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Rev. Bleech_ posted:He mentioned him in Insomnia Didn't King show up in his own drat books and basically tell people don't read my other books or some poo poo?
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Apr 25, 2010 01:50
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juliuspringle posted:Didn't King show up in his own drat books and basically tell people don't read my other books or some poo poo? I think your referring to a part in either the 6th or 7th book where Roland goes to a company who is dedicated to helping defeat the Crimson King in the "real" world. Anyway, they know about King and people read his books constantly and cross-reference all his stuff because in lots of King's books there are little bits of info tying it to the Dark Tower series. But what seemed to happened is King put stuff in other books that he couldn't actually make work in the DT series. So a book he wrote has some throw-a-way reference to something Roland does thats vitally important that King couldn't make fit into the series. So his way of getting around this is a character in the DT book saying "Oh yeah, King wrote all this stuff about the Dark Tower in his books, but it turns out lots of it is just bullshit and make-believe. So don't believe that just because he wrote it in another book it's gonna happen." So.....yeah.
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Apr 25, 2010 05:53
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juliuspringle posted:Didn't King show up in his own drat books and basically tell people don't read my other books or some poo poo? Yeah it was really stupid that he sets all this stuff up in Insomnia, actually tells the characters about this and then decides that no it doesn't matter.
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Apr 25, 2010 22:51
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muscles like this? posted:Yeah it was really stupid that he sets all this stuff up in Insomnia, actually tells the characters about this and then decides that no it doesn't matter. I actually started getting all his books because I like how they tied together.  So that whole thing really pissed me off when I found out about it.
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Apr 25, 2010 23:05
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I've finally gotten around to picking through a collection of King's books that I inherited from my mother, and of all the ones I've read so far, The Shining is by far the worst, and yes, I've read Cell already. The Shining had buildup and buildup and buildup and then suddenly OH HEY Jack's crazy now all those visions Danny had are true oh wait here's the end of the book the hotel explodes game over! Way, way too much buildup, and way too little...anything else. Also, I might have glossed over it, but what was with Tony? What was the point there? No explanation was ever given, and it seemed entirely pointless.
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May 2, 2010 06:15
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Kakumei posted:Also, I might have glossed over it, but what was with Tony? What was the point there? No explanation was ever given, and it seemed entirely pointless. Does this need spoilers? I'll keep them, anyway. Tony is Danny as a teenager. This is the form his psychic visions take, for whatever logical or scientific reason, which is not really important. What is important is that, in the thematic sense, it allows Danny to see that he is going to grow up and be himself and not a repeat of his father, which is Jack's downfall. Or maybe I'm just a pedantic fuckwit. I happen to have written a 4800-word essay on how The Shining, a Bret Ellis novel, and Hamlet are all tightly linked in how they deal with issues of father/son relationships, because hurf durf academia. 
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May 2, 2010 06:41
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I thought IT was a pretty big disappointment. Partly I think that trying to have 7 main characters was just too much. Until they all came together it just meant that every time one of the Losers had a scene where they packed up to leave or encountered IT or anything else we had to have an equivalent scene for each of the other six. Henry Bowers was pretty boring too, he was so overboard it wasn't believable. He couldn't just be a bully; he had to be racist, gay, retarded, fat, ugly, insane and homophobic. It got to the point where I just felt sorry for the guy. The whole subplot with Bill's wife and Beverly's husband just seemed really pointless.It took what, two or three chapters and then they just show up in the IT's lair with no explanation? Why even bother adding another few dozen pages to an already bloated book?
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May 2, 2010 22:50
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I thought IT was a pretty big disappointment. Partly I think that trying to have 7 main characters was just too much. Until they all came together it just meant that every time one of the Losers had a scene where they packed up to leave or encountered IT or anything else we had to have an equivalent scene for each of the other six. I liked IT a lot the first time I've read it, but every time I've tried to re-read it, the farthest I get is about 2/3 into it, and then give up. Last time I tried, I didn't even get past Bev's introduction chapter.
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May 2, 2010 23:09
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I've just finished listening to the first half of "Hearts in Atlantis" narrated by William Hurt. Holy crap, that guy is a good reader. I've read that book several times before but he really made it come alive. Strongly, strongly recommended for any King fans or people who just like audiobooks in general.
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May 3, 2010 01:17
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H.P. Shivcraft posted:I happen to have written a 4800-word essay on how The Shining, a Bret Ellis novel, and Hamlet are all tightly linked in how they deal with issues of father/son relationships, because hurf durf academia. Which Bret Ellis novel? I'm guessing Lunar Park, and if it wasn't, it totally should have been.
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May 3, 2010 03:52
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It was totally Lunar Park. It doesn't take a genius (just an English major) to connect those three texts in such a way as to pass an assignment! It helps that Shakespeare and horror fiction are my primary areas of expertise, and as you might imagine, times when I can actually bring those things together into a single topic are few and far between.
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May 3, 2010 04:52
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Cell was the first Stephen King novel I had ever fully read at that time and I thought it was quite good. I enjoyed reading Insomnia once I got past that that boring Ed stuff at the beginning. The worst to me has to be Lisey's Story . I finished half of it and gave up afterwards. It sure turned me off from Stephen King.
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May 4, 2010 02:06
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Just finished The Long Walk, and as great as it was it suffered from King's usual problems, even as Bachman. Just the feeling of King saying "Ah gently caress it, time to end this." McVries just bowing out like that, Stebbins being eliminated in the most anticlimactic way possible after he's been built up the entire book as being better and more suited to the Walk than the other guys. Out of nowhere he just gasps, and collapses. Then, we're left with a really ambiguous ending that could be read as supernatural, which is really lame since we went the entire book without any hint of anything weird going on. Enjoyed the hell out of it while it lasted, but it really petered out for me within the last 40 or so pages.
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May 4, 2010 15:02
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What do people think about Gerald's Game here? It's the only King book i've given up on so far. The whole thing (well, as far as i got upto) just seemed to be such a thinly veiled and unpalatable metaphor for feminism. Maybe it's just my male bias speaking, but i really don't think King writes particularly interesting or sympathetic female characters. It was interesting though if only for the fact that it was such a huge departure from most of his other works, which i would argue often border on the misogynistic (Misery, IT, Christine, off the top of my head), because a big part of King's oeuvre for me has always been the thick masculine world view that pervades his stories and centres them as relatable narratives. Partyworm fucked around with this message at 13:22 on May 5, 2010 |
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May 5, 2010 12:59
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That's the only book of his I've skimmed instead of reading (haven't got around to that smucking piece of smuck Lisey's Story yet.) I enjoyed Cell sooooooo much more than Gerald's game.
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May 5, 2010 13:38
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Partyworm posted:What do people think about Gerald's Game here? The book would have been much better if there HADN'T been a monster at the end - she was just going insane the whole time. It'd be a great Dean Koontz novel, it's a really bad Stephen King novel.
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May 5, 2010 23:12
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For any people who are both King fans and fans of Mad Men, the eclipse featured in the episode "Seven Twenty Three" from last season is the same eclipse that features so prominently in Gerald's Game.
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May 7, 2010 06:06
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IT put me off King for the longest period, maybe a year. For a book of approx 1700 pages, the ending was pure poo poo. It really was a let down, especially having started so well. Pennywise is a good monster, but King seems to run out of steam, probably from having too big a cast of characters to flesh out. And don't even talk to me about the underage gangbang...
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May 7, 2010 22:06
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juliuspringle posted:I actually started getting all his books because I like how they tied together. I haven't really read that many Stephen King books, how do they all tie together?
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May 8, 2010 04:59
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DirtyRobot posted:Man I just re-read "The Jaunt." The Jaunt is one of my favourites of King's short stories. It's written a little bit clumsily, but it's great as sort of a showcase for a horrific idea, which is King at his best - you kind of get a sense of that in his introduction to Nightmares and Dreamscapes. "Here's a bunch of cool, hosed up ideas given a small backstory. En-loving-joy." That's kind of why I liked Under The Dome so much - it's the same tiny little idea that you find in the short stories, it's just that it gives King the opportunity to really explore the effects.
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May 8, 2010 06:32
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There are people who actually liked Cell? I admit I though the first 1/3 or so was pretty good, but by the time the zombies started levitating it just went to poo poo.Volume posted:I haven't really read that many Stephen King books, how do they all tie together? He's really fond of inserting references to characters or events described in other books and short-stories, basically. Personally I think it's kinda neat.
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May 8, 2010 12:15
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Tom Ripley posted:King likes to writes women like they're really smart 10 year olds. They think sex is icky and use phrases like "he shot his squirt". That's a good way of putting it i think. It's interesting you should use that line as well, as i genuinely found myself cringing whenever the character used that phrase but wasn't really sure why until now. I think you've nailed it though. The book seemed filled with horribly misplaced turns of phrase as well, although i'm struggling to pull any off the top of my head. There were several times where i had to literally double take at how clumsy or inappropriate they were. Partyworm fucked around with this message at 15:07 on May 8, 2010 |
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May 8, 2010 15:04
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"Eyes of the Dragon". I hate this book so much. It still hold the distinction of being the only book that I have physically thrown across a room. 10 bajillion chapters of buildup and....nothing. GAH! It turned me off of King for a long, long time. I avoided any of his books for almost 15 years because of it. It wasn't until after I saw "The Shawshank Redemption" that I decided to pick up another books of his.
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May 10, 2010 16:56
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Shempt_The_Mighty posted:"Eyes of the Dragon". I hate this book so much. It still hold the distinction of being the only book that I have physically thrown across a room. 10 bajillion chapters of buildup and....nothing. GAH! To be fair, it's a fairy tale written for his then-14 year old daughter.
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May 10, 2010 17:45
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Zimadori Zinger posted:Just finished The Long Walk, and as great as it was it suffered from King's usual problems, even as Bachman. Just the feeling of King saying "Ah gently caress it, time to end this." McVries just bowing out like that, Stebbins being eliminated in the most anticlimactic way possible after he's been built up the entire book as being better and more suited to the Walk than the other guys. Out of nowhere he just gasps, and collapses. Then, we're left with a really ambiguous ending that could be read as supernatural, which is really lame since we went the entire book without any hint of anything weird going on. I have a really hard time not reading the entirety of The Long Walk whenever I pick it up to flip through. I really enjoy it, and have no problem with the ending or anything near the ending. I read the ending as non-supernatural, just your basic pessimistic protagonist has cracked deal. And as for the way the other main competitors finally lost - I mean, what would you have wanted, fireworks? Ray can't interfere with them. They have to either give up/die somehow, or just be shot after three warnings... and the standard three-warning shot would be less interesting than any other option, since it's the standard. Tom Ripley posted:
Just my memory, but I think I found that those attitudes and phrases come from women who find sex with the person they're doing it with "icky," because they haven't had (m)any positive sexual experiences in the past and are trapped in an abusive relationship. edit: oh, and now I realize the thread I've posted in. Worst SK novel? Well, there are plenty I've started and haven't finished: Lisey's Story, Cell, From a Buick 8, The Tommyknockers - just couldn't get into them. Worst I've read? The incredibly irritating final three volumes of the Dark Tower, maybe. onefish fucked around with this message at 17:49 on May 10, 2010 |
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May 10, 2010 17:46
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onefish posted:I read the ending as non-supernatural, just your basic pessimistic protagonist has cracked deal. And as for the way the other main competitors finally lost - I mean, what would you have wanted, fireworks? Ray can't interfere with them. They have to either give up/die somehow, or just be shot after three warnings... and the standard three-warning shot would be less interesting than any other option, since it's the standard. McVries, actually thinking about it, I didn't mind as much. More of it was hoping he wouldn't die  . More of my problem was with Stebbins. Since the Major was his father, I was hoping for a bit more struggle with him as he tried to keep up with Ray. Maybe the Major looking on, Stebbins losing his cool and erupting in anger at the Major, causing Stebbins to get his three warnings and his ticket from the Major himself. Really all that happened was he started to twitch a bit earlier and lose his composure when talking to Ray, then out of nowhere he just up and died from exhaustion, fainting. Pretty anticlimactic given all the set up he got as an antagonist for Ray, and as a character really.And I think part of me reading it as a supernatural ending is a side-effect of King's works being interconnected cause of the Dark Tower and automatically reading the "dark figure" as Flagg/Walter/etc. Like I said, aside from that I enjoyed the hell out of the book. lamb SAUCE fucked around with this message at 01:55 on May 11, 2010 |
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May 11, 2010 01:51
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Almost done with Needful Things. I'll say this: his endings are a bit crap, but King writes good climactic scenes. When the poo poo goes down in a King book, you believe it.
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May 11, 2010 05:16
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Chamberk posted:Almost done with Needful Things. I'll say this: his endings are a bit crap, but King writes good climactic scenes. When the poo poo goes down in a King book, you believe it. Needful Things, as I recall, is one of the few King novels which actually had a decent ending.
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May 15, 2010 19:11
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Zimadori Zinger posted:Really all that happened was he started to twitch a bit earlier and lose his composure when talking to Ray, then out of nowhere he just up and died from exhaustion, fainting. Pretty anticlimactic given all the set up he got as an antagonist for Ray, and as a character really. I liked the anticlimactic nature of his death. It made it seem so very sudden and very stupid. He seemed like he could just keep going and going and going, and you just felt there was no way ray could win against him, then suddenly he's dead. To me it made all his plans seem so pointless and childish. Before that he seemed almost superhuman, but no he just slipped away and bought his ticket just like everyone else.
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May 17, 2010 18:31
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I really thought Dark Tower was such a let down at the end of the series, but really, I found that Wizard & Glass onwards were all poo poo compared to the first 3. I was especially disappointed with how he kind of threw the Tick Tock man back into 4 at the end because he had elluded to the fact that he wasn't dead and needed to bring him back, so tossed back this weak rear end person so that he could kill him off. Books 1 & 3 were awesome (loving Blaine and the lottery drums kick rear end), but after that it just seemed to be "What can I throw out there to make this series last? I know, I'll keep sending them on side-quests and make them tell stories to each other."
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May 18, 2010 02:51
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The Colorado Kid. Body washes up on a beach, the cause of death is a bit of a mystery, the body isn't identified. Years later an apprentice journalist talks to an old guy who edits a newspaper and covered the story but he doesn't have any further information on anything. That's it, all 179 pages of it.
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May 21, 2010 15:45
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I finished reading the Dark Tower series and I have to agree, They couldn't have ended it any other way. What the gently caress else could there have been at the top of the tower? Also, I'm glad i could read them in one shot over 2 months, I can't imagine the amount of blue balls people must have felt waiting for these books. I don't remember if it was mentionned here but did you notice at the begining of the "The mist" movie, the main character is drawing a movie poster for the dark tower? Also, what's going on with the dark tower movie? I heard Ron howard's team now has hold of the license. To follow the thread, the worst SK book is probably Cell when The flying zombie shits start happening. Also, what's King's obsession with piss? It's everywhere in all his books, everybody piss themselves. I remember a part in the first Dark tower book where (It's a little bit hazy in my mind)Roland is traveling under the mountain in the dark on that lovely-rear end bridge with Jake and he imagine himself falling to his death peeing himself.. King has some strange fetishes.
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May 21, 2010 20:06
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Partyworm posted:What do people think about Gerald's Game here? It's the only King book i've given up on so far. The whole thing (well, as far as i got upto) just seemed to be such a thinly veiled and unpalatable metaphor for feminism. Maybe it's just my male bias speaking, but i really don't think King writes particularly interesting or sympathetic female characters. I think he's actually pretty sympathetic to women but just doesn't write them particularly well. He got teenage girls down pretty well in Carrie, though, so I give him credit for it. Dolores Claiborne was pretty sympathetic and while it's not fabulous, it's a decent enough read. I wouldn't call Misery misogynistic, though IT is really loving weird. His worst stuff for me is the earlier stuff. I hate Cujo and Christine. But Lisey's Story is pretty goddamn stupid, too.
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May 21, 2010 20:19
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Ozma posted:I think he's actually pretty sympathetic to women but just doesn't write them particularly well. He got teenage girls down pretty well in Carrie, though, so I give him credit for it. Dolores Claiborne was pretty sympathetic and while it's not fabulous, it's a decent enough read. Of all his female characters, Frannie Goldsmith from The Stand is the best written. The funny thing is that King once mentioned he wrote her as the kind of woman he wanted to fall in love with (I think he mentioned that in Danse Macabre)...but she was such a bitch to Harold (Harold the Fat, Harold the Nerd, Harold the Writer) that I can't ever read that dynamic and wonder what if anything he's trying to say in there.
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May 21, 2010 20:58
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I'm a long time fan of King, but reading ''Under the Dome'' makes me think he just ain't got it anymore. The characters are made out of cardboard, especially most of the villains. For some reason everyone in this book breaks their nose. How can you break your nose by walking into something? Do you lead with your nose when you walk? How fast are you walking anyway?
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May 21, 2010 21:08
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Thank God I don't remember any flying zombies.
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May 21, 2010 21:29
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3Romeo posted:Of all his female characters, Frannie Goldsmith from The Stand is the best written. The funny thing is that King once mentioned he wrote her as the kind of woman he wanted to fall in love with (I think he mentioned that in Danse Macabre)...but she was such a bitch to Harold (Harold the Fat, Harold the Nerd, Harold the Writer) that I can't ever read that dynamic and wonder what if anything he's trying to say in there. Well, to be fair, Frannie ends up being justified in her attitude towards Harold. I don't believe good people can be forced into doing things that they didn't have it in themselves to do. I have never read anything in King as misogynistic, personally. His female characters are just as believable as his male characters. Misery is not misogynistic just because the villain is a woman. I don't see that in It either. None of the kids are well-adjusted and it's not hard to imagine that Beverly would end up in an abusive relationship. Honestly, his son, Joe Hill, seems to have more of a misogynistic streak in his writing. Most of his characters have disgusting attitudes toward women and practically every mother mentioned in them is aloof and sees her children as an inconvenience. It's possible that he just finds these types of characters more interesting and it doesn't say anything about him at all, though. The part about people walking into the Dome and managing to break their nose was what bugged me the most about the book. As a person who has walked into plenty of things, you're always going to kick it first. It's not possible to hit your nose unless you continue walking after you kick it, and even then your hands would hit next.
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May 21, 2010 22:13
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Namirsolo posted:Well, to be fair, Frannie ends up being justified in her attitude towards Harold. I don't believe good people can be forced into doing things that they didn't have it in themselves to do. She was justified, but remember, it was Harold reading her journal that led him down his path. Later on in the book, when she's looking through her own journal to find evidence that Harold read it, she even wonders why she wrote such awful things about him. And to what purpose. I agree that King isn't really misogynistic. Hell, a number of the women in his stories are pretty strong--look at Susan in Wizard and Glass (and Susannah in all the Dark Tower books), or Julia in Under the Dome, or even Wendy in The Shining. He plays the sexual tension in each of the characters, but I'd argue that none of them are ever really weak.
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May 21, 2010 22:56
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Namirsolo posted:
Thank god it's not just me. It seriously bugged the hell out of me. It's not just the Dome either, every punch in the book results in a broken nose or a broken jaw. Who the hell are these people?
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May 22, 2010 11:51
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Just saw this thread, but holy poo poo The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was so loving uninteresting and stupid. I mean, I guess I can see him trying to write a traditional "ghost" story, and trying to be unnerving and tense by interjecting a lost child in the woods, but the story was dumb and the climax was dumb and the whole book was trash.
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May 22, 2010 22:37
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