|
Chairman Capone posted:I guess it really depends on whether you're a reader who's followed the series since the 1970s, or whether (like me) you read it all at once after it was finished so didn't have decades of time to build up how it might have gone and what different endings might be. I wonder about this, too, because I have pretty much the same feelings on this as you: generally, I liked it, and didn't particularly mind the turn into meta-fiction. Although if the whole series had been like The Waste Lands it would have been a billion times better; the settings in that book are just amazing. But yeah, I pretty much read the whole thing in a row after the last one had come out, and liked it just fine. I can see why people who had been waiting twenty years for the last three would be disappointed, but I'm not sure that they wouldn't have been disappointed after that long no matter what happened. If you build something up in your head for that long it's going to be hard to be satisfied, period. Not that it didn't have its dumb parts, though - while I didn't hate that he put himself in the book, he could have easily just made it his usual writer character named something else and a lot of people would have hated it a lot less. (And the meaning, that this was him, would still have been completely obvious.)
|
#
¿
May 14, 2009 15:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:01 |
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2009 15:28
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2009 16:23
|
|
|
Quad posted:I still have my closet door closed at all times. Me too, based entirely on that story (though to be fair, I'm pretty sure I didn't like my closet open at night before that story; the fact that I STILL don't, 20 years later, is entirely due to the story). The horror-movie twist ending is one thing, and yeah, that's kind of stupid, but the rest of the story is just terrifying. My favorite (well, you know) image is the one he relates that he was sleeping, woke up without opening his eyes, and could feel the thing standing over him breathing in his face. That's just plain scary..
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2009 16:17
|
|
|
QuentinCompson posted:How could Christine be the sequel to a book written almost 2 decades later? Reads a little better with the addition of some quotation marks and a comma, without changing any of the words: quote:From a Buick 8 was about a haunted car? Is this "Christine, the sequel?" Anyway, no, because a) it's not "haunted," and b) it's not really a "car." I liked From a Buick 8 a lot (and a lot more than I expected to), but it's not one of those books with a James Bond villain moment where the entire history and motivation of the Buick are explained to us while the hero slowly uses a piece of glass he pulled from his injured hand to saw through the ropes binding him. If you're not satisfied with not knowing the answer to the mystery, you won't like this story. It's a story where some weird poo poo (some really weird poo poo) happens, people learn to deal with it, and emotional progress is made.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2009 16:09
|
|
|
Foppish posted:Man, Dreamcatcher was good in my opinion. I also realize no one else agrees with me on that. I wouldn't have said that it was "good," per se, but I also didn't hate it (or Cell, for that matter), and thought that it had some good moments. So you're not totally alone here. The movie was so astonishingly ridiculous that I couldn't help but enjoy it, even though I also hated it. (edit: I also agree that "Graduation Afternoon" created a heck of a striking image in just a few pages. It definitely stuck with me.)
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2009 15:22
|
|
|
Dr. Mulholland posted:I wanted to throw the book at the wall after the 150th or so use of the word "smucking". I usually don't have too much of a problem with things like that (for instance, "frak" in BSG didn't bother me, and I actually liked all the linguistic stuff in the Dark Tower books), but "smucking" was goddamn infuriating from the get-go and never grew tolerable. Lisey's Story really needed some editing, because there was some decent stuff there - the second half was a lot more interesting than the first, I thought, and more people would have actually gotten there if someone had taken the red (blue?) pen to the first half in a big way.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2009 18:01
|
|
|
cycowolf posted:Wondering if its ok to ask since this is a thread for his worst books. What is your favorite book by him? I'm curious as to the difference from one to the other. Also wondering if most people prefer the older stuff. For the many years since I first read them, I always would have pegged The Stand as my favorite, with It as a close second. However, on rereading them both for the bazillionth time recently, I really have come to think that It has at least drawn it to a tie, and may have taken a slight lead. It is without question scarier, has equally good characterization, and is probably the tighter narrative of the two. The Stand has a more epic feel in scope, but It covers a heck of a lot longer period of time, and ties it all together really well. Really the only knock I've ever seen against It is the infamous "sewer escape," and I think that while it's certainly somewhat uncomfortable, it makes sense in the context of their relationships. Whereas the deus ex ending of The Stand isn't nearly as satisfying. But then again, It doesn't have "No Great Loss." Tough call. (edit: actually, if we include shorter things like novellas and stories, The Long Walk and The Mist are going to have to make the short list, no question.) (edit2: The Stand certainly has a much less annoying title, especially used repeatedly and bolded.) Ortsacras fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jun 10, 2009 |
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2009 16:51
|
|
|
little green jewel posted:I figured he was doing it to ground himself and give himself something to do as he wasted away on his little strip of barren land. By the end it was probably more habit than anything. The last entry, IIRC, was something like "lady fingers they taste like lady fingers", giving the impression that he only stopped writing because he'd eaten his hands. Very creepy. Well, and he also started writing things like "March 40" and "Febba 3" and misspelling everything, so his deterioration was clearly shown. Man, was that a creepy story. Definitely one of his best shorts, no question.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2009 18:07
|
|
|
NosmoKing posted:They defeat the extradimensional monster that feeds on fear by imagining things? Uhh...yeah? The monster that feeds on imagination is defeated by them imagining things that help them? I don't see how that's even a little bit ridiculous.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2009 17:59
|
|
|
NosmoKing posted:To retort: Sure, fair enough, but I think that still boils down to "fear is nourishing to It, so opposing emotions - courage, love, hope - are poisonous to It." quote:Just because you say your fake inhaler is battery acid doesn't make it so. You aren't an extradimensional immortal superpowered embodiment of evil. You are a kid with an overprotective mom. Yeah, but it wasn't literally the battery acid that hurt It, it was the emotions behind that statement that allowed Eddie to hurt It. Plus, don't forget that in the end, they did beat It though sheer physical trauma anyway - the emotive stuff was what let them get close to It to begin with. Note that I'm not defending the pre-teen orgy; that was seriously weird stuff. Especially given Beverly's character - so she essentially married an abusive rapist when she was grown up - gee, you think that some of her issues might be illuminated by the fact that she serviced every single one of her friends at the age of 11? That's potentially an interesting question, but we sure didn't need the level of detail about it that we got.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2009 18:20
|
|
|
Bonus posted:I finished the Dark Tower series and I honestly don't know what everyone thinks is so bad about the last book. I thought it was the best in the series. The whole thing in Algul Siento was awesome, I actually felt really bad for Eddie and Jake, and the last stretch to the tower was awesome in a bitter-sweet kind of way. I even liked the ending, although I think he should have ended on that cliffhanger before he urges you not to read anymore. Finally, there is another. I loved it too.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2009 14:52
|
|
|
kosherpickle posted:The Eyes of The Dragon is probably my favorite book of his, I can't count how many times I have read it; the book has some serious damage from being read while taking a hot bath numerous times. I'm glad someone else finally has good feelings for this one - I absolutely love it but it seems to get a really bad rap around here. I think it's a great fairy tale and just a wonderful read every time.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2009 23:23
|
|
|
el oso posted:I've just read that they are developing a new film based on IT, due in 2011. Apparently they will bump up the setting from the 50's and 80's to the 80's and present day. Although the writer says he wants to stay true to the story, I don't see how that could possibly happen in a 2-hour movie. As cheesy as the end of the TV miniseries was, it was mostly pretty good and Tim Curry absolutely nailed Pennywise. I'm still interested in this. The casting was mostly pretty good, but a lot of the dialogue and pacing could have been a hell of a lot tighter, and hopefully the movie would improve on that. Still, I liked the mini quite a bit - it was good stuff for what they were able to do with the budget and the TV format. I do think it leaned a bit too heavily on Pennywise as It's form, but that's understandable given budgetary and special effects limitations. The mini did manage to be pretty darned scary at times, and had a lot of good suspense to it, no doubt. It still tears me up on a re-read that Mike starts forgetting at the end too. It's a good thing, but so very poignant.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2009 17:14
|
|
|
Welp, I haven't bought a big expensive hardcover right at release for a while, but damned if I'm not going to get this one on release. Also, I assume that it's a sphere, not really a "dome," because otherwise there wouldn't really be much of a problem, right? (But "In The Sphere" isn't as cool a title, of course.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2009 15:10
|
|
|
FirstCongoWar posted:It won't let me add it to my cart. Oh well, hopefully it'll be 10 bucks on the kindle. drat, just ordered the gently caress out of that. What a ridiculous bargain.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2009 22:31
|
|
|
Raskolnikov2089 posted:Ha. Walmart already went to 8.99 to undercut Amazon. And free shipping. As always, I bought some other stuff to get Amazon's free shipping - I swear that's the best business ploy I've ever seen. It is just impossible to NOT say "well, if I just order one more book I'll get free shipping, so why not?"
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2009 16:14
|
|
|
Yeah, I actually enjoyed Dreamcatcher too, although I thought the shitweasels were a bit much. The movie was awful, of course, but it was so strange (and strangely awful) that I couldn't help but enjoy the spectacle of it all. I'll tell you, though - if you took Dreamcatcher and Cujo and asked a disinterested observer to read them both and then guess which one was written during King's "all drugs all the time" phase and which one was written during his clean and sober years, they'd get it wrong every drat time. He came up with some weird stuff in Dreamcatcher.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2009 20:58
|
|
|
Blarticus posted:The part with the former fat kid doing the firewater and lemon trick was really really really dumb. But the part with Stan getting the phone call from Mike and then going to take a bath was good, so there is balance once more.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2010 17:43
|
|
|
The Long Walk is absolutely tremendous in every way, and if the rumors of Frank Darabont making it his next Stephen King movie are true (he owns the film rights, but last I read hadn't said anything definitive), we'll all be very happy indeed.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2010 18:35
|
|
|
freebooter posted:Something I was thinking about the other day: apart from his sci-fi and fantasy stuff that's not set in the real world at all, has King ever written so much as a single scene set outside the United States? In It, Bill and Audra lived in London (I think - somewhere British, in any event), so the two scenes where they pack up and head to Derry are outside of the U.S.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2010 16:27
|
|
|
Nice. It also looks a bit like a ballerina pirouetting while holding a bird in one outstretched hand.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2010 17:42
|
|
|
Olaf The Stout posted:Just got through the first section of IT again, haven't read it since I was a teen. Hmm... quote:but some of it is a great call-forward to minor events that may be missed. Each operates at a few different levels, but are above-all an enjoyable read. Very true, though.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2010 02:23
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:01 |
|
|
Pompous Rhombus posted:I thought he did drop hints of it before WotC, but I may be misremembering. It was on my mind during the rest of books 3 and 4, it felt like he'd left something about it planted in the narrative after her original encounter with the demon. It wasn't like an outright "ah, demon baby on the way" but when it happened in book 5 it didn't seem like he'd pulled it out of the air. Well heck, she hosed a demon, so a demon baby a bit after definitely wouldn't be out of nowhere. I too am a DT7 lover, I confess. Loved it. Agree that 6 was pretty pointless, though. I didn't hate it, but it certainly did not add much.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2010 00:03
|
|