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Sure its common for good to just barely win at the end of a King story. But usually it's one guy standing in the blood and flame blasted remains of a former town or neighborhood, and maybe one or two of his friends. It ain't sunshine and unicorn farts.
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Nov 12, 2010 01:48
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Local Group Bus posted:If you are save Different Seasons for last. You'll need something good after four past midnight because it's shite. The Library Policeman and The Langoliers are both awesome. 
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Jan 9, 2011 02:13
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Also if oyu haven't seen the Langoliers tv movie you really have to. Pure b-movie goodness.
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Jan 9, 2011 02:45
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The Sun Dog reads like Stephen King tried to write a Goosebumps book.
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Jan 9, 2011 03:09
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I think anyone who hasn't read all of the Dark Tower books is doing themselves a disservice. Yes, the 5th and 6th are kind of suck but each have decent stretches of good story in them and noone will judge you for skimming through the bad parts. The 7th is also at least decent all through out.
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Jan 11, 2011 18:47
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OMG JC a Bomb! posted:I'd like to think that King wanted to maintain an atmosphere of depravity and make the reader as uncomfortable as possible--so he crossed boundaries that nobody would have ever expected him to cross. I hope that's what he was trying to do, because any of the alternatives are not something I'd want to consider. Didn't he say as much in an interview? Of course it could also have been because he was high as gently caress while writing it as per usual.
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Jan 14, 2011 01:00
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Most Dark Tower stuff was written first in a book without particular regard to the Dark Tower series and then later referenced in the Dark Tower books. Plus you know a evil immortal spider-like creature that feeds on fear and poo poo and already has an enemy on the universe scale is something that kind of belongs in the world of the Dark Tower.
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Jan 15, 2011 18:00
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They're between 11 and 13.
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Jan 30, 2011 04:38
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clarabelle posted:Well thanks to that revelation, my Stephen King boycott is remaining firmly in place. Does that not count as some kind of child pornography? It's a horror story. It's about bad things happening and people doing poo poo they really shouldn't be doing.
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Jan 30, 2011 20:59
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Locus posted:From what I recall about reading IT, I believe the pre-pubescent gangbang scene in question wasn't supposed to necessarily be super horrific, since it was a positive "bonding experience" type thing. The beginning chapters of the book point out that none of them ever had kids either which ties in to the whole gangbang thing really.
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Jan 31, 2011 00:44
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Philo posted:This. I read IT for the first time in 6th grade and I remember not even being phased by it. It just didn't even bother me at all. As an adult, however, it is a very uncomforable/gross scene. Yeah I first read it in 6th grade and honestly wasn't bothered at all. Probably helped that there was a girl in another 6th grade class that year who was out of school starting in october that year because she got pregnant.
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Feb 1, 2011 04:31
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But Flagg is supposed to be constantly shifting appearances - using the same actor in both kinda goes against the nature of the character.
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Feb 1, 2011 06:09
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Fallon posted:There's an argument to be made that he's also John Farson though it's less clear and fairly disputable I thought he manipulated John Farson by being his advisor or something.
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Feb 1, 2011 17:11
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mind the walrus posted:For someone who really hasn't read the Stand or Dark Tower (and to be honest have no real inclination to) what exactly is it that Flagg has done that makes him such a reviled/iconic/beloved/famous villain? He's basically one guy who gets reincarnated multiple times as an evil dude. In Eyes of the Dragon he's trying to take control of a kingdom, in the first few Dark Tower books he's basically the main bad guy, in the Stand he leads Las Vegas, etc.
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Feb 3, 2011 07:00
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I think I'd like the extended Stand better if it had stayed set in the 70s. It feels like he didn't do enough to actually make moving the timeline years up actually mean anything, and it feels strangely anachronistic.
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Feb 11, 2011 21:12
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Only thing I dislike about Bag of Bones is how slow it starts. You really should finish From a Buick 8 - though I like the audiobook versions of From a Buick 8 and Bag Of Bones both a lot better - you should really try them .
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Mar 4, 2011 23:18
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Sometimes "That was the last time he saw Bob Jones alive." ends up being a trick because the character seeing the other character for the last time is the one who actually ends up dying, or the characters simply never meet in the story again without either dying.
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Mar 9, 2011 21:02
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Undead Unicorn posted:Actually, given its dystopian vibe and Richard's dawning realization of how hosed up the world is outside of his own life, the affect its having on other people, and his growing empathy justify the "OH poo poo, LOOK HOW BAD THE AIR IS! NOSE FILTERS BITCHES". But your absolutely right about his use of slang and catchphrases. Of course, all of the early Bachmann boosk were supposed to be pop novels, moreso than his normal stuff.
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Mar 9, 2011 22:23
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Dantares posted:King is releasing a new Dark Tower book in 2012. Sounds great, there was clearly a lot of stuff that must have happened between 4 and 5 that got glossed over.
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Mar 11, 2011 06:51
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VideoTapir posted:I have a vague recollection of mentions of historical events that were different from actual events. I think there was mention of a Nazi invasion of the east coast or something like that. In which book? I never saw that in Thinner or Roadwork or Rage and I'd also always assumed Long Walk was near future.
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Apr 27, 2011 06:50
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JustFrakkingDoIt posted:That's funny because I recall that in On Writing he said that using adverbs was lazy/bad writing... something like that. That and it hardly being a word at all. On Writing is all about "do as I say not as I do, until you become a popular famous author so you can do as I do".
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Jun 8, 2011 21:35
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I'd also point out that a few of the stories in Just After Sunset were ones written around the same time the stories in Night Shift were, but simply not in a King collection yet. The cat one is one of those.
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Jul 23, 2011 23:06
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spixxor posted:See, and Night Shift is one of my favorites. Maybe I need to give it a re-read or something, it just seemed decidedly lackluster when I read it. Part of what makes the cat one seem kind of off is, as the notes at the end of the book tell you, the fact that it was originally written for a contest. Readers of the men's magazine it ran in were to read the first chunk of it, send in their own ending, and the winner got it published and some cash. Don't have the book handy but King ended up losing the original story and the magazine it was in and forgot about it until a fan asked him, and I don't remember whether the full story is the original ending that King wrote (tho wasn't published) or one King wrote after the fan reminded him of the story existing. Edit: looking it up, King did write the ending back in 1977 and it was published alongside the winner in the magazine.
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Jul 23, 2011 23:55
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Farbtoner posted:They were just a crazy, out-of-control guy channeling his rage and insanity into a pet cause regardless of logic or science supporting it. Which was Stephen King at the time, who was of course high on 6 different things at once as well as drunk all through the early and mid 80s.
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Jul 26, 2011 02:25
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Laocius posted:So, I've been thinking about starting the Dark Tower series, but I've heard that those books are really tied into a lot of other Stephen King books, and I've never read anything else he's ever written. Do the Dark Tower books stand on their own, or are there other specific books I should read first to get the most out of the series? It's in a way that, when you read the other books, you'll go "hey wait a minute I recognize that" rather than the dark tower books being required reading. I'd recommend reading Salem's lot before any of the dark tower books though, and you probably wouldn't want to read insomnia til you're like halfway through the dark tower. Salem's lot because there's a character who winds up in later dark tower books, and insomnia because it really does tie into the ongoing dark tower story. Also don't skip books 5 to 7 like a lot of people do, read them.
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Nov 17, 2015 06:06
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King mainly dislikes Carrie because its his first published book and he obviously didn't have as much control over it as he had on later books, nor as much time to polish it since he was on a tight schedule. It doesn't approach hate, it's more like disappointment.
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Nov 23, 2015 15:04
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I liked Mile 81, it had a good pulp feel.
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Nov 28, 2015 03:26
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facebook jihad posted:Jesus the end of The Jaunt sent chills down my spine even though I spoiled the end for myself years ago. What makes Mrs. Todd's Shortcut so great is that so many of use have done something kinda like that in the past. I spent 2 years living in the mountains of Virginia, and something that'll come up when you take a back road shortcut is you end up in thick fog, and the sort of signs people up by the sign of the road ain't exactly regulation. It can be quite disorienting, and you do get places a lot faster then you'd expect.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:02
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Any changes in a Dark Tower movie from the books can be handily explained as it being part of a different Cycle.
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Dec 16, 2015 21:10
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oldpainless posted:Insomnia is a lazy Sunday kind of a book with how slow it can be and its depiction of everyday life. That's a very apt description.
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Jan 3, 2016 21:40
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Originally the Cycle of the Werewolf was going to be written as very short stories accompanying illustrations for a 12 month calendar. However, King wrote a bit more than would sensibly fit, so the illustrations got re-purposed to go with each of the still pretty short chapters in the hardcover book release.
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Jan 21, 2016 15:31
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Franchescanado posted:My problem with the illustrations is their placement in the book. They're thrown randomly in their chapter, and spoils who dies before you read their death. How much more work would it have taken for someone to proofread the drat book and put the pictures in appropriate places? Well the thing is originally, in the calendar idea, you'd flip to a new month and the illustration would be right there and huge. And then below it and to the side, you'd have the text from Stephen King about why and how that scene was happening that month.
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Jan 25, 2016 16:01
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Franchescanado posted:I get the idea, but that's even more of a reason for them to reformat the story. For the majority of its publication, it has not been a calender. Because the way it's presented in books is the way the illustrator and King want you to see it. You're supposed to be "spoiled" for each of the vignettes by the art. It's kinda like complaining that comic books spoil parts of the story because you can see events a few panels ahead before you read the text.
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Jan 25, 2016 17:18
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Dapper_Swindler posted:So I am reading Cell for a lit class(its one of the required readings) and i just finished it. i had read it before a few years back and thought it was alright, my opinion stays about the same, the psychic phoners are still kinda dumb, but it feels a lot less abrupt then it did the first time. i get tired of the kid talking about how the pulse works/brains/pc/reboot poo poo. its interesting the first time, but after the fifth loving time its annoying. what are peoples opinions on cell. Cell kinda reads like 3 different short story or novella concepts that got hastily taped together to make a full novel with a semblance of a through-running plot. Like each roughly third of the book could be a decent story on its own, but it doesn't really work together.
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Feb 20, 2016 05:31
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The movies being different fits in well with the entire idea of cycles and changes that the books have anyway. Who's to say whether the events in this envisioning of the Dark Tower movies take place many cycles ahead of or behind what we saw in the books?
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May 17, 2016 16:49
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Leavemywife posted:From A Buick 8 was good, too. I'm apparently pretty alone in that opinion, but I like how it's so character-centric (not that his other works aren't), and how the Buick 8 is just there, with no real explanation. Someone way early in the thread gave a great description: it's what happens when a hero never shows up to Solve The Mystery/Fix The Thing, and the background characters of a typical such story have to deal with it on their own. That's why I like it.
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Jun 9, 2016 02:31
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Murphy Brownback posted:I have mixed feelings about it being the last cycle. That implies he's going to finally redeem himself in the eyes of Gan and get a break from it all, but he still had a long, long way to go in my opinion in the books, even toward the end. A lot is going to have to change besides just having the horn, I guess. Well that's kind of the beauty of it. It means that anything that they don't want from the books can be changed or outright left out, but still have an in-context explanation.
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Jul 23, 2016 20:19
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Ein cooler Typ posted:reading The Bazaar of Bad Dreams I like the stories I've read so far. The federal law is that only freeways that have tolls on them now or in the past (so for example, I-95 in Connecticut used to have tolls and doesn't anymore, but they can still keep those plazas with the McDonald's and such) can have full on restaurants and stores instead of some vending machines in a building with some bathrooms. So you see them on the Maine Turnpike like in that story (or a whole bunch of other roads down to virginia or out to Chicago), but like I-80 across Iowa can't have them.
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Jul 30, 2016 21:24
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d0s posted:This was in end of watch too and I really want to know what his deal is with that phrase because I've googled it and nobody calls them that It's what both of my grandpas called those orange sodium-based streetlights, so it's probably just an old dude thing now.
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Aug 12, 2016 23:56
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d0s posted:It's weird but it's a big relief to drive back into NYC proper from Long Island at night and see modern white lights on the highway instead of the orange things. There's an exact spot where it happens and the difference is so dramatic, it's like your eyes relax or something I mean they do have value in making everything look creepy. 
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Aug 13, 2016 13:52
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