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Casimir Radon posted:When would be a good point to read Little Sisters of Eluria? I'm in the middle of The Drawing of the Three. after wizard and glass imo
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Sep 28, 2016 19:47
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Casimir Radon posted:When would be a good point to read Little Sisters of Eluria? I'm in the middle of The Drawing of the Three. Literally any time honestly. I think the Sisters may get a brief mention in one of the post-2000 books, but the events of the story all take place before The Gunslinger. Casimir Radon posted:I feel like a jackass because I bought the first two books in Viking hardcover a few years back, and then the prices on books 3&4 in the same format shot up to ridiculous levels. My books have to look right, maaaaan. Get back to me when you're after the original Grant hardcovers  .
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Sep 28, 2016 20:02
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Ornamented Death posted:Get back to me when you're after the original Grant hardcovers
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Sep 28, 2016 20:07
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Casimir Radon posted:Not even going to try. It's kind of funny because most King hardcovers, outside of crazy expensive special editions, get so many printings that they're relatively cheap to pick up later. True, but to be fair, if you're after the Grant editions, you're specifically after first printings. Also if anyone wants a Grant edition of Wizard and Glass, I have one I've been meaning to put up on eBay.
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Sep 28, 2016 20:12
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Little Sisters of Eluria is a fine standalone tale, and in my opinion you won't be lost if you read it before any of DT.
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Sep 28, 2016 20:17
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Misery is bliowing me away on re-read. There's great foreshadowing and even straight-up Chekhov's Hatchet in there leading up to the hobbling scene (which I just read and it's more horriffic than I remembered.) This books hits on all cylinders.
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Sep 28, 2016 22:07
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When I first read Misery I was 13 and had a 13 year old's attention span so I skipped over all the excerpts from the book Paul is writing while he's stuck at Annie's. I didn't feel like I missed much but at the same time I feel like I probably did.
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Sep 28, 2016 22:15
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Karmine posted:When I first read Misery I was 13 and had a 13 year old's attention span so I skipped over all the excerpts from the book Paul is writing while he's stuck at Annie's. I didn't feel like I missed much but at the same time I feel like I probably did. I did the same thing at the age of 16. The real-life plot of Paul gets so loving intense, all I wanted to do was get the ending. The typewriter losing it's letters made it annoying to read, and I really didn't care. I got that it was echoing themes in the main story, and reflects Paul's mind, but I'd rather read about Paul hiding his meds than stupid Misery. Whenever I get around to the re-read, I look forward to reading through every Misery section.
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Sep 28, 2016 22:22
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some guy on the bus posted:You could be talking about 16 year olds and it would still be really weird, but 11 year olds.... What was King thinking as he was writing that? Was he putting himself into the mind of his characters and thinking of it from their perspective imagining himself in a 11 year old gangbang? Mostly he was thinking "I'm high as an arc-sodium on all this coke, weed, and booze" (I assume Steve's internal narrative conforms to his writing style)
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Sep 29, 2016 01:24
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I enjoy King very much, but bounced hard off The Gunslinger. I never knew he tied DT into his other works. It makes me want to go back and give the series another shot.
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Sep 29, 2016 01:28
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Robot Wendigo posted:I enjoy King very much, but bounced hard off The Gunslinger. I never knew he tied DT into his other works. It makes me want to go back and give the series another shot. If you do probably don't read the redux. It's allegedly very bad gunky. I really liked the original fwiw but it's been a very long time since I read it.
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Sep 29, 2016 02:20
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Jazerus posted:Mostly he was thinking "I'm high as an arc-sodium on all this coke, weed, and booze" (I assume Steve's internal narrative conforms to his writing style) Tomorrow he'll break his little coke mirror, but for now, he'll enjoy their final moments together, never realizing that this would be the last time he'll be able to catch a little glimmer of his own eye's reflection as he prepares one final, fat rail of Noz-A-La.
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Sep 29, 2016 04:41
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I finished Blaze yesterday and last night I had a dream I was taking care of a baby. I liked the beginning and middle it sucked me in and made me wanna see what was gonna happen. The ending wasn't bad but I think I was expecting more a twist or something. And SK spoiled it in the introduction. .
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Sep 29, 2016 20:30
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I just finished DOCTOR SLEEP. It is...ok? I said earlier in the thread that the True Knot never really work and that doesn't change throughout the book. In fact, one thing I realised when it came to the end is that they're never really a threat. Rose is constantly overpowered by Abra and though King gets some tension out of a section later on, the knot never come close to really besting anyone. Hell, aside from the people that Danny helps pass on, there's only one death that we're privy too. I couldn't help but think how he whittles down the cast of SALEM'S LOT, and though I appreciate it's a very different tale to that one it felt at times as though King was holding back. You can tell that the Knot have been whittled in from somewhere else and don't belong, though I do always like a moment in any story where a bunch of people just bolt it because they don't want to deal with any bullshit, and I like that the Knot get that moment. But onto the good. Its painful because outside of the Knot, almost everything else about the book works. Danny is a likeable and relatable fuckup and shell of a person who is working through their trauma, and I appreciate that King allows him to have conflicted thoughts about his father. I like both the mundane nature of AA and also the shame that Danny carries with him and I like the characters he surrounds himself with. You can feel King's own emotions and thoughts coming through, like the inescapable thought that no matter what good you go on to do, there's always going to be that part of you regardless. Even Abra is drawn reasonably well. Particularly in the epilogue, where she's a decidedly harder character in the years following the events of the story. Her parents are sadly non-entities though, which is weird since early on it seems as though they're going to be more prominent than they end up being. It's also genuinely moving. There are sections and moments that have a lovely grace to them and really makes me wish that King had found something other than the Knot to deal with. Hell, make it a novella about Danny Torrence without any of the other stuff.
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Sep 29, 2016 20:45
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Danny's secret shame was genuinely disturbing to me. It was so incredibly real, and probably not as uncommon as I'd like to think. Dr. Sleep was a good book, but not a good sequel.
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Sep 29, 2016 22:42
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Robot Wendigo posted:I enjoy King very much, but bounced hard off The Gunslinger. I never knew he tied DT into his other works. It makes me want to go back and give the series another shot. Fwiw I did the same thing. The second time I picked up Gunslinger I just kept going through the series all summer long. Well worth it at least once, warts and all.
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Sep 29, 2016 23:28
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syscall girl posted:If you do probably don't read the redux. It's allegedly very bad gunky. I'll be the wiener here and say that the redux isn't that bad. I mean, it isn't great, and it clumsily syncs the book up with the last three in the series, but (spoiling even though its like thirty-four years old) the redux was actually pretty cool to read after wrapping up the series. It's the gunslinger in another phase of the cycle, the story being just a little different and Roland being just a little more human. Like, he doesn't shoot Allie straight out of hand this time - her begging to die makes his act a little less monstrous - but he still lets Jake drop which means he's still damned and still needs to find his redemption. He doesn't have the horn so it obviously isn't the final cycle (that's the browning poem) but it isn't wrong, at least in the universe king made, to think that it's parallel. But that's probably me stretchin poo poo like a motherfucker
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Sep 29, 2016 23:42
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Is there a reasonable way to find the original unrevised version? A Google search brings up an eBay copy for over two grand.
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Sep 30, 2016 07:07
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Mr. Glum posted:Is there a reasonable way to find the original unrevised version? A Google search brings up an eBay copy for over two grand. I have found two in secondhand shops for around a dollar each. They're just paperbacks and haven't been like, hermetically sealed to be in perfect shape or anything but they were nice clean copies. There might be secondhand book shops too that would have them. Maybe try amazon as it lists used copies from other vendors too.
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Sep 30, 2016 08:05
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Leavemywife posted:Danny's secret shame was genuinely disturbing to me. It was so incredibly real, and probably not as uncommon as I'd like to think. Dr. Sleep was a good book, but not a good sequel. And one of my favourite moments is that when he does open up about it at AA, no one reacts the way he thinks they will. They've heard poo poo like that before, and they've probably heard worse. And what's a massive breakthrough for Danny is kind of mundane for everyone else. Obviously they're happy he was able to open up about it, but they also treat his revelation with a shrug.
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Sep 30, 2016 10:32
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In Dr Sleep one of my biggest objections is that Abra is virtually a demi-goddess with her powers and you never feel the outcome is in any doubt. Here's a list of books by ending, whether good won over evil: 1) Good wins out completely: Dr Sleep, The Shining, Christine, 2) Good wins with losses: Salems Lot, The Stand, It, Dead Zone, Firestarter, Tommyknockers, Misery 3) Unclear/equal: Carrie, Tom Gordon, The Mist, Thinner 4) Evil wins: Pet Sematary, Cujo Agree/disagree?
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Sep 30, 2016 22:39
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:
I'd put the Shining as "good wins with losses." Jack wasn't inherently evil, and I think that if he'd never gone to the Overlook he would've pulled through (that whole scene with him getting stung by the wasp and remembering George Hatfield was him finally admitting to himself what he'd done, and realizing he needed to be - and could be - better).
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Sep 30, 2016 22:56
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:In Dr Sleep one of my biggest objections is that Abra is virtually a demi-goddess with her powers and you never feel the outcome is in any doubt. Can't agree with The Mist because I can't really call the Mist evil. It's alien and deadly for sure, but there's no malevolence. Revival spoiler - This could be either a 2 or a 4. Sure the antagonist walks away unscathed physically and lives a long life. However, in the end we're all everlasting slaves of some eldritch power.
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Sep 30, 2016 23:01
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I don't know if it's accurate to say good won, even with losses, in The Stand. Sure, they nuke Vegas and Flagg, but he just wakes up elsewhere, ready to start over. I think I'd call it a draw, honestly.
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Sep 30, 2016 23:08
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Here's a list of books by ending, whether good won over evil:
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Oct 1, 2016 00:33
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the numa numa song posted:Fwiw I did the same thing. The second time I picked up Gunslinger I just kept going through the series all summer long. Well worth it at least once, warts and all. That sounds like a solid plan. I read it when it first became readily available after hearing about it for years and it wasn't what I was expecting so that was that. At 51, I tend to give books more of a chance now.
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Oct 1, 2016 01:03
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Here's a list of books by ending, whether good won over evil: Is Cujo really evil? I remember the demon thing in the closet but the implication that Cujo is possessed is muddled at best. Cujo was A Good Dog, I'd call that more "Everyone loses".
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Oct 1, 2016 16:39
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dirksteadfast posted:Is Cujo really evil? I remember the demon thing in the closet but the implication that Cujo is possessed is muddled at best. Cujo was A Good Dog, I'd call that more "Everyone loses". I think the evil in Cujo is the cold ambivalence of the universe and how the butterfly effect can ruin someone in the way God ruined Job. Although I'd move Cujo to good wins with losses. The couple stays together and close with each other despite the infidelity and the Tadster eating it. Salem's Lot should be moved to evil wins. The hero's girlfriend gets the business, the local priest is desecrated and cast out, they kill Barlow but the entire town is also wiped out and turned to vampires, and the two surviving protagonists have to flee at the end.
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Oct 1, 2016 17:59
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ruddiger posted:Salem's Lot should be moved to evil wins. The hero's girlfriend gets the business, the local priest is desecrated and cast out, they kill Barlow but the entire town is also wiped out and turned to vampires, and the two surviving protagonists have to flee at the end.
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Oct 1, 2016 18:35
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Ornamented Death posted:I don't know if it's accurate to say good won, even with losses, in The Stand. Sure, they nuke Vegas and Flagg, but he just wakes up elsewhere, ready to start over. I think I'd call it a draw, honestly. The hand of God literally appears to vanquish the forces of evil, I think you need to re-read the book, you seem to have missed the entire plot
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Oct 2, 2016 09:09
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A Typical Goon posted:The hand of God literally appears to vanquish the forces of evil, I think you need to re-read the book, you seem to have missed the entire plot I haven't re-read that doorstop but some people claim it was a case of an unreliable narrator. 
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Oct 2, 2016 09:41
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syscall girl posted:I haven't re-read that doorstop but some people claim it was a case of an unreliable narrator. One character specifically notes that it looks like "the hand of God", but I'm pretty sure it's not referred to again.
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Oct 2, 2016 10:40
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Flagg makes an energy/lightning ball that he mysteriously loses control over that then forms the shape of a hand which our religious sacrifice character calls 'the Hand of God' that touches and sets off the nuclear device. I don't see how this can be interpreted other than divine intervention given the themes that are present throughout the entire novel, what with Flagg being the anti-Christ and old black Jesus women sending Ralph and Larry to Vegas to confront him
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Oct 2, 2016 12:26
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A Typical Goon posted:The hand of God literally appears to vanquish the forces of evil, I think you need to re-read the book, you seem to have missed the entire plot And then Flagg literally washes up on a shore somewhere to start again so God did a real lovely job.
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Oct 2, 2016 12:28
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Ornamented Death posted:And then Flagg literally washes up on a shore somewhere to start again so God did a real lovely job. Well not really considering Flagg is a inter-dimensional being that can only stay in one 'time/world' for so long before he has to 'fade' as he gets all screwy if he stays too long. The beach that he washes up on is a different world than the one the that was destroyed by the superflu The Vegas parts are the best part of the novel, Flagg is a really interesting villain to me because of his mysterious nature and origin.
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Oct 2, 2016 12:34
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That's cool and all, but it shows that evil can never truly be defeated, it just moves on and sets up elsewhere. Hence my claim that the end is a draw. I suppose you can bring scale in to it, but I'd argue that direct intervention by the divine shows the scale was larger than the Boulder-Vegas conflict, and ended with evil being chased off rather than, as you put it, vanquished. Edit: That said, the epilogue was added with the expanded edition, so it appears King become more cynical about good's ability to overcome evil after living through the 80s .
Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Oct 2, 2016 |
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Oct 2, 2016 12:42
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A Typical Goon posted:Flagg makes an energy/lightning ball that he mysteriously loses control over that then forms the shape of a hand which our religious sacrifice character calls 'the Hand of God' that touches and sets off the nuclear device. I don't see how this can be interpreted other than divine intervention given the themes that are present throughout the entire novel, what with Flagg being the anti-Christ and old black Jesus women sending Ralph and Larry to Vegas to confront him One character notes that Flagg's energy ball looks like the hand of god. It can be interpreted many ways other than literal hand of god.
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Oct 2, 2016 19:57
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A Typical Goon posted:Flagg makes an energy/lightning ball that he mysteriously loses control over that then forms the shape of a hand which our religious sacrifice character calls 'the Hand of God' that touches and sets off the nuclear device. I don't see how this can be interpreted other than divine intervention given the themes that are present throughout the entire novel, what with Flagg being the anti-Christ and old black Jesus women sending Ralph and Larry to Vegas to confront him That's evil's power loving up on its own due to lack of planning, not God doing it.
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Oct 2, 2016 20:02
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Yeah, King has repeatedly said that what inspired him in terms of the religious side of the stand was old testament "follow me and do what i say no matter how hosed up it seems or face my vengeance" god that is always present using his powers versus new testament "love your neighbor and do unto others..." god that lets people live their lives. It's not just the ball of energy (which he created to silence someone who questioned him) that serves as an example of evil self destructing. You have Flagg killing Nadine, Trashcan man destroying their air force, the guy killing the judge, etc.
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Oct 2, 2016 20:33
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I don't know how anyone can read the Stand and not come away from it with the interpretation that this way King's take on the religious apocalypse story. I can see the unreliable narrator part if the Hand thing was out of no where and random, but the book is full of religious metaphors and symbolism throughout. The will of God guides the actions of the characters and plots throughout the entire back half of the novel.
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Oct 2, 2016 20:49
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