Stephen King: Beep Beep, Jealous Cow

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some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

The best King books I've read are Wizard and Glass, IT, Eyes of the Dragon, and the Long Walk. Followed by Misery, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary.

Misery is the book of his I found to the scariest, due to the fact that everything in it could possibly be real. There's nothing supernatural or magical about it. Which makes it much easier to suspend disbelief.

The backstory in Wizard and Glass really should have been it's own stand alone book by itself. If that were the case, it would be appreciated a lot more. People would be a lot more forgiving of it's length. As for me, I couldn't put it down, and I wished it would never end. I became so interested in Roland's backstory that I actually hated going back to present day Roland. King has never done a better job of developing characters than in W & G. You get the sense that Roland, Alain, and Cuthbert changed such an incredible amount just over those few months. The chemistry between the three of them and between Roland and Susan was also very well done. However, where it really shines and separates itself from the others in the series is in the lack of outlandish off the wall sillyness. There's no "number 19" bullshit, no random magic portal doors in the middle of a beach, no Susanna getting impregnated by a gateway demon, no emerald city, no ruby slippers, no alternate dimensions, no Stephen King putting himself into the story. It's just like an ordinary Western done in Stephen King style with great characters and a believable entertaining plot.

Dark Tower 5, 6, and 7 has made it to where I can no longer say I like the Dark Tower series, but I'll always love Wizard and Glass. Because it feels like it could be it's own separate individual story.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2009 16:47

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 20:58

some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

Fraction Jackson posted:

Echoing the hate for Dark Tower IV-VII. Yeah, there were good moments in all of them, but it's really not the same as the first three. I think the post-modern angle from earlier in the thread kind of amusing but that doesn't help. As far as the rest, Cell is pretty bad, ditto Lisey's Story...actually, he has a lot of stuff that's pretty bad, but when you write as much as he has, you're going to have a lot of bad stuff even if 75% of your stuff is good. (Which it still isn't in this case, I don't know what the percentage is now but it's gotten a lot worse.) A lot of the worst stuff seems to be concentrated in the last 10-15 years though.

DT 5-7, you mean. DT4 is almost universally regarded as one of his best books, for the reasons I said earlier. Just because it's all a flashback doesn't make it a bad book.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2009 03:13

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Hennergy posted:

I disagree, I think he has a good grasp of language for the most part; and I find his dialogue flows naturally and well. This is most obvious in It I think.

Yeah, it's one of the few things you really can not take away from King. He's awesome at writing realistic dialogue. IT is a great example. It's one of the few books I've seen where the 11 year olds talk like real 11 year olds.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2009 13:37

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Almighty Pod posted:

Tonight I finished The Gunslinger, and I've struggled with finding myself being entertained by him. Nearly everything I've read and finished of his has been kinda silly in some way.

Even the Gunslinger? Gunslinger doesn't have much in the way of silly. At least not in the original version, before King went back and remade giving it traces of DT 5-7 awfulness.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2009 13:45

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Chairman Capone posted:

From what I remember, it's an indeterminate amount of time between the two books, since they've been walking for a while from the post-apocalyptic US place to the Calla area.

This is also the exact time when the series started to suck. I wonder... Can we hope that he realizes that and plans to surprise us by doing something crazy like creating an alternate timeline? Then we can forget books 5-7 ever happened. We can forget about the number 19, King inserting himself into the story, "You say true, I say thankee, Commala, say sorry", the ending, and all of that awfulness with Susannah in book 6. Please...

# ¿ Dec 10, 2009 02:53

some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

fishmech posted:

I'm quite sure I recall seeing nineteen mentioned in a meaningful lane in The Waste Lands and Wizard and Glass, as well as some other pre-accident Tower-related books.

I don't think so. Maybe you're thinking of Little Sisters of Eluria.

King wouldn't have come up with an idea that bad before the accident.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2009 00:22

some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

I think you'd like the last Dark Tower better if you're reading it now rather than waiting for it since the 80s. After waiting all that time, the ending is a massive joke because it is no ending.

You don't even know if Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy will live or die or not in this new timeline of Roland carrying the horn The ending would be fine for a twilight zone or a short story, it's absolutely terrible for a 7 book series. It'd be like if 7 films got made which at the end turned out to be one day of Bill Murray's life in Groundhog Day. You'd walk out of the movie theater feeling like you got spit on and that you wasted your time.

Besides the ending, the fact that All of the characters were getting killed off through the book, Flagg's disappointing death, the pointlessness of Mordred and the Crimson King after so much buildup and the horrible Deus Ex Machina poo poo, the last book from beginning to end seemed like one big "gently caress you" to DT fans. It's really hard to think to think of ways that it could have been any less appealing to DT fans.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2011 18:53

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Ridonkulous posted:

I disagree.
For those that say I didn't wait (since the 80s, no) I did a little back reading to get the tie ins for these books. I read 1 Major connections 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Talisman, "The Mist", It, The Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, Desperation, Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, Black House, and Everything's Eventual. Just to name the ones listed by Wikipedia.

It is easy for you to arm chair quarterback, but I do not see any way to have ended it in a way that would make you people happy. I understand your complaints, but they are pretty much bullshit.

No, they're not bullshit, the book has huge obvious flaws. Whether you want to admit to them or not, it doesn't matter. It was not a good ending for a 7 book series, period, because it wasn't an ending and because it made much of the story that we just read pointless. There's not really a good argument you can make for the deus ex machina, it was just bad. Stephen King inserting himself into the story is objectively terrible.

The book did poo poo on the expectations fans had. Thinking that you "don't see any way to have ended it in a way that would make us happy" is indescribably retarded since as I pointed out, almost nothing in it could not have been written to be any less appealing to the fans. I mean seriously try to think of a dumber possible conclusion to Flagg and the Crimson King. I can't think of any. Anything would be better than what we got.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2011 20:39

some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

Farbtoner posted:

This whole post is about the ending of the Dark Tower series so I'm going to just spoiler tag the whole thing:

King's foreword to the book really improved my reception of the ending. When he started the Dark Tower as a young man he meant it to be the fantasy epic to end all fantasy epics, to channel the sense of wonder that movies like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and novels like Lord of the Rings gave him. By the end of the series he's looking back going "What the hell was I thinking " and the book becomes almost a deconstruction of what he set out to do all those decades ago: The Crimson King is a senile old man with just a box of grenades, the Man In Black is killed like a rabbit in a trap, even the ultimate prize at the top of the tower is the realization that things could have gone so much better if he had done things differently in his youth. The ending of the Dark Tower is King as an old man shaking his head at his college-aged self.

Did you say improved your reception? Because that's one of the most depressing things I've read today. If King is really an old man shaking his head at his college aged self, then he should have retired a decade ago. That basically means that he lost whatever feeling he had about his work that used to make him a excellent writer. The first four Dark Tower were good precisely because of the sense of wonder they had. And the last three books are almost unanimously terrible because they lack the sense of wonder. How on earth could that improve your reception of the ending?

Your post is telling me that perhaps if he had written the entire series when he was younger, all the books would have been as exciting and fantastic as the first couple were.

Honestly, I started to have a real bad feeling about the rest of the DT series in 2003 when the revised Gunslinger was released. An older man expressing dissatisfaction with his earlier work and trying to make changes to it is never a good sign. It's a George Lucas move. And in my opinion at the time, the revised Gunslinger was less compelling due to a lot of Roland's ambiguity being removed. Roland as well as the world itself was more mysterious in the original.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2011 09:01

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Velvet Underarm posted:

Guys I am a new wanna be Stephen King reader. Do you guys have any recommendations where I should start? Or should I just pick and choose?

Don't start with the Shining. Start with The Long Walk. Unlike the Shining, everyone loves TLW.

My favorite King book is IT, however it's over 1,000 pages. You may not want to start there. TLW is short and amazing.

some bust on that guy fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Sep 27, 2012

# ¿ Sep 27, 2012 18:00

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The Berzerker posted:

I read Christine when I was 11 and read IT shortly afterward, but that's because my mom wasn't paying any attention, please do not let your child read IT.

I read IT when I was 12 and I'm glad I did. It's the perfect age for max amount of terrifying. It hooked me on Stephen King for life. One of the things I remember liking the most out of it back then was how real the kids sounded. The kids swore all the time, joked about sex, and didn't come off as idiots. Unlike every other kids story I've seen, these kids sounded like me and my friends. The first Ben chapter where he runs away from bullies and meets his first friends in his life is still my favorite chapter in the book. I still think it's more brilliant for the way it developed the friendships than anything to do with the horror.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2013 16:57

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M.C. McMic posted:

Is "The Gunslinger" worth reading on its own, or does it just kinda end up going nowhere without the rest of the series (which I understand only gets worse)?

Gunslinger is really a book that you try to hurry up and get through to get to the next three in the series. Luckily, it's short.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2013 19:24

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I'm glad to see everyone reading It. I always thought it was one of his best books, easily his best long book. I liked it considerably better than the Stand. While the horror elements and how eerie and real he made the town are fantastic, I have to say what I love the most is the characterization. At 12 when I first read it, I remember thinking that It was the only story I had encountered where the kids acted and talked like the kids I knew in real life. The swearing, the smoking, the bullying, the way the friendships formed and developed, the typical stuff they did in the day to just hang around around outside, how they reacted upon learning that one of them was skilled at something, etc. It was all very believable.

I loved how King presented Ben as someone who never had a friend but would never have considered himself lonely or sad. The moment in the beginning where Ben is first making friends and connecting with the kids is some of the sweetest Stephen King chapters. When I think about re-reading It, I mostly want to re-read it for parts like that more than anything to do with Pennywise.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 01:48

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WattsvilleBlues posted:

There's a line in The Body that mirrors what you said:
"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?" ("I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" in Stand By Me).

Such mournful melancholy. The dormant memories of the Losers, particularly Mike Hanlon's, really felt like a fist to the gut to me. Especially in the epilogue, when Mike is writing in his diary and the very words start to fade from the page (or did I imagine that?) and at the end, just as his memory begins to fail him forever, he writes I loved you guys, I loved you guys so much.

gently caress, 6 years since I read that and still it kills me.

I just read a few chapters in the beginning and the epilogue again.

We need to petition King to write a sequel to It. It's been just over 28 years. About the perfect time.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2013 03:38

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Doltos posted:

I really like Stephen King and want to be a bigger fan of his. Read all the short story compendiums, the Shining, Salem's Lot, watched all the movies, etc. Loved them all.

But, I read the extended edition of The Stand earlier this year and absolutely hated it. Hated it. Hated the pacing, the huge let down at the end of the story, the characters. It started off so promising then rambled for six hundred pages.

I really want to read the Dark Tower series and was told that the villain in the Stand is also the villain in them and now I'm not sure if I want to do it. Is this series a significant upgrade over the Stand or is it similar?

It is similar to the Stand in that it starts off promising, becomes boring about half way through, then ends in a massive letdown. It's very rare to come across someone having read Dark Tower that doesn't think the last three books are really disappointing. That said, DT4:Wizard and Glass is my favorite King book due to a gigantic 500 page flashback in the middle of the 700 page book. By the time you get here, the main plot is never interesting again. But that flashback.. I think it's the best thing King ever wrote. It's detached from the rest of the series and probably should have been it's own book. I wonder if it could function as a stand alone story.

Have you read IT? That's a big 1000 page books that's mostly fantastic all the way through.

# ¿ May 16, 2014 01:58

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This should be linked again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Howard_(murder_victim)

Adrian Mellon's murder in the book was based on this.

Remember how in the book Adrian didn't believe Don that Derry was more hateful than other places, so to prove his point Don went show him some graffiti.

quote:

'Come down to Bassey Park with me," Don had replied, after seeing that Adrian really meant what he was saying � and what he was really saying was that Derry was no worse than any other fair-sized town in the hinterlands. 'I want to show you something, my love.'

They drove to Bassey Park � this had been in mid-June, about a month before Adrian's murder, Hagarty told the cops. He took Adrian into the dark, vaguely unpleasant smelling shadows of the Kissing Bridge. He pointed out one of the graffiti. Adrian had to strike a match and hold it below the writing in order to read it.

SHOW ME YOUR COCK QUEER AND I'LL CUT IT OFF YOU.

'I know how people feel about gays,' Don said quietly. 'I got beaten up at a truck-stop in Dayton when I was a teenager; some fellows in Portland set my shoes on fire outside of a sandwich shop while this fat-assed old cop sat inside his cruiser and laughed. I've seen a lot . . . but I've never seen anything quite like this. Look over here. Check it out.'

Another match revealed STICK NAILS IN EYES OF ALL FAGOTS (FOR GOD)!

'Whoever writes these little homilies has got a case of the deep-down crazies. I'd feel better if I thought it was just one person, one isolated sickie, but . . . ' Don swept his arm vaguely down the length of the Kissing Bridge. 'There's a lot of this stuff... and I just don't think one person did it all. That's why I want to leave Derry, Ade. Too many places and too many people seem to have the deep-down crazies.'

Now here's real life Bangor from that wikipedia article.

quote:

Memorial vandalized
In May 2011, vandals spray-painted graffiti and an anti-gay slur on Charlie Howard's memorial. Family and friends cleaned it up and rededicated it.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 05:37

some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

IT is his best book and will make you a fan of his for life. The Stand is too draggy in some parts. At least with the unedited version I have. The Stand also has the worst ending out of any King book I've ever read.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2014 05:15

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Hedrigall posted:

The Stand will be four movies.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=42815

4 movies just to end with that absolute poo poo Hand of God ending. I'd rather they did IT like this.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 19:18

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Ein cooler Typ posted:

yeah that Bev looks like a slut who'd gently caress all her friends

Looks like the most irritating bunch of kids. It's crucial for us to like these kids and want to see them not get bullied. I think I want to see them bullied.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2016 22:51

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darth_pizza posted:

IT
Pro : seriously creepy, great characters
Con : underage gangbang

You could be talking about 16 year olds and it would still be really weird, but 11 year olds.... What was King thinking as he was writing that? Was he putting himself into the mind of his characters and thinking of it from their perspective imagining himself in a 11 year old gangbang?

It wasn't even a short thing. It went on for pages and pages.

Still his best book though.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 16:11

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BiggerBoat posted:

The Dark Tower series is I think the only thing I haven't read of his, primarily because I heard so much backlash about the payoff. To invest that much time in so many books and have it poo poo the bed at the end is something I don't feel like doing. Then again, I like a lot of King's work that others seem to poo poo on so I don't know.

What would you guys say are the series' strongest points? Or what's the best comparison to his other work?

It's about the journey not the destination. That's something King says to the reader before the ending of the last Dark Tower book. I think because he realized he hosed up. But yeah, for 4 books it's a fantastic journey with characters as compelling as King ever wrote with an incredible setting. (Lord of the Rings mixed with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly mixed with King craziness like demon sex and giant robot bears and talking trains) I don't regret reading it even though I didn't like the last three books.

The payoff of DT is not any worse than the payoff to IT being a kid orgy or the Hand of God wiping out the bad guys.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2016 23:39

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joepinetree posted:

Wizard and glass alone is enough to make the dark tower a must read. That is easily one of his top books

I agree. Since it's mostly a flashback, I wish it was it's own book outside of the series so I could recommend it as a stand alone. This is why Wizard and Glass being a TV series http://www.ew.com/article/2016/09/21/dark-tower-tv-series-stephen-king-wizard-glass and the rest of Dark Tower being films is going to be perfect.

Great writeup on IT, Blasted hellscape. Atmosphere and history of Derry is where the IT TV series really dropped the ball. They turned IT into a generic horror movie.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 15:47

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Karmine posted:

I saw like three spoilery words but whatever, poo poo happens I ain't mad atcha.

I've enjoyed the series, but is it hosed up that I just read Wizard and Glass, a book that's roughly 80% flashbacks to a young Roland, and I'm more interested in hearing more about Roland's backstory than I am in the quest for the tower?

Nope, that's extremely normal. I often see W&G as mentioned as the best in the series. It's between that and IT as my favorite book he's written. Unfortunately I think you're going to regret not stopping there based on reading your post.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2017 04:02

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Ein cooler Typ posted:

wow, every movie is gonna turn out good!

https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/849248119485288448

Says the guy that didn't like the Shining movie.

ConfusedUs posted:

I spent probably an hour talking about King's novels with my 13-year old yesterday. He saw my collection and was asking me all kinds of questions.

It's obvious he wants to read some of them.

What are your suggestions for the best King novel to start with for a 13-year-old boy?

The normal books to start anyone with. It. The Stand. I read those when I was 12 or 13.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 21:04

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WattsvilleBlues posted:

Elaborate.

*Conrad_Birdie writes 20 paragraphs raving about the symbolism of the sewers orgy scene*

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 01:15

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 20:58

some bust on that guy: Jan 21, 2006; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

Check out the RT consensus. Holy poo poo, lmao.

quote:

Critics Consensus: Go then, there are other Stephen King adaptations than these.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_tower_2017

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 22:55

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