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's a really low key kind of story, kind of like Bag of Bones. Very introspective and probably my favorite post-van King book.

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.

Heart-shaped Box read like a bad Koontz book. Anyway, I might be in the minority here, just saying my piece.

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.

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.

Taeke posted:

Please, please, please give us your thoughts when you've finished it.

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.

I'm not looking forward to the rest

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?

syscall girl posted:

gently caress yes.

Great casting and welcome to creepy town.

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.

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.

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.

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.


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.

ravenkult posted:

Probably not THAT publisher and it's his fourth book so...

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)...

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.

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.

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.

ConfusedUs posted:

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.

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."

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.

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.

Rev. Bleech_ posted:

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.

Victorkm posted:

And that was the last time the readers of the Steven King thread would read a post by Rev. Bleech_.

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 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. "Oh yes," he called back "Can you dig it, kid?"

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?"

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?"

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

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.

Neil Gaiman posted:

(And he’s much more than only a YA author.)

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?"

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.

Victorkm posted:

Aquarium Gravel posted:

syscall girl posted:

Rev. Bleech_ posted:

I'm naming the kid after you people now. All I need now is a horrible, lazy deus ex machina ending.

juliuspringle posted:

What about all knowing alien dog gods?

Aquarium Gravel posted:

My first thought was, "Two hundred pages of magical retard ought to kill the momentum pretty handily."

juliuspringle posted:

I'm sure there's some way to combine the two.

Ein cooler Typ posted:

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???