Leovinus posted:Needful Things, as I recall, is one of the few King novels which actually had a decent ending. What!? The ending was the Sheriff destroying Gaunt with dime store magic tricks, that became super weapons all of a sudden, totally freaking lovely. Stephen King endings are either fantastic or utter poo poo, he never hits a "meh" area.
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May 22, 2010 22:40
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I just though about King for the first time in ages thanks to this thread. I read a whole bunch of his stuff when I was younger. But the moment I read the Dark tower I just stopped caring about his writing. This happen to anyone else?
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May 22, 2010 22:58
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Namirsolo posted: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. This bugged me at first too, but I excused it by imagining that, being a dome, the surface of the wall would curve back towards them, allowing them to hit it face-first. It doesn't make a lot of sense, no, but it worked for me.
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May 23, 2010 00:35
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LtKenFrankenstein posted:This bugged me at first too, but I excused it by imagining that, being a dome, the surface of the wall would curve back towards them, allowing them to hit it face-first. The point is the Dome doesn't curve. Somewhere in the book it says the Dome taps out at 40k feet or something, in which case it wouldn't curve so low.
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May 23, 2010 10:22
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At ground level it would be (for practical purposes) vertical.
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May 24, 2010 05:17
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withak posted:At ground level it would be (for practical purposes) vertical. I also think that you'd have to be walking really slowly to have your feet not in front of you by much. But if you were walking that slow you wouldn't be going fast enough to break your nose. I think I've thought about this too much now.
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May 24, 2010 20:39
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Namirsolo posted:I also think that you'd have to be walking really slowly to have your feet not in front of you by much. But if you were walking that slow you wouldn't be going fast enough to break your nose. I think I've thought about this too much now. What if you were running really fast with your arms back and your head pushed forward, like you were trying to out sprint an opponent at the end of a footrace? Maybe everyone that suffered a dome-broke nose did so because they were trying to beat their time on the 40m dash?
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May 24, 2010 21:55
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M_Gargantua posted:I just though about King for the first time in ages thanks to this thread. I read a whole bunch of his stuff when I was younger. But the moment I read the Dark tower I just stopped caring about his writing. He tapered me off with the 4th book really. I loved Drawing of 3 and Waste Lands but Wizards and Glass kinda wore me out because I expected Roland to be a little more, I dunno, ruthless in dealing with the situation as a whole. I realized he was all up in his girlfriends rear end but I really wanted him to snap out of it sooner and realize what was going on before then. I dunno maybe I went into W&G expecting so much more. Anyway on to other topics: It is funny but I really did like his other 'storytelling' books as in the ones people seem to hate i.e. From a Buick 8 and The Colorado Kid. I really like the open ends they threw in them. Maybe its me but I prefer a open gift to make me think on it rather than a neat package. Plus he makes me see the characters very well in only the way someone who is telling the past that happened around them could (which is weird since that was what Roland did in the 4th book). Maybe its that I can relate to the small town character better than an otherworldly gunslinger. I did enjoy Under the Dome...some of the characters were pretty one dimensional and transparent to who they were based on (I mean jeez, could Big Jim be more Dick Cheney?) but it was a good read and got around to making you feel like you were there. Oh and yay, Horace the Corgi! I just finished his Blockade Billy novella and probably wouldn't not suggest it for anyone who didn't like his other storytelling stuff. No big green monster in it at all. I will say for a favorite short story, I loved 1408. Over the movie adaptation tenfold as well. It was great buildup and I thought the payoff was spectacular in comparison to the movie.
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May 24, 2010 22:05
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northerain posted: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. I'm reading Needful Things now, and I grinned and instantly thought of this discussion when I read the following passage: quote:He was looking up at the stars, trying to make out the constellation Orion, when he turned into his driveway. As a result he ran balls-first, and at a brisk walking pace, into the rear end of his Mustang. Now that's a feat!
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May 25, 2010 00:22
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My pet theory about King is that his writing went to poo poo about the same time he went clean and sober.
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May 25, 2010 08:28
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User posted:My pet theory about King is that his writing went to poo poo about the same time he went clean and sober. I think it was after the accident. After he got clean and sober he had a few hit and misses, but he always had those. Now every book features a writer getting hit by a car.
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May 25, 2010 11:47
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Loving Life Partner posted:What!? The ending was the Sheriff destroying Gaunt with dime store magic tricks, that became super weapons all of a sudden, totally freaking lovely. Don't forget the magic jazz hands.
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May 25, 2010 12:13
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northerain posted:I think it was after the accident. After he got clean and sober he had a few hit and misses, but he always had those. I really wish I had saved that photoshop picture of his new trilogy of books. The titles were something like The Accident, Remember My Accident?, Hey Guys I Got Hit By A Car.
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May 25, 2010 13:19
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northerain posted:I think it was after the accident. After he got clean and sober he had a few hit and misses, but he always had those. Why, I wonder? I mean, I've heard of "write what you know," but this is ridiculous! I mean, I'd feel embarrassed if I ever felt that my writings were starting to obviously reflect some kind of neurosis or obsession on my part. I'd allow myself to use the car-crash-surviving writer or the magical retard ONCE, and then bar myself from ever using it again.
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May 25, 2010 17:06
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Tartarus Sauce posted:Why, I wonder? I mean, I've heard of "write what you know," but this is ridiculous! I mean, I'd feel embarrassed if I ever felt that my writings were starting to obviously reflect some kind of neurosis or obsession on my part. I think the peak was (DT spoilers) Jake actually dying by pushing him out of the way of the car and getting hit instead of King. That's not even cleverly hiding behind the guise of fiction in some way, its literally Stephen King getting saved from the car accident by someone.
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May 26, 2010 01:58
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It's also Back to the future fan fiction especially with the clumsy way King adapted his prose for the latter books. Yes, I'd finally got around to the Dark Tower and I can't say I am enjoying it but at least now I won't have that nagging, "but the Dark Tower .. look at all the King there you can read!" voice in the back of my head whenever I start something new.
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May 26, 2010 02:22
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northerain posted:I think it was after the accident. After he got clean and sober he had a few hit and misses, but he always had those. I wonder why he won't just spell it out for us. On Writing was pretty good after all.
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May 26, 2010 09:01
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King made a lot of sense in On Writing, from basic grammar and structure of a book to how you proofread your work. I read that book and then I read his later books in the DT series and I wonder how the same man wrote both works. It's like King totally threw out almost everything he taught and talked about in On Writing while he was finishing the Tower series. "Omit needless words" being one of the biggest offenders.
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May 26, 2010 22:42
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oldpainless posted:King made a lot of sense in On Writing, from basic grammar and structure of a book to how you proofread your work. I read that book and then I read his later books in the DT series and I wonder how the same man wrote both works. Same here. I remember him saying describing parts of a character's physique as "intelligent" or "determined" was lazy sloppy writing, which I agree with wholeheartedly. I also remember several times in the latter DT books he referred to characters having intelligent eyes and faces, and every time he did I would just roll my eyes.
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May 27, 2010 05:45
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Zimadori Zinger posted:Same here. I remember him saying describing parts of a character's physique as "intelligent" or "determined" was lazy sloppy writing, which I agree with wholeheartedly. I also remember several times in the latter DT books he referred to characters having intelligent eyes and faces, and every time he did I would just roll my eyes. He does this a lot in the Dome too. I've seen ''he said gravely'' at least 20 times in there.
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May 27, 2010 13:04
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King specifically calls out adverbs ending in "ly" in On Writing. He basically says they suck and shouldn't be used and no good writer would resort to using them as a crutch. Like I said earlier, what happened to the guy who wrote On Writing that caused him to disregard all the rules and guidelines in his own later works?
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May 27, 2010 14:01
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oldpainless posted:King specifically calls out adverbs ending in "ly" in On Writing. He basically says they suck and shouldn't be used and no good writer would resort to using them as a crutch. Like I said earlier, what happened to the guy who wrote On Writing that caused him to disregard all the rules and guidelines in his own later works? The thing is he was also doing that poo poo before On Writing. I'm pretty sure somewhere in it he mentions that this is something along the lines of "do as I say, not as I do, because I have the luxury of being a famous author and you are just starting out and can't get away with what I do yet".
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May 27, 2010 17:08
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fishmech posted:The thing is he was also doing that poo poo before On Writing. I'm pretty sure somewhere in it he mentions that this is something along the lines of "do as I say, not as I do, because I have the luxury of being a famous author and you are just starting out and can't get away with what I do yet". If I remember correctly he says he does it now and then. He mentions one occasion specifically, but the general idea is that he avoids it and that the editors catch them. Guess not in ''Under the Dome'' though because it's full of them. I think there's even a ''she said dreamily'' somewhere.
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May 27, 2010 17:13
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oldpainless posted:King specifically calls out adverbs ending in "ly" in On Writing. He basically says they suck and shouldn't be used and no good writer would resort to using them as a crutch. Like I said earlier, what happened to the guy who wrote On Writing that caused him to disregard all the rules and guidelines in his own later works? What happened is he got hit by a car. You'd know that if you'd read anything written by him after the incident.
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May 27, 2010 20:42
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juliuspringle posted:What happened is he got hit by a car. You'd know that if you'd read anything written by him after the incident. Right, right. Except he wrote the book after the accident so he still knew all the rules and guidelines and should have been able to continue following them. You'd know that if you weren't a jackass.
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May 27, 2010 20:51
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I'm about 50 pages in on Bag Of Bones and so far i'm just not feeling it. Should i keep going ?
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May 28, 2010 20:32
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Partyworm posted:I'm about 50 pages in on Bag Of Bones and so far i'm just not feeling it. Should i keep going ? I like Bag of Bones. What's bothering you?
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May 28, 2010 21:08
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juliuspringle posted:What happened is he got hit by a car. You'd know that if you'd read anything written by him after the incident. I don't think I've read any studies that actually linked vehicular trauma to an overuse of adverbs. He has, though, been totally incapable of moving past the incident. I'm wondering how he'll handle the eventual death of his spouse, should he outlive her. He simply LOVES destroying the happiness of his protagonists by brutally killing their wives (and, to a lesser extent, husbands). I wish to God he'd never had the idea for the Dark Tower. I've never read past the Gunslinger in the series, but I have seen that drat tower crop up in a dozen or more unrelated novels. Every one of them: Insomnia, From a Buick 8, etc. would be better off as self-contained stories.
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May 29, 2010 20:09
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Asphalt Engine posted:I don't think I've read any studies that actually linked vehicular trauma to an overuse of adverbs. He has, though, been totally incapable of moving past the incident. I'm wondering how he'll handle the eventual death of his spouse, should he outlive her. He simply LOVES destroying the happiness of his protagonists by brutally killing their wives (and, to a lesser extent, husbands). It could have worked if had put some thought into it. And not used it that often. I mean The Talisman and Black House were connected to the Dark Tower but it was done so badly, it was laughable.
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May 30, 2010 10:21
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I think what it is was him falling too in love with his own idea of a "dark tower" at the center of existence. He probably thinks back to that wonderful day he was doing blow all day and came up with The Gunslinger and his quest, and wanted to incorporate the themes of the tower and what it represents into his own body of work, either because it's a weird attempt to make it real, or because he's just bloody nuts. I mean, he even sold the movie rights to the series for $19, the guy is just high on his own mythos.
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May 30, 2010 17:10
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I want to start off this post by saying I've yet to ever read a Stephen King and for the most part his work isn't highly appealing to me. I understand how his work could/can be a lot of fun to read and he does have a certain touch that allows him to make so many popular works. I have experienced a lot of his work vicariously through friends and family who have read his work, and with the massive cannon of fiction in the world I think that's enough of my time spent on his writings. I mostly came here to complain about his mini-series Kingdom Hospital. Yes it's not a book, and yes for every decent movie made from one of his works (The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Misery) there's a handful of lovely ones (Dreamcatcher, other versions of the Shining etc.) But out of all of the movies and shows related to Stephen King, Kingdom Hospital urks me the most. I've only managed to sit through small bits, because it's just so wrong. If you don't know (though it's pretty clearly states), the show is based off of Lars Von Trier's Riget (or The Kingdom). I would have to say this probably easily the best television series ever made. (Though Twin Peaks is probably my favorite for being so good for American Television). In general it's annoying as hell when companies absolutely have to remake a foreign film to bring it to an American audience. The only reason to do this is usually to be a total loving rear end hole and poo poo all over every thing. The fact the Stephen King the man who's supposed to be oozing with creativity or great pastiche or what ever had to do to this to one of the greatest TV shows ever made just destroys me. It's not like you can't simply present a foreign film to a new audience. Again though I'm just a 2-bit know nothing when it comes to most of King's poo poo Cannon and him making GBS threads all over of my favorite shows is one of the few times I've really gotten close contact.
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May 30, 2010 22:16
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sixshooter posted:It's not like you can't simply present a foreign film to a new audience. Although I agree with this sentiment entirely, and also think Riget is far better than its remake, the reality is that we're talking about a TV series, not a film, and that brings with it a whole host of issues that a film doesn't have.
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May 31, 2010 09:40
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It's not like King decided to go poo poo on the movie either, he was hired to write the script or whatever. Highly possible he did a bad job at it, but it's not like he's a villainous mastermind or anything.
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May 31, 2010 14:05
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Honestly surprised at all the Lisey's Story hate here. It's very different from his normal stuff to be sure, but I think it has some of his his best actual writing. Tonally, it comes across as a long love letter to his wife, but worked really well in that context. Worst for me would easily be Dreamcatcher, followed by Bag of Bones, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and From a Buick 8 ... though to be fair I haven't read anything past that so maybe Duma Key is really bad and I just don't know.
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Jun 1, 2010 06:08
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regulargonzalez posted:I haven't read anything past that so Duma Key is really good and I just don't know. Corrected for reality
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Jun 1, 2010 06:34
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3Romeo posted: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. Well, you know what they say about hindsight. I thought the remarks in the diary were realistic, actually. Frannie's an emotional, pregnant woman who's traveling with an unattractive manchild who obviously has a creepy goonlike crush on her. She was friends with his sister, so she knows all the gross, socially awkward poo poo he used to do. She's young, too. Wasn't she supposed to be nineteen or twenty when the plague struck? I'm not saying what Frannie wrote was fair or right, and what Harold did as a result was unfortunate, but I've been stuck for days with someone I could barely tolerate under the best of circumstances, and by the end of it I would have been a lot nastier in any hypothetical diary than she was. Local Group Bus posted:Yes, I'd finally got around to the Dark Tower and I can't say I am enjoying it but at least now I won't have that nagging, "but the Dark Tower .. look at all the King there you can read!" voice in the back of my head whenever I start something new. This is me right now. My boss is a diehard King fan, and since I liked some of his stories and had one of the DT books pretty much fall into my lap, she decided it was fate and pretty much demanded that I read the Dark Tower series. The thing is that I'm not much into westerns under the best of times, and so far the first book has been all about a pretty typical antihero (?) on a poorly-defined chase through a dead world populated by hopeless people. And according to this thread I'm reading a revised version, so everything adds up to 19 and it's kind of annoying. I'll give King credit, it's an interesting idea for a world and he's nailed the atmosphere, but I'm getting tired of reams of text describing the various ways someone can feel as they slowly die of dehydration under a blazing sun. little green jewel fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jun 2, 2010 |
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Jun 2, 2010 21:51
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little green jewel posted:I'll give King credit, it's an interesting idea for a world and he's nailed the atmosphere, but I'm getting tired of reams of text describing the various ways someone can feel as they slowly die of dehydration under a blazing sun. I actually feel a lot like you do about The Gunslinger, and I enjoyed the next two or three books much more. The Drawing of The Three is probably one of my favorites, so I would push on if you're not hating it too much and see how you feel about book 2. It's definitely tonally different, and it gets away from the western thing quite a bit.
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Jun 2, 2010 23:23
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Yeah, The Drawing of the Three is a much better representation of what's in store. I personally thought the first book was just okay, and only later did I look back and appreciate it.
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Jun 3, 2010 06:54
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I haven't read it yet but I'm going to say the new one he just released which is about baseball or something. Simply because it's $15 and short story length.
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Jun 3, 2010 12:40
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muscles like this? posted:I haven't read it yet but I'm going to say the new one he just released which is about baseball or something. Simply because it's $15 and short story length. I just peeked at an excerpt and on the first page the narrator directly addresses someone as Mr. King like they're being interviewed, which I guess implies the whole thing is some sort of story told to King and/or some hokey metafiction stuff.
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Jun 3, 2010 22:01
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