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Helsing posted:Insomnia. Seven hundred pages about a retired old man with sleep problems followed by 100 pages of boring metaphysics and a tie in with the Dark Tower that King proceeded to completly disown when he actually finished up the series (serves me right too, the supposed Dark Tower conneciton is the only reason I wasted my time). Insomnia is awesome. The answer to the question posed in this thread is always going to be Cell. Cell is absolutely horrible. If I read a Stephen King book or story that I don't think is that good, I can at least say "Hey, this is still better than Cell!"
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May 4, 2009 19:38
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Anyone else really like his short story "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band"? Nightmares and Dreamscapes will always be my favorite collection of his short stories.
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Jun 26, 2009 18:32
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dojokm posted:I've never read most of the ones that are considered bad King books like Dreamcatcher and Rose Madder. I've also never read any of The Dark Tower stuff because I've heard about how it ends and how bad it gets. But for me the worst book was Gerald's Game. I know some others have mentioned it, it's one of those books where the plot sounds like it could be really interesting in theory but the execution wasn't very good. I can't believe people mentioned both his obsession with bad fathers and the creepy sexual stuff without mentioning Gerald's Game. The flashbacks to her childhood in that, yech.
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Aug 4, 2009 17:24
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Why does it remind me so much of the combined cover for Desperation/The Regulators?
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Oct 13, 2009 18:35
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Blarticus posted:All the talk about his short stories got me thinking of my favorite, but unable to come up with the name, it's the one about the guy and his genius brother and how he tries to cure all the world's problems with the water he brews from that town in Texas that has the lowest incidences of violence in the nation? The ending with him slowly losing his faculties, reminiscent of the guy stranded on the island slowly eating himself, was really heart-breaking "The End of the Whole Mess" from Nightmares and Dreamscapes.
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Jan 6, 2010 03:47
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Goreld posted:Or from Skeleton Crew, the story The Raft - an EVIL OIL SLICK!! The Moving Finger is a story about a finger that moves. I hope this isn't a spoiler for anyone. What was the scary monster in Dedication? I mean, the magical retard of the story was obviously the stained sheets themselves.
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Feb 22, 2010 08:21
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Troposphere posted:Thought I'd put on my cool kid glasses and show off my Stephen King related tattoo. It connects two of my favorite books from him, kudos if you know what it means. Kamikaze?
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Mar 11, 2010 07:52
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Troposphere posted:har har. Well I hope you at least got the reference.
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Mar 11, 2010 22:25
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Would anyone else have enjoyed a Stephen King-involved anthology series of the Twilight Zone/Tales From the Dark Side/Tales From the Crypt/Outer Limits type which uses that freaky extra dimensional tale-telling club that appeared in only one of his stories as a framing device? Because I sure as heck would.
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Mar 17, 2010 17:42
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fishmech posted:That club did show up a second time! I forget where the second time was, it might have been in Just After Sunset. Hmm, I don't remember reading another story about them. I'm about to start Lisey's Story, the only King book I have never read. Without spoiling it for me is there anything I should know about it before I start? Isn't it supposed to be terrible?
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Apr 4, 2010 20:24
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H.P. Shivcraft posted:The tale-telling club showed up in Different Seasons for "The Breathing Method" and in Skeleton Crew for "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands". And I agree, I always wanted to see the club show up again in another story or novel, but it never did. (Although fishmech might be right, it might have been in Just After Sunset -- I haven't read that yet.) I remembered it from "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" but not that it was used in "The Breathing Method". Poor "Method", the only story from that book that hasn't been made into a movie.
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Apr 4, 2010 21:11
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iostream.h posted:It loving sucks. Worse than Cell. Worse than anything. Ah, crud. I hated, hated, hated Cell. I haven't heard anything about Lisey's Story except what I've read from the back of the copy I just bought and vague things in this thread and elsewhere about how bad it is. I've tried to ignore people talking about it up till now.
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Apr 5, 2010 01:12
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Lisey's Story Progress Report, page 44/653: Smuck, smuck, smuck.
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Apr 8, 2010 05:49
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Lisey's Story Progress Report, page 323/653 Words I am entirely sick of: bool smuck bad-gunky Other than that, I don't think this is so bad. Not good, but not by any means awful. I've just reached the scene where Jim Dooley has her in his clutches and I hope to hell this is going somewhere. Don't burst my bubble if it isn't.
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Apr 13, 2010 21:22
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The Saddest Robot posted:Lisey's Story is a smucking bad-gunky pile of bool. 
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Apr 14, 2010 00:50
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I finished Lisey's Story. I'm left without an understanding of the strong hatred for it. It's not great, it's not bad. The made up words are particularly annoying but definitely not as stupid as the stuff in the later Dark Tower books. The plot is nowhere near as stupid as Cell. Lisey's feelings for the absent Scott are affecting in the same way that the sadness of Ralph in Insomnia and Mike in Bag of Bones were. You can't deny that King does a good job writing about missing a dead spouse. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Apr 19, 2010 |
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Apr 18, 2010 23:55
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Zimadori Zinger posted:Yeah, he talks about it in On Writing. King doesn't plan. He just writes and writes and writes with no ending in mind, which is why his endings usually feel rushed and/or awful. He has flashback-Scott speak badly about planning out books in Lisey's Story.
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Apr 20, 2010 16:24
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I've just finished listening to the first half of "Hearts in Atlantis" narrated by William Hurt. Holy crap, that guy is a good reader. I've read that book several times before but he really made it come alive. Strongly, strongly recommended for any King fans or people who just like audiobooks in general.
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May 3, 2010 01:17
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For any people who are both King fans and fans of Mad Men, the eclipse featured in the episode "Seven Twenty Three" from last season is the same eclipse that features so prominently in Gerald's Game.
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May 7, 2010 06:06
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Bad adaptations of Stephen King: 1408 Dolan's Cadillac The Langoliers The TV adaptations of The Shining, It, and The Stand are all okay, but not amazing.
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Jan 14, 2011 19:56
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The only Stephen King story that will never ever be adapted in any way is Dedication.
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Jan 14, 2011 19:58
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Come on, movie industry, when are we getting an Eyes of the Dragon movie?
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Feb 1, 2011 10:57
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So someone from the Onion AV Club just reviewed The Stand. http://www.avclub.com/articles/stephen-kings-the-stand,51731/ I'm not sure how much I agree with his central point, but I definitely agree that the earlier parts of the book are the best. I can understand being such a big fan of Harold Lauder. What do you all think of the review?
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Feb 15, 2011 02:27
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It was all destiny, see, she was a neglectful mom so that Jack would be independently-minded enough to carry out his quest to get the Talisman and fix everything. You see, the power of the Talisman is like a wheel...
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Mar 23, 2011 10:36
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I just reread "It" again for the nth time, and started watching the TV series adaptation. What I was struck about in the adaptation is just how incredibly weak everything in there is. I know it's TV, and a heck of a lot of things couldn't be shown, and I know the book is extremely long and a lot of things had to be cut for time, but still. So much of things in It are absolutely ridiculous and gruesome, and that's the whole point. Derry, especially in the flashbacks, is a nightmarish town that's largely the product of an interdimensional monster. A good example of this is when Ben escapes from Henry Bowers for the first time, falling into the Barrens. In the book, Ben gets hosed up by the encounter. The book is very clear. In the adaptation, he's barely touched. The adaptation is just this, over and over and over and over again.
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Jun 5, 2011 01:49
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I'm curious, which book did everyone start reading Stephen King with? I started with Nightmares and Dreamscapes, which I still think is almost all gold.
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Jul 7, 2011 19:10
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You guys have a few points wrong. The aliens were a type of fungus/parasite. The grays weren't hallucinations, and Duddits was just a magical retard.
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Jul 9, 2011 10:39
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Ridonkulous posted:Then what where they? They were either some form of the fungus or a species that had been taken over by the fungus.
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Jul 10, 2011 21:22
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JustFrakkingDoIt posted:Board games are the new comics? Can't wait to see who they cast as the Monopoly guy.
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Jul 19, 2011 10:10
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If I've learned anything from reading every Stephen King book and story, it's that city life isn't perfect, but the city is the safest of all possible places, and that you should always try to be around as many people as you can.
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Aug 4, 2011 20:38
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Even though being around many thousands of people may not absolutely save you, it's still incredibly preferable to being in that house in the woods or any small town.
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Aug 6, 2011 17:43
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Also, don't take shortcuts, ever. Absolutely stick to the main highways. Unless of course all trucks have become sentient or a hideous gateway to another dimension has been opened.
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Aug 6, 2011 17:45
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Has anyone seen the Salem's Lot miniserieses? Are either of them worth watching?
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Dec 23, 2011 10:17
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Just finished rereading Under the Dome for the first time. Originally read it ~2 years ago. I found it a lot better the second time around. Auryn posted:Anyway, Under the Dome had a very interesting premise, I was psyched as hell to read it. There were some good characters, but I really thought the plot just fell apart at the end. They could have done a lot more with it. For example, they could have made it actually turn out to BE a military experiment that the military denies involvement in. I would have been happier with GOD DID IT than aliens not mentioned in this book until right now did it. I mean, I'd have to reread to be sure, but I don't remember ANY foreshadowing of aliens. I LOVE King but a deus ex machina is a piece of poo poo no matter who writes it, unfortunately. And thats what the aliens were.If I'm wrong, don't hesitate to tell me! There is actually some foreshadowing about it being aliens, specifically one conversation with Colonel Cox. Finding a possibly alien device was part of Barbara's mission. I thought the dome being created by alien children was kind of stupid on my first read, also. However, I really came around to it on the second one. My take on the book is that it's really just about how badly people screw things up. It's emphasized over and over and over again how many supplies the town either has or should have, plenty to last them a good long time under the Dome. Barbara has the capacity to be a quality leader, authority from the outside, and a clear mission to find out what was going on. It's also pretty clearly stated that the alien device was in an obvious location. It's on a high area that overlooks everything and is surrounded by creepy animal corpses and a huge barrier that glows brightly at night. Hell, a kid guesses the location of the device without even seeing it. Without all the evil that was in the people of the town the source of the Dome would have been discovered and some solution figured out at some point. It's good that it was something stupid like alien kids because that makes all the actions of Rennie and company a million times worse. If it was a government conspiracy that would make everyone, even the worse characters, into nothing but victims who make things worse for themselves. Unthinking, uncaring, all-powerful aliens being the cause of the Dome highlights the fact that it's the people who really screw things up.
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Jan 24, 2012 12:21
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Octy posted:Mind you, I can't think of anyone who is good at writing about sex.
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Feb 14, 2012 12:30
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Octy posted:Never read him. Quote a few lines for me?
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Feb 14, 2012 19:07
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In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, the main character manages to conquer his addictions to drugs and alcohol. Sorry to spoil it for you.  Ahh I spoiled a plot point from a book published only 12 years ago I'm sorry I'm sorry.
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Apr 2, 2012 10:31
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They just put the movie adaptation of Thinner up on Netflix. It's not so great.
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Aug 9, 2012 02:04
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Ineffiable posted:Just started reading The Desperation.
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Sep 19, 2012 12:39
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iostream.h posted:You may have a point (that I disagree with) but part of the effectiveness of the novella was simply not knowing either way. quote:I looked out the window to make sure it was gone and then opened the door. “What are you doing?” Amanda screamed, but I knew what I was doing. I like to think Ollie would have done exactly the same thing. I half-stepped, half-leaned out, and got the gun. Something came rapidly toward me, but I never saw it. I pulled back in and slammed the door shut. Amanda began to sob. Mrs. Reppler put an arm around her and comforted her briskly. Billy said, “Are we going home, Daddy?” “Big Bill, we're gonna try.” “Okay,” he said quietly. I checked the gun and then put it into the glove compartment. Ollie had reloaded it after the expedition to the drugstore. The rest of the shells had disappeared with him, but that was all right. He had fired at Mrs. Carmody, he had fired once at the clawed thing, and the gun had discharged once when it hit the ground. There were four of us in the Scout, but if push came right down to shove, I'd find some other way out for myself. If you think the ending of the movie goes against the text as it's written, you're ignoring the whole point of this quote. He risks exposure to the beasts in the mist to get the gun specifically so it can be used to do what he does in the movie.
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Mar 16, 2013 22:00
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