Stephen King: Beep Beep, Jealous Cow

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Stephen King: Beep Beep, Jealous Cow

«‹›2 »

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Yeah there is definitely still a strong sense of cosmic horror in some moments of his later work.

It could be that I'm not giving his recent short stories enough consideration -- thinking about his last couple of collections, which mostly had that good ol' Kingfeel of "holy *poo poo* that's hosed up".

I also think he just gets off on killing his characters and that much hasn't changed throughout his career.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2022 18:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 09:52

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Inspector 34 posted:

I picked up Daniel X at an airport one time because I forgot to bring something to read and I had heard that Patterson was the king of airport fiction or some bullshit. My god, that might be one of the worst books I've ever read and I was amazed that he was such a popular and prolific writer. But if it was ghost written and they just slapped his name on the cover I guess that explains some of it.

Patterson has been suffering from dementia for a long time now, and he began the ghost-writing model soon after his faculties started to decline.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2022 14:23

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

NikkolasKing posted:

I'm in such a King mood, and my other plans for today have been sidetracked due to technical difficulties, so I'm gonna start up IT again. First reread in many years.

As long as we're talking King's cosmos, IT being a necessary part of the multiverse always struck me as interesting. Yet some higher power clearly helped the Losers kill IT. Now I think on it, the friend I mentioned earlier theorized Pennywise had to be dealt with because he liked eating kids and there was a very important kid who lived in Derry a short time later. I think he's named in Insomnia....

Yeah I'm pretty sure that was explicitly stated somewhere, but I forgot where. I don't think it was in Insomnia. Maybe book 6 or 7 of Dark Tower.

edit: EEEEEEEEE!! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

# ¿ Apr 5, 2022 13:38

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Son of a Vondruke! posted:

I've always wondered. What replaced those memories? Fake memories? Nothing? If I remember correctly, a couple of them stayed close until they moved away to college. That's a lot of your life to just be missing.

Ain't very old yet, are ya?

# ¿ Apr 5, 2022 14:24

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Last Celebration posted:

Imho the Dark Tower is reading at least once, it�s an overall good story and the ending is�okay, insofar as iirc Roland getting sent back to start over properly is supposed to be the very last time because his dumb, obstinate rear end finally realized the real Dark Tower was all the friends he made along the way, which is why he had the horn. Or at least that�s what I remember hearing, can�t pretend I wouldn�t be livid if I got to the end of a twenty year saga without that knowledge.

Plus, you get to see Father Callahan�s redemption arc!

Yep you got it right. And the coda is what happens next time.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2022 13:13

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Gravity Cant Apple posted:

I'm a Dreamcatcher apologist, too. It's just ridiculous and I can't hate it.

I feel this way about the Regulators/Desperation books, they've stuck in my head for 25 years so there's something there, I just can't tell you what it is.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 18:47

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

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.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2022 18:26

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Lester Shy posted:

Man The Institute is frustrating. I am a huge sucker for "hosed up paranormal poo poo happening at secret government facility" stories, so I was hooked from the beginning, but the last 40% of the book fails to live up to the premise. You're teased with two big mysteries: What's happening in the Back Half? And what are they preventing that supposedly justifies all of this? And both answers are just kind of bland IMO.

Also somebody need to tell King this isn't 1970 anymore. Tim was getting paid $2.85 an hour for his night knocker job. $100 a week for an 11PM-6AM shift, five days a week.

Are you SUGGESTING that he could use the services of an EDITOR?

Hell I'm surprised the books come out without typos.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 16:51

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

BiggerBoat posted:

I enjoyed 11-22-63 a great deal but recall skimming over a good portion of it around the halfway mark.

I know they don't edit him anymore, if they ever really did, but drat that book was begging for it. probably could have cut about 100 pages throughout.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2022 17:32

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Books 2 and 3 are the peak of the series, if you don't like those then don't bother continuing

# ¿ Dec 8, 2022 18:23

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

oldpainless posted:

I didn�t like 2. 3 is really good.

Book 2 is right in King's cocaine/booze era and it shows. Some of my favorite jokes are in that one, mostly in the Eddie plot. (The less said about the Susannah/Detta dialogue, the better.)

# ¿ Dec 8, 2022 19:54

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

I seem to remember perhaps SK himself mentioning that letting Jake fall was specifically the act that doomed him during the current cycle. The Horn of Eld was, I think, just supposed to be a symbol of him doing better the next time around, rather than being something critical to the plot as such.

This hangs together with the fact that when he gets kicked back to the desert, it's right before that part where he hosed Up The Run

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 19:46

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

bobjr posted:

I think with Al Using the time door to buy cheap meat being mentioned as messing up the fabric of time, that was meant to be the main thing, with the JFK stuff more fun alt history writing than anything else

I forgot that part! Think it's time for a re-read...and this time I'll skip the sweetheart love story bits.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 18:18

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

oldpainless posted:

Kings description in the Shining of alcoholism and the wagon is a passage I always really liked.

I knew he had specifically addressed the wagon but I couldn't remember which book.

Here it is:

quote:

Few men ever return from the fabled wagon. But those who do come with a fearful tale to tell. When you jump on, it seems like the brightest, most cleanest wagon you ever saw. With ten foot wheels to keep the bed high out of the gutter where all the drunks are laying around, with their brown bags, and thunderbird, and popskull bourbon. You're away from all the people who throw you nasty looks, and tell you to clean up your act, or to go put in on in a different town. From the gutter, that's the finest looking wagon you ever saw. All hung with bunting, and a brass band in front, and three Rockettes on each side, twirling their batons and flashing their panties at you. Man, you got to get on that wagon and away from the juicers who are straining canned heat and sniffing their puke to get high again, poking around the gutter for butts with half an inch left above the filter...

So you climb up, and ain't you glad to be there. My god, yes, that's affirmative. That wagon is the biggest and best float in the whole parade, and everybody is lining the streets, and clapping, and cheering, and waving all for you. Except for the winos, passed out in the gutter. Those guys used to be your friends, but that's all behind you now...

Then you start to see things. Things that you missed from the gutter, like how the floor of the wagon is nothing but fresh pine boards, so fresh they're still bleeding sap, and if you took your shoes off you'd be sure to get a splinter. Like how the only furniture in the wagon are these long benches with high backs and no cushions to sit on, and in fact they're nothing but pews with a songbook every five feet or so. Like how all the people sitting in the pews on the wagon are these flat chested birdies in long dresses, with a little lace around the collar, and their hair pulled back in a bun so tight you can almost hear it screaming. And every face is flat, and pale, and shiny, and they're all singing 'Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful, the ri-ver.' And up front there's this reeking bitch with blonde hair playing the organ and telling them to 'sing louder, sing louder.' And somebody slams a songbook into your hands and says, 'Sing it out brother, if you expect to stay on this wagon you got to sing morning noon and night. Especially at night!'

And that's when you realize what the wagon really is. It's a church, with bars on the windows.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2023 14:53

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

It's a volume business and he's a volume shooter. Sometimes you're gonna put an airball up there.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2023 16:31

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

escape artist posted:

They actually form a more toxic compound, cocaethylene, in the liver, when consumed together.

Remind me not to do coke ever again (only 1.5 times when I was young and stupid)

# ¿ Sep 29, 2023 21:40

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Diabetic posted:

Questions to make sense of the ending of DT:

On the surface level, it feels like Roland's journey is that same idea that King likes of Hell being repetition for eternity, which on the surface level makes sense...until you look at everything. Is every time he loops him repairing a part of himself? Is the people he encounter the same? The story feels like Roland improves because he makes a family after he had cast aside everyone else on his journey...but does that mean these other people Jake, Susannah, Eddie, Oy, are they all stuck in the same cycle or are they on their own path to redemption and Roland encounters another group this next go around? Is this whole Dark Tower obsession Roland's punishment? If he is in Hell what did he actually do to not exactly be tortured but offered a chance at Salvation?

Spoilered for story discussion obviously, but I know I'm probably reading way to much into it and I should just accept what King wrote and not think too hard on it because I don't think he did either, he just wanted to be done because he had an existential crisis and it really shows.

Also, I'll say, King did a great disservice by reworking Gunslinger. I LOVE the original and the changes to make everything "19" is dumb.

He's explicitly shown to be improving every time. He has the horn of Eld now, which heavily implies that he is about to embark on the last loop which ends with the Browning poem. Also I'm pretty sure there is strong evidence that his first gently caress-up in the book series (letting Jake fall) is the thing he Got Wrong which doomed the rest of the loop we are reading about.

King probably did not have the ending in mind when he originally wrote The Gunslinger, but it is clearly what he intended at least as far back as Wizard & Glass.

Yes the 19 stuff is dumb and he shouldn't have rewritten that book, it wasn't necessary to make the point.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2023 16:34

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

"What is this novel missing....hmmm. Wait, I've got IT!"

# ¿ Oct 19, 2023 16:09

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Among the many reasons Pennywise is an excellent character, the novel (at least in the beginning) acts like kids might just be getting kidnapped and murdered by an actual real crazy person, nobody has any clue that they're dealing with a....whatever he is.

That was super scary for me as a kid, because it was a relatively realistic thing to imagine. I might be walking home someday and just vanish, and Derry just ho-hum keeps it moving along

# ¿ Oct 27, 2023 15:14

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Mr. Nemo posted:

Adapt the long walk you cowards

Stage play. Make the whole floor a giant treadmill.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2023 14:43

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

Mr. Nemo posted:

They optioned The Long Walk! Let's go!

Wait lol, it's the hunger games director.

Oh well, still excited, it's a great weird book.

There's so much world-building that could be done, but I worry that it could overwhelm the simplicity of the idea.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2023 17:20

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 09:52

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

High Warlord Zog posted:

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is 3/4 of the way to a Long Walk movie (has King ever mentioned watching it while writing LW in the late 60s or reading the source novel?).

That's true. The book is very very Long Walk. Haven't seen the film.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2023 01:52

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Stephen King: Beep Beep, Jealous Cow

«‹›2 »