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Rev. Bleech_ posted:Also part of the whole goddamn point of the cycle was Roland becoming less of a total bastard, softening him up kind of ruins the point Yeah, a huge part of the series is that Roland starts off as this grim figure mechanically marching towards the Tower, moving relentlessly through everything in his path. By the time of The Gunslinger he's fallen so far that Roland "I kill with my heart" Deschain kills somebody accidentally because he just snaps a shot off carelessly.
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Apr 13, 2022 00:12
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My other problem with the revision is that it sheds a lot of the economy of language from the original version. When you're writing about total-bastard-stage Roland, that cold, clipped, stark language really sells it. God only knows what kind of florid poo poo would replace the perfect simplicity of "The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed." had King written it in 2003
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Apr 14, 2022 23:26
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Poor Mr. Chips... I can't help but think of Big Jim and Jr. now, comparing/contrasting them with Butch and Henry. but at least Jr. had the brain tumor and didn't appear to be a total psycho until then. Henry, with such a deliberate act as befriending and poisoning the dog was clearly a monster even at this age. Patrick's death reminded me of one of my favorite parts of The Stand. "No great loss." Gnoman posted:They were made into successful, boring adults. I understand but my point was just that IT is basically immortal. It could have made them all boring adults who never thought of Derry a day in their lives and died comfortably in beds thousands of miles away. Instead IT provoked them for no reason other than quote:“It may want us all back,” Mike said a little cryptically. “Sure. It may. It may want revenge. After all, we balked It once before.” quote:Heather Libby, the minister’s wife, happened to be looking out the window of the parsonage’s kitchen at the time, and she said that the steeple “exploded like someone loaded it up with dynamite.” Given King's tendency to have such minor connections in his books, I figured this lady has to be related to Pipe from Under the Dome? Is Dreamcatcher good? I saw the movie forever ago, I hear it wasn't a great adaptation but I just randomly thought of it when perusing a list of King audiobooks.
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Apr 16, 2022 07:46
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IT is immortal, or close enough to it, but it's also spiteful, cowardly, prideful, and dull. It could let them grow old and die but then there's always going to be an asterisk next to their names in whatever scorebook IT keeps. Think of all the times your brain brings up embarrassing or shameful moments when you're trying to sleep and multiply that by infinity, because IT wouldn't ever forget it.
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Apr 16, 2022 08:16
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NikkolasKing posted:Is Dreamcatcher good? I saw the movie forever ago, I hear it wasn't a great adaptation but I just randomly thought of it when perusing a list of King audiobooks. It’s awful. There is a lot that is wrong with it but one thing I will never get is the eyebrows they put on Morgan Freeman. There is a lot more wrong with the movie than this, but I mean, why?! e: maybe his eyebrows were described like this in the book? I dunno, never read it. https://images.app.goo.gl/1c47zBbsZsfGY4vWA
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Apr 16, 2022 10:30
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NikkolasKing posted:Poor Mr. Chips... I can't help but think of Big Jim and Jr. now, comparing/contrasting them with Butch and Henry. but at least Jr. had the brain tumor and didn't appear to be a total psycho until then. Henry, with such a deliberate act as befriending and poisoning the dog was clearly a monster even at this age. Honestly I feel almost bad for Henry, like yeah he’s a bullying racist piece of poo poo and nothing really excuses that obviously, but he’s ultimately a victim himself because killing Mr. Chips was motivated by him being convinced that all blacks were the devil and boo hoo hoo. He probably was never gonna be a great person but he probably wouldn’t have become a thrall for It if he’d been raised properly.
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Apr 16, 2022 12:21
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NikkolasKing posted:Is Dreamcatcher good? I saw the movie forever ago, I hear it wasn't a great adaptation but I just randomly thought of it when perusing a list of King audiobooks. It is not well regarded. I thought it was okay, and I think I've got a higher opinion of it than most. Even King has said he doesn't like it. It was written by hand as a way to help recover from his accident, and as such he was on a lot of pain medication.
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Apr 16, 2022 16:59
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Yeah I think that was the most recent book he said he can't remember writing.
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Apr 17, 2022 03:55
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NikkolasKing posted:
The nicest thing I can say about Duddits and the shitweasels is that at least it isn’t Cell. Read it if you’re a completionist, but it’s terrible
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Apr 17, 2022 04:51
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I read The Institute over the Easter weekend (well, finished the last 40ish pages today) and it was a light, enjoyable read. Not groundbreaking by any means, but enjoyable nonetheless. A perfect story for a lazy weekend, so to say. I wasn't ever bored and at times truly hooked by the story, but that was mostly in the beginning and middle. The ending was adequate, I think, but too predictable which is why it took me a couple of days after the weekend to get back into it and finish the book. I don't really know what to think of it. It was a solid 7.5 out of 10 read for me, and I liked that it felt modern without being stilted (sometimes I really get a sense of "Darn kids with their newfangled technologies" vibe from King even when I read stuff from a decade or two ago) and I liked the story and characters but it all felt very... I don't know, unoriginal? It was like King picked up on a ton of themes and ideas that were popular 10-15 years ago and decided he needed to write something along those lines. It was basically Cabin in the Woods + Stranger Things + New Mutants + Minority Report (at the end), and reusing themes from 11/22/63 and Revival, although it did feel more hopeful that those. I dunno. A fun read, like I said. I like the story and I liked the characters, even though I feel he uses characters like Tim a lot and nothing about him felt (again the word) original. Luke was fine. I did like the way he used his intelligence in a pretty natural and pleasant way, both to drive the story forward and as an exposition device. What I didn't like was that King seemed to be very aware that Luke was dangerously close to being like the perfect protagonist, and would insert these observations to highlight that Luke is just a kid. His thoughts on being classist/prejudiced towards normal people felt really random. Sometimes he'd be perfectly capable of grasping his interactions with others and at other times he'd doubt himself suddenly or realize he was being judgmental even though there wasn't really any reason for it. As if King felt the need to insert flaws into Luke to make him more believable/relatable/realistic even thought the situation at that point didn't motivate it in any way. It just felt random. "Oh poo poo, haven't reminded the reader that Luke isn't perfect in a while so now I just gotta make him doubt himself and be awkward for a second.", you know? I did really like that the ending was much more mundane than I expected halfway through. I was afraid that it was going to be a Revival like ending where there's a big unknowable evil that's connected to the dots and the kids are used to keep it at bay, and now that the system broke down the world is going to end a lá Cabin in the Woods, but thankfully it was just the evil of normal humanity at large, and the ambiguity at the end of whether or not the institute was right was nice. Still, that's getting into the web of precognition and couldn't they have prevented nuclear armageddon by making people miss phone calls and poo poo instead of killing them. Like they were trying to stop the first piece of a huge Rube Goldberg machine when they could've, much more efficiently, stopped it at one of the end pieces. I feel like if the Institute really had all that power and really did have the best intentions they've been doing a really lovely job, both for the world and themselves and whatever their agenda is, which they should've known. At this point, with all they've accomplished so far, preventing the downfall of humanity would go hand in hand with improving life for all people to a point they hadn't despite having over half a decade to do so. But that gets into ideologically complex territory and I don't blame King for not going there. 7.5/10
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Apr 21, 2022 17:36
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I enjoyed this book, that I agree completely with this Taeke on it.
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Apr 21, 2022 22:26
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There a compilation of the differences between the OG The Stand and the unedited (or at least, far less so) version? Googling just depressed me a little when I read someone say that No Great Loss was superfluous which man, sure is a blistering hot take if I ever saw one even if it’s in the strictest sense unnessasary.
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Apr 28, 2022 15:33
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I don't know if there's a compilation, but off the top of my head: No The Kid at all No fight with Frannies mom No 'No Great Loss' and I think a few other scenes of society breaking down Various updates to pop culture references (Art Fleming to Alex Trebek) (uncut version) Unnecessary additional King foreshadowing (e.g. the 'And Harold Lauder succumbed to his destiny' line after meeting Nadine) (uncut version) The coda with Flagg was cut I think some Boulder stuff was cut too, but it's mostly so bland that you don't notice it added back in Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Apr 28, 2022 |
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Apr 28, 2022 15:46
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I think Stu's journey home though epic snows with Tom as well, after the the bomb goes off in Vegas.
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May 3, 2022 20:28
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lol i forgot another one. Larry's mom hates disco instead of rap.
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May 3, 2022 20:42
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re: Earlier cosmology conversation: Dark Tower itself is the multiverse, and a pretty big one (described to basically be larger than Marvel or DC). Gan is God essentially and might *be* the Tower itself too. You've got "Beams" that hold the Tower together, who are all basically lesser gods. The Turtle is the beam guardian for Prime Earth and is one of the few living ones left. He's separate than Gan entirely - IT sensed something greater than itself and The Turtle in IT and started worrying. Beams are attacked both physically and metaphysical. Breakers were used to screw with time and assassinate certain people which broke reality apart on a metaphysical level. But the Old Ones started building physical Guardians to help as well when the actual ones died. Each beam guardian has a counter demon. The Macroverse or Todash space is outside the universe and where almost all the monsters come from. The most powerful we've seen tend to all be perceived as spider-y. The Crimson Kings mom and Pennywise and the CK are the most powerful we've seen. Those of that level can access "deadlighrs" from the Todash space that is just incomprehensible Lovecraft stuff. ITs true form is supposedly the Deadlights themselves. Crimson Kings mom came through todash space and had sex with Arthur Eld, which resulted in the King and makes he and Roland related. Roland had sex with a guardian opposite demon and had a spider baby. Thinnys are breaks where Todash space slips through. In The Mist, Arrowhead Project seemed to open a pretty gigantic hole where it all was leaking through. Maeryln is also a super powerful Prim demon and who basically destroyed the Great Old Ones until Arthur Eld fixed everything. He then was responsible for the Crimson Queen/Eld pairing. He's also Flaggs dad. That's the basic cosmology. Some of that, mostly the Crimson Kings background, was given the the Dark Tower comics, which were endorsed and actually pretty good. Edit: wrote this on my phone while waiting on something; I'll fix spelling later.
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May 3, 2022 23:45
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I've got a question about Needful Things. At one point in it, Alan says, "Well, you get through to Henry Payton and tell him to take a man named Leland Gaunt into custody. As a material witness will do to begin with. That’s Gaunt, G as in George. Do you copy? Ten-four.” Is Gaunt's name pronounced like Jaunt? Like, sure, people know that George begins with that soft sound, but shouldn't Alan have used whatever sound his name actually uses?
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May 5, 2022 00:41
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He means that the last name starts with a G. He's using 'George' as an example because that's the letter G in the variant of the phonetic alphabet that police use for spelling things out on the radio.
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May 5, 2022 01:20
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Yeah the official phonetic alphabet entry for G is "golf" (at least in the military) but people use all kinds of replacements to serve the same purpose. Generally you want to use something is distinct enough to not be mistaken on a bad connection - grass or George are fine choices, guy or go would be less optimal. Less important to convey proper pronunciation than to ensure accurate information is being recorded in the case of something like... calling in air support or a medievac or an APB.
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May 5, 2022 04:58
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Police have their own variant, generally. I work in EMS and we use the same dispatchers out here that the sheriff's office uses, so I hear them using it all the time. I remember looking up the reason why they use a different one a long while back, and IIRC it's because police do a lot more spelling out of names and license plates and whatnot over the radio so their version uses shorter words just to make it easier to say. Off the top of my head, I think it goes... Adam Boy Charles David Edward Frank George Henry Ida John King Lincoln Mary Nora Ocean Paul Queen Robert Sam Tom Union Victor William X-ray Young Zebra.
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May 5, 2022 06:03
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Wasn't the institute the same organization as from Firestarter?
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May 5, 2022 06:25
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titties posted:Wasn't the institute the same organization as from Firestarter? That was The Shop, but it would be cool if it was the same group!
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May 5, 2022 12:17
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Stephen King's The Gaunt
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May 5, 2022 12:23
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Baron von Eevl posted:Stephen King's The Gaunt I was fairly stoned when I posted last night, and I had this thought in my mind, too. I was pretty sure I'd discovered a connection there, but no, all I discovered was police and the military use a different phonetic alphabet.
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May 5, 2022 12:54
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gileadexile posted:That was The Shop, but it would be cool if it was the same group! Oh, ok. Firestarter was the second king book I ever read and i don't think I've read it since the late 90's. Is the shop canonically the NSA?
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May 6, 2022 02:18
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It's like the double secret NSA that a lot of people in the 70's assumed the government was hiding somewhere. Think like...MIB but more sinister and dressed like insurance salesman. IMO the Shop was going to be more prominent in the later DT but King just wanted to distance himself from anything related to Tommyknockers so we got the Institute and North Central Positronics and all that instead.
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May 6, 2022 03:10
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Read Dark Tower 1, original version. I liked it, but I think it may be the King i liked the least, I've been reading a lot of his this year. Does the quality of the series come and go or is it downhill? As in, should i read until i don't like it anymore? The page count goes ballistic. King's books I read this year I've enjoyed more than Gunslinger: Pet sematary, Carrie, Night shift, Misery, Salem's lot, Night shift. And in other years Stand and IT. Edit: i guess i enjoyed Cell less than DT 1. I guess i should stick to his horror? I'm still missing some classics.
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May 9, 2022 00:56
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Book 3 and 4 are the two best in the series. But if you didn’t like The Gunslinger then idk what to tell you.
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May 9, 2022 00:58
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I did like it! I'd like to know more about how our world becomes the one the characters inhabit, and even the mythology of how it brings together all of his works sounds interesting. Father Callahan's redemption, etc. King himself becoming a character does sound terrible, but maybe it could work. The entire Tull sequence was good, where everything was "slightly" off. It's just that I enjoyed all the other works of his more. 3 and 4 being the best sounds pretty doable, only one "okay" King book to trudge through. But as i mentioned before, I'll probably enjoy the shining much more, or the one about the killer car or some other classic I'm forgetting.
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May 9, 2022 01:08
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Gunslinger is kind of an odd duck for the series, it was mostly written in the 70s and was collected and republished later when he became more successful.
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May 9, 2022 01:12
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It’s been awhile since I read the series front to back but it’s certainly worth reading the whole thing imo. Typical King problems where the book starts to bloat and he seems to sort of meander for awhile crop up especially in the last 3. The series probably would have been better with 6 books and more editing. Personal story: I was really awaiting the release of DT7 and it came out while I was at work and I called a Barnes and Noble asking for one to be set aside because I was afraid it would sell out and the girl was like yeah I’ll put one under the counter for you and kind of laughed and after work I sped over and walked in to see a big round table front and center with like 150 copies and no people around it and I walked to the counter and the girl pulled the book out and said I was lucky to have reserved a copy.
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May 9, 2022 01:14
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The last 3 do have a bit of bloat, but 5 is still pretty decent. It gets silly and overly referential, and loses its way a little, but overall it's a decent 7 Samurai story. I think he wrote most of it before The Van but it seems like that's when he figured out where he was going with the series and stayed working towards a conclusion. It's also when he decided taheen and dogans and comma comma comallah should be a thing and kept that through the last 3 books, so there's an odd consistency between those that doesn't really exist between any of the first 4.
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May 9, 2022 01:23
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Wizard and Glass could almost be read as a standalone a story. It's my favourite Dark Tower book by far.
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May 9, 2022 01:36
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Just gonna drop a link to the Book Barn discord, it's active, but it could always use some new blood. https://discord.gg/ZzZBJd6m But otoh i should write less there and post more here, we don't want the forums to die
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May 9, 2022 01:45
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Kosmo Gallion posted:Wizard and Glass could almost be read as a standalone a story. It's my favourite Dark Tower book by far. Seconding this. Gunslinger was kind of a slog to get through, 2 and 3 get the ball rolling, 4 is probably my favorite King book overall, 5-7 are like... okay.
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May 9, 2022 02:29
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Yeah, I really do not feel like The Gunslinger is all that representative of the series as a whole. To me, it’s probably King’s most “amateur” book by a pretty wide margin and really feels like something written by a 19-year-old kid, for better or worse. I think Drawing of the Three is just worlds better - a far more engaging, accomplished and infinitely better written book than the first one; and then The Wastelands and Wizard & Glass are absolutely right on a par with it. I cannot implore you enough to give the series another chance - the first book is such a total and complete outlier in the series in terms of writing quality and pacing that it’s almost as if it’s written by someone else. To be frank, I actually recommend people start with books 2 and 3 in The Dark Tower, and then go back and read the first book. By then, you actually have enough affection and legitimate sustained interest in the characters to make it through the drat thing without just giving up on the series as a lost cause. kaworu fucked around with this message at 03:38 on May 9, 2022 |
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May 9, 2022 03:35
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Mr. Nemo posted:Read Dark Tower 1, original version. I liked it, but I think it may be the King i liked the least, I've been reading a lot of his this year. Does the quality of the series come and go or is it downhill? As in, should i read until i don't like it anymore? The page count goes ballistic. Drawing of the Three is fairly solid in a lot of ways - expands on the worldbuilding, deepens and complicates Roland's character (he becomes both more and less sympathetic as a protagonist), the pacing is pretty tight (almost frantic tbh) - but it also suffers from some of King's worst habits - Eddie Dean starts out as reheated Larry from the Stand, the Odetta/Detta stuff is full of some of the ugliest racial tropes King ever put in a book, the whole thing feels a little "bottle episode" ish. As sequels go you could do a lot worse. It is a very different book from the Gunslinger though, so don't let the prose in that one put you off the early sequels which are among of some King's best stuff. Waste Lands and Wizard & Glass are where King hits his stride in the series though, in a major way. I think Wolves of the Calla isn't even a huge drop in quality from those, it is just very clear that King's storytelling priorities have shifted between entries 4 and 5. Also try to find the first editions with the illustrations if you can, makes a world of difference. The Dave McKean artwork for Wizard and Glass still resonates, two decades on. Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 04:06 on May 9, 2022 |
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May 9, 2022 04:03
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The new firestarter is very bad and I laughed at several parts I am pretty sure the filmmakers didn't intend to be funny. But mostly it's just very boring.
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May 13, 2022 03:16
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Is the recent Jerusalem's Lot series any good? Seems like they took some liberties with the adaptation but it was popular enough to get a second season apparently.
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May 13, 2022 04:57
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It's good, but it should probably have been 6 episodes instead of 10.
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May 13, 2022 05:02
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