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err posted:Just finished Dark Tower #3 and it was good. I liked the weird town they visit and the hosed up city. I am still unsure on a lot about Roland's past, but it sounds like #4 has a lot of flashbacks? I kinda wanna look up fan art but I'm afraid of getting spoiled. The worldbuilding is my favorite parts. #3 was the last one that I enjoyed for worldbuilding's sake. I thought that was the apex of the series.
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Dec 19, 2023 00:31
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mdemone posted:There's so much world-building that could be done, but I worry that it could overwhelm the simplicity of the idea. I've always said this film could be done on a shoestring budget if you cast some good child actors and hire the right director. Handle it tastefully but still make it as dark as it needs to be in order to straddle that very obvious line. Let the world building unfold throughout the Walk and the conversations between the kids, the guards and the spectators. A few of us have said you could make it into a play and I think that could work. With the state of "reality" TV and people willing to almost kill themselves for clicks and likes on TIk Tok and YT, I don't think the basic concept is much of a hard sell. People are desperate for money and willing to do anything to get it. Give the walkers phones and have them live stream their poo poo as they become elated at their amount of followers, before an after the contest, while being agreeing to be tortured for money. I mean, you have to tap dance a bit around the idea of the military killing children, of course, but the fundamental idea as whole is pretty basic, easily understood and has already been explored in something like Squid Game. You don't need a ton of exposition to build this world, really. We're all kind of living it as a metaphor anyway and I think it would land for most anyone.
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Dec 19, 2023 03:51
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PriorMarcus posted:How do people feel about One for the Road? I think it's a great short story, but it really twist the nail on the ending of 'Salem's Lot by making it clear that Ben didn't really accomplish poo poo in the end. Unless it's meant to take place before Ben burns the town down at the end? I don't think that can be the case though? It definitely takes place after Salem's Lot. When I first read it I remember feeling mildly disappointed that it wasn't more of a straightforward coda to Salem's Lot with more explanation of what happened to the town, to Ben Mears and Mark Petrie. We do know that the fire gutted some or most of the Marsten House, so it wasn't a complete failure. Over the years I've grown to appreciate the restraint that King shows by avoiding that, and by letting the reader draw their own conclusions about the outcomes of Ben & Mark's actions at the end of Salem's Lot. Basically from the first page the reader knows, just like Booth and Tookey know, how things are going to end up. And yet, it is still a gripping story. The imagery of the blizzard, of the drifting snow obscuring so much of the world, is the perfect frame. Thematically it is an interesting story. King was ~31 in 1978, so just the turns of the story and the choice of protagonists reflects a lot on the perspective of a young man believing that he will be one of those old guys who holds true to themselves and pretending that he understands the sort of banal defeats that tend to break people down over the course of a long, comfortable life. It also is an example of young SK's tendency to create tension in the gap between faith and belief (Tookey is agnostic but the bible fends off vampires nonetheless), and his adherence to horror tenets that we would now see as very familiar - your own mistake is what gets you killed, the "monster" is just a embodiment of whatever flaws got you in that situation, etc. TLDR: It's good as hell. Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 04:36
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Finally progressing through the institute and it's one of the best examples of King needing an editor. Like, you didn't need 29 chapters to get how bad life at the institute was.
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Dec 19, 2023 23:06
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With all the Salem's Lot talk, I will mention again that Salem's Lot could be a treasure for a prequel in the form of a novel or a limited TV series. I am not talking about Jerusalem's Lot (White Chapel) timeframe either, I am talking about Hubie Marsten timeframe. I would love to see King expand on the Lot during that time and what Marsten did to make that house evil. Also, any updates of the move remake? I know good chance will be bad, but I want to see it. Last I heard it was shelved, but might be heading to Max next year.
nate fisher fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Dec 21, 2023 |
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Dec 21, 2023 00:19
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BiggerBoat posted:I've always said this film could be done on a shoestring budget if you cast some good child actors and hire the right director. Handle it tastefully but still make it as dark as it needs to be in order to straddle that very obvious line. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is 3/4 of the way to a Long Walk movie (has King ever mentioned watching it while writing LW in the late 60s or reading the source novel?).
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Dec 22, 2023 01:06
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High Warlord Zog posted:They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is 3/4 of the way to a Long Walk movie (has King ever mentioned watching it while writing LW in the late 60s or reading the source novel?). That's true. The book is very very Long Walk. Haven't seen the film.
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Dec 22, 2023 01:52
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nate fisher posted:With all the Salem's Lot talk, I will mention again that Salem's Lot could be a treasure for a prequel in the form of a novel or a limited TV series. I am not talking about Jerusalem's Lot (White Chapel) timeframe either, I am talking about Hubie Marsten timeframe. I would love to see King expand on the Lot during that time and what Marsten did to make that house evil. Also, any updates of the move remake? I know good chance will be bad, but I want to see it. Last I heard it was shelved, but might be heading to Max next year. IDK man, I highly doubt any sort of prequel could top the ominousness of the few pieces of exposition we get about Marsten in the book: "They know that Hubie Marsten killed his wife, but they don’t know what he made her do first, or how it was with them in that sun-sticky kitchen in the moments before he blew her head in, with the smell of honeysuckle hanging in the hot air like the gagging sweetness of an uncovered charnel pit. They don’t know that she begged him to do it." That's pretty effective, to the extent that I don't really want to know more. Trying to explain what Marsten was about or how he got hooked up with Barlow or anything like that only weakens the themes of the book. Salems lot isn't some cursed town built over a Indian graveyard or whatever. It's a wide place in the road a couple of decades removed from being a highway pit stop because the post-WW2 wave of American prosperity is drying up. Barstow goes there specifically because it is unremarkable, and now as it declines becomes a place where petty human failings permit real evil to take root.
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Dec 22, 2023 06:46
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High Warlord Zog posted:They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is 3/4 of the way to a Long Walk movie (has King ever mentioned watching it while writing LW in the late 60s or reading the source novel?). Thabks fro bringing that up! More of a short story than a novel, pretty fun. I only knew of it via the “they shoot movies, don’t they?” list, had no idea about the plot. Extremely similar to long walk.
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Dec 22, 2023 22:11
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I can't remember if this was stephen king or what, but Id figure id ask here, does anyone know of a short horror story of an audiobook I was listening to on youtube that was about some man who had like a random old lady, or a neighbor old lady in his house, but she was acting strange, and he locked himself in his room or a room and heard her come up the stairs in a spooky way .
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Dec 26, 2023 04:36
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kneelbeforezog posted:I can't remember if this was stephen king or what, but Id figure id ask here, does anyone know of a short horror story of an audiobook I was listening to on youtube that was about some man who had like a random old lady, or a neighbor old lady in his house, but she was acting strange, and he locked himself in his room or a room and heard her come up the stairs in a spooky way . easy, chapter 16 of The Regulators
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Dec 26, 2023 05:18
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kneelbeforezog posted:I can't remember if this was stephen king or what, but Id figure id ask here, does anyone know of a short horror story of an audiobook I was listening to on youtube that was about some man who had like a random old lady, or a neighbor old lady in his house, but she was acting strange, and he locked himself in his room or a room and heard her come up the stairs in a spooky way . Knifepoint Horror episode called Staircase.
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Dec 26, 2023 06:12
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RandolphCarter posted:Knifepoint Horror episode called Staircase. I think this is it. Im listening to it now. So its not stephen king but from a podcast. Must have stumbled on it from youtube . Thanks!
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Dec 26, 2023 20:32
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I've read 3 of the 4 if it bleeds stories. The lead story is the very definition of "meh." I don't really understand what is supposed to be appealing or interesting about Holly. Meanwhile, I really liked Life of Chuck. Curious to see how Flanagan is going to handle it.
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Dec 27, 2023 05:15
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kneelbeforezog posted:I think this is it. Im listening to it now. So its not stephen king but from a podcast. Must have stumbled on it from youtube . Thanks! No problem. Check out the rest of the series, it’s pretty good. Try The Lockbox next.
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Dec 27, 2023 17:42
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Finally watched the boogeyman movie. It's not bad (mostly because the acting is top notch), but it removes everything that made the king short story good.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:53
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RandolphCarter posted:No problem. Check out the rest of the series, it’s pretty good. Try The Lockbox next. These Knifepoint episodes are kinda hit or miss for me sofar. ANyone got like a top 5 or a best of list?
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Jan 3, 2024 13:57
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BiggerBoat posted:These Knifepoint episodes are kinda hit or miss for me sofar. ANyone got like a top 5 or a best of list? My favorites in no particular order: Vision Pride I was called Anwen The Lockbox Undead Let No One Walk Beside Her Sounds
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Jan 3, 2024 14:36
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Digs, The Smoke Child, Excursion, Bots, Late Checkout, Sideswipe. Knifepoint's real, real, real good but its style is slow and meditative eerieness for the most part, and it loves an ending that keeps you wondering. Digs is one of the best short horror stories I've ever experienced, though, and many of those are up there, although not all of them are straight horror.
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Jan 3, 2024 23:04
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Thanks. I have the site bookmarked and will check those out.
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Jan 4, 2024 01:12
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Finished Wizard and Glass. I was really dreading the flashbacks I heard about while reading the book description. But having an entire flashback story be 95% of the book without interruptions worked really well. I was expecting the typical in-and-out flashbacks most authors do. My favorite part was the description of Rhea of the Coos -- some crazy visuals King gave off and her obsession with the orb. And then you get some classic horror at the end and it reminded me a bit of Tull in book 1 which I missed. You knew immediately what was going to happen when Susan went into the cage. That whole segment was so violent and visceral but it's some classic King and explains why Roland is so hosed up. I also liked the descriptions of the band of cowboys getting sucked into the thinny. Hoping for some more horror in the next few books. But it sounds like they are disappointing? Kinda worried about that, but it will be nice to continue the story and hopefully get some resolution to the main story. err fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jan 22, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 17:25
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err posted:Finished Wizard and Glass. I was really dreading the flashbacks I heard about while reading the book description. But having an entire flashback story be 95% of the book without interruptions worked really well. I was expecting the typical in and out flashbacks most authors do. There's definitely some more horror coming, no worries there. The goon/general consensus on the next few books is that they're disappointing compared to The Waste Lands or Wizard and Glass, but don't let that put you off -- there are some really great sequences in all three that rival anything in the earlier half of the series. Before starting Wolves of the Calla, you have the chance to read Wind Through the Keyhole (King calls it Dark Tower 4.5), which slots in just after Wizard and Glass. That said, one of the characters (Jake) acts more like he does in Wolves and less like he did in Wizard and Glass. It's (kinda) explained in Wolves why that is, but the change may stand out to you if you aren't expecting it. Definitely looking forward to your thoughts on the back three, though!
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Jan 22, 2024 19:13
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Eason the Fifth posted:Before starting Wolves of the Calla, you have the chance to read Wind Through the Keyhole (King calls it Dark Tower 4.5), which slots in just after Wizard and Glass. That said, one of the characters (Jake) acts more like he does in Wolves and less like he did in Wizard and Glass. It's (kinda) explained in Wolves why that is, but the change may stand out to you if you aren't expecting it. Yeah, it seems like there is some debate on which order to read the 4.5 book. Reddit seems to say it doesn't add much and to follow the publication order and most people go directly to Wolves. I also saw The Little Sisters of Eluria was published between them? I got some of the references to The Stand because I watched the miniseries as a kid. I am hoping to read The Stand after I finish The Dark Tower. I wanted to do the complete universe read order but that would have taken a year+.
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Jan 22, 2024 19:20
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Little Sisters is just a side story, it doesn't add much to the main story as I recall.
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Jan 22, 2024 19:35
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Yea it pretty much adds nothing, just a cool side story.
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Jan 22, 2024 20:04
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The final 3 Dark Tower books all had some really great stuff in them but uggghhhhh they're all about 3x as long as they really needed to be. It's always hilarious when I look on my bookshelf and see exponentially growing books as they go past 4
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Jan 23, 2024 00:14
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I liked Wolves but it's a fairly silly book. If you gelled with Lud and their inexplicable worship of a second rate zz topp song then you may appreciate the weirdness of Wolves. It's leaning really really hard on the "bits of our world washed up like debris after a shipwreck" idea. I kind of hated long stretches of VI and VII and the good portions of those didn't really make up for the mind trap or mordred or the dandello to me.
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Jan 23, 2024 00:53
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I always get my sister the latest King as a present. Thinking of giving her this for her birthday: https://www.adlibris.com/fi/kirja/aarhus-a-city-of-statues-and-sculptures-9788743056034 (And obviously whatever the latest other Stephen King book is.)
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Jan 23, 2024 08:25
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I liked Wolves. Like 80% of everything in the books that followed was pretty terrible though.
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Jan 23, 2024 12:25
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wolves of the calla is pretty fun but its the last book in the series that maintains the “squad of weirdos on a dangerous adventure” vibe
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Jan 23, 2024 19:53
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err posted:I got some of the references to The Stand because I watched the miniseries as a kid. I am hoping to read The Stand after I finish The Dark Tower. I wanted to do the complete universe read order but that would have taken a year+. Forgot to add my 2 cents on this part, for what it's worth. Personally I'm not a big fan of the King Extended Universe. Sometimes his connections work, but I found the majority of them to be duds. Flagg, for instance, is a much scarier creature in The Stand (a biblical demon, as mother Abigail names him) than the chaos weiner he is in The Dark Tower. King even retcons a whole novel later on. In the 90s and early 2000s it felt like he was trying to shoehorn everything into the DT mythos, and a lot of it was really forced.
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Jan 23, 2024 20:06
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Eason the Fifth posted:Forgot to add my 2 cents on this part, for what it's worth. Personally I'm not a big fan of the King Extended Universe. Sometimes his connections work, but I found the majority of them to be duds. Flagg, for instance, is a much scarier creature in The Stand (a biblical demon, as mother Abigail names him) than the chaos weiner he is in The Dark Tower. King even retcons a whole novel later on. In the 90s and early 2000s it felt like he was trying to shoehorn everything into the DT mythos, and a lot of it was really forced. lol yeah, just started wolves and the guy from salem's lot pulls up in the church full of poor peasants about to lose their kids and starts talking about the texas longhorns
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Jan 23, 2024 22:09
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Yeah it loving rules
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Jan 23, 2024 22:35
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Beware though, the whole Roont thing is extremely cringe in that special Stephen King way
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Jan 24, 2024 01:06
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DT would have been much stronger as a 6 book series. Huge swathes of 5 and 7 serve very little, if any, purpose and all I remember about 6 is how much I disliked it. And I still get mad about Steve’s little note to the reader about ending lmao
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Jan 26, 2024 02:34
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I’ve been listening to Fairy Tale on Audible. Seth Numrich is a very pleasant narrator to listen to and it’s been most enjoyable to just sink into this story, albeit with King’s idea of what a 17 year old kid would be like but then it is called Fairy Tale so heh. I gotta say it’s been nice to spend time with these characters. Whilst we potter along to the reveal, it feels like the aural version of a cosy Sunday film. Good experience. Would recommend. I personally don’t think all books work (for me personally) on Audible. For a start the right narrator is vital (obvious I know) but also there are some books which need you to run your eyes again over a paragraph or a phrase etc as part of reading them, or ones with lots of conversations or action scenes. These do not work well for me to listen to. I audible when I’m doing other things, so whilst I’m paying attention I’m not doing so to the exclusion of everything else. My current mood listening to this is best described as “wistful” which is really nice because it’s been a while.
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Jan 28, 2024 14:20
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My wife and I are reading fairy tale and I like it a lot. We are getting near the end and it’s held up so far. Although as one posted mentioned, the nonstop use of “I said (whatever), but that’s not the word I actually used” gets old fast.
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Jan 28, 2024 14:38
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I think the main character is better written than a lot of King’s recent teenage characters, granted that’s not a super high bar to clear
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Jan 28, 2024 20:29
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Just finished the Dark Tower series. Really enjoyed the first 4. 5, I liked the Magnificent 7-type plot, but I didn't like that it leaned into the meta fiction stuff, which only got worse in 6. I pushed on and at least got accustomed to it. Walter O'Dim going out like a chump to Mordred felt anti-climactic after so long as a shadowy antagonist. Mordred, after building up what a threat he was over several books, going out like a chump, half dead of dysentery, even more so. I was ok with the ending myself, but: oldpainless posted:And I still get mad about Steve’s little note to the reader about ending lmao Yeah it came off weirdly hostile.
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Jan 29, 2024 12:05
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I think the very ending is fine. But I think that from Song 6 to about 1/3 of the way through 7 is highly forgettable and a disservice to the bigger story. Still, could be worse. Could be GoT waiting for a resolution.
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Jan 29, 2024 16:09
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