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Jazerus posted:You should enjoy the style, mood, and writing, because they're the best parts. The payoff is fine, but pay close attention - honestly I just read the wikipedia summary of the final parts of the book and I'm pretty sure I picked up on approximately none of the important details while I was reading the book itself, so probably best not to skim. It had a character death that pissed off and saddened me more than pretty much any other King book from the past decade or so, that gotta count for a positive.
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# ? Jul 26, 2014 02:10 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:46 |
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I've been largely disappointed with Joe Hill's output. I enjoyed Horns, but I didn't love it. 20th Century Ghosts felt like a lot of ideas for stories that he was too lazy to write. The first story in the collection is downright embarrassing. Heart-shaped Box read like a bad Koontz book. Anyway, I might be in the minority here, just saying my piece.
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# ? Jul 26, 2014 02:15 |
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Finished Salem's Lot while I was out of town this past weekend at a family reunion. I was expecting a much softer ending, for some reason, and was actually pleasantly surprised. Reading something science-fiction-y before I dive into Pet Sematary, as I'm expecting it to be fairly heavy from what you people have said.
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 03:07 |
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ravenkult posted:I've been largely disappointed with Joe Hill's output. I enjoyed Horns, but I didn't love it. 20th Century Ghosts felt like a lot of ideas for stories that he was too lazy to write. The first story in the collection is downright embarrassing. Horns was one of the worst books I've ever read, and I do not make statements like that lightly. At the end of the day Hill's still published and raking in dollars so hoo-ray for him, but without his dad he'd have been relegated to the self-pub ghetto with the billionaire-romance serials.
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 03:42 |
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Just read Mr. Mercedes. Was pleasantly surprised, our guy can still crank them out.
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 10:39 |
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Oxxidation posted:Horns was one of the worst books I've ever read, and I do not make statements like that lightly. At the end of the day Hill's still published and raking in dollars so hoo-ray for him, but without his dad he'd have been relegated to the self-pub ghetto with the billionaire-romance serials. Honestly, I agree. His writing doesn't match his meteoric rise to fame. When the publisher he first ''submitted'' to noticed the name (and certainly knew who it was), they saw dollar signs.
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 12:34 |
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Stoomie posted:Reading something science-fiction-y before I dive into Pet Sematary, as I'm expecting it to be fairly heavy from what you people have said. Please, please, please give us your thoughts when you've finished it.
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 12:59 |
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Taeke posted:Please, please, please give us your thoughts when you've finished it. I'm on Chapter 20 of Pet Sematary at the moment. Like a lot of you have said, it's horribly obvious what's going to happen, but I suppose that's part of the point. I'm not looking forward to the rest
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 13:16 |
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WattsvilleBlues posted:I'm on Chapter 20 of Pet Sematary at the moment. Like a lot of you have said, it's horribly obvious what's going to happen, but I suppose that's part of the point. Hey ho, let's go.
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 14:49 |
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Octy posted:Apt Pupil got really creepy, really fast. I liked it, though, despite moments of ridiculousness and King's heavy-handed foreshadowing. I'm glad to discover they also made a movie adapted from it. Worth seeing? gently caress yes. Great casting and welcome to creepy town.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 00:53 |
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syscall girl posted:gently caress yes. I think it got even more creepy after I watched Gods and Monsters
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 01:20 |
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ravenkult posted:Honestly, I agree. His writing doesn't match his meteoric rise to fame. When the publisher he first ''submitted'' to noticed the name (and certainly knew who it was), they saw dollar signs. I can't comment on anything pre-N0S4A2, but N0S4A2 was very good and would have had little problem finding a publisher, King's son or not.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 03:26 |
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Probably not THAT publisher and it's his fourth book so...
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 04:43 |
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Just curious if any of you people reading Pet Sematary for the first time have kids? I haven't read it since I was in my teens or very early twenties. It hit me pretty hard then but man I don't even know if I could get through that book now.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 06:34 |
Devo posted:Just curious if any of you people reading Pet Sematary for the first time have kids? I haven't read it since I was in my teens or very early twenties. It hit me pretty hard then but man I don't even know if I could get through that book now. It takes on a whole new level of dread when you have a family. It's one of the few King books that's been scary to me at every stage of my life: teen, young man, family man. I imagine it'll freak me the gently caress out in new ways when I'm old, too.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 06:52 |
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Devo posted:Just curious if any of you people reading Pet Sematary for the first time have kids? I haven't read it since I was in my teens or very early twenties. It hit me pretty hard then but man I don't even know if I could get through that book now. I remember liking Koontz at the time, but can't for the life of me remember any of the titles of his books, or even the plots (well, there was a novella about time-traveling Nazis, I remember that one). King, on the other hand, I remember every one down to the cover art, possibly because the copies I had were all the size of furniture -- between my dad and my older sister both being big SK fans and both giving me their collections, I read everything up to Wizard and Glass or so in first-run hardcovers (if you've only read the Dark Tower series in paperback, you're really missing out on the illustrations). My copy of It is nice for getting things off high shelves (it's actually thicker than my hardcover copy of the LoTR trilogy). Man, I really need to read It again. I powered all the way through it in like fourth grade, and have never gone back and reread the whole thing, though I do occasionally pick it up again just to reread the exciting bits. I wasn't too disappointed with the ending of the Dark Tower, but I wonder what could've been if King hadn't had the life-altering car accident. The best thing about Koontz, that's really stuck with me, was the notes section at the end of one of his short story collections: he talked a lot about dealing with his editors, and by the end of it he's banged his head on his desk in frustration so much that his forehead is more wood than skin, and he's polished it to a lovely oaken sheen.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 16:00 |
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Delivery McGee posted:I was in my early teens when I read it, but at the time had 2-6-year-old nieces and nephews, who lived on a rural highway out in the oilfield, and read most of it while hanging out at their house and watching them play in the yard ... yeah, it hit a bit close to home. As far as Koontz goes there is Fear Nothing and Seize the Night (the two Christopher Snow books) a poo poo ton of books about Odd Thomas that starts with Odd Thomas, Intensity (which was REALLY good), Soul(Sole?) Survivor(s?), Phantoms(Ben Affleck is in the movie version), The Taking (Has all three of his endings in book somehow). That's all the titles I know off the top of my head though I know there are alot more. Did the other Stephen King book come out yet? I know there was Mr. Mercedes and then some other book.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 18:21 |
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ravenkult posted:Probably not THAT publisher and it's his fourth book so... If you wanna complain about, I dunno, Will Smith's son, sure, I'll give that to you. I hate nepotism too. But with Joe Hill it seems pretty unfair.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 19:28 |
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juliuspringle posted:As far as Koontz goes there is Fear Nothing and Seize the Night (the two Christopher Snow books) a poo poo ton of books about Odd Thomas that starts with Odd Thomas, Intensity (which was REALLY good), Soul(Sole?) Survivor(s?), Phantoms(Ben Affleck is in the movie version), The Taking (Has all three of his endings in book somehow)... Intensity was the first book I read by Koontz and it was great. the TV movie is OK too. It took me three or four books after that one to figure out the guy sucks. Just finished Duma Key and...man (muchacho)...I don't know anymore with King. I liked it well enough and the writing is great as always but also, as always, the mother fucker just went off the rails for no good reason at all. He had the foundation of a really scary story but then spiraled off into Aquatic sea vampires, giant frogs, silver tipped harpoons, lawn jockeys, alligators and china figures. It would have been so much better had it gone off in the predictable way I'd pictured in my head. What ever became of the unsold paintings anyway?. I know that sounds dumb to say but what I'd already predicted in my head would have been scarier. I think my problem is I can't remember the last time King flat out scared the gently caress out of me; made me afraid to turn the page. I think it was maybe in one of his short story volumes. The last three or four books I've read of his (Joyland, 11/22/63, Under the Dome and Duma Key) were all well and good, but none of them scared me. Maybe it's because I'm older or getting used to his style or something but I don't know. I feel like he needs to simplify his stories and ground them a bit. Tighten them up.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 20:03 |
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BiggerBoat posted:I think my problem is I can't remember the last time King flat out scared the gently caress out of me; made me afraid to turn the page. I think it was maybe in one of his short story volumes. The last three or four books I've read of his (Joyland, 11/22/63, Under the Dome and Duma Key) were all well and good, but none of them scared me. Maybe it's because I'm older or getting used to his style or something but I don't know. I feel like he needs to simplify his stories and ground them a bit. Tighten them up. Well, when the main character saw the door open and the sand and grit and stuff on the stairs and saw, I think it was the two girls? I gotta admit that made the hair stand up on my arms. But then again I also enjoyed the novel concept: some nameless monster that can only be contained by water (freshwater? seawater? can't remember) and the story of the tragedy it wrought on the family was pretty sad. Koontz chat: I've read exactly two Koontz novels I didn't hate: One is False Memories, which is quite a mindfuck even if the villian is a Hannibal Lecter carbon copy, and the one with the guy whose whole family are some kinda narcissistic pshycopaths... the book with the polished dinosaur turds. I seem to remember it having an interesting twist.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 20:56 |
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Dr. Faustus posted:Well, when the main character saw the door open and the sand and grit and stuff on the stairs and saw, I think it was the two girls? I gotta admit that made the hair stand up on my arms. But then again I also enjoyed the novel concept: some nameless monster that can only be contained by water (freshwater? seawater? can't remember) and the story of the tragedy it wrought on the family was pretty sad. Yeah, it had its moments or creepiness and forboding. It just became needlessly complex once he'd already established the narrative. Like I said, what I predicted would happen would actually have been much scarier, even if I'd seen it coming. Dr. Faustus posted:Koontz chat: I've read exactly two Koontz novels I didn't hate: One is False Memories, which is quite a mindfuck even if the villian is a Hannibal Lecter carbon copy, and the one with the guy whose whole family are some kinda narcissistic pshycopaths... the book with the polished dinosaur turds. I seem to remember it having an interesting twist. Read Intensity. I couldn't put the fucker down.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 22:01 |
Koontz chat: I don't like most of his novels, but I do like Phantoms. I also like the first Odd Thomas; it's campy but it's fun.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 22:02 |
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ConfusedUs posted:Koontz chat: I have never read Koontz but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw3jMPjAcwg
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 22:10 |
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DirtyRobot posted:The guy's got very good reviews on some of his novels, and as the response from people in this thread have shown, even if you don't like the first book he ever published, he's got some serious chops (i.e. he doesn't strike readers as "lesser Stephen King" or "Stephen King lite," but rather, "Stephen King at the very height of his career"). Hill also started out using a pen name precisely because he didn't want a bunch of dicks saying, "Oh well he only got published cuz he's Stephen King's son." Doing this, he managed to get a decent following of fans before he was officially "outed." I don't wanna poo poo on him too much, but holy poo poo no, Joe Hill is not ''Stephen King at the height of his career.'' As far as new voices in horror are concerned, I'm on board, I want to see what else he does, but there are far more talented authors than Hill praying for a break like his. He published his collection in 2005 in the UK and then revealed who he was in 2007, coinciding with the US release of 21st Century Ghost and Heartshaped Box. So yeah, if you think he would have achieved this kind of success without the contacts his pedigree afforded him, I don't know what to tell you. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-03-17-king-son_N.htm ''But when Hill's fantasy-tinged thriller, Heart-Shaped Box, came out last month, it was inevitable that his thoroughbred blood lines as a writer of horror and the supernatural would be out there for all to see. After 10 years of writing short stories and an unpublished novel under his pen name, Hill knows that the world is now viewing him through a different prism as the older son of Stephen King.'' ''As excitement percolated about Heart-Shaped Box, so, too, did lingering questions about its author. Inklings about Hill's family background started appearing in online message boards in 2005 when his collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, was published in Britain. Similarities in subject matter and appearance Hill has his father's bushy eyebrows and the dark beard he sported decades ago were enough to stir suspicion among followers of the horror genre. "It got blogged to death," Hill recalled. But only when his identity was trumpeted in Variety last year did he realize that the secret was gone for good. "That was really the nail in the coffin," he said.''
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 22:13 |
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Devo posted:Just curious if any of you people reading Pet Sematary for the first time have kids? I haven't read it since I was in my teens or very early twenties. It hit me pretty hard then but man I don't even know if I could get through that book now. I've been pondering a re-read since it has probably been 12-15 years since the last time. A month and a half ago, I found out my wife is pregnant. The book will be dropped off at a used book store soon.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 22:54 |
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:I've been pondering a re-read since it has probably been 12-15 years since the last time. And that was the last time the readers of the Steven King thread would read a post by Rev. Bleech_.
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# ? Jul 28, 2014 23:09 |
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Victorkm posted:And that was the last time the readers of the Steven King thread would read a post by Rev. Bleech_. "It just gave me a sense of utter wrongness," Rev. Bleech_ muttered through a tightly clamped jaw. He abruptly stood up, walked towards the kitchen, and then wheeled about in his tracks to go down cellar. A cold drink, he mused, was going to be necessary to get through both the joyous news of the new arrival, and the bone-deep concern over the book, Pet Semetary, by Stephen King, of all people. Some Maine writer with glasses and big ideas, who kept on getting famouser. "At least one, and Lor' knows, I've got two hands to carry another." It was going to taste heavenly, he knew - the first cold sip of alcohol. Rev. Bleech_ grasped the cellar door latch, and fumbled for the light switch, wincing and squinting in the light of the high arc-sodium lights some drat fool had inexplicably installed in his cellar ceiling. He couldn't figure out where he'd left the case of beer to cool in the damp, cold dark, and not to put too fine a point on it, he wasn't going to want to wait too long to find it, if Jesus wills it. His wife's voice drifted eerily down the stairs, a plaintive call of "Are you drinking this early?" He gritted his teeth anew, and his fingernails cut half moons into his palms as he wrenched his eyes away from the Frigidaire lurking preternaturally in the shadows of the corner. He wasn't about to palaver over his right to have a damned drink with his wife. "Oh yes," he called back "Can you dig it, kid?" edit - typos & additions, my editor doesn't get paid like King's. Aquarium Gravel fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jul 29, 2014 |
# ? Jul 28, 2014 23:37 |
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Aquarium Gravel posted:"It just gave me a sense of utter wrongness," Rev. Bleech_ muttered through a tightly clamped jaw. He abruptly stood up, walked towards the kitchen, and then wheeled about in his tracks to go down cellar. A cold drink, he mused, was going to be necessary to get through both the joyous news of the new arrival, and the bone-deep concern over the book, Pet Semetary, by Stephen King, of all people. Some Maine writer with glasses and big ideas, who kept on getting famouser. "At least one, and Lor' knows, I've got two hands to carry another." It was going to taste heavenly, he knew - the first cold sip of alcohol. Rev. Bleech_ grasped the cellar door latch, and fumbled for the light switch, wincing and squinting in the light of the high arc-sodium lights some drat fool had inexplicably installed in his cellar ceiling. He couldn't figure out where he'd left the case of beer to cool in the damp, cold dark, and not to put too fine a point on it, he wasn't going to want to wait too long to find it. His wife's voice drifted eerily down the stairs, a plaintive call of "Are you drinking this early?" He just needed a clean well-arc-sodium-lit place for that cold beer. A place where adverbs were well-regulated, only to be used by professionals. Unrelated, I finally got through It for the second time and Steven Weber's reading was fantastic. Except for every female character. Mrs. Kaspbrak especially. I mean Stephen already has you mad at her and then Steven just put the icing on that cake. All the research Mike did about how deeply, deeply hosed Derry was, vis a vis the Black Hole, the gangsters that the pharmacist and co. did for in the '30s and the logger bar murders. That was fantastically gross and the epilogue with Derry basically getting torn down by the rain and the standpipe. So good. King has this thing where he's just commenting on poo poo, not personally delivering the brutal and necessary justice, just sayin' that always used to get me. His recent stuff unfortunately doesn't do that but eh.
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# ? Jul 29, 2014 00:09 |
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Aquarium Gravel posted:"It just gave me a sense of utter wrongness," Rev. Bleech_ muttered through a tightly clamped jaw. He abruptly stood up, walked towards the kitchen, and then wheeled about in his tracks to go down cellar. A cold drink, he mused, was going to be necessary to get through both the joyous news of the new arrival, and the bone-deep concern over the book, Pet Semetary, by Stephen King, of all people. Some Maine writer with glasses and big ideas, who kept on getting famouser. "At least one, and Lor' knows, I've got two hands to carry another." It was going to taste heavenly, he knew - the first cold sip of alcohol. Rev. Bleech_ grasped the cellar door latch, and fumbled for the light switch, wincing and squinting in the light of the high arc-sodium lights some drat fool had inexplicably installed in his cellar ceiling. He couldn't figure out where he'd left the case of beer to cool in the damp, cold dark, and not to put too fine a point on it, he wasn't going to want to wait too long to find it, if Jesus wills it. His wife's voice drifted eerily down the stairs, a plaintive call of "Are you drinking this early?"
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# ? Jul 29, 2014 00:25 |
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juliuspringle posted:Fear Nothing ... a poo poo ton of books about Odd Thomas that starts with Odd Thomas ... Intensity (which was REALLY good), Soul(Sole?) Survivor(s?), Phantoms I was about to say something about him being like King in that his novels are hit-or-miss, but he writes a nice short story, but I think that may be more a general thing, that the one format is, as a rule, easier to do well than the other. For a good short story, you just have to come up with a decent plot and then hack the product down to the essentials; for a novel, you have to make all the backstory and poo poo make sense. Also, I follow Neil Gaiman on tumblr, so I've seen a few of his conversations with Joe Hill, and yet never realized the latter was King's son. Though I've also never seen a picture of Joe Hill until this thread, which would have made it obvious. He looks just like his dad. On a tangent re: Neil Gaiman's friends who are horror writers: this loving ask, I can't even. the relevant bit of it posted:Clive Barker is writing a best selling young adult series but his official Tumblr is dicks, dicks and more dicks. To which Neil replied: Neil Gaiman posted:(And hes much more than only a YA author.) VVV This is Clive Barker we're talking about. VVV Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jul 29, 2014 |
# ? Jul 29, 2014 15:19 |
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His official tumblr is dicks, dicks, and more dicks.
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# ? Jul 29, 2014 15:22 |
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Aquarium Gravel posted:"It just gave me a sense of utter wrongness," Rev. Bleech_ muttered through a tightly clamped jaw. He abruptly stood up, walked towards the kitchen, and then wheeled about in his tracks to go down cellar. A cold drink, he mused, was going to be necessary to get through both the joyous news of the new arrival, and the bone-deep concern over the book, Pet Semetary, by Stephen King, of all people. Some Maine writer with glasses and big ideas, who kept on getting famouser. "At least one, and Lor' knows, I've got two hands to carry another." It was going to taste heavenly, he knew - the first cold sip of alcohol. Rev. Bleech_ grasped the cellar door latch, and fumbled for the light switch, wincing and squinting in the light of the high arc-sodium lights some drat fool had inexplicably installed in his cellar ceiling. He couldn't figure out where he'd left the case of beer to cool in the damp, cold dark, and not to put too fine a point on it, he wasn't going to want to wait too long to find it, if Jesus wills it. His wife's voice drifted eerily down the stairs, a plaintive call of "Are you drinking this early?" Continue? I want to know what happens next.
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 01:23 |
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I gave up on Koontz a long time ago after realizing that almost all his stories followed one of two patterns. It's either a middle-aged, ex-military (or some other tough guy job), antisocial man rescuing then teaming up with a very shy and repressed but beautiful woman against some kind of evil force (that is almost always somewhat pitiable), or a strong willed modern woman with or without a friend escaping from some kind of scary situation. I'd heard that Odd Thomas broke that pattern so I checked it out and read it, and was very disappointed. It looked like Koontz was deliberately trying to subvert the expectations of his writing - Odd Thomas was young, had no military or violent background, was very popular with lots of friends, and had a very positive attitude - the exact opposite of your typical Koontz protagonist. His girlfriend is outgoing, crass, unrepressed, again the opposite of the typical Koontz heroine (though more like his protagonists in his novels without the typical mail protagonist). Despite this, it still was your typical formulaic Koontz story. It was so unremarkable that I actually bought the book years later at a used book store, forgetting I'd read it before, and read about 30 pages before realizing that the reason it seemed familiar wasn't just that it was a typical Koontz novel. He used to be, very long ago, a decent science fiction author. He contributed a very strong and disturbing story to Again, Dangerous Visions in the early 70s that still sticks with me, but he's found an easy way to make tons of money and I guess I can't blame him for it.
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 01:35 |
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I'm naming the kid after you people now. All I need now is a horrible, lazy deus ex machina ending.
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 14:27 |
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:I'm naming the kid after you people now. All I need now is a horrible, lazy deus ex machina ending. What about all knowing alien dog gods?
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 18:05 |
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juliuspringle posted:What about all knowing alien dog gods? My first thought was, "Two hundred pages of magical retard ought to kill the momentum pretty handily."
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 18:07 |
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Aquarium Gravel posted:My first thought was, "Two hundred pages of magical retard ought to kill the momentum pretty handily." I'm sure there's some way to combine the two.
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 18:43 |
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juliuspringle posted:I'm sure there's some way to combine the two. Magical retard turns out to be normal retard with alien dog?
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# ? Jul 30, 2014 19:40 |
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I read Under The Dome. I liked it how can they possibly make season 2 of the tv show? they must have made it hella different to the book???
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# ? Jul 31, 2014 05:09 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:46 |
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Ein cooler Typ posted:I read Under The Dome. I liked it Yes, they did.
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# ? Jul 31, 2014 12:44 |