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If you love "Needful Things", you'll poo poo your pants with joy if you get the audio version King reads himself. I find the Ace Merril bits especially hilarious.
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Jan 8, 2010 07:05
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oldpainless posted:I disagree about It needed to be cut down a little. Maybe its because It is one my favorite three books to read, but even at its 1100 pages I wished the book was longer and had more stuff. And I usually think every one of King's books could stand to lose 10 percent or so of length. Yeah, I don't know. I really enjoyed It, but it just seemed long to me. By the end, I was happy to have read it, but I was also a bit relieved to finally be done. Still a fantastic book, though. The 2nd version of The Stand, on the other hand, had me wishing for a couple hundred more pages despite its length. That book just seemed so perfect to me, even the ending that a lot of people criticize.
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Jan 8, 2010 08:51
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Malaleb posted:Yeah, I don't know. I really enjoyed It, but it just seemed long to me. By the end, I was happy to have read it, but I was also a bit relieved to finally be done. Still a fantastic book, though. You and I are mirror opposites of each other. At least on King books. Specifically, It and the Stand. More specifically on the length of the books. Even more specifically, we both wanted one to be shorter and one longer. OK, look I wanted It to be longer and the extended version of The Stand shorter and you felt the opposite way, are you happy now??!! I CAN STILL HEAR THE BEATING OF THAT HIDEOUS HEART!!!
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Jan 8, 2010 17:00
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oldpainless posted:I disagree about It needed to be cut down a little. Maybe its because It is one my favorite three books to read, but even at its 1100 pages I wished the book was longer and had more stuff. And I usually think every one of King's books could stand to lose 10 percent or so of length. I got about a third of the way through It and had to just stop..it became impossible to remember some of what I had read at the beginning because it just went on and on. I'll give it another try sometime, but I just got to the point where the payoff wasn't worth the slog.
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Jan 8, 2010 18:02
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Schweig und tanze posted:I got about a third of the way through It and had to just stop..it became impossible to remember some of what I had read at the beginning because it just went on and on. I'll give it another try sometime, but I just got to the point where the payoff wasn't worth the slog. I'm assuming it was probably the part where all the adults get phone-calls and King spends like a hundred and fifty pages of them packing up? Yeah, even though I love the book, that has always been my least favorite part of it. Once you get past that and get to the pages where they are children, the book starts to get really good.
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Jan 8, 2010 18:05
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muscles like this? posted:This was also turned into a TV movie (well hour long) a while back for TNT. They did a couple of his short stories and man were they crappy. This one was pretty good though. Yeah I haven't read the story since I was 12 but seeing that a year or two ago must've got it stuck in my brain. oldpainless posted:I'm assuming it was probably the part where all the adults get phone-calls and King spends like a hundred and fifty pages of them packing up? Yeah, even though I love the book, that has always been my least favorite part of it. Once you get past that and get to the pages where they are children, the book starts to get really good. The part with the former fat kid doing the firewater and lemon trick was really really really dumb.
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Jan 8, 2010 18:15
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Blarticus posted:Yeah I haven't read the story since I was 12 but seeing that a year or two ago must've got it stuck in my brain. Yeah, like i said, just get past the opening part to where they are kids and I think it's almost a totally different book. The opening i still like, but its really my least favorite part of the book. In fact, the pages of childhood are infinitely preferable to the grown-up sections.
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Jan 8, 2010 18:53
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oldpainless posted:I'm assuming it was probably the part where all the adults get phone-calls and King spends like a hundred and fifty pages of them packing up? Yeah, even though I love the book, that has always been my least favorite part of it. Once you get past that and get to the pages where they are children, the book starts to get really good. Yeah, I got to the point where they had left the Chinese restaurant after getting back to Derry, but stopped then. I just had other stuff I wanted to read and didn't want to wait forever (most of my reading time these days is unfortunately about 10 minutes on the subway in the evenings, and sometimes during lunch at work if I can step out). I'll probably pick it up again in the summer. I'm just about done with Duma Key and I'm loving it. Nice solid ghost story, that one.
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Jan 8, 2010 19:37
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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.
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Jan 9, 2010 17:43
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The "in-between" chapters of It that go over the town's history are pretty boring and I skipped them when I reread the book.
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Jan 10, 2010 04:39
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You kidding? They bored me back when I first read it, but it's great to see a bit of It's history in the history of the town. Remembering those makes me want to reread the book.
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Jan 10, 2010 06:22
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Chamberk posted:You kidding? They bored me back when I first read it, but it's great to see a bit of It's history in the history of the town. Remembering those makes me want to reread the book. They were ok i thought, but the one about the fire at that black jazz hangout in the 40s, although enjoyable, felt like it went on for way too long. The most frustrating thing about IT was the pace for me. I'm pretty tolerent of exposition in general, especially when it's written as well as King's, but it felt like whenever the story was just starting to hit its stride, it would jump back or forwards in time for another 100 pages (more exposition) and lose all of that accumulated sense of momentum and immediacy. The only other criticism i have of King is that when it comes to horror he doesn't seem to understand that subtlety and suggestion are more powerful than clown werewolfs chasing 11 year old kids down the street. Perhaps its just me, but probably the creepiest moment in IT was when Beverly revisits her dad's old house and finds a 'harmless' old lady living there instead. She goes inside and there's this amazingly creepy couple of pages where she (and us) slowly realize that the old lady is actually IT through all these subtle details being slowly revealed. Then SK goes over the top by turning the house into the candy house from Hanzel and Gretel and the effect felt lost. I've only read four SK books so far (IT, Christine, The Shining and Misery) so i can't say for sure if it's the same with all his work. But it's definitely something i've noticed so far, his tendency to throw restraint out the window when dealing with the super natural. The Shining is guilty of it too in places. There's a lot of sublety as SK builds up the history of the Overlook and in the environment itself, but by the end when hedge monsters are coming alive and attacking people it felt a bit silly. Are there other good SK books where the horror is almost all subtlely and suggestion rather than overt and over the top visual horror? Partyworm fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jan 22, 2010 |
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Jan 22, 2010 19:38
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Partyworm posted:Are there other good SK books where the horror is almost all subtlely and suggestion rather than overt and over the top visual horror? Most of his short stories.
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Jan 22, 2010 20:57
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Partyworm posted:
I would recommend Pet Sematary. The ending isn't so great (I guess if you show us there's a possibility of a killer zombie kid in act I it better go off in Act III) but it is by far the most uncomfortable thing he's ever written. So much so that he supposedly threw it in a drawer for a few years, figuring it was unpublishable. Also, while the Timmy Baterman part isn't all that subtle, it is intensely creepy.
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Jan 23, 2010 06:54
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el oso posted:The payoff to the book is how close of friends the children are and how sad it is that they completely forget about each other as they grow up, and then again when the story ends. I don't see how they can develop the relationships and tell the story properly in a 2-hour movie. The writer is also quoted a couple of years ago as saying that he wants the story to focus and be told through Bev's point of view, which really doesn't jibe with the plot; Bill is the driving force of the Loser's Club because of Georgie and because the Other primarily acts through him. But they are making it as a R-rated movie and want it to be gory and terrifying, so maybe they will create an interesting take on the basic story and go for all-out horror. I just finished the book (for the second time) today and watched the movie immediately after. Though there were obvious differences (no giant bird, no leper, etc.), a lot of it was spot-on. But I felt like it could have been stretched even more... almost like they had made a list of the main points to cover in the movie and did each scene like a bullet list. That's what I liked about the book is the obvious characterization that people were talking about earlier. He hits every aspect of those characters in the book and you see every single side to them. In the movie, they are really just a face. It's just weird to see the movie trying hard to be as emotional as the book but there is just so much to work with. My favorite part of the book that made me laugh: FROM THE DESK OF PENNYWISE! Malaleb posted:The coke machine would obviously be scary in real life, but I didn't find it that frightening in the context of the book. In comparison, it seemed like kind of a merciful way to die. I liked when he said that the coin slot was "whistling dismally" as it hurried along.
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Jan 31, 2010 11:50
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I was substitute teaching for a High School class the other day and some of the newspaper students were in the room doing an article on romantic books and movies for Valentines day. They were stumped on books, so they were asking teachers and students for their ideas. I submitted Misery, thinking it would get a good laugh from the supervising teacher when she saw it on the list, but one student in the room had seen the movie and called me on it. Then I started thinking that if you left out some aspects of the plot, you could totally describe the premise of the book as a romance.
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Jan 31, 2010 18:12
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:I would recommend Pet Sematary. The ending isn't so great Really? Personally it's the best horror climax I've ever read. Is your issue just with the predictability or what? As for his stories based around suggestion (though it's not subtle) I really liked 'Here There Be Tygers' in Skeleton Crew.
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Feb 1, 2010 03:59
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walkenator posted:Really? Personally it's the best horror climax I've ever read. Is your issue just with the predictability or what? It's not a bad ending, just far less disturbing than what came before it. It's very hard to top the bit with Louis just rocking on the edge of Gage's grave with his mossy little body cradled in his arms. Maybe it's because I'm poo poo-scared of grief/other people's mortality more than anything else, but that got me.
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Feb 1, 2010 04:32
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The only good part about the book is the end (well the last hundred pages or so).
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Feb 1, 2010 05:02
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Nuke Goes KABOOM posted:The only good part about the book is the end (well the last hundred pages or so). That's kind of like saying the same thing about There Will Be Blood. Don't you think it needed that buildup beforehand? I can't remember any sections that could have been significantly trimmed (been a while since I read it though), unlike say It or Salem's Lot. Edit - The thirty storey tall Wendigo thing in the forest was a bit much though. Jim Bont fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Feb 1, 2010 |
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Feb 1, 2010 10:34
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Malaleb posted:
I didn't think it was trying to be as much scary as just a way to showing how batshit crazy everything had gone. Which is the kind of death kings usually pretty good at, usually to the point characters themselves have a hard time believing their dying because its just happening in such a god drat stupid way. Particularly character who came into the insanity half way through the book, sort of kings way of acknowledging yes things have gotten pretty drat stupid but its horror and people are still dying and this is what you signed up for when you started reading it. seems to go well with the corny b-movie feel king seems to love to go for sometimes. Although that still wasn't his best book (although no where near his worst)
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Feb 1, 2010 12:45
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I got pretty burned out on SK after I finished the Dark Tower, but then I recently read Duma Key and came away pretty impressed. Is the rest of his post Dark Tower work as good?
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Feb 1, 2010 18:28
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All of you saying how awesome The Long Walk is are totally right. I started reading it late last night, woke up at 6:30 to read it before I had to leave for work, and still have about 40 pages left. I can't wait to see how it ends and at the same time don't want it to end because its the best thing I've read in a really long time.
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Feb 1, 2010 21:08
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An Cat Dubh posted:All of you saying how awesome The Long Walk is are totally right. I started reading it late last night, woke up at 6:30 to read it before I had to leave for work, and still have about 40 pages left. I can't wait to see how it ends and at the same time don't want it to end because its the best thing I've read in a really long time. It's one of the few endings of an actual King novel that doesn't make you go "What? gently caress you."
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Feb 1, 2010 21:09
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An Cat Dubh posted:All of you saying how awesome The Long Walk is are totally right. I started reading it late last night, woke up at 6:30 to read it before I had to leave for work, and still have about 40 pages left. I can't wait to see how it ends and at the same time don't want it to end because its the best thing I've read in a really long time. I started reading The Long Walk one night before going to sleep, and could not put it down or go to sleep until it was finished. It's the only time I've ever read something in a single sitting like that, and it's one of my favorites. He managed to take the greatness he can show in his short stories and sustain it for a whole novel, while avoiding the excesses he almost always indulges in. It's the best thing he's written, and I almost don't want to read it again because the first time was such an amazing experience..
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Feb 1, 2010 23:56
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An Cat Dubh posted:All of you saying how awesome The Long Walk is are totally right. I started reading it late last night, woke up at 6:30 to read it before I had to leave for work, and still have about 40 pages left. I can't wait to see how it ends and at the same time don't want it to end because its the best thing I've read in a really long time. The Long Walk is pretty cool and easily the best of the three "Bachman Books" I recently read. Rage was just completely stupid angry teen wish fulfillment (Yeah, all of the cool kids are totally gonna side with the angry loner who just shot a teacher!). Running Man was also good, but it would be a lot better if the protagonist wasn't so  Is Roadwork worth a read?
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Feb 2, 2010 05:25
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Roadwork is great, yeah.
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Feb 2, 2010 05:27
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Mr.48 posted:I got pretty burned out on SK after I finished the Dark Tower, but then I recently read Duma Key and came away pretty impressed. Is the rest of his post Dark Tower work as good? I too got burned out on DT. Halfway through Under the Dome right now, and it's great.
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Feb 2, 2010 10:46
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Malaleb posted:The Long Walk is pretty cool and easily the best of the three "Bachman Books" I recently read. Rage was just completely stupid angry teen wish fulfillment (Yeah, all of the cool kids are totally gonna side with the angry loner who just shot a teacher!). Running Man was also good, but it would be a lot better if the protagonist wasn't so How was the protagonist of Running Man smug? Because he read books?
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Feb 2, 2010 16:27
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jingo posted:I started reading The Long Walk one night before going to sleep, and could not put it down or go to sleep until it was finished. It's the only time I've ever read something in a single sitting like that, and it's one of my favorites. He managed to take the greatness he can show in his short stories and sustain it for a whole novel, while avoiding the excesses he almost always indulges in. It's the best thing he's written, and I almost don't want to read it again because the first time was such an amazing experience.. Finished it last night and even though I thought the ending felt a little rushed, I agree it was fantastic all the way through. Reading The Running Man now and I'm liking that a lot as well. Once I've finished The Bachman Books I will have read all the fiction he's written, minus Eyes of the Dragon, Colorado Kid, and the DK.
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Feb 2, 2010 16:35
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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.
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Feb 2, 2010 18:35
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I've always enjoyed King's more emotional works and The Long Walk is definitely on of the best. The final line And when the hand touched his shoulder again, he somehow found the strength to run. had me in tears the first time I read the story.
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Feb 2, 2010 20:43
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:How was the protagonist of Running Man smug? Because he read books? All of those scenes where he stared people down and victoriously made them feel uncomfortable just seemed like nerd wish-fulfillment. Similar to the guy in Rage, I guess. I like the protagonist in The Long Walk, because he didn't start to get angry and rebellious until later. I still enjoyed the Running Man, but a lot of the scenes early on made me roll my eyes.
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Feb 2, 2010 23:47
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I have The Bachman Books in both the new paperback version and an old hardback version. I know King took Rage out of print and I can't really blame him. I've read Rage a few times, The Long Walk at least a dozen times, and The Running Man about 5 times. I agree that Richards is just so hard to like that it really feels like a hindrance to the story. But then again King wrote it in like three days so its still an amazing feat. As for worst King book, I choose you, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon!! I know he has such a huge amount of books and there have been some clunkers like TommyKnockers and even Rose Madder and any number of books that a few people always complain about, but in all those books I never felt like I was really wasting my time. I did with Tom Gordon, though.
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Feb 3, 2010 06:36
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:I would recommend Pet Sematary. The ending isn't so great (I guess if you show us there's a possibility of a killer zombie kid in act I it better go off in Act III) but it is by far the most uncomfortable thing he's ever written. So much so that he supposedly threw it in a drawer for a few years, figuring it was unpublishable. Thanks for the tip. I just finished reading up to the part where Gage gets killed and i have to say that so far this is one hell of a depressing book, and not in a paticularly entertaining sense. It seemed to start off quite promising with the creepy descriptions of the pet cemetary and that college guy who gets hit by a car and then starts to mysteriously talk about said cemetary and somehow knows Louis' name, that was spooky, but since then its seemed to be not much more than 200 or so pages of characters spent talking about death and people dying in not particularly interesting or engaging ways. It's not a long book so i'll stick with it for now, but i can't say im particularly enjoying it so far. Even King's strong characterization seems weak here, which is usually what holds his stories together in their slower places.
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Feb 3, 2010 11:53
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What's great about Pet Sematary is that the thing you dread and know is going to happen isn't fantastic or impossible - it is something that happens in the real world and when it does it is one of the most terrible things that could happen to someone. But because it is a horror novel you get tonnes more horror-style ominous foreshadowing and an immensely heavy sense that it's coming - more so than you would in other kinds of fiction.
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Feb 3, 2010 16:49
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I just finished Needful Things and I'm a bit confused on the ending: I suppose that bag he had were full of souls, even if he didn't call them that. Does everyone in the town survive? I would assume so since Polly was in the bag and she's still alive in the car, but I'm not totally sure I shouldn't have read the last part right before going to bed...
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Feb 3, 2010 17:32
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Oh god the worst one I've read Cell and I only barely made it to the end. The whole concept is essentially the same as The Stand except it's the power of evil forcing them to go places and not good. How many ghost riders does King have?
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Feb 4, 2010 03:06
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Fontoyn posted:How many ghost riders does King have? Keep watching the skies to find out
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Feb 4, 2010 04:22
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3Romeo posted:I'll add something else concerning The Tommyknockers. The book is painful to read. Jim Gardner is one of his best written characters, and that's saying a lot concerning an author whose strength is in characterization. The problem is that Jim is completely despicable in almost every way and reading about what a mess he made his life--and the passive fuckups he makes in the book--is really, really hard. It's well worth reading but it isn't something you, like, pick up again later to read for fun. This is why I disliked Tommyknockers despite liking pretty much all of the rest of his books (couldn't finish Long Walk because it is just too painful/sadistic). Just sitting around while everything changes is hard to read about. I loved Under the Dome. Best in a while. And I liked the last Dark Tower book - there's no way anyone could come up with something that would satisfy people who had been waiting for 30 years and the poem being the actual ending of the cycle works well for me.
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Feb 4, 2010 21:31
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