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Frannie is the worst character in the book imo. It’s been years since I read it and I can give no examples or analysis of why but I have my opinion and that’s that. I’m about 500 pages into 11/22/63 and it started off good and it was really nice getting to revisit Derry but while the page by page writing is good it’s been kind of dragging for awhile and I just want to get back to the interesting stuff. Still worth finishing certainly.
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Aug 14, 2022 01:49
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I wasn't really a fan of Stan or Frannie tbh, it just feels like they represent King's hokey thoughts of smalltown White American goodness & values but (consequently) their ethics and morality are as hosed as anybody's. lol at the weird "pro-life" poo poo
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Aug 14, 2022 01:57
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Punkin Spunkin posted:Yeah, good point...I finished The Stand, really just zoomed through it. No regrets. Good entertaining read, some uneven stuff and some things I found really corny or aged poorly, but good poo poo. Though I definitely agree with the people who prefer the first half society collapsing stuff. Time to watch the 94 miniseries I reckon. laws yes! M-O-O-N spells GARY SINISE baby On the other hand, don't. It's not very good in spite of the cast and a few things it gets right. For whatever reason, this loving book has proven to be stubborn, weird and very hard to adapt to film. Which is odd to me because several of King's book seem much more difficult pull off from a cinematic standpoint but still managed it. It's not worth much of a poo poo and the more recent miniseries is even worse.
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Aug 14, 2022 02:19
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Any reason not to throw it to somebody like the guy who did Squid Game? Or Severance? And stop being coy and just call Captain Tripps "COVID25."
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Aug 14, 2022 18:38
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Dr. Faustus posted:Any reason not to throw it to somebody like the guy who did Squid Game? Or Severance? And stop being coy and just call Captain Tripps "COVID25." Not really but the name of the virus has been the least of the adaptations' issues and I'm not sure the public is all that eager to watch a COVID movie. The 90's TV series had some decent acting but came off low budget and the most recent one really nailed Howard's character but undid itself with time skips unneeded tonal shifts. If someone just played it straight, based it faithfully off the original book and set it as a period piece, I don't see how it turns out anything short of decent. It strikes me as relatively easy enough to adapt (with a budget at least) as far as King's stuff goes but here we are. Turning it into a movie is tricky because of its length and sheer scope but is probably doable as a two parter (Like IT) or a trilogy in the right hands. Get Rob Reiner or Chris Nolan to direct. Now that I think about, I want Wes Anderson's The Stand for the cinematography alone. He can cast Bill Murray if he absolutely has to. Bill Murray for Trashcan Man, channeling Carl Spackler from Caddyshack please.
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Aug 14, 2022 18:57
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Dr. Faustus posted:Any reason not to throw it to somebody like the guy who did Squid Game? Or Severance? And stop being coy and just call Captain Tripps "COVID25." They just did one. And it sucked. I'd like to see them take another whack at Dark Tower with the same cast too. Doesn't seem likely though.
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Aug 14, 2022 19:55
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BiggerBoat posted:Bill Murray for Trashcan Man, channeling Carl Spackler from Caddyshack please. "He said 'oh, there will be no money. But there will be Coors, I would piss it if I could' and asked if I believed that Happy Crappy. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."
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Aug 15, 2022 00:08
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why the hell is it called captain trips anyway
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Aug 15, 2022 15:10
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moonmazed posted:why the hell is it called captain trips anyway Eh, why not? I'm pretty sure that's the closest explanation you actually get, too. I reread The Stand a few months ago, and I don't remember anything about the nickname being mentioned.
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Aug 15, 2022 15:15
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I think the closest you get isn't quite "there," but it's in a short story that I read in the Night Shift collection. "Night Surf." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Surf On an August night on Anson Beach, New Hampshire, a group of former college students have survived a plague caused by a virus called A6, or "Captain Trips". They believe the virus spread out of Southeast Asia and wiped out most of humanity.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:35
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Dr. Faustus posted:I think the closest you get isn't quite "there," but it's in a short story that I read in the Night Shift collection. "Night Surf." Survived may be a little preemptive IIRC.
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Aug 16, 2022 01:43
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Definitely too optimistic.
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Aug 16, 2022 04:53
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I imagined Captain Trips maybe functioned as some kind of "triple threat" in disease terms, like maybe the transmissibility, the deadliness, and the incubation or something all combined to make it the perfect world killer? Obviously the details of its incubation period are kind of wonky and ultimately it just, works.
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Aug 16, 2022 12:21
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Martman posted:I imagined Captain Trips maybe functioned as some kind of "triple threat" in disease terms, like maybe the transmissibility, the deadliness, and the incubation or something all combined to make it the perfect world killer? Obviously the details of its incubation period are kind of wonky and ultimately it just, works. I think your resistance is based on your midichlorian count.
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Aug 16, 2022 16:44
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Martman posted:I imagined Captain Trips maybe functioned as some kind of "triple threat" in disease terms, like maybe the transmissibility, the deadliness, and the incubation or something all combined to make it the perfect world killer? Obviously the details of its incubation period are kind of wonky and ultimately it just, works. Partly because Starkey orders it to be released overseas quote:"Cleveland has between eight and twenty men and women in the U.S.S.R. and between five and ten in each of the European satellite countries. Not even I know how many he has in Red China." Starkey's mouth was trembling again. "When you see Cleveland this afternoon, all you need tell him is Rome falls. You won't forget?" Rev. Bleech_ fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Aug 16, 2022 |
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Aug 16, 2022 23:25
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One of my favorite parts. As hokey as some of the morality gets, I do appreciate King explicitly portraying the U.S. military and government as anti-humanity and absolutely psychotic.
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Aug 17, 2022 00:06
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One of the worst things about the Stand is that it's this global catastrophe wherein people from all over America make their way to the midwest in a climactic struggle between God and the Antichrist, but nobody comes from further away than Maine. It's just so provincial, the entire rest of the planet is just an afterthought, barely worth a mention. Nobody even boats over from Cuba or walks up from Mexico. No Canadians make it to Hemingford Home. The only language God needs to speak is English. And there are no Muslims, and unless I misremember entirely, no Jews.
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Aug 17, 2022 01:08
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I don't see where naming the virus really matters much and I always read it as a bit of a nickname that caught on. Maybe it had three stages. Or patient zero's last name was Tripps and he was a Captain in the military or whatever. It didn't really effect the story one way or the other. If The Stand was written in 1985 and the virus was called COVID 19, we'd just accept it and wonder what 19 meant or if COVID was an acronym.
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Aug 17, 2022 01:53
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In the forward to the extended edition, i think king mentioned that he wanted to write an American epic. He could have written a broader story (i think he shrugs it off with Flagg thinking there might be another like him in China or India) but i think that even way back then king knew his strength was in Americana. More diversity in religions would be cool I guess, i wouldve loved to see some Glenn Bateman-esque discussions about them in the context of the religious themes in the story, but King also calls the book a "tale of dark christianity" and I think he intentionally limits himself to that.
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Aug 17, 2022 01:55
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it always seemed like a very megachurchy understanding of religion to me tbh
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Aug 17, 2022 02:01
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moonmazed posted:it always seemed like a very megachurchy understanding of religion to me tbh Exactly.
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Aug 17, 2022 02:34
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BiggerBoat posted:I don't see where naming the virus really matters much and I always read it as a bit of a nickname that caught on. Maybe it had three stages. Or patient zero's last name was Tripps and he was a Captain in the military or whatever. It didn't really effect the story one way or the other. FWIW, Captain Trips was one of Jerry Garcia's nicknames.
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Aug 17, 2022 20:30
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I sort of like that there are occasionally vague references in Stephen King books that are never really fully or totally explained - like the virus being nicknamed “Captain Trips” - isn’t that just what they call it on the west coast, for some reason? Heh, makes the nickname even more vague and random. Sort of like how in Mr Mercedes, Bill Hodges is referred to as the “Det-Ret” even though as far as I can “Ret-Det” would kinda make more sense unless a comma were involved (as in “Detective, retired”) I guess. But I like that it’s Det-Ret for no especially good reason I can recall.
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Aug 18, 2022 05:07
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filmcynic posted:FWIW, Captain Trips was one of Jerry Garcia's nicknames. God, thank you. I knew that there was some music connection there, but couldn't remember it for the life of me.
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Aug 21, 2022 18:26
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I haven't seen this mentioned but he's got a new one called Fairy Tale Stephen King’s latest is not horror but “dark fantasy,” and it’s just as full of magic, adventure, and the temptations of treasure as the title implies. High schooler Charlie Reade, narrator and protagonist, feels he owes the universe after his alcoholic dad finally gives up booze. Repaying that cosmic debt—by helping a mysterious neighbor who, it turns out, has a doorway to another world—sets Charlie on a quest to save his beloved dog and defeat evil in a cursed land. In Fairy Tale, King takes tropes and twists them, making for a highly entertaining read as Charlie fights to find his way home and earn his happily ever after.
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Aug 25, 2022 11:02
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Excerpt: A hundred and eighty-five stone steps of varying heights, Mr. Bowditch said, and I counted them as I went down. I moved very slowly, with my back planted against the curving stone wall, facing the drop. The stones were rough and damp. I kept the flashlight trained on my feet. Varying heights. I didn't want to stumble. A stumble might be the end of me. On number ninety, not quite halfway, I heard rustling beneath me. I debated shining my light toward the sound and almost decided not to. If I startled a colony of giant bats and they flew up all around me, I probably would fall. That was good logic, but fear was stronger. I leaned out a bit from the wall, shone my light along the descending curve of the steps, and saw something black crouching two dozen steps below. When my light hit it, I had just enough time to see it was one of the jumbo roaches before it fled, scuttering into the black. I took a few deep breaths, told myself I was all right, didn't believe it, and went on. It took nine or ten minutes to reach the bottom, because I was moving very slowly. It seemed even longer. Every now and then I looked up, and it wasn't particularly comforting to see the circle illuminated by the battery lights growing smaller and smaller. I was deep in the earth and going deeper. I reached the bottom at the hundred and eighty-fifth step. The floor was packed earth, just as Mr. Bowditch had said, and there were a few blocks that had fallen from the wall, probably from the very top, where frost and thaw would have first loosened them and then squeezed them out. Mr. Bowditch had grabbed a crack in one of the spaces from which a block had fallen, and it had saved his life. The pile of fallen blocks was streaked with black stuff that I guessed was roach poo poo. The corridor was there. I stepped over the blocks and into it. Mr. Bowditch had been right — it was so tall I didn't even think about ducking my head. Now I could hear more rustling up ahead and guessed they were the roosting bats Mr. Bowditch had warned me about. I don't like the idea of bats — they carry germs, sometimes rabies — but they don't give me the horrors as they did Mr. Bowditch. Going toward the sound of them, I was more curious than anything. Those short curving steps (of varying heights) ringing the drop had given me the fantods, but now I was on solid ground and that was a big improvement. Of course there were thousands of tons of rock and soil above me, but this corridor had been down here for a long time, and I didn't think it would pick this moment to collapse and bury me. Nor did I have to fear being buried alive; if the roof fell in, so to speak, I would be killed instantly. Cheerful, I thought. Cheerful I was not, but my fear was being replaced — overshadowed, at least — by excitement. If Mr. Bowditch had been telling the truth, another world was waiting not far up ahead. Having come this far, I wanted to see it. Gold was the very least of it. The dirt floor changed to stone. To cobblestones, in fact, like in old movies on TCM about London in the nineteenth century. Now the rustling was right over my head and I snapped off the light. Pitch darkness made me fearful all over again, but I did not want to find myself in a cloud of bats. For all I knew, they might be vampire bats. Unlikely in Illinois . . . except I wasn't really in Illinois anymore, was I? Stephen King Credit: Simon and Schuster I went on a mile at least, Mr. Bowditch had said, so I counted steps until I lost count. At least there was no fear of my flashlight failing if I needed it again; the batteries in the long-barrel were fresh. I kept waiting to see daylight, always listening to the soft fluttering overhead. Were the bats really as big as turkey buzzards? I didn't want to know. At last I saw light — a bright spark, just as Mr. Bowditch had said. I walked on and the spark turned into a circlet, bright enough to leave an afterimage on my eyes every time I blinked them shut. I had forgotten all about the lightheadedness Mr. Bowditch had spoken of, but when it hit me, I knew exactly what he'd been talking about. Once, when I was ten or so, Bertie Bird and I had hyperventilated our stupid selves and then hugged each other, good and tight, to see if we would pass out, as some friend of Bertie's had claimed. Neither of us did, but I went all swimmy and fell on my rear end in what felt like slow motion. This was like that. I kept walking, but I felt like a helium balloon bobbing along above my own body, and if the string snapped I would just float away. Then it passed, as Mr. Bowditch had said it did for him. He said there was a border, and that had been it. I had left Sentry's Rest behind. And Illinois. And America. I was in the Other. I reached the opening and saw the ceiling overhead was now earth, with fine tendrils of root dangling down. I ducked under some overhanging vines and stepped out onto a sloping hillside. The sky was gray but the field was bright red. Poppies spread in a gorgeous blanket stretching left and right as far as I could see. A path led through the flowers toward a road. On the far side of the road more poppies ran maybe a mile to thick woods, making me think of the forests that had once grown in my suburban town. The path was faint but the road wasn't. It was dirt but wide, not a track but a thoroughfare. Where the path joined the road there was a tidy little cottage with smoke rising from the stone chimney. There were clotheslines with things strung on them that weren't clothes. I couldn't make out what they were. I looked to the far horizon and saw the skyline of a great city. Daylight reflected hazily from its highest towers, as if they were made of glass. Green glass. I had read The Wizard of Oz and seen the movie, and I knew an Emerald City when I saw one.
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Aug 25, 2022 11:14
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Another Emerald City? I guess he didn't get enough of the last one in Wizard and Glass.
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Aug 25, 2022 11:20
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This one is hiding Maerlin's Papaya!
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Aug 25, 2022 15:56
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nice i love stephen king isekai
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Aug 25, 2022 16:48
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You must be a big Dark Tower fan then.
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Aug 25, 2022 17:24
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BiggerBoat posted:I haven't seen this mentioned but he's got a new one called Fairy Tale I read this book when Raymond Feist wrote it.
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Aug 25, 2022 17:52
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Canuckistan posted:Excerpt: I feel like I've read this before. Or not read it such as the case it since I never read any of the Dark Tower books but I did read the Talisman and this is checking off some of my been there read that boxes
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Aug 26, 2022 00:40
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I’ve been looking forward to bedtime because I’ve been reading Salems Lot for the first time and doing it in bed at night just feels perfect. I am loving this spooky book.
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Aug 26, 2022 02:02
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Rolo posted:I’ve been looking forward to bedtime because I’ve been reading Salems Lot for the first time and doing it in bed at night just feels perfect. I am loving this spooky book.
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Aug 26, 2022 04:46
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I’ve wanted to do Pet Sematary but I keep hearing the end sucks. I may re-read Something Wicked This Way Comes or The Elementals. I really love those books.
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Aug 26, 2022 04:59
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Rolo posted:I’ve wanted to do Pet Sematary but I keep hearing the end sucks. Everything about Pet Semetary is extremely good, I just reread it recently and have nothing but good things to say about it (ending included).
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Aug 26, 2022 05:08
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Rolo posted:I’ve wanted to do Pet Sematary but I keep hearing the end sucks.
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Aug 26, 2022 05:53
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Rolo posted:I’ve wanted to do Pet Sematary but I keep hearing the end sucks. Pet Sematary is great. All over solid book, and he sticks the ending for once.
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Aug 26, 2022 06:03
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Also if you're in to audiobooks, Michael C Hall does the narration on Pet Sematary and it's really good.
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Aug 26, 2022 11:13
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Rolo posted:I’ve wanted to do Pet Sematary but I keep hearing the end sucks. The ending is great, it is just extremely dismal even by the standards of old school King stuff.
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Aug 26, 2022 13:03
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