stephen king c/d?

they are almost always way too long, and he is so terrible at endings.

Which is why I still maintain The Dead Zone and Pet Sematary are his two best books. Neither is too long and both have great endings (particularly the latter).

I've never read either book! Maybe I will some day.

Oh I hated Pet Sematery so much, the whole "family falls apart after child's death" thing was a little too real when I read it.

That is one of the only ones I didn't read -- I don't know why that seemed too dark to me when It or The Shining were perfectly okay.

Yeah. After all, doesn't It open with an allusion to a true-life anti-gay hate crime?

i actually re-read the dead zone a few months back. (thank you, .25 paperbacks from goodwill.) once i got past (or learned to love?) the usual hokey overreaching parts of his charactetizations, it was pretty damn entertaining.

i still havent tried to tackle that hardcover copy of it i found at a church rummage sale last summer.

My favorite is It. I love the structure with the flashbacks and whatnot and it was genuinely scary as a kid. I can confirm that it does have a typically King-ian horrible ending though.

The gangbang(s) ruins that book for me, it makes no sense.

Yeah the gangbang is indefensible and the way they actually defeat the monster is nonsensical and disappointing but I enjoyed the lead-up enough to give the book the benefit of the doubt.

it's definitely a king special, that gang bang. puberty, visceral glee, coke, the plot itself, king himself and what does he come up with? a mystical navigational clowncar vagina.

finding a copy of it at a suburban church rummage sale staffed by blue-rinsed old ladies is kind of a king-ian touch, now that i think of it.

lol, that's like the one scene from the book EVERYONE remembers

Reading his new one "11/22/63" - some really excellent crossover in the early part of the story - worth it if you're a longtime fan, imo.
Am bracing myself for a wtf ending, but have really enjoyed it so far.

ha i am doing the same thing after years of ignoring his stuff. it seems (so far) like a pretty solid book! i am in the homestretch and nothing dreamcatcher level stupid has shown up so far

yeah I've got 100 pages to go and I'm still finding myself in full crap-out readiness, just in case lol

girl was excited to loan me her copy of Under The Dome but damn, I think it might be worth $10 on the Kindle just to not carry that thing around

ugh tell me about it, I bought 11/22/63 specifically for my plane trip, and I cursed my nostalgic self there AND back again. Fuck carrying a motherfucking book.

well, a book THAT big. It's like lugging around the Concise Oxford ffs

Just finished 11/22/63 and loved it. I'm not sure about a few aspects of the ending, but the closing chapter was great. Enjoyed Under the Dome and Full Dark, No Stars (four short stories about revenge) too, King's last few books have been a good run.

He's definitely been on a nice late period roll lately.

didn't get into under the dome, is there any king crossover in it or can i get the new one without fear of missing anything

no real crossover in Dome; has a good "Stand" feel about it. Ending suxors but the rest is p great imo; it's def worth a read

Will rep for Duma Key as well, scared the bejabbers outta me

11/22/63 is a total standalone

I liked 11/22/63 but thought it dragged massively in the middle

i guess the new dark tower book is out? "the wind in the keyhole"? my completionist's urge is telling me to read it, but my common sense is telling me that if i hated the last three dark tower books, it's unlikely i'll be pleased with this one. to this day i'm pissed about the last three, the characters felt like flat shadows of their former selves and everyone started talking in annoying dialect ALL THE TIME.

I kind of want to read it too - I liked the last three but my objection to the new one is DUDE YOU FUCKING FINISHED IT, LET IT GO. This is like some kind of prequel/dream story or something and i'm just...I dunno.

he didn't finish it he just released his notes iirc

there's crossover in 11.22.63? does it explain some of the yellow card man / time travel stuff?

you're thinking of howard webb at old trafford

i know i'm one of the british posters but i still don't speak football

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/04/popular-writers-stephen-king-interview.html

he actually makes me want to read a sequel to the shining. huh

rather he did another talisman book with straub

I don't know, his comment that Danny had to be an alcoholic now because his father was bothered me.

> rather he did another talisman book with straub

i had a real struggle with the second one, trying to remember things that i'd read 17 years earlier...

The Talisman 1984
Black House 2001

amateur mistake, that. fantasy epic hedz know that you have to commit to re-reading with the release date of the new installment in mind.

would've but talisman was 90 miles away

there are secret ways to get to it quicker iirc

I read both Talisman and Black House again last year and was surprised by how much I re-enjoyed them both. Talisman was one of my favorite books when I first read it at age 15, as King and Straub managed to capture that Spielbergian "a boy's adventure" thing that was right in my wheelhouse. Despite the travails and dangers Jack faces in the book, walking across the USA lit by the glow of shopping malls and highway lights seemed very romantic to me. Re-reading it was a nice blast of nostalgia.

Black House was better than I remembered it to be, although the killing of Jack's blind radio host/DJ friend struck me as one of King's needless cruelties, topped perhaps only by the attack on the head of the women's shelter in Rose Madder.

he likes to bite, yes. but i think you're otm about the adventure/spielberg feel, think that if a screenwriter could squeeze a bit more coherency from the books they'd make great movies.

It would have to be done as an 80s period piece, I think, but I would love to see someone tackle it.

This is that rarity, a fun and interesting list. Don't neccesarily agree but enjoyed reading.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/ranking-all-62-stephen-king-books.html

The Talisman seems underrated, I am glad it is getting some love on this thread.

The Talisman is great. That Vulture list is mostly fine, although I definitely disagree with Rose Madder placing dead last. It wasn't his best, but it was pretty decent. And definitely better than some of his other shit (looking at you, Needful Things). Also, Night Shift should definitely be top ten. That's the one I always recommend to people who are thinking about reading King for the first time.

idk rose madder is like if he was consciously trying to write 'bad s king' by-the-numbers

The ending of Needful Things put me off Stephen King for almost 2 decades. I didn't even give him a second chance (excepting for Wizard and Glass and On Writing, both Christmas presents as Needful Things had been). I had loved everything else he'd written up until that point and I don't know, there's some ridiculous shit in his early catalog, but something about the guy turning into a goblin and driving away in a car just put me over the edge.

What should I turn to next from his 1990s-2000s output?

I haven't read Rose Madder but I have a hard time believing it's worse than Gerald's Game, which was so bad that I have refused to pick up a Stephen King book ever since

lol

Of that trilogy, Dolores Claiborne >>> Gerald's Game >>>>>>>>>> Rose Madder.

Full Dark, No Stars, btw, is amazing. It feels like the work of a much younger King.