ConfusedUs posted:

My own personal ranking is 3(Wasteland), 1(Gunslinger), 4(Wizard/Glass), 2(Drawing), 5(Wolves), 7(Dark Tower), 6(Song).

Leavemywife posted:

Ever since I've read it, I've maintained that Dr. Sleep is a good book, but not a good sequel. It was a story that didn't need to be told, but not one I'm disappointed in having read.

Phanatic posted:

Caught the first episode of the Outsider on hotel room HBO. Pretty good! At least the first episode hews closely to the book. Straightforward, but well executed.

oldpainless posted:

Night shift and skeleton crew. Four past midnight and different seasons for the novella collections.

BiggerBoat posted:

Same. I've never read any of the gunslinger/Dark Tower books and still have zero interest, especially having learned of the legendary terrible payoff. If I want a King story with a lovely ending, I'll just read...well...1/3 of his library like I have done instead of a 6 or 7 book long epic.


Can confirm you are out of your mind, yes.

EDIT: I really liked the movies Gerald's Game, 1922 and Cujo even though the books weren't fantastic (I liked GG and Cujo more than most here though). What's the best example of one of King's worst books being turned into a good film I wonder? We have several examples of it working the other way.

BiggerBoat posted:

Jack Torrance, Annie Wilkes, the prison warden from Shawshank, Kurt Barlow, Christine, Cujo, Carrie's mother, The Overlook Hotel, the Crimson King, Randall Flagg...

I just meant there's more meat on the bone for a full rogues gallery retrospective of King's work than there is focusing singularly on Pennywise. Seems like we're in agreement if I read your post right and I get that he's iconic but he's not Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Dracula levels of infamous and there's not a ton of lore to be mined there. At least to me. Maybe there is. It's a big book widely regarded as one of King's best and the movies are long so I dunno.

I just don't see how you build a whole documentary around Pennywise unless there's a bunch of cool behind the scenes poo poo with Tim Curry that I'm not aware of.

scary ghost dog posted:

theres a lot of slumps. song of susannah is one of the longest books and the whole thing is a slump

joepinetree posted:

Small town shittiness is kind of king's expertise. Though I do have to warn you: King is not the best writer of women, especially early king. In a lot of the stories, the main female character is just the young woman the middle aged writer is banging.

So here's a list of recommendations that touches on some of the themes you mention:

lovely small town:
It
Christine
Salem's Lot
The mist
Cycle of the Werewolf

lovely parents:
It
Pet Sematary
The Shining

Women protagonists:
Dolores Claiborne
Gerald's Game
The Girl who loved Tom Gordon


If I had to pick my three favorites, I'd say they are Misery, It and the Long Walk, though only It would have one the themes you've identified.

I do have to warn you though, starting to read King late is quite interesting, because in many ways it is very conventional, but because he set the convention. Like, you read salem's lot, look at the publication date, and realize that like half of all the vampire fiction since then is influenced if not outright rips off King. So not a lot of it is going to be transgressive.

Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:

FWIW if your library has a decent ebook/downloadable audiobook infrastructure, most of those will return automatically on their due date through whatever app they use to manage those loans (like Libby).

I reread The Stand last year after not reading it in well over a decade and yeah, I had a very similar epiphany around Harold’s character. It’s wild that King so perfectly captured the tenets of the incel movement decades before it existed (or, at the very least, entered mainstream consciousness).

graventy posted:

Maybe the novella?

Rev. Bleech_ posted:

MNIMWA posted:

Just finished DT book 6. Hmm.

Didn't care for the meta stuff with SK the author, to be honest. I don't really feel like it adds that much to the story - you could take it all out (and, tbh, Callahan entirely) and be perfectly happy. It also felt like Mia revealed her true motivations a couple times, and the trip to Fenic was just a repetition of her whole deal? It's both too long and also doesn't provide the explanations for earlier stuff I was looking for, but I'm hopeful that these threads get wrapped up in book 7. I continue to feel like Susannah isn't really being used well as a character. There are also references to other King works that I think are getting past me - Cullen in Maine, for ex. Oy and Jake are still great, Eddie and Roland still great (excellent shootout in the general store, for ex). Looking forward to wrapping this up.

oldpainless posted:

My dudes have you read IT and 3 specific pages out of the 1100 page book?

lines posted:

To be fair he may have been on the painkillers. I mean that doesn't justify it but I know he had a brief (?) "painkillers are great weeeee" period after what was, you know, a pretty damaging accident.

dr_rat posted:

Pretty sure he was on booze and coke at the same time at some point. Remember some story he told where he was talking about having a trash bin full of empty beer bottles and bloody tissues or some such.

mdemone posted:

Remind me not to do coke ever again (only 1.5 times when I was young and stupid)

MNIMWA posted:

Well, I finished Book 7 of the Dark Tower last night. I'm still thinking about it and probably will for a while. A lot of posters in here were down on books 5-7, and I agree for the most part that they are a let down after book four, I did still enjoy substantial parts of the last three books, particularly Wolves of Calla. Still didn't really enjoy the meta fiction elements of King as a character/conduit of Gan but I understand his reasoning for having that in there. The deaths of Eddie, Jake and especially Oy (RIP to the best character in the series) felt abrupt and a bit...I don't know, perfunctory? Like they had to happen, so they happened. Jake's especially! And the Delado (sp?) warning from Eddie and again from JAke, all for that to just be some emotional vampire with the literal deux ex machina in the basement...Patrick is from anotehr novel I haven't read, I guess, but it just kinda sucked to have that guy along for the last trek to the tower and for his powers to be the solution to the Crimson King on the balcony

I don't know, I'm disatisfied and a bit bummed that King did these characters like that and a lot of the choices made in the last two-three books. Speaking of which - Susannah. Jesus, King really didn't handle her well from start to finish, and even though I agree with her choice to leave Roland, she did it in a way that really sucked the power from that character, with the sneaking off to weep thing, the reliance on Detta... he really never treated her well as a character, I felt. Mordred didn't need to contract food poisoning either! What the gently caress. I guess it's a testament to King an the novels generally for making me care this much and get this mad lol

Sorry, this is getting ranty - but the last bit I have to bitch about is the gunslinger's Coda. I shouldn't have read it.

MNIMWA posted:

tbh 2 had some pretty lovely parts relative to 1, 3 and 4

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.

Leave posted:

Rose Madder is another one of his books that I really like that a lot of people seem down on. I think Rosie is a good character, and Norman is incredibly scary to me.

Cannibal Smiley posted:

Robert McCammon's "Swan Song" is very similar to The Stand. It's well-written, kinda pulpy and a little broader than The Stand, but still good.