption works so well since its the exact opposite as another short story in the book - Apt Pupil. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is full of hope and how people can stay good in horrible situations Apt Pupil is the opposite. There is no hope in that story as all the characters are completely broken or get killed by the broken people. The shift in tone between the two is amazing.
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Jan 28, 2014 09:00
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King really stands out as a writer in terms of his willingness to present people as being either genuinely quite good or exceptionally evil. I feel like most character driven author's you read, even more literary ones, will tend to present people one way or the other. King by contrast really does produce stories with characters who fall very far on one end of the spectrum or the other without it feeling like he's just describing a cardboard caricature. He isn't like Brett Easton Ellis where every character is an utter scumbag to the point that it becomes distracting and you start to wonder how much insight the author actually has into other people.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:45
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EDIT: Wrong goddamn thread
Rev. Bleech_ fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 02:56
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kaworu posted:I agree, I like King either at his darkest, bleakest, and most pronouncedly disturbing... or the stuff where he goes in another direction and decides to do subtle character pieces (The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Hearts in Atlantis). I do consider Different Seasons to be his finest, if atypical, work, and it has resulted in the best filmed versions of his work. Of course I love Stand By Me as well as Shawshank but I thought that Apt Pupil was quite good too and was really hopeful for The Breathing Method when the rights were bought a couple of years ago. There are quite a few actresses who could carry the part off exceptionally. Emma Stone springs to mind. quote:Oh, and my dad continues to trudge slowly through IT, and I am sincerely proud of him. I think he is really, truly shocked at just how disturbing and how extreme the material in this book is; the truth is that King just goes in places in books like IT that most authors wouldn't loving dare approach, because it's so disturbing and so upsetting and so dark. I've always been so impressed by King's willingness to just let his psyche go there and open himself up to these horrid things. My dad is definitely feeling that, several hundred pages through IT now, heh. The late James Herbert, English horror writer, was a contemporary of King and they were in mutual admiration of each other. Herbert is more disturbing and extreme than King, though. I say this because when I finished his book Others I distinctly recall thinking "If I had these thoughts in my head I would get therapy, and never, ever write them down." Much as I truly love Herbert's work, I think there was something badly hosed up in his head that takes the edge off King's opus for me. Sarah Bellum fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 04:18
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kaworu posted:I agree, I like King either at his darkest, bleakest, and most pronouncedly disturbing Consider checking out Full Dark, No Stars if you haven't already. I've read nearly his entire bibliography, and while a couple of the stories in that collection are a bit on the stupid side, they're all pitch, pitch, pitch black.
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Jan 29, 2014 04:40
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Oxxidation posted:Consider checking out Full Dark, No Stars if you haven't already. I've read nearly his entire bibliography, and while a couple of the stories in that collection are a bit on the stupid side, they're all pitch, pitch, pitch black. Seconded. As far as stories about directing violence toward other people go, these can't be beat. Bleak...
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Jan 29, 2014 04:51
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Oxxidation posted:Consider checking out Full Dark, No Stars if you haven't already. I've read nearly his entire bibliography, and while a couple of the stories in that collection are a bit on the stupid side, they're all pitch, pitch, pitch black. Thirding. Just the first one was enough to make me cringe. Putting Big Driver into the collection was brutal.
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Jan 29, 2014 05:08
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Yeah I had to read another book simultaneously with that one because it was so brutal to read. I needed something light every few days to break it up.
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Jan 29, 2014 19:56
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Hey guys, my dad sent me an e-mail linking me to this today, the bastard. We have been having a discussion as to whether Derry is more like Bangor (his opinion) or more like Lewiston (my opinion). Big point in his favor here: this landmark is commonly known as "The Bangor Standpipe" since it's the oldest in the area, built in 1897. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hill_Standpipe quote:Widely regarded as the inspiration for the haunted standpipe in the Stephen King novel It. King's house is within walking distance. Yeahhh. So if you ever wondered what The Standpipe really looks like more or less, there ya go. Oh, and I found a nice used hardcover copy of Full Dark, No Stars at my local used bookstore for $4, so I'm feeling 'happy' about that, hah. I'm guessing this is one of those books I'm going to want to hide in a drawer somewhere when I'm done (like certain other King books) just so it's not sitting on my normal shelf with perfectly innocent books that don't creep the poo poo out of me, heh. edit: can't type kaworu fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 03:49
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kaworu posted:Hey guys, my dad sent me an e-mail linking me to this today, the bastard. We have been having a discussion as to whether Derry is more like Bangor(his opinion) or more like Lewiston (my opinion. Big point in his favor here: This landmark is commonly known as "The Bangor Standpipe" since it's the oldest in the area, built in 1897. Great find on Wikipedia, I had a totally different idea of how that looked. And I have a totally separate section in one of my bookshelves for my King books, for the same reason. Sometimes I just don't wanna know.
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Jan 31, 2014 04:22
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I will not lie. I have always envisioned the Standpipe as a gigantic pipe sticking out of the ground. Like in Mario.
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Jan 31, 2014 04:46
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:I will not lie. I have always envisioned the Standpipe as a gigantic pipe sticking out of the ground. I envisioned a 16 foot concrete high pipe mouth, horizontal, leading back through a cliffside above the swamps.
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Jan 31, 2014 05:02
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:I will not lie. I have always envisioned the Standpipe as a gigantic pipe sticking out of the ground. Glad I'm not the only one. The other day I was talking to a woman about Stephen King books and discovered that she liked Gerald's Game. (she bought From A Buick 8 that day though so her taste is suspect)
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Jan 31, 2014 11:25
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Sarah Bellum posted:The late James Herbert, English horror writer, was a contemporary of King and they were in mutual admiration of each other. Herbert is more disturbing and extreme than King, though. I say this because when I finished his book Others I distinctly recall thinking "If I had these thoughts in my head I would get therapy, and never, ever write them down." Much as I truly love Herbert's work, I think there was something badly hosed up in his head that takes the edge off King's opus for me. Got any good recommendations for him? What's a good place to start?
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Jan 31, 2014 16:55
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The Fog is a good read. '48 is decent, though it's more thriller than horror. The Ash trilogy - Haunted, The Ghost of Sleath, and Ash - are worth a shot too. The Ghosts of Sleath is one of my favourite books. Very creepy and disturbing.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:19
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Franchescanado posted:Got any good recommendations for him? What's a good place to start? I haven't read that many James Herbert books, but I personally liked The Fog, and if you're even slightly creeped out by rodents then The Rats is well worth terrifying yourself with.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:20
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All of the above are sound suggestions, but I'd note that almost all of Herbert's fans started with The Rats and The Fog.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:09
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Aquarium Gravel posted:I envisioned a 16 foot concrete high pipe mouth, horizontal, leading back through a cliffside above the swamps. Definitely my mental image
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Jan 31, 2014 19:13
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So it looks like Stephen King is coming out with 2 books this year: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/o_king101 and http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Mercedes-Stephen-King-ebook/dp/B00GEEB52S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391200718&sr=8-1&keywords=stephen+king+mercedes I think Revival looks like it'll be better, but it also looks like SK is going back to the issue of MAJOR ADDICTION. I liked the way he handled it in Doctor Sleep, but I really, really hope that addiction doesn't become the new click in the throat.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:40
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Ooh, we have a full plot for Revival now. It sounds way better than Mr. Mercedes, which I think will be a disappointment.
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Jan 31, 2014 22:29
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Stephen King got himself into a little firestorm with his ~opinions~ on Twitter recently, in regard to Mia Farrow's writing about Woody Allen. At first it seemed like he was calling Mia Farrow's writing "bitchy" (which is what almost everyone is assuming), but it's looking like he might have been responding to a (not bitchy if you understand any aspect of what she's talking about) article. If it was the first, that's pretty much the most mindblowingly wrong thing he's ever said in any writing. http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/04/dylan-farrow-woody-allen-stephen-king/ Either way he meant it... Yeah.  *edit* Reading it again, I'm 90% sure he's responding to the article. Still horrifically facepalm-worthy. Locus fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 4, 2014 16:39
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I love the guy, but he's culturally parked somewhere between 1960 and 1975. Edit: That article really is poo poo, though. Asbury fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 4, 2014 16:56
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I still don't understand why anyone uses twitter or why you'd express an actual opinion over it. I "get" other social media but twitter just seems stupid beyond words.
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Feb 4, 2014 20:16
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Helsing posted:I still don't understand why anyone uses twitter or why you'd express an actual opinion over it. I "get" other social media but twitter just seems stupid beyond words. I'm with you. Twitter seems like the equivalent of fiddling with an old piece of technology for nostalgia purposes, but is incredibly dumb for trying to communicate now. "Hey, I figured out how to draw pictures with my old Commodore 64 in Basic. And now all of these celebrities and corporations are doing it to advertise themselves! What the hell?"
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Feb 4, 2014 21:24
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I just finished IT. Definitely not disappointed.
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Feb 4, 2014 22:35
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Taeke posted:I just finished IT. Definitely not disappointed. Would you care to elaborate?
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Feb 4, 2014 23:29
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WattsvilleBlues posted:Would you care to elaborate? Yes, of course. Sorry, it was late last night after a long day, so I didn't feel up to writing more. It's been 15 years since I saw the movie. I was 11 at the time and it terrified me (and traumatized my little sister who absolutely wanted to watch it with us.) I'm glad I put off reading until now, since I'm a bit older, more experienced and can appreciate it more. Some sections creeped me right the gently caress out, although to a lesser extent than I had anticipated. Still, the scene (for example) when Bev revisits her childhood home was excellent, and reminded me of Pet Semetary in that you know exactly what is going to happen but you can't look away. Other parts were kind of meh, particularly towards the end. There were some segments where I couldn't help but start scanning rather than reading in the aftermath. Yeah, Derry's going to hell, but I don't particularly need to read each and every detailed death occuring. When this was discussed in the thread I was about halfway through and I thought the direct victims of It were meant, which confused me because those deaths are interesting and creepy and I loved the detail. Also, I was kind of forewarned about the sex scene, which wasn't as bad as I'd expected but still out of place. All in all it took me around 2 weeks to get through it, which is a good sign for such a lengthy work. I remember lying in bed around 11pm, thinking I'd just read an hour or so before sleep, and the next moment I looked at the clock it was 2:30am. So yeah, it did not disappoint and I'm kind of sad it's over. Thankfully I still have plenty of his other works to read. I think I'm going to read The Talisman next.
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Feb 5, 2014 14:12
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Helsing posted:I still don't understand why anyone uses twitter Great source for funny things or for breaking news. Helsing posted:or why you'd express an actual opinion over it Good question.
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Feb 6, 2014 04:59
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Closing in on the finale of 'salem's Lot, I'm finding it kind of weird how King goes on about the power of whiteness. It's making me reflect on how the opposing force to "white" in nearly everything else is "black", but in King's universe it's red. The eternal battle between black and white is understandable, but that same battle cast between red and white just makes me want a candy cane.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:26
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