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Bloody Hedgehog posted:I haven't read through the whole Dark Tower series yet, but I'm really disliking Wizard & Glass. Apart from the last quarter of the book when things start cooking, the majority of the book is some boring western bodice-ripper where nothing happens whatsoever. When I first started it I thought, "Alright, Roland will recount his past for a few chapters and then we'll be back in business.". And then it just keeps going and going and you slowly realize the whole book is about his past and some woman you don't really care about. I read the entire series for the first time last summer and had the same problem. I really struggled to get through most of Wizard and Glass and then the last quarter FINALLY started going somewhere. I remember my dad mentioning to me that he tried to read the series and gave up part way through Wizard and Glass. I don't know, I feel like I'm the only person who thinks that Wolves of the Calla is better than Wizard and Glass. Okay I get it, people don't like the references to Harry Potter, but that's what, one or two pages out of over 500? I think it does the whole spaghetti western/fantasy combination way better than Wizard did, which I found to just be some stereotypical teen romance combined with fifty repetitions of "Oh Roland, let me gaze into your eyes" followed by King inserting constant "LITTLE DID THEY KNOW IT WOULD SOON END IN TRAGEDY!" Song of Susannah I didn't really think was bad. Boring for the most part, yes, but short and only really bad in a few places meeting real Stephen King. And The Dark Tower I thought was actually pretty good. It was maybe more bloated than it needed to be but (other than the retarded Crimson King) I didn't see what could really have been an ending that suited the series better, and there were some genuinely well written segments in the book that are as good as anything King has written. The battle at Algol Siento, the deaths of Eddie, Jake, and Oy, the scenes where they're being chased by the Lovecraftian monster underground I guess it really depends on whether you're a reader who's followed the series since the 1970s, or whether (like me) you read it all at once after it was finished so didn't have decades of time to build up how it might have gone and what different endings might be.
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May 13, 2009 22:23
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:37 |
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I don't hate Wizard and Glass, but I do think it's overrated. I think The Gunslinger, The Waste Lands, and even Wolves of the Calla are better than it. If I had to give a best book in the series, I think Waste Lands is definitely it.
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May 14, 2009 20:51
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I'm sorry, but... Comparing Air Bud to the series is definitely the best comparison to make that is not in any way ridiculous or using a deliberately poo poo example to try to sway people to your opinion.
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May 18, 2009 00:28
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pseudosavior posted:I don't know if this will count, but I really enjoyed the comics of The Dark Tower, and would (probably) happily read the whole thing if it were done as a graphic novel in that style, because the visuals were amazing. I read the first two and really wasn't that impressed. The first was basically just a rehash of Wizard and Glass with maybe one or two new bits inserted and a lot missing. The second felt like they had a huge draft, and then cut out half of it for the adaptation. I just remember one scene where one of the gunslingers is just painfully obviously voicing expository dialogue to himself that made it seem like there was a scene cut that might have had that segment in it. I know the third one has some lady gunslinger or something, is that any better than the first two?
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May 20, 2009 17:33
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Wheeee posted:I just looked it up since it sounded too pathetic to be true, but it is. He hasn't touched it since 2001. Reading up on it on Wikipedia, I love how he basically started it so he could get around having to write Christmas cards for a couple years.
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May 26, 2009 05:41
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There were a few people earlier in the thread, such as myself, who did not echo that sentiment.
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Jun 12, 2009 03:36
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:You assume that just because the military is doing all right in whatever little patch of land their car gets stranded on, humanity is actually going to fully regain control of the world. There's nothing to guarantee this. Oh come on, just because it isn't explicitly spelled out doesn't mean that wasn't the intent. It's the end of the movie, they lose all hope, and then they spent several minutes showing the military moving in and destroying everything in its path. That's the clear implication, and I haven't heard any of the film's crew say their intention was otherwise.
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Jun 18, 2009 20:51
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I just watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I'm pretty sure they make fun of Cell. The character of Sarah Marshall was in a movie where cell phones killed people as a metaphor for addiction to technology and the other characters deride it as a metaphor for a lovely movie.
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Jul 7, 2009 13:34
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Pentaxium posted:Oh you think they meant Cell in that whole scene? I always thought they were making fun of Pulse, the movie with Kristen Bell where ghosts come through the phones. Haha, I'd never even heard of Pulse before now, but looking it up yeah, it probably was that.
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Jul 7, 2009 21:28
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I would also recommend Night Shift, just about every story in there was gold in my view. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is pretty good also, I love the Sherlock Holmes story (Stephen King doing Holmes is a concept that blew my mind at first but I think he did it better than the majority of the non-Conan Doyle authors I've read).
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Jul 29, 2009 01:49
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The funny thing about King liking the movie ending is that in the book the narrator mentions how the National Guard showing up and clearing the mist away would be a terrible ending.
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Aug 6, 2009 22:10
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Bonus posted:I finished the Dark Tower series and I honestly don't know what everyone thinks is so bad about the last book. I thought it was the best in the series. The whole thing in Algul Siento was awesome, I actually felt really bad for Eddie and Jake, and the last stretch to the tower was awesome in a bitter-sweet kind of way. I even liked the ending, although I think he should have ended on that cliffhanger before he urges you not to read anymore. Wow, last night I was actually thinking to myself everything you just wrote here.
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Sep 24, 2009 18:36
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Malaleb posted:I know that this isn't supposed to be the Stephen King recommendation thread, but tell me, before I finish up the Dark Tower series, are there there any other King novels that will help me get the most out of the series? Do you mean other works of his that tie into the Dark Tower series? The Stand and Salem's Lot are the big ones, but besides those I would say The Eyes of the Dragon, Hearts in Atlantis, Insomnia, and the short story "Everything's Eventual". The Eyes of the Dragon mainly for the setting and some stuff with Flagg's backstory, and the other stuff because characters from them show up and have somewhat prominent roles in DT VII. Chairman Capone fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Oct 4, 2009 |
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Oct 4, 2009 06:52
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the_american_dream posted:Which connection was in Dreamcatcher? I think he's talking about the part when one of the characters sees the graffiti that reads "PENNYWISE LIVES!" or something like that. I liked that part too. And I also liked The Eyes of The Dragon.
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Oct 6, 2009 06:35
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Speaking of connections to the Dark Tower series, I just found this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King_works_related_to_The_Dark_Tower_series It's pretty drat skimpy but it at least lays them all (I think?) out.
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Oct 6, 2009 08:13
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Hedrigall posted:I really should read book 4-7 and the comic series. Or maybe start again from book 1, it's been 5 years since I finished book 3. You really shouldn't read the comics. They're as bad as most people claim books 5-7 are.
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Oct 29, 2009 02:19
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Does anyone know how long the Amazon discounts last? I want to get my dad Under the Dome for Christmas but if the discount is going to remain at nine bucks until then so I won't bother to worry about it now.
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Nov 6, 2009 01:11
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epoch. posted:Tommyknockers is highly inventive and unique from his other books, and it's the only book, iirc, that he doesn't recall writing. What's particularly interesting, from a writing perspective, is that he claims the book was born out of a single event: tripping over something in the woods. I thought it was him attempting to 'remake' Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space. But anyways yes, it's definitely worth reading, I don't get the hate for it.
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Nov 9, 2009 22:38
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Kid Awesome posted:Questions for the King fans: Mother Abagail is pretty conservative in The Stand and she's essentially the main 'good guy.' While Randall Flagg is depicted as the liberal permissive type guy.
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Nov 10, 2009 00:13
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I finished re-reading The Stand for the first time in maybe a decade. I wasn't really a big King fan when I read it for the first time, I think the only other book of his I had read was maybe Carrie. Re-reading it again it definitely made me appreciate how it really is one of his better books. Although how he depicts religion in it is interesting especially compared to his later works like The Mist. Anyways, I have a question about the ending of the revised version, where Flagg reappears on the beach with the islanders. I always assumed that it was supposed to be Flagg appearing in Polynesia or someplace where the natives resisted the plague, but when I was talking with my girlfriend (who for a long time The Stand was her favorite book ever) she said that she always assumed that it was supposed to be set in the far future, when the descendants of the survivors had lost all civilization and reverted to savagery. Does anyone know if King has said anywhere or made any indication of what his view of what the new ending was supposed to represent or show?
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Nov 28, 2009 23:17
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Isn't it supposed to be set in between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla? How would Cuthbert even be in that? More flashbacks, I guess...
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Dec 9, 2009 05:21
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kosherpickle posted:Wait, how can something be set between Wizard and Wolves? Doesn't Wolves basically pick up right off where Wizard ended? From what I remember, it's an indeterminate amount of time between the two books, since they've been walking for a while from the post-apocalyptic US place to the Calla area.
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Dec 10, 2009 01:36
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I gave up on the comics after the second arc, but the Jericho Hill adverts have made me consider reading them. Apparently they extended the comic contract as well, Jericho Hill was supposed to be the last one but now they're doing an adaptation of The Gunslinger after it. Although if it's the same standard as their adaptation of Wizard and Glass then it will be poo poo.
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Dec 12, 2009 19:57
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King focusing on Maine is also I think an homage to Lovecraft and the detailed fictional Massachusetts topography he came up with.
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Feb 6, 2010 23:50
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Epicurus posted:Let's spend literally 1/3 of the book writing about some drunk's experiences bumming around a soup kitchen. That's what the readers came to see, after all. Father Callahan was awesome and so was his story 
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Apr 7, 2010 04:55
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We actually read Strawberry Spring for an English class in middle school - that was before I got into King, so years later when I read the story again in Night Shift I gained a sudden new respect for my old English teacher.
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Apr 16, 2010 06:07
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3Romeo posted:Almost all of his short story collections are worth reading (especially Different Seasons and Skeleton Crew. I would also add Night Shift to that, thinking it over that might actually be, if not my favorite King work then at least in the top 5.
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Aug 5, 2010 22:05
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fishmech posted:I think anyone who hasn't read all of the Dark Tower books is doing themselves a disservice. Yes, the 5th and 6th are kind of suck but each have decent stretches of good story in them and noone will judge you for skimming through the bad parts. The 7th is also at least decent all through out. I honestly think that 5 is better than 2 or 4. And also that despite the Crimson King showdown, 7 is really well done. 6 is the only one that I found really dull, and even then it's short and not actively terrible so it's easy enough to get through it. The series really could have been just 6 books, though - pretty much everything that happens in Song of Susannah could have been condensed into a few dozen pages in Wolves of the Calla and The Dark Tower and not a whole lot would have been lost. I've said it before here but it does seem that people reading the series for the first time now, at a single go, are more willing to give books 5-7 a better opinion than people who started reading the series back in the 80s and waited like a decade for the last three.
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Jan 12, 2011 03:15
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Acquire Currency! posted:IT was actually a pretty good read, and the movie was good. At least to me. But after all this Dark Tower nonsense King suckered me into reading I saw that there is a version of IT that, of course, plays off the Dark Tower. Somehow IT follows the path of the turtle or tortoise and now every time a character sees one of those things there starts paragraphs on how the character finds the turtle significant. Dark Tower just ruins everything it touches. I actually think that that was in IT first and he worked it into the Dark Tower to tie it into IT, and not the other way around. I might be off with that, though. I always figured it was King making a reference to Discworld, in either case.
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Jan 15, 2011 09:01
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SpeedofLife posted:I guess we're going to see Randall Flagg cast twice in the coming months. I'm positive it won't happen but it would be pretty cool if they cast the same actor in The Stand and The Dark Tower. I also have absolutely no idea how The Stand can possibly be condensed into a movie. I thought the miniseries could have had maybe an hour trimmed off of it but really couldn't be made a whole lot shorter without seriously hashing up the plot.
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Feb 1, 2011 05:46
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mind the walrus posted:What does he actually do that's evil? In The Stand, he crucifies people and basically tries to nuke the survivors who won't follow him so that he can become the sole dictator of the remaining survivors. Also I think one of the Dark Tower books it's implied that he's the one who released the superflu in the first place. In The Dark Tower he basically uses his influence to lead a campaign that destroys the entire civilization of Mid-World and culminates in the fall of Gilead and the Affiliation of Baronies and the death of all Gunslingers save Roland. Although most of this is offscreen, it is true that in the actual depictions that happen, other than the crucifixions not as much is shown.
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Feb 3, 2011 07:13
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I love Night Shift. Almost all of the stories in it are gold, IMO. My personal favorites, aside from Jerusalem's Lot which you're already on: Graveyard Shift, Night Surf (kind of a precursor to The Stand), The Mangler, Battleground, Trucks, Sometimes They Come Back, The Ledge, Quitters, Inc., Children of the Corn, The Man Who Loved Flowers (I actually read this for my English class in middle school), One for the Road (just as the first story is kind of a prelude to Salem's Lot, this one is a postscript), and The Woman in the Room. So yeah, basically almost all of the stories in it. I've said it before here and I think I was alone in it, but I think Night Shift is my favorite King short story collection.
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Mar 8, 2011 17:37
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I seem to remember her being in The Stand also, at least the expanded version but don't remember the circumstances.
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Apr 2, 2011 06:22
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Actually maybe since he's now had 8 years or so to get over his mad rush to finish the series and the fact that the last three books kind of blended together, I'm hoping that this new one will have a different tone and less ridiculous stuff than the last three.
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Apr 11, 2011 20:03
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I thought the last book did have some really wonderfully written scenes in it. The deaths of Eddie, Jake, and Oy, the attack on the prison, and the part with the giant underground worm. Also I thought the ending was as good as anything that could have possibly served as an ending for a series such as the Dark Tower.
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Apr 27, 2011 23:15
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Locus posted:What about the part where all his friends and the pet raccoon magically come back to life in another dimension and are happy together. "Did they all live happily ever after? No, but they lived, and sometimes that's enough." (or something like that) The ending with his friends was fine and that was a great line to end their story on.
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May 23, 2011 05:24
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Thirding Night Shift. I honestly think it's my favorite King book, has a lot of his classics, and also if you're just getting started on King it's his first short-story collection so it works as a good intro to his work.
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Jul 7, 2011 03:56
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I never thought that Song of Susannah was "bad" per se, just that overall it's dull and pretty much all of the important parts could have been split between Wolves and The Dark Tower. I did think there were some interesting bits with Mia, and the ambush and battle in the store in Maine was a pretty good action sequence.
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Jul 16, 2011 20:39
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muscles like this? posted:Bad news everyone, The Dark Tower adaptation is now completely stalled as Universal has passed on backing it. So they passed on The Dark Tower and At the Mountains of Madness, and instead decided to make a movie based on Battleship and a remake of The 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves? Yeesh.
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Jul 19, 2011 04:15
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:37 |
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Here's something that's at least a bit of a counterbalance to the possible Dark Tower cancellation: The Stand movie could be a trilogy instead, and David Yates is interested in directing. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/07/harry_potter_dark_knight_rises.html Personally I think a trilogy is a much better idea than just a standalone movie based on the book. No way that would have turned out well, or at least anything like the book. Of course that also means the studio would have to take a much bigger risk in funding it in the first place.
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Jul 19, 2011 05:43
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