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Metonymy posted:My least favorite part about Stephen King is his faux-folksy act. His vision of working-class culture is locked somewhere in between 1950 and 1970. So when he tries to write "folksy", it comes off as fake and anachronistic. He's like the Lynn Johnston of thrillers. This might have something to do with The Gunslinger being written in the seventies. 
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May 14, 2009 17:31
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:This might have something to do with The Gunslinger being written in the seventies. Haha. Fair enough. But that doesn't change the fact that his forced folksiness and neologisms feel awkward. Whether it's cockadoodie or howken, it feels like it darkles or tincts, and it's so grating that it takes me out of the story. Which is ironic, because I think the vocabulary is supposed to make me feel like it's a well-developed world. A Hack posted:"That would go you five bocks. Do you ken bocks?" What's the point here? Are we supposed to assume she's saying "bucks" with an accent? If so, why doesn't she have any accent with any other word? Why not just say bucks in the first place? So now we're watching a character try and interpret the same nonsense that we're trying to interpret and there's no reason for it. Granted, it's not a big jump at all, but that's part of what makes it stupid. If he called a hamburger a "grilled groundbeef" in the series, it wouldn't add anything to the texture of the world. There's a maxim that a lot of bad writing comes from insecurity, and I think King's insecurity here is his fear that his world won't seem different enough from Earth unless he introduces bogus words. Maybe some people like it, but it feels like the equivalent of S.F. authors inserting apostrophes into their character's names (e.g. Rg'labn, Nur'fl'a). For an example of this done well, compare and contrast with A Clockwork Orange. Or Tolkein. Or George Martin's deliberate use of homophones in the place of popular modern names or "sir" so that he effectively slightly disassociates himself from Arthurian legends. Metonymy fucked around with this message at 19:02 on May 14, 2009 |
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May 14, 2009 18:52
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I think some people pick up a Stephen King novel and automatically expect it to be horror, and when it's not they hate it. Like someone said earlier, Cujo is a novel about a failing marriage that has a crazy rabid dog in it. Bag of Bones is a love story with a ghost. The Dark Tower is a several thousand page fantasy novel. Dreamcatcher is... well yeah Dreamcatcher is real bad. I read it a while ago but from what I gathered there was no disease? or something? Also I'm really amazed that anyone could hate Wizard and Glass. When people rank the Dark Tower series it is consistently number 1.
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May 14, 2009 19:53
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I don't hate Wizard and Glass, but I do think it's overrated. I think The Gunslinger, The Waste Lands, and even Wolves of the Calla are better than it. If I had to give a best book in the series, I think Waste Lands is definitely it.
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May 14, 2009 20:51
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:I haven't read through the whole Dark Tower series yet, but I'm really disliking Wizard & Glass. Apart from the last quarter of the book when things start cooking, the majority of the book is some boring western bodice-ripper where nothing happens whatsoever. When I first started it I thought, "Alright, Roland will recount his past for a few chapters and then we'll be back in business.". And then it just keeps going and going and you slowly realize the whole book is about his past and some woman you don't really care about. I could swear I'm quoting myself here. Gunslinger was one of my favorite books, I picked up Drawing and I was like WTF is this poo poo? Wastelands, alright back in action. Wizard & Glass, 90% of this book is a goddamn flashback! It seems like every other DT book is a hit and a miss. I know about a lot of the stuff that happens later dealing with King, but I'm having a reeeeal hard time finishing this book.
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May 14, 2009 23:21
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Metonymy posted:Haha. Fair enough. But that doesn't change the fact that his forced folksiness and neologisms feel awkward. Whether it's cockadoodie or howken, it feels like it darkles or tincts, and it's so grating that it takes me out of the story. Which is ironic, because I think the vocabulary is supposed to make me feel like it's a well-developed world. I've heard many complaints about The Dark Tower series but this is definitely a first. If it's not your cup of tea then fair enough but you're harping on what really attracted most people to the story in the first place.
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May 14, 2009 23:36
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Bag Of Ghosts posted:It is about a professor who receives a haunted Kindle in the mail. For those who didn't hear me: IT IS ABOUT A PROFESSOR WHO RECEIVES A HAUNTED KINDLE IN THE MAIL. And it is ten kinds of terrible. The characters literally have conversations about the Kindle's features and praise it endlessly. I really hope this is a joke. That's terrible.
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May 15, 2009 02:40
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Dr. Mulholland posted:I really hope this is a joke. That's terrible. It's not really haunted. The story is more of a rehash/expanded of Word Processors Of The Gods
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May 15, 2009 03:01
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Metonymy posted:Haha. Fair enough. But that doesn't change the fact that his forced folksiness and neologisms feel awkward. Aw, I liked "thankee-sai."  And I liked most of the background flavor of the DT series up until Wolves of the Calla, which went into far too much detail about it "commala" and "oriza" and poo poo. quote:"One would reference '(sexual) orgasm,' as in 'Did'ee come commala'? (The hoped-for reply being 'Aye, say thankya, commala big-big.') To wet the commala is to irrigate the rice in a dry time; it is also to masturbate. Commala is the commencement of some big and joyful meal, like a family feast (not the meal itself, do ya, but the moment of beginning to eat). A man who is losing his hair is coming commala. Putting animals out to stud is damp commala. Gelded animals are dry commala, although no one could tell you why. A virgin is green commala, a menstruating woman is red commala, an old man who can no longer make iron before the forge is - say sorry - sof' commala. To stand commala is to stand belly-to-belly, a slang term meaning "to share secrets." (For that matter, why is a fork sometimes a commala, but never a spoon or a knife?) The Commala is also a dance to the goddess Oriza, to bless the rice." I mean, really? Did he think that's what the readers cared about? A lot of the made-up dialog worked because King didn't have a character sit down and give you the etymological roots of the word (or if he did it was crucial to the climax of the story, like charyou tree). Instead, you get the interesting sense that you've heard the term somewhere but you can't quite place it. So you get to draw your own conclusions instead of King sitting you down and telling you everything in the most boring manner possible.
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May 15, 2009 16:58
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Astfgl posted:'Aye, say thankya, commala big-big.' Yeah, that settles it. I'm going to return the The Drawing of the Three without reading it. The Gunslinger posted:I've heard many complaints about The Dark Tower series but this is definitely a first. If it's not your cup of tea then fair enough but you're harping on what really attracted most people to the story in the first place. That's fair. It's a kind of writing that doesn't appeal to me at all, but if other people get something out of it, more power to them. Metonymy fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 15, 2009 |
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May 15, 2009 20:45
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Oh Jesus 'iron before the forge'? He likes that phrase enough to use it more than once? I remember cringing so hard at the sex snippet at the start of Eyes of the Dragon. King writing about sex is always bad but especially when it's this fantasy worlde type stuff. I agree with Metonym about The Gunslinger. Except I didn't bother reading any further into the series after finishing it. If I still had a copy on hand it would be easy to come up with examples of why I thought it was poorly written, but otherwise it wasn't very memorable. Loved the idea, hated the execution.
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May 16, 2009 14:24
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Dr. Mulholland posted:I really hope this is a joke. That's terrible. http://www.slashgear.com/exclusive-stephen-king-novella-ur-for-kindle-2-buyers-0933553/ I'm . . . I'm so sorry. *weeps*
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May 16, 2009 17:38
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Oy mistrustfully looked at Eddie, then mistrustfully looked at Suzannah, who spoke some racially dubious bullshit, and Oy mistrustfully pissed on Roland's dust-dirty boots mistrustfully, the gunslinger's gray-blue eyes scanning the horizon for more piss, aye say thankee big-big sai, he's trig that one! The Dark Tower language wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't reduced to a small stockpile of phrases spread over 7 usually huge novels.
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May 17, 2009 13:24
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Metonymy posted:Yeah, that settles it. I'm going to return the The Drawing of the Three without reading it. Yes, it makes perfect sense to refuse to read the second-best book in a series because of language in one of the worst books in the series. more power to you, buddy.
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May 17, 2009 16:48
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Fallon posted:The Dark Tower language wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't reduced to a small stockpile of phrases spread over 7 usually huge novels. No kidding. Remember when it was just "ka"? Then it became: * ka-babbies: young ka-tet members. * ka-tel: a class of apprentice gunslingers. * ka-mai: ka's fool. * ka-me: ka's wiseman; the opposite of ka-mai. * kas-ka: a prophet * ka-shume: a unique feeling that a ka-tet is destined to break soon. * te-ka: ka's friend. * Can'-Ka No Rey: the red fields of none, where the Dark Tower lies. * tet-ka can Gan: the navel (specifically, the navel of Gan). * kas-ka Gan: singer of Gan's song/ prophet of Gan. * ves-ka Gan: Song of the Turtle The only remotely clever one out of the bunch was "ka-tel" because it sounded a little bit like "cartel" the first time I read it. But by the time we get to "tet-ka can Gan" (Gan's navel, really?) I was pretty sick of it.
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May 17, 2009 17:08
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Astfgl posted:No kidding. Remember when it was just "ka"? You think maybe King did this to show us he had put a lot of effort into creating a fake language? Nah, it was probably the booze and painkillers.
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May 17, 2009 22:52
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QuentinCompson posted:Yes, it makes perfect sense to refuse to read the second-best book in a series because of language in one of the worst books in the series. I'm not refusing to read it. But if it develops the world that was introduced in the first book, and it does it in the same style, I'm not interested. Especially given all of the negative comments I've seen about the later books in the series. If you watched Air Bud and weren't into it, would you be fired up to see Air Bud: Golden Receiver because some dude on the internet told you that the series really came into its own with the sequel? I typically like Stephen King, and I wanted to like The Dark Tower because the concept and the imagery is compelling, but I just couldn't get past the ham-handed execution. And neither could King, because he apparently went back and revised it thoroughly. I recently read a short story by Joe Lansdale that captures some of the pulp, Western gothic atmosphere that I think people like in The Dark Tower. And the The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny, has a cool take on alternate realities and parallel worlds. Metonymy fucked around with this message at 00:11 on May 18, 2009 |
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May 17, 2009 23:54
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I'm sorry, but... Comparing Air Bud to the series is definitely the best comparison to make that is not in any way ridiculous or using a deliberately poo poo example to try to sway people to your opinion.
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May 18, 2009 00:28
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I'm just finished the fifth book with the zombies or whatever from thunderhead and the roonts. Should i stop reading and save myself time or am i past the worst and should finish out the series? So far i feel like the books have ranged from good to average, but i'm hoping for a nice big bang by book 7.
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May 18, 2009 03:29
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Waroduce posted:I'm just finished the fifth book with the zombies or whatever from thunderhead and the roonts. Should i stop reading and save myself time or am i past the worst and should finish out the series? So far i feel like the books have ranged from good to average, but i'm hoping for a nice big bang by book 7. You might as well read the last two since you made it this far, but even as someone that read the series recently and had their expectations dulled by the internet's reaction to the last book I can tell you that if you're expecting a "big bang" from book seven you're gonna be let down. Still, it's worth reading for completion's sake.
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May 18, 2009 04:39
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Metonymy posted:I'm not refusing to read it. But if it develops the world that was introduced in the first book, and it does it in the same style, I'm not interested. Especially given all of the negative comments I've seen about the later books in the series. It's actually quite different. I recommend you read that and the wastelands because both of those are better than the gunslinger (wastelands is awesome).
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May 18, 2009 09:13
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Metonymy posted:Yeah, that settles it. I'm going to return the The Drawing of the Three without reading it. Metonymy posted:I'm not refusing to read it. Interesting.
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May 18, 2009 15:28
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Ortsacras posted:Interesting.  There's a distinction between "opting not to" and "refusing to". "Refusing to" implies some closed-mindedness and final judgment. If people posted some compelling prose or vivid imagery from The Drawing of the Three I might pick it up again. Or even if more people were just like, "the scene with the psychic mutants & the unicorns was really sweet i like the part where he shoots them", or "It's actually quite different. I recommend you read that and the wastelands..." I'm less interested in convincing people The Gunslinger sucked, and more interested in hearing about what they liked about it and some of the other books in the series. If people cite "Aye, say thankya, commala big-big" and "ka-babbies" as a positive, I know we're on a different page. If people describe interesting scenes or concepts or some well-written passages, then I can change my mind.
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May 18, 2009 18:35
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Drawing is set for a lot of it in "our" world and doesn't include King's Mid-world "culture" that was in the Gunslinger. The story parts in Roland's world are basically Roland alone, or Roland with a few other characters, on a beach. There is no immersion in Mid-World via lovely ka-speak or whatever, it's a fun action book.
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May 18, 2009 19:20
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Mister Kingdom posted:You think maybe King did this to show us he had put a lot of effort into creating a fake language? I take your point, but come on. We've all read some REAL fake languages, like Tolkien's or Burgess's or dozens of others. Those are languages where authors skilled with linguistics created dialects that adhere to real-world grammatical, phonetic and syntactic conventions. Like I've said before, I enjoyed the Dark Tower series, but the language gets really grating after a while just because it feels so forced. It started out interesting and vaguely mysterious, but then turned pretty hokey and comical. Metonymy posted:There's a distinction between "opting not to" and "refusing to". "Refusing to" implies some closed-mindedness and final judgment. What a useless, pedantic distinction.
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May 18, 2009 19:52
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Fallon posted:Drawing is set for a lot of it in "our" world and doesn't include King's Mid-world "culture" that was in the Gunslinger. Well, if the pseudo-folksy language was what turned him off, then you should at least mention that Roland's interactions with 1980s New York spawn such wonderful phrases as "tooter fish." Honestly, I can only say that it's worth sticking with the series for Waste Lands alone. I felt like Gunslinger was okay if bland, and Drawing was pretty uneven, being either very boring (Eddie and Detta/Odetta) or really interesting (the lobstrosities, Jack Mort). Waste Lands is, for me, the high point, and loads of fun. Everything after that is simply heartbreak.
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May 18, 2009 20:30
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H.P. Shivcraft posted:Well, if the pseudo-folksy language was what turned him off, then you should at least mention that Roland's interactions with 1980s New York spawn such wonderful phrases as "tooter fish." I'm so glad that Detta was only in it for a little bit. I wouldn't be able to get through the series with her in it. I agree that some parts were really boring, but everything with Eddie in New York was good. P.S you forgot the "honk mafahs".
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May 20, 2009 08:58
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I don't know if this will count, but I really enjoyed the comics of The Dark Tower, and would (probably) happily read the whole thing if it were done as a graphic novel in that style, because the visuals were amazing. That being said, I loved The Gunslinger, but when The Drawing of the Three got to the Detta/Odetta part which went on for 80 pages too long, and then right after that the irritating Jack Mort part, I started to tire, then eventually I just put the book down and read something else. I guess it was just that precise moment where I got sick of King's I find it funny that, in thinking about it, I don't even remember any single plot point in Desperation. I remember that the characters in The Regulators were all the same, but moved around... but I seem to have completely blocked that book from my memory. Making matters worse is King's love of self-referencing, so everything blends together into a swirl of characters and places, names and things. Roland Cujo stands in a dead zone with a cellphone talisman in a Buick named Christine with a firestarter named Carrie "Dreamcatcher" Rosemadder, who is a bag of bones, chasing a shining eye of the dragon named tak-ka through the mist of salem's lot, and everyone has insomnia in atlantis, and that's It. That is pretty much Stephen King to me, any more. My brother got me Just After Sunset for Christmas last year. I haven't even opened it.
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May 20, 2009 12:30
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"I don't take notes; I don't outline, I don't do anything like that. I just flail away at the goddamn thing. I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami. You can't sell it as caviar." - Stephen King I have never really been engrossed by or attached to anything I've encountered by him, but I respect the poo poo out of him for understanding/acknowledging/being comfortable with what he does and does not do.
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May 20, 2009 16:14
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pseudosavior posted:My brother got me Just After Sunset for Christmas last year. I haven't even opened it. This is a mistake, by the way. There's some good stuff in there. The only real clunker to me was the last story, and even it had its moments.
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May 20, 2009 16:23
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pseudosavior posted:I don't know if this will count, but I really enjoyed the comics of The Dark Tower, and would (probably) happily read the whole thing if it were done as a graphic novel in that style, because the visuals were amazing. I read the first two and really wasn't that impressed. The first was basically just a rehash of Wizard and Glass with maybe one or two new bits inserted and a lot missing. The second felt like they had a huge draft, and then cut out half of it for the adaptation. I just remember one scene where one of the gunslingers is just painfully obviously voicing expository dialogue to himself that made it seem like there was a scene cut that might have had that segment in it. I know the third one has some lady gunslinger or something, is that any better than the first two?
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May 20, 2009 17:33
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I just finished Roadwork (a Bachman book), and while it's certainly not the worst, it was really dry and hard to get through. The ending was anti-climactic, and I felt like the explanation for Bart's behaviour was half-assed and glossed over. It could have been fleshed out a lot more. Overall it was just very "meh." I'm starting The Long Walk next.
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May 22, 2009 16:24
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The Long Walk is one of his best short stories, you won't be disappointed with that one.
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May 22, 2009 17:52
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Without question, Tommyknockers. Page after page of writing with nothing happening and a plot with the pace of a snail. King admitted that this book wasn't written so much as forced out, and it's obviously the case.
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May 22, 2009 18:10
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Stentorian Longing posted:I just finished Roadwork (a Bachman book), and while it's certainly not the worst, it was really dry and hard to get through. The ending was anti-climactic, and I felt like the explanation for Bart's behaviour was half-assed and glossed over. It could have been fleshed out a lot more. Overall it was just very "meh." I'm starting The Long Walk next. The Long Walk is my favorite story of all time. You won't be disappointed.
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May 22, 2009 18:32
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The Gunslinger posted:The Long Walk is one of his best short stories, you won't be disappointed with that one. Agreeing with the several people who brought this one up (though it's more of a novella, less of a short story). I know this thread is supposed to be discussing his worst - but TLW will always remain as one of my favorite stories of all time. More recently, I picked up Duma Key and absolutely loved it. It felt like more of a return to his earlier writing and I was able to get through it fairly quickly. I could not get through Lisey's Story after several attempts. I got through about 1/3 of the book hoping that some kind of solid plot would emerge, but I was bored to tears and simply could not continue. From a Buick 8, Dreamcatcher (as has been mentioned several times already), and The Regulators are among his biggest stinkers.
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May 22, 2009 18:33
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The Long Walk is amazing. Easily, easily the best Bachman book, with Thinner right behind it. I wasn't a fan of Roadwork or Rage...they were okay but nothing special.
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May 22, 2009 19:19
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I personally disliked From A Buick 8. I feel it's one of Kings weakest efforts and breaks no new ground. The book is a mix of Christine/Low Men in Yellow Coats. I suppose I still enjoyed it... I am a sucker for King but it's definitely one of his weaker works.
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May 23, 2009 07:27
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Crunch Bucket posted:I know this thread is supposed to be discussing his worst - but TLW will always remain as one of my favorite stories of all time. Speaking of King's best, my favorite by a long shot is The Shining. Every year, around October the fall chill sets in and suddenly I just have to read it.
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May 23, 2009 07:34
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What about a least favorite short story? Anyone have one? Of the ones I've read of his, I think I hated Jerusalem's Lot, from his Night Shift collection. Very disjointed and very hard to read, very dissapointing as I was expecting vampires and got a giant earthworm instead.
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May 24, 2009 07:52
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