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Misery is amazing. IMO there's only one missed note in the whole thing, which involves a riding lawnmower and seems out of place in such a tight, grounded personal hell. I especially love the ending, in which the protagonist is physically diminished, and tortured by hallucinations of the horror he survived. It's a little bleak. I'm going to start reading this tonight. Thanks for reminding me of how great it was. It's been a long time so I'll definitely enjoy it.
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Sep 19, 2016 23:39
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Listening to an audiobook of 11.23.64 and enjoying it. This whole first section with the plumber could be its own book, it's phenomenal to think that's only the prelude. Digging, as always, King's instinct for rooting out the little unthinkable details that give the story an organic heft, but there's something vaguely watery about it that I can't put my finger on. Early King is like reading razor wire, and there's a squishiness to his later books that's kind of off-putting. Maybe that's the peril of fame, or maybe he's just become more empathetic now that he's older and not pumped full of cocaine.
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Sep 20, 2016 00:02
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RCarr posted:How did the thread like Misery? I'm about to start my first read. Misery may be King's last Great Book. I've enjoyed nearly everything he's written, and yet, I can't think of anything he wrote after Misery that I think is as tightly plotted, tense and scary, as Misery. I just checked a bibliography, and yeah, lots of stuff I liked, nothing as good as Misery since. It's the last time the water was that high (for me), so to speak.
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Sep 20, 2016 01:44
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joepinetree posted:I already have the fireman, how is his other stuff? NOS4A2 is every bit as good as King at his best. It's a seriously incredible book.
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Sep 20, 2016 07:25
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Ugly In The Morning posted:NOS4A2 is every bit as good as King at his best. It's a seriously incredible book. Agreed. I've stated before that I'm a sucker for all of King's work and I would at this point say the same for Hill.
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Sep 20, 2016 07:29
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the reason people don't talk about misery much is that the movie overshadows it.
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Sep 20, 2016 10:51
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I just started Nightmares & Dreamscapes for the first time and finished the first story. I thought it was pretty good, but every time I read Dolan I couldn't help picturing the meme-form Dolan. The plot is a little contrived too - surely there would have been easier less elaborate ways to do it. What's the general thought of the rest of the stories, and how does it stack up to his other collections?
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Sep 20, 2016 11:02
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Ugly In The Morning posted:NOS4A2 is every bit as good as King at his best. It's a seriously incredible book. I didn't like the Fireman at all despite being a Joe Hill fan. It was cliche, boring, and one big letdown.
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Sep 20, 2016 12:41
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I jumped on the "three free months of Audible + $10 at Amazon" deal from a few months back and The Fireman was my first choice. I didn't particularly enjoy it, though I'm not sure if that's because it was a mediocre book or because listening made me feel drowsy since having Kate Mulgrew as the narrator is literally having someone's grandmother read you a story.
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Sep 20, 2016 14:18
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Hill has a tendency to start his story off about one thing but then explore something else. Personally I think it works fine but it's a little less successful in THE FIREMAN. Saying that, NOS4R2 (As it's called here) is the only one where he goes straight ahead with it and it's arguably his best book. Also, if you haven't read it, I really liked IN THE TALL GRASS that Hill and King wrote together. It's a quick and nasty little story that reminds me of earlier King. Anyway, going through DOCTOR SLEEP now. I'm about halfway and I already know the stuff with the true knot is a mistake. It just doesn't fit this world that King has put together. It's a shame too because all the stuff with Danny works really well.
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Sep 20, 2016 16:58
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DrVenkman posted:Anyway, going through DOCTOR SLEEP now. I'm about halfway and I already know the stuff with the true knot is a mistake. It just doesn't fit this world that King has put together. It's a shame too because all the stuff with Danny works really well. Yeah. Dr. Sleep has some good parts when it focuses on Danny, but the knot doesn't fit anywhere. It feels like King took two entirely different stories and tried to fuse them. That works sometimes but in DS there's way too many rough edges (and a really major eyeroll revelation near the end) that really turned me off of it. I'll even go ahead and make a pretty bold statement: Dr. Sleep is probably King's worst book since Dreamcatcher, and like Dreamcatcher, the personal stuff is good but the plot is a god damned rear end hoagie.
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Sep 20, 2016 17:38
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Murphy Brownback posted:I just started Nightmares & Dreamscapes for the first time and finished the first story. I thought it was pretty good, but every time I read Dolan I couldn't help picturing the meme-form Dolan. The plot is a little contrived too - surely there would have been easier less elaborate ways to do it. Well, I guess a heist movie wouldn't be a heist movie without a heist so...  Aquarium Gravel posted:Misery may be King's last Great Book. I've enjoyed nearly everything he's written, and yet, I can't think of anything he wrote after Misery that I think is as tightly plotted, tense and scary, as Misery. I just checked a bibliography, and yeah, lots of stuff I liked, nothing as good as Misery since. Dr. Faustus posted:Misery is amazing. Inspector 34 posted:I think it's really surprising how little people talk about Misery. It seems universally loved by anybody who's read it, but when people talk about King books it seems like it's always The Stand or It or Pet Semetary. I really think Misery is as good as any of those, I guess maybe it's just not as full of King tropes as those others so it gets overlooked. Annie is easily as terrifying as any of his supernatural villains. I feel at home here. 
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Sep 20, 2016 18:03
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kenny powerzzz posted:Agreed. I've stated before that I'm a sucker for all of King's work and I would at this point say the same for Hill. Ditto. He seems to have all of dad's strengths, few of his weaknesses, and a lot less of his wordiness. Everything he's done I've liked, and "Pop Art" may be my favorite short story I've read in decades. Such a gently weird little story.
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Sep 21, 2016 01:47
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:Ditto. He seems to have all of dad's strengths, few of his weaknesses, and a lot less of his wordiness. Everything he's done I've liked, and "Pop Art" may be my favorite short story I've read in decades. Such a gently weird little story. "Pop Art" is a masterpiece. It's easily the best story in a book full of good stories (20th Century Ghosts).
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Sep 21, 2016 01:48
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ConfusedUs posted:"Pop Art" is a masterpiece. It's easily the best story in a book full of good stories (20th Century Ghosts). I'm sorry, but best goes to Best New Horror. Creates a perfect horror story out of the effects of reading good horror stories. It's brutal and wonderful. Pop Art is right next to it, but it's power is sentiment, not a gut punch. It's really convenient that Hill put the best stories right up front.
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Sep 21, 2016 03:43
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Groovelord Neato posted:the reason people don't talk about misery much is that the movie overshadows it. I'm reminded of the old days when people who didn't read talked about how gory and gross King's video adaptations were. I'd tell them that whatever they saw on the screen was nothing compared to what was on the page and in your mind's eye. You think a block of wood and a sledgehammer is bad? How about a block of wood, a bottle of iodine, a butane torch and a hatchet? Misery the film stands out as one of the best adaptations of a Stephen King novel, sure. No way in hell it overshadows this book. Not a chance. In my re-read (my first) I'm just getting well into it and holy poo poo it's far better than I had remembered. The prose is absolutely astounding, and the dread is building beautifully (horrifically). If it weren't for a few verbal ticks I might not even realize that this was King. (So vivid!) The opening and developing theme of the tide, the moon, and the pilings is brilliant. I'm actually dreading reading the rest myself because I remember what Paul has to go through (and lose) to emerge at the end. E: Maybe I just don't get what you mean by "overshadows." Dr. Faustus fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Sep 21, 2016 |
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Sep 21, 2016 03:45
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Dr. Faustus posted:I'm actually dreading reading the rest myself because I remember what Paul has to go through (and lose) to emerge at the end. I think this is maybe the main reason I haven't read it 3+ times like the rest of my Stephen King collection even though I know it is so, so good.
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Sep 21, 2016 04:45
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stephen king should just write murder mysteries with no horror in them
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Sep 21, 2016 05:03
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corn in the bible posted:stephen king should just write murder mysteries with no horror in them murder is inherently horrific
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Sep 21, 2016 05:32
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syscall girl posted:murder is inherently horrific It's a lot more difficult to imagine being terrorized by some of these highly fantastical supernatural occurrences than it is to imagine some crazy (and hoo boy I do mean kerr-ayzeee) fan doing terrible things to you. We have known, documented real-life examples of truth being weirder and scarier than fiction where it comes to people doing horrific things to other people. Vampires and haunted paintings and stuff like that are fun because they aren't real. The challenge is to make them real enough to be scary. King is very good at this (I mean, I still shudder thinking about a possessed laundry folder, so there's that). The bugshit cuckoo crazed fan or total stranger opportunist or, hell, just "in the wrong place at the wrong time" is a lot easier to get into. Misery is an example of what he can do when he keeps it here, is all I mean. Still, he made me fear a laundry machine. Dr. Faustus fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Sep 21, 2016 |
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Sep 21, 2016 05:39
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Misery is one of the few books to make me heavily consider sleeping with the lights on. The ending is incredible and had me constantly checking behind me.
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Sep 21, 2016 05:48
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Dr. Faustus posted:True, but there is a good point. He's good at both parts and sometimes using elements of reality like what a roque mallet will do to a human body mixed in with ghosts or demons or vampires. I got a chill from those guys going out in the snow to look after the dumbass tourists looking for Jerusalem's Lot in One for the Road But I totally get what you're saying. The real visceral, not supernatural is usually the most horrific. I wonder sometimes if someone as famous and prone to fear must sometimes sit up nights wondering why that van guy died on his bday. Ya think he has CCTV?
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Sep 21, 2016 06:11
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corn in the bible posted:stephen king should just write murder mysteries with no horror in them
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Sep 21, 2016 06:30
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syscall girl posted:Ya think he has CCTV? Casimir Radon posted:Finished Finders Keepers recently little disappointed that Brady apparently has super powers now. The original title of End of Watch was The Suicide King so that's a pretty good clue to where this is headed. Maybe he can pull this off, maybe he can't. I don't know.
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Sep 21, 2016 06:41
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Casimir Radon posted:Finished Finders Keepers recently little disappointed that Brady apparently has super powers now. The original title of End of Watch was The Suicide King so that's a pretty good clue to where this is headed. Maybe he can pull this off, maybe he can't. I don't know. He can't. End of watch is utter, utter nonsense and it's just terrible
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Sep 21, 2016 07:05
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The latest King novel I've read was Wind Through the Keyhole, and read Full Dark, No Stars and the newest one I can't remember the name of for the short stories. Is there anything in the last 4-6 years you'd consider essential that I pick up? I've got an Audible credit and I'm looking to jump back into King.
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Sep 22, 2016 00:02
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It's about a year outside of the range you asked for, but I'd say Under the Dome is the most pure-strain King since It or The Stand. It has all his strengths and all his faults.
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Sep 22, 2016 00:43
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Joyland was really enjoyable, 11-22-63 gets a lot of praise, but personally I'd try Revival as an audiobook.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:09
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Franchescanado posted:11-22-63 gets a lot of praise You're right that it does, and maybe it should, but I dunno. Just wasn't my thing. I think it's because the idea of the reset button as a safety really took away all the tension. No matter how bad Jake hosed things up, there was always a way out. And for a story that was ostensibly about the Kennedy assassination, a whole lot of the novel was pretty boring to me. I feel like it was a ~30,000 word novella stretched thin. edit not to be a negative nancy: there were some really good parts, don't get me wrong, and the Yellow Card Man/the world at the end was really creepy. Just it didn't grab me the way some of his best stuff did. Asbury fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 01:30
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I'm about at the part where he's directing the school play and some of the wind is leaving the sails for me, but I liked the janitor bit.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:43
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Franchescanado posted:Joyland was really enjoyable, 11-22-63 gets a lot of praise, but personally I'd try Revival as an audiobook. I liked Joyland pretty well. Because of the cover I was expecting hardboiled detective fiction but it had some spooky stuff too.
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Sep 22, 2016 02:06
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I'm about at the part where he's directing the school play and some of the wind is leaving the sails for me, but I liked the janitor bit. There's a pretty dead section somewhere around the 2/3 mark. I remember skimming a lot of pages. It picks back up later.
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Sep 22, 2016 03:16
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BiggerBoat posted:There's a pretty dead section somewhere around the 2/3 mark. I remember skimming a lot of pages. It picks back up later. 11/22/63 is really loving good, and the slow part in the middle is needed to build up his relationship with Sadie which is needed for the climax at the end where he has to choose between all the work he's done and resetting the time stream and saving her
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Sep 22, 2016 07:26
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A Typical Goon posted:11/22/63 is really loving good, and the slow part in the middle is needed to build up his relationship with Sadie which is needed for the climax at the end where he has to choose between all the work he's done and resetting the time stream and saving her 3Romeo posted:No matter how bad Jake hosed things up, there was always a way out. And for a story that was ostensibly about the Kennedy assassination, a whole lot of the novel was pretty boring to me. I feel like it was a ~30,000 word novella stretched thin. The story isn't even ostensibly about averting the Kennedy assassination. It's about Jake's life. It's about how he spends his own precious years trying to change history; only to find his love in the past where he couldn't keep her any more than he could bend any other history to his will. That was the journey and that was the novel. If you read it and still thought the book was about the Kennedy assassination, you chased the McGuffin and lost the actual plot.
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Sep 22, 2016 08:24
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Franchescanado posted:11-22-63 gets a lot of praise I filed it under (c) Great Start But Man What A Drop Off... I haven't tried Joyland but I think I will.
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Sep 22, 2016 10:21
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So the word is that they're still planning on doing a Dark Tower TV series. Apparently it is going to be the flashback part of Wizard and Glass with Roland telling the story to Jake.
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Sep 22, 2016 12:27
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Dr. Faustus posted:
You know, you're absolutely right, but that still doesn't change the way i feel about it. I went at the story with an expectation that I probably shouldn't have had - that it'd be more about the assassination than a love story - but of course it's more character driven than anything. It's a King book. I just didn't care much about Jake. Then again, with the exception of Gordie in The Body, I never cared much for any of King's first-person narrators.
Asbury fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 13:29
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Finally got around to reading Just After Sunset after having it for years. Only managed to get through 5 of the shorter stories in there so far, but man...for a collection that is introduced with King talking about keeping the short story muscle alive in his brain, he certainly seems to be struggling on some of these.
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Sep 22, 2016 16:48
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muscles like this? posted:So the word is that they're still planning on doing a Dark Tower TV series. Apparently it is going to be the flashback part of Wizard and Glass with Roland telling the story to Jake. Could be great, probably will be mediocre at best. Since TV series tend to try to assume no prior knowledge of the source material I can see them toning down the parts that made it a Dark Tower book and we'd get a standard western love story. I guess it would depend on who they got to play young Roland and Susan. Is that lady who played the witch in the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner still around? She'd make the perfect Rhea.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:44
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Naw she punched out last year. Which isn't bad, since she was ancient in Robin Hood and that was 25 years ago
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Sep 22, 2016 19:22
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