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Fire Safety Doug
Sep 3, 2006

99 % caffeine free is 99 % not my kinda thing
Re: Blood Standard, my comment in this very thread was "it’s got that tough-guy feel of his early stuff and some of the cosmic horror elements as well, and writing for a bigger audience has helped cut down on those interminable descriptions of inchoate howling voids of cyclopean encyclopedias."

I reckon that's about right, but I haven't really thought about that book since I read it. A decent book, not amazing, but I'll probably read the next one.

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chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

Bilirubin posted:

Never sell books

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

I've made a fair amount of money selling books.

And I've used that money to buy more books.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I've never made any kind of money selling books, but I've also only ever sold crappy mass market paperbacks and the occasional oddball limited hardcover or whatever. I usually just take the random crap into Half Price Books though, so maybe there's a better way to get rid of them.

And yeah, what little money I make buys more books. But mostly makes room for books I actually want instead of the crud that accumulates over the years.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

A lot of it is being lucky enough to own something that shoots up in value. Another big part is having a general knowledge of the market. Like, the Grant editions of the last three Dark Tower books are not worth anything, but the Grant editions of the first four are worth a bit to a whole loving lot depending on which book it is and condition.

Edmond Dantes
Sep 12, 2007

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Ornamented Death posted:

the last three Dark Tower books are not worth anything
There. Much better.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
last four

Edmond Dantes
Sep 12, 2007

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Wizard and Glass is the best thing King has written. :colbert:

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I made the mistake(?) of reading the comic adaptation before reading Wizard & Glass, not realizing they covered the same backstory. I'd say the comic is better, if for no other reason than being short.

Also despite really liking Dark Tower, even the crappy parts, I'm not sure I'd call any of them the best thing King's ever written. That said, I'm not sure what I would call the best thing he's written. I'm not sure he's ever managed to write the best thing he theoretically could have written.

Edmond Dantes
Sep 12, 2007

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I have become retroactively soured on King over the years; I read a lot of his stuff when I was a kid, ate the Dark tower hiatus after Wizard and Glass and the payoff was... not worth it. 5 was not good but not terrible, 6 was rubbish and I could have forgiven 7 (and the series as a whole, even if I still hold 1-4 dear) if he hadn't pulled that loving deus ex machina with the kid and the eraser or hadn't started with the truck bullshit again, and this isn't even getting into the pregnancy poo poo, Jake's death via aforementioned truck or a bunch of other stuff that I'm probably forgetting. It also had that copout in the coda going "you should stop reading now, this is for people who didn't like how the book ended". I haven't read anything he put out after 7 nor gone back to read the stuff that came out before that but I hadn't read.

Also Cujo.

What the gently caress was that book.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Edmond Dantes posted:

I have become retroactively soured on King over the years; I read a lot of his stuff when I was a kid, ate the Dark tower hiatus after Wizard and Glass and the payoff was... not worth it. 5 was not good but not terrible, 6 was rubbish and I could have forgiven 7 (and the series as a whole, even if I still hold 1-4 dear) if he hadn't pulled that loving deus ex machina with the kid and the eraser or hadn't started with the truck bullshit again, and this isn't even getting into the pregnancy poo poo, Jake's death via aforementioned truck or a bunch of other stuff that I'm probably forgetting. It also had that copout in the coda going "you should stop reading now, this is for people who didn't like how the book ended". I haven't read anything he put out after 7 nor gone back to read the stuff that came out before that but I hadn't read.

Also Cujo.

What the gently caress was that book.

I know I've said this before, probably in this thread, but I'm convinced that King mostly got big early in his career due to being just different enough and just timely enough that there was nobody doing the same thing as him at the moment. And if he hadn't gotten so big, so fast, he might have had publishers who were a little more willing to force him to work with an editor that was up to telling him to cut poo poo instead of letting him write whatever comes to mind. So many of his books that are just okay would probably be very good with some judicious editing, or at the very least someone who was more willing to call him out on poo poo that doesn't make sense.

Dark Tower is kind of another layer of that entirely, I think. It's like seeing every internet geek's "dream project" that they craft in their head over decades actually become a reality, and it's plagued with the exact sort of inconsistencies and tonal shifts you'd expect from an author who is too attached to an idea trying to work it out over a matter of decades. That, plus the unnecessary "King Universe" tie-ins to other novels, means it's a highly ambitious, flawed mess. But I'm convinced that had he written it all prior to publishing any of it, and had someone (exceptionally patient) pick it apart with a fine-toothed comb to remove all the cruft and dumb poo poo, it could have been fantastic.

As far as Cujo is concerned you can probably blame/thank ample amounts of cocaine for that one, depending on your disposition towards the book.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


King has a bunch of good books and I feel most people forget he ''also wrote that one.''

Here's my list of good ones, up until 2010.

1974 - Carrie
1975 - Salem's Lot
1977 - The Shining
1978 - Night Shift (stories)
1978 - The Stand
1979 - The Dead Zone
1982 - The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
1982 - Different Seasons (novellas)
1983 - Christine
1983 - Pet Sematary
1984 - The Talisman (written with Peter Straub)
1985 - Skeleton Crew (stories, including "The Mist")
1986 - It
1987 - Misery
1987 - The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
1989 - The Dark Half
1990 - Four Past Midnight (stories)
1991 - Needful Things
1991 - The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
1993 - Nightmares & Dreamscapes (stories)
1996 - The Green Mile
1996 - Desperation
1998 - Bag of Bones
2002 - From a Buick 8
2002 - Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales
2010 - Full Dark, No Stars

Long Walk is his best one though.

Edmond Dantes
Sep 12, 2007

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Yeah, sounds about right. I think that's why I like 4 so much, it has everything great about the series without the "Kingverse" bullshit. 1-3 also handled that stuff way differently than 5-7; ties to other books in 1-3 were closer to cameos or winks for people who had read them, but suddenly after 4 you had major characters and concepts being pulled in and if you hadn't read everything he had put out before them some parts didn't make much sense.

I'm also realising that I read most of his stuff in Spanish and I only read Dark Tower in English, so I'm starting to wonder how much of King's writing affectation/tics got lost in translation and how much of it only came to play at a later date, because for the life of me I can't remember anything even close to "Dad-a-chum? Dum-a-chum? Ded-a-chek? Did-a-chick?" in his earlier stuff.

MockingQuantum posted:

As far as Cujo is concerned you can probably blame/thank ample amounts of cocaine for that one, depending on your disposition towards the book.

The only think I remember about Cujo is that I finished reading that book and feeling that nothing had loving happened in it. Also a whole sideplot of some guy masturbating on a bed? Because he was jealous?

There's some urban legend about King's publisher sending him a cheque for Cujo and King not even remembering having written the book since he crammed it out in a week in the middle of a coke bender and I gotta tell you, I believe it.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


Edmond Dantes posted:


I'm also realising that I read most of his stuff in Spanish and I only read Dark Tower in English, so I'm starting to wonder how much of King's writing affectation/tics got lost in translation and how much of it only came to play at a later date, because for the life of me I can't remember anything even close to "Dad-a-chum? Dum-a-chum? Ded-a-chek? Did-a-chick?" in his earlier stuff.



Don't quote me but I think that Library Policeman had some of that. I think he used it a lot when dealing with like, repressed childhood trauma.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



ravenkult posted:

King has a bunch of good books and I feel most people forget he ''also wrote that one.''

a good list

That's a good list, and I'd agree with everything on it (that I've read, which is about half of them), and I'm not sure I'd add anything personally. I'd easily just hand someone the first six on that list as the "must reads" if they were new to King. I tend to lean on From a Buick 8 for people who are iffy on King, though that one has its problems too.

Don't get me wrong from my previous posts, I'm absolutely a King fan and often a King apologist, I just always wonder how great his books could be compared to how they are. That said, I don't feel like he really needed more aggressive editing until around It and later.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


The editing would have been handy after a while, yes. It, The Stand already could have been cut down a lot and The Stand definitely needed an actual ending. It definitely looks like he's had carte blanche to do whatever the gently caress. Even more so after he ''retired'' I feel, because Duma Key was even more disjointed.

I mean King's early works where small, fairly tightly written novels. Long Walk, Carrie, The Gunslinger, Dead Zone, etc are all like what, sub-300 pages?

Bilirubin
Feb 16, 2014

The sanctioned action is to CHUG



I raise you all of them

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

Bilirubin posted:

I raise you all of them
Worthy of almostemptyquote.

a foolish pianist
May 6, 2007

(bi)cyclic mutation

For King, really only The Gunslinger and his short stories are worthwhile. Everything else starts dragging and gets tiresome quickly.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

Bilirubin posted:

I raise you all of them

the waste lands is okay

thats as far as im willing to go

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


Which one starts with them having a riddle competition with a train and then goes to boring rear end backstory about teenage Roland? That's the farthest I got.

I dug the hell out of the weirdness of that setting though.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


a foolish pianist posted:

For King, really only The Gunslinger and his short stories are worthwhile. Everything else starts dragging and gets tiresome quickly.

what the gently caress did I just say motherfucker

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
I haven't touched The Dark Tower since high school (probably the best time to read it), but I only remember being disappointed by the sixth book.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
when king got hit by a van his brain broke along with most of his skeleton

unfortunately this happened when the dark tower was half finished

UCS Hellmaker
Mar 29, 2008
Toilet Rascal
Dream catcher is the best example of him being broke brain in those first few years. By golly that's a hosed up disjointed book. I think he didn't even want to publish it but his editor wanted to.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

MockingQuantum posted:

How was Blood Standard? I haven't really heard anything about it, positive or negative

I enjoyed it quite a bit. If you've read Barron's horror, you'll see a lot of the same themes pop up, but it was interesting to see him do something with them outside of horror. I found it a little odd how readily most (all?) characters just accepted all the ultraviolence going on around them, but at the same time characters accepting and adapting to circumstances is common in Barron's stories. It's also clear that Barron is getting better at writing novels; I loved The Croning, but it's hard to argue that it's not just a handful of short stories stitched together. Blood Standard never felt like that, and the plot moved along briskly. All in all, it's a fun book.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
Is Best Horror of the Year a good anthology? The tenth volume is on sale for $1.99 on Kindle.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Solitair posted:

Is Best Horror of the Year a good anthology? The tenth volume is on sale for $1.99 on Kindle.

Yes, Ellen Datlow is a fantastic editor.

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

does anyone have ligotti's mailing address, i think a stalker would be good for his self-esteem

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

this isn't even a crazy-fan thing, i think his stuff is moderately-good at best, i just for some reason feel a spiritual connection to the man and think a few mysterious letters from me would be good for him at this stage of his life

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
he stopped writing for a while until he had some kind of massive intestinal failure and that got him going again

so mailing him a few locks of your hair dipped in blood or whatever might actually be good for his creative output

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

we could be friends

Pththya-lyi
Nov 8, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
I'd kinda be curious to see Ligotti's take on Misery

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

he's almost definitely a goon so is probably reading these posts and having a meltdown irl

thomas calm down i'm not actually going to stalk you

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

there's a bit in his wikipedia page that's something like "ligotti is three-quarters sicilian, one-quarter polish. in interviews he has said 'i don't mean to imply that being polish is inherently existentially terrifying. but it is'" and it made me laugh out loud (i am also polish)

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

cosmic ancestral despair

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

actually i've just figured out what i like about ligotti's work, is how matter-of-fact it is. i was reading teatro grottesco and the clown puppet story and town manager story both made me lol (not in a bad way, they were my favourites) because they just perfectly captured that tone of "i'm just trying to live my life and this loving happened, what can you do?" the characters seem to be more exasperated than frightened by the horrors they're confronted with, even under fear of death. it's great. it's been a few years since i read any laird barron who i think is ligotti's closest contemporary, he has some good stuff but he pissed me off a bit because he tended more toward "and it was so scary, holy poo poo it was so scary it was so loving terrifying i just about died" lovecraftian histrionics. ligotti gets too matter-of-fact to the point where some of his stories become impossible to read because they're just a depressed man droning on about nothing, but his good stuff really does nail the "oh gently caress not this poo poo again" reaction that certain personalities have to terrifying apocalyptic phenomena

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
avs i'm assuming you've seen melancholia?

avshalemon
Jun 28, 2018

chernobyl kinsman posted:

avs i'm assuming you've seen melancholia?
loving

i haven't seen it and it's one of those cases where people keep recommending it to me (usually in contexts like the book barn general horror thread) and i desperately want to watch it but every time i actually get around to watching it i am interrupted by minor karmic misfortune. it has been a running joke in my life ever since it was released, which was... 10-ish years ago i think? lord time moves fast

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A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

i've never read ligotti but that current 93 album he wrote the lyrics for is badass

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