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Dec 31, 2011 17:06
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Aatrek posted:DAVID BROWN IS ON ALTAIR 4 Tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on the door. I'll always have a soft spot for Gard. "Tommyknockers" is one of my favorite books. I am forced to admit defeat, though -- I can't get any further through the new one. It used to be I'd burn through a new King book in two or three days, but I can't get past the first 200 pages of "11/22/63."
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Dec 31, 2011 17:22
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Aatrek posted:DAVID BROWN IS ON ALTAIR 4 When I first read that, it creeped me right the gently caress out. I pictured that poor kid laying on the surface of an airless planet struggling to breathe. I picked up 11/22/63 today from the library. When the lady handed it to me, I thought, "drat, that's big loving book, even by King standards". Then I opened it up and realized it was the large print version.
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Dec 31, 2011 20:04
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Edwardian posted:Tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on the door. I love the Tommyknockers. It drags a bit before Gard gets to Maine, but the beginning and the end are absolutely fantastic. So much good, random, horrific stuff in that book.
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Dec 31, 2011 20:58
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The Tommyknockers was my first SK book. I found an old, beat-up paperback of it at a yard sale.
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Dec 31, 2011 21:00
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"I'm going to make French toast." he thought. His first thought in that moment after dream but before true wake. A thin sliver of light, seemingly fashioned into a weapon perfectly suited to his weary eyes, forced it's way through a small opening between the stained double hung window and the thickly painted window frame and assaulted him, signaling the end of sleep and the beginning of the last day of the year. He moved, lumbered even, slowly to the bathroom. Heavy with urine from the previous night's drinking, he drained himself into the old American Standard toilet. His cock half ridged as it was every morning. He flushed and tucked himself back in, remembering that he had a mission. The French toast. There were no curtains over the window in the kitchen, which faced the same direction as the bedroom window that has so rudely forced him out of bed. The room was flooded with bright morning light. He covered his eyes and stumbled in, noticing the pile of dirty dishes in the sink from last night from between his fingers. The usual tools came out. A red ceramic bowl about seven inches in diameter, a twelve inch non-stick frying pan, a small metal wisk, a cheap plastic spatula, and a red ceramic plate about thirteen inches in diameter that matched the bowl on which the finished slices of warm buttery toast would be placed. He opened the fridge, some unidentifiable brand from twenty years lost that made horrific shudders and convulsions in the night when it needed to keep its temperature, and brought out the rest of the players. One percent organic milk, the remander of a dozen brown pastured eggs bought a while back, and a stick of salted butter, the real stuff. He placed the pan on the stove and turned the knob to the right. The swoosh of gas filled his ears but was quickly replaced with the flare of flame and the miniature roar of the burner giving it's heat to the empty pan. He picked up an egg, round and evenly brown, a nice mocha brown, and cracked it against the edge of the red ceramic bowl. Out spilled a white that wasn't white. And a yolk that wasn't yolk. The white was the color of antifreeze, a sick bright highlighter green. The smell was acrid, not the smell of fresh eggs and not the smell of rotten wasted albumin. The yolk was red, bright and full. It broke instantly, spilling its bloody thickness into the green albumin. He quickly poured it down the drain, running cold water as not to cook the protein and make the egg gum up. He stumbled back, eyes blazing, chest heaving, unsure of what he had just witnessed. He wheeled around, flowers of pain blooming in his hip as an open drawer dug in. The carpet beneath him, a dull red and black throw away used to simply meet the required floor coverage in his pre-war apartment building, slid to the side and sent him sprawling. For the second time this morning Jealous Cow awoke to a luminal assault on his eyes. He stumbled to his feet, more determined than ever to have his French toast. The bright morning sun gleamed in his eyes, easily betraying his determination. One demon egg wasn't going to stop him now. Just then, a memory surfaced like a submarine erupting from the choppy ocean. "I can test them," he thought, "I read about how a long time ago." He moved quickly to the cabinet which contained the cookware and removed a large pot. He turned on the kitchen faucet, using the cold knob, and filled the pot most of the way up. He picked up the remaining four eggs and dropped them in. "They're floating." he said aloud, not to himself, and not to anyone else. "They float. They all float! They all float in there!" BEEP BEEP RICHIE!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Jealous Cow fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Dec 31, 2011 |
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Dec 31, 2011 22:17
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oldpainless posted:Goddam, is it just me or does King put like 10% of his book in parentheses? I noticed it on like the 2nd page of 11/22/63 and randomly flipped around and there are all these half-thoughts in parentheses. Have you read Danse Macabre? It's...full of...ellipses. Even the footnotes...
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Jan 1, 2012 03:52
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11/22/63 is making me crave hamburgers. drat you King!
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Jan 1, 2012 21:30
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Just wanted to pitch in my 2 cents and say I really enjoyed 11/22/63. Gotta admit that I was completely uninterested in the story's idea when I heard about it, but picked it up cause I was bored and decided it would be a good time waster. Sure it can be a little slow, but that's the joy of the book. I have to say that the ending was very... touching. I pretty much knew the broad strokes of how it was going to end, but it still got me misty eyed when Sadie got killed and Jake met Sadie in the real world. Maybe I'm just a stupid romantic or something, but man I just felt like crying for the last couple hundred pages. I think the thing with most of Stephen King's books is that he spends a ton of time (like 5/6ths of the story) building up all these periphery characters and if you don't like or connect to the characters then you can't really enjoy the story. 11/22/63 is pretty much about the characters, the whole JFK assassination thing is kind of just an undercurrent to the story of Jake and his life. tl;dr I really enjoyed the book. Give it a chance! I almost didn't because the premise didn't interest me at first. Might want to change those tags from "spoil" to "spoiler" down there... USMC_Karl fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jan 2, 2012 |
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Jan 2, 2012 00:53
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I think there was actually a purpose to the dragging middle in 11/22/63. For one thing, trying to figure out how to spy one someone with 50+ year old technology would have been pretty drat hard, especially for someone who had never done anything similar so I can see why he spent so much time focused on that. I mean, it wasn't exciting, but it was crucial, kind of like detailing a training regimen in a book about a fighter preparing for a big match. Also, the whole "hanging around and waiting thing" that seemed to happen for millions of pages served to highlight how grueling the whole thing really was. I mean, you are talking about years of this man's life, years that he will never get back. If he decides that he wants to do something differently a couple of years in, then he has to start allllll over - not just the big things, but the thousands of meals and bathroom trips and newspapers read and boring tv shows watched and conversations and going to the supermarket and and and... Glossing over that aspect of it would probably have most readers going "duh, why doesn't he just reset the thing" whenever something went wrong, like when Sadie got hurt. I still don't know if I would call this one of my favorite SK books, and I'm far less likely to reread it than others, but it's not bad enough for me to turn in my Constant Reader badge. *Edited because I'm a moron who can't figure out how spoiler tags work. April fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 2, 2012 |
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Jan 2, 2012 02:42
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USMC_Karl posted:Just wanted to pitch in my 2 cents and say I really enjoyed 11/22/63. Gotta admit that I was completely uninterested in the story's idea when I heard about it, but picked it up cause I was bored and decided it would be a good time waster. Sure it can be a little slow, but that's the joy of the book. I have to say that the ending was very... touching. I pretty much knew the broad strokes of how it was going to end, but it still got me misty eyed when Sadie got killed and Jake met Sadie in the real world. Maybe I'm just a stupid romantic or something, but man I just felt like crying for the last couple hundred pages. My Kindle says I'm only 62% of the way through, but it seems like the JFK thing is "central" insofar as the novel is about how the JFK thing is actually not central to the story. So that "not being central" is exactly what is "central." It seems as though King is really hammering home the difference between the grand sweeping historical events and the interpersonal relationships, as they are experienced by George, both in his own relationships and in his slow immersion into Oswald's world of relationships. And because I think you're right about how a lot of Stephen King's books are like that (in terms of being more about the relationships and the periphery characters), you could probably read 11/23/63 as a kind of meta commentary on his own fiction. EDIT: Although I think there are more interesting things to take that theme (interpersonal vs. grand historical), and saying "[X-theme] or [Y-symbol] acts as a kind of meta commentary" sounds really pretentious to me. (I think this whole post I made sounds more pretentious than I'd prefer, but whatever!) DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jan 2, 2012 |
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Jan 2, 2012 02:51
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USMC_Karl posted:Just wanted to pitch in my 2 cents and say I really enjoyed 11/22/63. Gotta admit that I was completely uninterested in the story's idea when I heard about it, but picked it up cause I was bored and decided it would be a good time waster. Sure it can be a little slow, but that's the joy of the book. I have to say that the ending was very... touching. I pretty much knew the broad strokes of how it was going to end, but it still got me misty eyed when Sadie got killed and Jake met Sadie in the real world. Maybe I'm just a stupid romantic or something, but man I just felt like crying for the last couple hundred pages. I agree with this 100% (and Ozma is wrong, as usual!). Didn't like the premise and couldn't care less about Kennedy but loved the book. I've read all of his books and this is one of my favorite. I loved the first parts and he obviously has gotten good at portraying evil when it's in Maine. I loved the shout outs to It and Christine. But I thought that the time in Jodie was well done and necessary to build both the main character and to give you a sense for what it probably really would have been like to go back in time like this on a mission. Jake is still young and would, of course, live his life, make friends, fall in love. It would have been unrealistic otherwise. Also, it means more when he has to choose to sacrifice having it all in order to save the space/time continuum. I even didn't mind the brief explanation at the end - I got enough of a sense of what was going on that I could imagine it being plausible without learning enough that I would want to poke holes in it. In the end, all time travel books are flawed logically and this was one of the few that I didn't find myself criticizing. The ending was one of a few possible/predictable endings and probably the only one that I would have enjoyed intellectually (though emotionally it was tougher). I also enjoyed what I took as a reference to the Great Concavity from Infinite Jest at the end. Happened to coincide with the date of his accident, so maybe it's just coincidence.
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Jan 4, 2012 17:10
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DirtyRobot posted:(I think this whole post I made sounds more pretentious than I'd prefer, but whatever!) Not at all, I think you're spot-on. This was exactly my reaction in reading the book. Jake had much more impact in the small changes he made than with any grand historical moves. In fact, after the final reset I found myself mourning the loss of the positive effects he had made more than I celebrated the return to the "correct" timeline. In fact, I think it would have been a stronger book if Jake's stopping the assassination had been a good thing so that he was forced to choose between going back and saving the girl (and maybe losing the world) or letting his grand good deed stick. Even more "horrific" would have been an ending in which Jake goes back over and over and over, getting older and older and older, always trying to get it right but never getting it perfect and unable to ever just let it go. In the end, to the extent that 11/22/63 is about anything more than telling a good story, I think it's book about regret, nostalgia, serendipity, and (to a lesser extent) putting a human face on grand history.
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Jan 4, 2012 17:22
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werdnam posted:goes back over and over and over, getting older and older and older, always trying to get it right but never getting it perfect and unable to ever just let it go. Isn't that just the ending to the Dark Tower? Whargoul fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jan 4, 2012 |
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Jan 4, 2012 19:37
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Whargoul posted:Isn't that just the ending to the Dark Tower? Does Roland get older with each cycle in the Dark Tower? (I honestly forget.) Anyways, the true ending of the Dark Tower series is the Browning poem, which is the last cycle 
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Jan 4, 2012 19:44
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DirtyRobot posted:Does Roland get older with each cycle in the Dark Tower? (I honestly forget.) No, you are right he doesn't age.
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Jan 4, 2012 21:20
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Whargoul posted:Isn't that just the ending to the Dark Tower? Please edit your post. It appears to be a spoiler for one book but is actually a spoiler for a completely unrelated book.
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Jan 4, 2012 21:34
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Oh, why the hell not. This is my SK bookshelf:
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Jan 4, 2012 22:03
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Aatrek posted:Oh, why the hell not. This is my SK bookshelf: How are they organized? Title? Dewey Decimal system?
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Jan 4, 2012 22:41
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Ridonkulous posted:How are they organized? Title? Dewey Decimal system? Pretty sure that's by date of publication. Edit: with Dark Tower books at the end.
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Jan 4, 2012 22:48
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JustFrakkingDoIt posted:Pretty sure that's by date of publication. After looking at his wiki page, I think you are right and the second half of his books came out in a completely different order than I remember.
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Jan 4, 2012 23:06
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I disagree with the "the middle is boring because it has to be" opinions for a couple of reasons. Mainly: it didn't have to be boring. When Jake/George first gets to Dallas, King builds up the Book Depository as somehow connected to the evil that's in Derry. Here we go! Some classic King creepiness, but this time connected with a major event and place in history. This'll be fun! But, but...then the main character runs away from the interesting stuff and any source of conflict and gets mired in melodrama for a few hundred pages. What? Why? Then he gets beat up for betting -which could've worked but just felt cheap, even with the buildup- just to setup the cheesy AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND! climax. Everything after saving JFK works, but by then I didn't really care. I think the main problem with 11/22/63 is the lack of an antagonist. King writes great villains, and his best novels have something/someone you love to hate or are creeped the gently caress out by. "The past is obdurate" is an interesting idea, but it isn't used enough to be an effective "villain." The Green Card Man/Men as a running antagonist actively trying to stop Jake/George from changing anything, even little things, could've been a good source for conflict. Then maybe the main character wouldn't have to constantly have imaginary conversations with his dead friend in his head. He could be, y'know, arguing/fighting for his reasons for changing the past with someone willing/able to stop him. Conflict! Action! Intrigue! Would've been better than reading about dancing to "In the Mood" then getting some "poundcake" for the fiftieth time. In short, the middle could've shown time passing just as effectively while still being interesting to read. It's even more of a let down because the first part of the book is so well done.
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Jan 5, 2012 03:10
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Aatrek posted:Oh, why the hell not. This is my SK bookshelf: Hm! Where is Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon! Well, I guess you're not a superfan.,
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Jan 5, 2012 03:45
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Ozmaugh posted:Hm! Where is Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon! Well, I guess you're not a superfan., Bottom shelf, right next to the green and gold spine two over from The Hitchhikers Guide. Also, if you squint, there's Cycle of the Werewolf in there too, and a hardcover Eyes of the Dragon. Aatrek fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jan 5, 2012 |
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Jan 5, 2012 03:48
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Aatrek posted:Bottom shelf, the green and gold spine two over from The Hitchhikers Guide. Oh, OK. Medal restored. If your avatar wasn't gigantic I'd let you have a King Superfan badge.  Most of my King books are paperback, so I have very little on my shelf, and what I DO have is an odd assortment. There's really no reason to own Cell in hardcover, yet I do...
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Jan 5, 2012 03:50
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Ozmaugh posted:There's really no reason to own Cell in hardcover, yet I do... When it's in the $1.00 cart at Half Price Books...(that's why I have it)
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Jan 5, 2012 03:56
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I used to own them all in paperback, but have been scouring used bookstores in my area to upgrade them all to hardcovers.
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Jan 5, 2012 03:58
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Aatrek posted:I used to own them all in paperback, but have been scouring used bookstores in my area to upgrade them all to hardcovers. My parents have everything in hardcover. I should do that, as my paperbacks are falling to pieces (I think Pet Sematary is currently held together with binder clips) but I'm actually totally out of space for books at home. This is why I bought a kindle- I just don't have space to do this. I need an Adult Home, no more SF apartments.
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Jan 5, 2012 03:59
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Static Rook posted:I disagree with the "the middle is boring because it has to be" opinions for a couple of reasons. Mainly: it didn't have to be boring. When Jake/George first gets to Dallas, King builds up the Book Depository as somehow connected to the evil that's in Derry. Here we go! Some classic King creepiness, but this time connected with a major event and place in history. This'll be fun! But that whole conflict idea doesn't fit the book to begin with. I mean to me the book is about choice. Basically Jake has to make all these important choices along his journey and we get to see how they affect his life. It would be a completely different book if there were some sort of active antagonist. Although I will say that I felt LHO made a good antagonist. We know from the beginning that he is the bad guy, and we come down from that idea gradually and realize that he is just a normal human being. Sure a little (well, actually, a lot) screwed up and down on his luck, but he loves his wife (when he is not taking out his mommy issues on her) and his daughter just like you or I would. Some people agreed with me (and thanks for that) but I still feel like I'm strange in defending the book. It was an amazing book and I was really moved by it. Also the whole poundcake thing is exaggerated. I personally don't like reading sex scenes and feel that they are all pretty much just needless jerk off material, but the ones in this book were pretty minor. I can only remember one long and drawn out sex scene, and I don't remember it being too creepy. Same thing with In The Mood. It was a lot at times, but not overdone in my opinion. It's used as a way for us to understand Jake's feelings at the time. I think the dance to it like 3 or 4 times in the book? And it sets up the ending scene so well! AND ONE MORE THING! The whole past as a character thing works well. The beating from the mafia is just another roadblock that the past threw in Jake's way. Same as Jodie, Sadie, the job, the kids, and everything else. Jake had a million chances to just stop and live his life very happily, but he chose not to. He knew that gambling a second time in the DFW area was a bad idea but he did it anyway. And I don't think the climax was cheesy at all. It was the past's final gently caress you to him for messing around with it. The bullet was meant for him, but his luck held and it cost him. Jake chose to destroy everything around him in pursuit of his goal, and it finally came full circle. Ok, done now. Sorry for that.
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Jan 5, 2012 05:57
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I'm re-reading The Stand for my second go-around with it. I love the book, but I find I'm skipping through shitloads of it. Namely any time it switches to Mother Abigail's perspective, or Trashcan Man. The other biggest flaw I think is that the first act, the from the introduction and when everyone realizes they are all hosed just goes on for way, way too long. Still, though, the first act also has my absolute favorite part of the book - the random deaths of survivors of the flu. I guess I have a really dark sense of humor, but the one woman getting locked in her basement cooler thing always came off as hilarious to me.
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Jan 6, 2012 05:41
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Myrmidongs posted:Still, though, the first act also has my absolute favorite part of the book - the random deaths of survivors of the flu. I guess I have a really dark sense of humor, but the one woman getting locked in her basement cooler thing always came off as hilarious to me. I love when King does this and I wish he did it more often. The random death and destruction caused by the storm and haywire sewers in IT and all the car accidents and such at the beginning of Under The Dome were just as great.
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Jan 6, 2012 05:58
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Myrmidongs posted:Still, though, the first act also has my absolute favorite part of the book - the random deaths of survivors of the flu. I guess I have a really dark sense of humor, but the one woman getting locked in her basement cooler thing always came off as hilarious to me. "No great loss." I think that's the quote. So awesome.
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Jan 6, 2012 06:04
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Myrmidongs posted:the random deaths of survivors of the flu. No great loss.
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Jan 6, 2012 06:11
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Yes, those parts are fantastic. I think King writes really good pulp horror and those parts are pure pulp at its best. It's when he tries to escape the genre and show that he can be a serious writer too that he falls down. I'd love King to do a butterfly effect type book. One incident at the start that's left unexplained escalating into a major clusterfuck for a community with the local police unable to control whats happening, no main characters, just the town and whats happened to it and the people within it. I know that could describe quite a few of his novels - Dome, Needful Things - but Dome dragged a fair bit and Needful Things only really worked because you knew most of the characters and there were a lot of throwbacks to earlier events in Castle Rock. But my god, when that book rolls around to the finale and the bombs are being set, both church groups are at war with each other, the state cops rushing about trying to put out these small fires while Gaunt is selling automatic weapons, the book just kicks up into high gear and it's both hilarious and horrible. That's what I think I want more of. King building a work around characters that he doesn't really care about other than what they are capable of and then setting something in motion. Gaunt would probably be using Ebay or Craigslist by now, right? Think of what he could do on a global scale.
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Jan 6, 2012 06:14
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Farbtoner posted:I love when King does this and I wish he did it more often. The random death and destruction caused by the storm and haywire sewers in IT and all the car accidents and such at the beginning of Under The Dome were just as great. That was the great part of Cell for me. At the time I truly thought I was reading one of his best recent novels but then the rest of the book proceeded to suck all that early schadenfreude right out of me.
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Jan 6, 2012 06:51
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Myrmidongs posted:I'm re-reading The Stand for my second go-around with it. I love the book, but I find I'm skipping through shitloads of it. Namely any time it switches to Mother Abigail's perspective, or Trashcan Man. The other biggest flaw I think is that the first act, the from the introduction and when everyone realizes they are all hosed just goes on for way, way too long. Still, though, the first act also has my absolute favorite part of the book - the random deaths of survivors of the flu. I guess I have a really dark sense of humor, but the one woman getting locked in her basement cooler thing always came off as hilarious to me. Funny, because Trashcan Man parts are some of my favorites. In fact, I find all parts concerning Las Vegas and Flagg a hell of a lot more interesting than the parts in Boulder, except for Harold's segments. But my eyes glaze over when Fran starts talking or Stu and Larry take center stage. gently caress Fran.
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Jan 6, 2012 14:57
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oldpainless posted:Funny, because Trashcan Man parts are some of my favorites. In fact, I find all parts concerning Las Vegas and Flagg a hell of a lot more interesting than the parts in Boulder, except for Harold's segments. But my eyes glaze over when Fran starts talking or Stu and Larry take center stage. In the extended version, the part where Trashcan Man and The Kid travel together are both my favorite part and the most vile (IMHO).
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Jan 6, 2012 15:47
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Myrmidongs posted:Still, though, the first act also has my absolute favorite part of the book - the random deaths of survivors of the flu. I guess I have a really dark sense of humor, but the one woman getting locked in her basement cooler thing always came off as hilarious to me. Farbtoner posted:I love when King does this and I wish he did it more often. The random death and destruction caused by the storm and haywire sewers in IT and all the car accidents and such at the beginning of Under The Dome were just as great.
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Jan 6, 2012 16:42
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Ridonkulous posted:In the extended version, the part where Trashcan Man and The Kid travel together are both my favorite part and the most vile (IMHO). You mean the part where The Kid sticks his gun up TM's rear end and demands a reach around? Yeah, yikes.
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Jan 6, 2012 18:44
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Aatrek posted:You mean the part where The Kid sticks his gun up TM's rear end and demands a reach around? Yeah, yikes. Different strokes, Aatrek.
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Jan 6, 2012 18:57
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