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Perhaps a hamster posted:I'm just trying to think of a book of his that actually is set in a 'dark castle' and drawing a blank, apart from Eyes of the Dragon. Same. I'm wondering if OP heard that a lot of his books tie into The Dark Tower, and was trying to avoid that whole giant metaverse tangle, without paying too much attention to it?
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Sep 29, 2018 13:49
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Kings go to setting is Small Town, USA in about 97% of his work. Just avoid The Dark Tower books and you'll be fine on that account. That being said, I think the world of DT is one of the more interesting bits of it.
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Sep 29, 2018 16:25
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BiggerBoat posted:There's a lot of King books without a "lovely setting". Geez, that's the least of his issues as a writer. Chrsitine, Cujo, The Stand, Dead Zone, The Mist, Shawshank, 11/23/63, Long Walk, IT, Pet Semetary, Joyland, Delores Claiborne...none of these suffer from the setting at all. i know, i just picked the three most interesting settings as a counter to his thesis
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Sep 29, 2018 17:04
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it is also worth stressing that the dark tower novels do not literally take place inside of a dark tower
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Sep 29, 2018 17:27
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Yeah, it’s actually very well lit tower
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Sep 29, 2018 18:12
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 maybe I should have Googled that before posting.
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Sep 29, 2018 19:23
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Perhaps a hamster posted:I'm just trying to think of a book of his that actually is set in a 'dark castle' and drawing a blank, apart from Eyes of the Dragon. Which tbf is a YA book. And, I think a particularly good one but I'm biased
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Sep 29, 2018 20:05
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Attitude Indicator posted:Yeah, it’s actually very well lit tower remarkably so
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Sep 30, 2018 01:03
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I'm going for a stroll this week and my Apple Watch beeps to tell me I'm on a 20:17 mile pace and my first thought is, 'gently caress I'm not surviving this Long Walk'.Inspector 34 posted:Yeah I maybe came across a little harsher than I intended. I was mostly surprised a person ended up with UTD when there are so, so many iconic books to choose from. Just kinda weird. Picking Under the Dome as your first King book is like picking Go Set a Watchman as your first Harper Lee book. I'm not saying it's a bad book, but you're not doing yourself any favors. I'm personally a fan of Cujo or Carrie as babby's first King. But I haven't read Cujo in a long while so maybe it hasn't held up.
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Sep 30, 2018 13:41
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my first was the Talisman. you're the herd now, Jackie 
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Sep 30, 2018 22:45
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Krispy Wafer posted:I'm going for a stroll this week and my Apple Watch beeps to tell me I'm on a 20:17 mile pace and my first thought is, 'gently caress I'm not surviving this Long Walk'. Cujo catches a lot of poo poo around here for some reason. It's one of my favorite books of King's though and reads really fast. I'd go with The Dead Zone as a starter but that may be because that was my first King novel. Rev. Bleech_ posted:a drat. I'm surprised you kept going. I hate the Straub cross overs.
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Oct 1, 2018 00:16
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BiggerBoat posted:drat. I'm surprised you kept going. I hate the Straub cross overs. 13 is the perfect age for that book.
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Oct 1, 2018 01:24
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The Talisman was awesome and inspired my love now for cold off-season beaches. But I’m changing my vote from Cujo to The Dead Zone. That was a creepy book and the movie was surprisingly good too for an early 1980’s King movie.
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Oct 1, 2018 03:25
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cujo is awful
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Oct 1, 2018 03:37
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Carrie owns, and unlike many King novels (and horror novels in general) it sticks the landing. Still though, The short story collections are where I would have anybody start with King if I wanted them to keep going.
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Oct 1, 2018 04:50
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The Talisman is carried almost entirely by Wolf. He's the only thing that anybody mentions or remembers about the book. That aside, the best starter king is either Night Shift or The Dead Zone.
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Oct 1, 2018 05:07
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the dead zone is extremely good (book, movie and dbz ova)
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Oct 1, 2018 05:46
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cujo is very bad. one of the few scenes i remember from it is the guy jacking off and nutting all over the bedsheets, and this being an important plot point
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Oct 1, 2018 05:48
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Khizan posted:The Talisman is carried almost entirely by Wolf. He's the only thing that anybody mentions or remembers about the book. Someone ITT recommended a podcast called The Loser's Club and they did a pretty good summation of how The Talisman reads today. They got a LOT of groans out of it but also a lot of fun, iirc. And like you or I most if not all of them were doing a reread.
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Oct 1, 2018 05:51
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My first was Insomnia and gently caress all the haters I still love that book. My second was Rose Madder and...let's just say I'm glad King had a decent back catalogue to go to after that.
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Oct 1, 2018 10:43
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hyper from Pixie Sticks posted:My first was Insomnia and gently caress all the haters I still love that book. I know I'm a minority, and it's been ages since I read it, but I loved Rose Madder. I'm a big mythology nerd, and I loved that aspect, as well as a lot of the little, realistic feminine details (arms aching after trying to get a hairstyle right, for example). Also, I'm currently geeking out over Norman's calling his tracking of a person as "trolling". I just last night started reading a book about the BTK killer, and he used the same term for stalking women he wanted to kill. It's a weird coincidence, and kind of eerie, the way SK, in writing a sociopath, inadvertently channeled a real one. (If anyone is interested in the BTK book, here's a link: https://www.amazon.com/Bind-Torture-Kill-Inside-Serial/dp/0061373958/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538393897&sr=8-1&keywords=bind+torture+kill )
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Oct 1, 2018 12:45
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My introduction to King was Night shift, followed by Pet Sematary. Yeah, it was hosed up. I wouldn't change it.
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Oct 1, 2018 18:56
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I forgot to bring any books on a family camping trip to Maine when I was 10 years old, so my mom let me read her copy of Christine. Then, since I never complained about it scaring me, she figured I could just read whatever King books I wanted from her shelf, so I read IT and then the Shining. hosed me up probably but oh well.
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Oct 1, 2018 19:38
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I read the Shining first, maybe partly because it's one of his more famous books, but mainly because I was way into Friends and I remembered that episode where Joey gets Rachel to read the Shining and she gets him to read Little Women and they end up spoiling both stories for each other.
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Oct 1, 2018 20:27
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My mom gave me a tattered copy of Thinner to start out in 5th grade, followed by Cujo... and I was hooked.
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Oct 1, 2018 23:44
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No one ever says their first King book was Tommyknockers because if you read Tommyknockers first you never read another King book.
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Oct 1, 2018 23:54
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My first King book was The Shining, when I was 10. I've been not-right ever since.
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Oct 2, 2018 00:11
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While we're all sharing, I started with The Dead Zone.
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Oct 2, 2018 00:16
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Mine was either Needful Things or maybe Thinner. Burned through as many as I could find once I got started though. I'm also kind of a fan of Insomnia like some others have mentioned. But it's probably been 15+ years since I last read it so maybe I'd feel differently now.
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Oct 2, 2018 01:06
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age 13, 'salem's lot, followed by the stand
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Oct 2, 2018 01:10
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Krispy Wafer posted:No one ever says their first King book was Tommyknockers because if you read Tommyknockers first you never read another King book. my first king book was Tommyknockers because i got hooked by the movie adaptation granted little ten-year old me watched it when i was laid up with the flu so it was probably more interesting than it should have been (it's still one of his best books)
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Oct 2, 2018 01:16
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The first King book I read was the Gunslinger when I was like 25, because I was lazy and his books all looked really long. I didn't realize they're all in old-people giant print. Also I have a really pretentious family that looked down on modern pulpy horror for some reason.
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Oct 2, 2018 01:18
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My first King book was Night Shift. I found it at a yard sale when I was eleven and bought it for a quarter. I loved it almost immediately. "Children of the Corn", "The Ledge" and "Quitters, Inc." are still three of my favorite short stories. I love his short story collections and always snatch them up when I see them. I think I have a complete collection.
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Oct 2, 2018 01:27
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I was 12 or so and I started randomly reading parts of IT. Gave me nightmares but I kept reading until my mom had to start hiding the book from me. I remember the cover was the green claw coming out of the sewer. Also I liked the talisman tried reading black house like 3 times and never got more than 50 pages.
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Oct 2, 2018 01:29
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Krispy Wafer posted:No one ever says their first King book was Tommyknockers because if you read Tommyknockers first you never read another King book. It was actually my first King book. Borrowed it from my uncle.
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Oct 2, 2018 02:30
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Krispy Wafer posted:No one ever says their first King book was Tommyknockers because if you read Tommyknockers first you never read another King book. Mine was Tommyknockers actually and I loved it
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Oct 2, 2018 03:04
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The Eyes of the Dragon here, but only because some other jerk had checked out The Gunslinger.
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Oct 2, 2018 03:09
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ConfusedUs posted:It was actually my first King book. Borrowed it from my uncle. Overwatch Porn posted:Mine was Tommyknockers actually and I loved it Man, who would have thought. I read Tommyknockers at the height of my high school King fanboy period and it just slammed the brakes on that. It was a decade before I picked up another one of his books. But my biggest Stephen King disappointment ever was Shawshank Redemption. It was really boring compared to the movie.
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Oct 2, 2018 03:54
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If I'm remembering middle school correctly, I think I started with the Bachman books, then Needful Things, then Firestarter
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Oct 2, 2018 04:52
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Krispy Wafer posted:Man, who would have thought. I read Tommyknockers at the height of my high school King fanboy period and it just slammed the brakes on that. It was a decade before I picked up another one of his books. I read it during puberty and iirc found one of the sex parts hot  E: Tommyknockers I mean
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Oct 2, 2018 05:20
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