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I started Wounds today and there's a lot more... I don't wanna call it humor. Its more light-hearted than I was expecting.
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Apr 15, 2022 03:55
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Opopanax posted:Fantasticland is on sale today. Haven't read it yet (because I've been waiting for a sale) but it's come up favourably in the thread before Finished Fantasticland earlier today and it was pretty enjoyable as a Lord of the Flies + Max Brooks style mashup. The story was fun but I've grown to dislike that Max Brooks/interview/found footage-esque style because the level of detachment it gives you from the events of the plot and the heavy handed foreshadowing of the 'we thought that was bad but wait until we get to X event' variety. But it's a quick read, good for page turning on a lazy afternoon, and it's $2 for now. Get it while it's still $2 imo
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Apr 15, 2022 04:59
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Opopanax posted:How was Monsterland? Seems like it got mixed reviews and I can see how alot of the really good stuff wouldn't necessarily translate off the page too well Just finished the last episode and I'd say it's quite a good horror anthology, but a bad adaptation. What's there is good, but the ones adapted from the book make a lot of unnecessary changes and none of them were really for the better imo, plus they left a few out and put in a few original stories for whatever reason. None of them were flat out bad or anything, but it's definitely a lesser vibe than the book,has commercial breaks which seems weird for a hulu original, and has a weird attempt at a shared universe that goes nowhere.
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Apr 16, 2022 04:32
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Eric LaRocca's You've Lost A Lot Of Blood was a quick and phenomenal read. It's about a serial killer, and weaves together cell phone recordings, poetry, and a novella by the killer given a few chapters at a time. It's LGBT and there's not a whole lot I can say without spoiling it. It was fast-paced, and pretty mindblowing. I'm crazy about it. Amazon has four copies left and it has jumped almost $2 in price since I bought it a few weeks ago. Wish I could get a copy of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. It was in my Amazon cart last year for $13 and I never ended up buying it. Now it's selling for $100 on eBay. escape artist fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Apr 18, 2022 |
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Apr 18, 2022 23:41
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escape artist posted:Wish I could get a copy of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. It was in my Amazon cart last year for $13 and I never ended up buying it. Now it's selling for $100 on eBay. I was looking to pick it up recently and ran into the same thing. Turns out it's out of print at the moment because it got picked up by a different publisher and is supposed to be getting reprinted soon, so you just need to wait a little while for that new run to come out and the price to go back to normal.
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Apr 19, 2022 02:05
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I do have a copy of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, and I found the best thing about it was the artwork on the cover. Underwhelming might be the best way to describe it and I didn’t find it disturbing at all. Shame because starts it decent, but it just lacks any real depth at all. That says if you are a fan of his other works you might have a more positive outcome. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Apr 19, 2022 |
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Apr 19, 2022 02:43
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I really enjoyed Things Have Gotten Worse, and I also have You've Lost a Lot of Blood on my reading pile. Also just today his new book, We Can Never Leave This Place, came in the mail! I love his book covers   
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Apr 19, 2022 03:04
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escape artist posted:Wish I could get a copy of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. It was in my Amazon cart last year for $13 and I never ended up buying it. Now it's selling for $100 on eBay. As a general bit of advice, when this happens with small press books, reach out to the author directly to see if they have any copies. For example, after the recent Silver Shamrock incident, all stock the publisher had on hand was sent to the authors, most of whom sold them via Twitter and FB.
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Apr 19, 2022 05:06
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Count Thrashula posted:I really enjoyed Things Have Gotten Worse, and I also have You've Lost a Lot of Blood on my reading pile. While as I said above I didn't enjoy THGWSWLS, I am still tempted to pick these up based on the covers. Just amazing artwork. Just curious are the other books more fleshed out or is that his writing style? If THGWSWLS was part of a short story collection I might would have enjoyed it more, but it was just to sparse on things like character development and how the plot moves forward to work as a standalone novel for me.
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Apr 19, 2022 13:21
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nate fisher posted:While as I said above I didn't enjoy THGWSWLS, I am still tempted to pick these up based on the covers. Just amazing artwork. Funny, I feel the exact opposite: any desire I have to read those books has been killed by the covers. They're so utterly unappealing.
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Apr 19, 2022 14:06
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Jedit posted:Funny, I feel the exact opposite: any desire I have to read those books has been killed by the covers. They're so utterly unappealing. Big The Cipher energy. I wanted to read that book for a long time, finally got a copy, and was both grossed out and underwhelmed. Those covers invoke a similar vibe and makes me want to avoid them
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Apr 19, 2022 14:52
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Reading The Fisherman by John Langan and it's just...perfect. I love it. What short story collection of his is best to read next?
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Apr 19, 2022 15:00
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Reading The Fisherman by John Langan and it's just...perfect. I love it. What short story collection of his is best to read next? I have only read Sefira, and honestly it was a bit of a letdown. The imagery of that haunted coastline and primordial serpent was so awesome, and nothing in Sefira really compared.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:04
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So the best King novel is Insomnia, right? And I like THGWSWLS but I think I can also agree with the above sentiment that it would've worked better as a short story. Edit: Should be wrapped up The Man In The High Castle today which means I can start tearing into Necroscope 4. Still working on Wounds but I'm splitting it up a bit. UwUnabomber fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Apr 19, 2022 |
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Apr 19, 2022 15:18
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:So the best King novel is Insomnia, right? What? Probably not. Not even top 10 or top 20. Why?
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Apr 19, 2022 15:26
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I always ranked Insomnia as one of his worst, personally. I'd probably stand by The Gunslinger or The Wasteland as his best novel, but I'm a huge sucker for weird fantasy and post apocalyptic stuff so I'm biased. In general King's short stories are far better than his longer works. They tend to be more creative and memorable and don't give him a chance to indulge in his worst habits.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:26
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It's my own personal horror hot take. And yes his short stories are universally better than his novels.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:28
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Reading The Fisherman by John Langan and it's just...perfect. I love it. What short story collection of his is best to read next? Wide Carnivorous Sky by a country mile. I love them all, but there’s clear blue water between it and the next best one. Come join my stupid creepy Langan fan club, we’re figuring out where all the stuff in his extended Langanverse is in real upstate NY.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:33
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I've been on a Stephen King resurgence lately. Going through, chronologically, books I haven't read. Just finished Road Work, which is so far the worst of the Bachman books, but is still, like, 3 out of 5 stars. I just got in the classic Movie-Tie In 1983 paperback for Cujo, because I couldn't find the hand-painted cover of the foaming dog mouth cover in paperback from the first edition. I've read 20 of his books, he's my most-read author by about a dozen books, and there's still 60 books of his I haven't read. Shitstorm Trooper posted:It's my own personal horror hot take. I meant 'Why would you rank it as his best', not "why such an insane take". King's one of those guys where even his universally despised books has fans that rank it as #1, so I don't begrudge hot takes. My reason for getting back into reading him was because I was curious about how bad Dreamcatcher could be as a novel, but decided I'd just keep reading him chronologically and read actual good books by him. My top 5, in no order, is something like The Dead Zone 'Salem's Lot The Long Walk Firestarter Misery but I would feel comfortable saying The Shining, Night Shift, Skeleton Crew or the original The Stand for any of those besides The Dead Zone, Misery and probably Salem's Lot.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:36
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Xiahou Dun posted:Wide Carnivorous Sky by a country mile. I love them all, but there’s clear blue water between it and the next best one. Oh poo poo, I forgot that was langan! Yes wide carnivorous sky slaps, definitely read it
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Apr 19, 2022 15:39
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sephiRoth IRA posted:Oh poo poo, I forgot that was langan! Yes wide carnivorous sky slaps, definitely read it Hell yes, thank you both! And yeah, I've never been to upstate NY but now I'm captivated -- need to see the Catskills. I love when horror authors conjure terror from beautiful places -- reminds me of Lovecraft making Vermont terrifying in Whisper in the Darkness
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Apr 19, 2022 16:31
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Franchescanado posted:I've been on a Stephen King resurgence lately. Going through, chronologically, books I haven't read. Just finished Road Work, which is so far the worst of the Bachman books, but is still, like, 3 out of 5 stars. I just got in the classic Movie-Tie In 1983 paperback for Cujo, because I couldn't find the hand-painted cover of the foaming dog mouth cover in paperback from the first edition. I'm really a sucker for a story where we have a world invisible to most people running parallel to the physical world that our protagonists interact with. (See: Necroscope) Insomnia being told from the point of view of a man of pretty advanced age, where we have this old man kind of doddering his way through this nightmare world poo poo on no sleep just hits me the right way to be terrifying I guess. My top five would probably be pretty similar to yours for the most part though. Dead Zone, Misery, and Salem's Lot are all rad.
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Apr 19, 2022 17:40
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:I'm really a sucker for a story where we have a world invisible to most people running parallel to the physical world that our protagonists interact with. (See: Necroscope) Insomnia being told from the point of view of a man of pretty advanced age, where we have this old man kind of doddering his way through this nightmare world poo poo on no sleep just hits me the right way to be terrifying I guess. It is absolutely a good premise, so I get that. I've only read one Koontz book, and that was Velocity. Similar to King's Cell, it was a book that started off with a strong premise, but every subsequent chapter just makes it worse and worse. I've never read any Koontz book after that. But he's one of the most successful writers of that era, and he's got loyal fans, so I'm dipping my toe back in with Phantoms. So far it's fine. Did I pick a good one? Phantoms and Watchers get recommended the most, and I picked the shorter one that doesn't use his magic dog trope (as far as I know). I also grabbed Off Season, which is my first Jack Ketchum book. So that's my tentative horror reading for now, with some stories from Ramsay Campbell's "Alone With The Horrors", which is also my first time reading Campbell. I read Story of the Eye over the weekend, and the only thing more disturbing than the actual story were Bataille's notes which details his early life around his blind father with dementia.
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Apr 19, 2022 18:25
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Franchescanado posted:I also grabbed Off Season, which is my first Jack Ketchum book. Make sure you check out the rest of the series if you like that. I've been chipping away at a huge backlog of Ketchum books for a minute. Also read Header if you like that.
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Apr 19, 2022 19:04
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Franchescanado posted:But he's one of the most successful writers of that era, and he's got loyal fans, so I'm dipping my toe back in with Phantoms. So far it's fine. Did I pick a good one? Phantoms and Watchers get recommended the most, and I picked the shorter one that doesn't use his magic dog trope (as far as I know). It’s one of the Koontz books I have the fondest memories of, and I remembered thinking Lightning was pretty good as well. Honestly, though, while I read a ton of Dean Koontz on reflection it was because I was a dumb kid with more reading comprehension than taste. It was an important part of developing my critical awareness though, realizing that he was overall a pretty bad writer. As for Stephen king in chronological order, I’ve occasionally followed along with a podcast that is discussing the books in chronological order, but while King holds up in a lot of ways the cocaine years especially are just a lot of ground to cover. https://rangedtouch.com/just-king-things/
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Apr 19, 2022 19:21
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Mighty Eris posted:It’s one of the Koontz books I have the fondest memories of, and I remembered thinking Lightning was pretty good as well. Honestly, though, while I read a ton of Dean Koontz on reflection it was because I was a dumb kid with more reading comprehension than taste. It was an important part of developing my critical awareness though, realizing that he was overall a pretty bad writer. I've been listening to random episodes of The Kingcast, which gets really good guests. I'll try out Just King Things with their Roadwork episode, since I just finished that one. Thanks for the rec. Thankfully the prose in Phantoms has been fine so far. Dialogue's a bit dumb, though.
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Apr 19, 2022 19:25
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Franchescanado posted:I've been listening to random episodes of The Kingcast, which gets really good guests. Any episodes of the king cast in particular that have good guests? And yeah, “competent but kind of dumb” is the Koontz wheelhouse.
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Apr 19, 2022 19:39
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:It's my own personal horror hot take. I liked Insomnia a lot too, although I wouldn’t call it one of his best. Creeped me out in a way that most of his writing doesn’t. It’s been years though so I can’t remember many specifics.
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Apr 19, 2022 19:40
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Mighty Eris posted:Any episodes of the king cast in particular that have good guests? Paul Tremblay on Misery (book-centric) Elijah Wood on Misery (movie-centric) Blank Check (Griffin Newman and David Sims) on Dreamcatcher Alex Winter on The Dead Zone (compares book and Cronenberg film) Mark Z. Danielewski on Cujo (book only) David Lowery on Revival Guillermo Del Toro on IT You really could just pick one with a guest you like and go. They do enough general discussion that you can drop out if they get specific about a book or movie you haven't seen, but there's only so much they can spoil in an hour. They just got King himself for an episode in March, and it's an hour long, but I haven't listened to it yet.
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Apr 19, 2022 19:59
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Mighty Eris posted:It’s one of the Koontz books I have the fondest memories of, and I remembered thinking Lightning was pretty good as well. Honestly, though, while I read a ton of Dean Koontz on reflection it was because I was a dumb kid with more reading comprehension than taste. It was an important part of developing my critical awareness though, realizing that he was overall a pretty bad writer. I read a ton of Koontz when I was in middle school as well, and yeah, he's got a kind ofworkmanline madlibs approach to horror novels (or at least with the ones up until about 1994), where he just kinda selects a couple of random monster-y characteristics, then writes a book around them. I especially remember the one with the teleporting protagonist and the psychic villain with four balls and no dick for sheer ludicrousness.
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Apr 19, 2022 20:27
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a foolish pianist posted:I read a ton of Koontz when I was in middle school as well, and yeah, he's got a kind ofworkmanline madlibs approach to horror novels (or at least with the ones up until about 1994), where he just kinda selects a couple of random monster-y characteristics, then writes a book around them. I especially remember the one with the teleporting protagonist and the psychic villain with four balls and no dick for sheer ludicrousness. I have hazy memories of that being The Bad Place where the four balls no dick person impregnates themselves to have selfcest psychic babies, right?
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Apr 19, 2022 20:57
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Mighty Eris posted:I have hazy memories of that being The Bad Place where the four balls no dick person impregnates themselves to have selfcest psychic babies, right? I think that was 4ball’s mom that did that?
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Apr 19, 2022 21:49
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a foolish pianist posted:I think that was 4ball’s mom that did that? It was, yes. It's also called out by the characters as being seriously loving weird, so it's not a candidate for the Bad Sex Awards or anything. Koontz has done a few other good books that I've read as well. Twilight Eyes is another hidden world narrative, although it feels like the first book in a series that was never written. And The Face of Fear is a solid thriller about a mountaineer who developed a phobia of heights after an accident on the slopes and finds himself trapped in a skyscraper at night with a psychopathic killer. That one got made into a decent TV movie as well, which is worth checking out just to see Kevin "Batman" Conroy in a live action role. The thing with Koontz is that people often muddle him up with Richard Laymon, who is the guy you go to if you want dubious hetero sex in your horror. I believe they had the same publisher in a lot of markets in the 1990s, and said publisher used a very similar format for the covers.
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Apr 19, 2022 22:29
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Franchescanado posted:My top 5, in no order, is something like King has become one of my go to writers for audio books. Why? Because I listen to audio books while running and I normally only listen to ones I’ve already read (if I get distracted no big deal). My top 5 I guess would be: ‘Salem’s Lot (I think I’ve read or listen to it close to 20 times) The Shining The Stand (original version) The Dead Zone Different Seasons (I know that is cheating) My favorite recent is Revival (might be the only good book he has written recently) and my favorite short story is The Jaunt (Last Rung on the Ladder is a close 2nd). I know not the King thread many of us got our start with King (a combo of the original ’Salem’s Lot miniseries as a very young child and finding a copy of Firestarter in 3rd grade for me). nate fisher fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Apr 19, 2022 |
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Apr 19, 2022 23:30
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Count Thrashula posted:I really enjoyed Things Have Gotten Worse, and I also have You've Lost a Lot of Blood on my reading pile. Amazon doesn't have that shipping until June 24th. Very nice. A $30 copy of Things Have Gotten Worse popped up on Thriftbooks today, but it was gone by the time I was able to get home (2 hours later) escape artist fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Apr 20, 2022 |
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Apr 20, 2022 00:10
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Hell yes, thank you both! And yeah, I've never been to upstate NY but now I'm captivated -- need to see the Catskills. I love when horror authors conjure terror from beautiful places -- reminds me of Lovecraft making Vermont terrifying in Whisper in the Darkness The Fisherman takes place within 20 miles of my parents’ house where I grew up. My dad and I hunted down the stream from the third section and did a long walk/explore. [spoilers]It’s a pretty nice patch and I don’t think we saw any fish monsters[/spoilers]
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Apr 20, 2022 00:24
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Jedit posted:It was, yes. It's also called out by the characters as being seriously loving weird, so it's not a candidate for the Bad Sex Awards or anything. Koontz had a bunch of weird sex stuff - Night Chills, for instance. I think he gradually got away from that as the 90s progressed, though.
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Apr 20, 2022 01:04
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Stephen king chat https://twitter.com/stephenking/status/1516600154153005056?s=21&t=MTAqU34ctBeWhrkKelFprA
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Apr 20, 2022 07:06
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Just read You've Lost A Lot of Blood in a single sitting (it's a pretty quick read), and... I'm not sure how I feel about this? It all feels a little half-baked, maybe a touch first-draft-y. Maybe I'm just not inherently interested in serial killers? I feel like the thing that's most interesting about it -- the concept that (huge ending spoilers) the "artistic" serial killer is a rampant plagiarist who's never created anything and kills the men whose art he steals, and that the various convoluted explanations he provides for his crimes are just excuses -- is kind of intriguing, but it goes by really fast, and there's not really a cohesive through-line to the whole thing. I'm also not sure LaRocca's prose is quite good enough for all the weight he's putting on prose and voice over plot and character. Maybe the language being slightly janky is character voice stuff? I dunno. Don't regret reading it, but I'm not sure I'm going to go hunting for other LaRocca.
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Apr 20, 2022 07:41
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Good Citizen posted:Stephen king chat Lemme guess: already optioned as a trilogy by New Line Cinema?
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