stephen king c/d?

Anyway:

What do you like to read when you’re not writing?

I read a lot of weird stuff…like Thomas Merton’s letters. I got hooked on Merton a long time ago. Somebody just sent me his letters. I read a lot of kids’ stuff. I have very catholic taste. It’s really all over the map. Oh, and Stephen King. I read his stuff. I like breaking his balls by saying positive things about him.

Do you ever talk to him?

No, he’s taken shots at me for years. It’s fine, but my approach is to do the opposite with him—to heap praise.

He cant even fuckin write a bad review ffs

Back in the pre-Harry Potter era when SK was the most popular writer in America, someone of note (I can't recall who) said, "As a country, we could have done a lot worse than Stephen King being our most popular writer" and boy was that person right.

if only we'd listened :(

that was dfw, i'm almost certain

i mean, who else of note would say that

yeah there's writers who are as or more prolific, who also wind up with their work becoming 'airport novels' -- but guuuuh so many of them are SUCH dreck. my husband's uncle used to travel for business, and would buy like, 5 airport novels for a trip and blow through them - once a year he'd give us this box literally overflowing with James Patterson et al. So much blandsville

at least King can write a halfway decent story.

Ardent defenders of shit are almost as good as Amazon reviews of classics that are all "One star, this was depressing, why would anyone read it?"

You know, I can honestly say that he doesn’t see what is good about Stephenie Meyer. I think she is a great writer… You don’t have to use every single vivid word in the english language in order to be a great writer. It takes emotion and love for the characters you write. She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career. She pulls it off so well! I love all her books and I can’t wait to see what else she has to give us.
In all honesty, I’m not the biggest fan of King. I tried to read his novel, Desperation, but couldn’t get into it. Sure, I may be a teenager but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what a good book is. For me, if I’m not drawn to a book so much that I’ll sit for hours reading it at a time, it isn’t very good. And I couldn’t do that with his novel. I love Harry Potter and Twilight. I also love the Inheritence Cycle by Christopher Paolini… I’ll read anything including the classics.
I’m confused as to why King feels its alright to bring Meyer’s writing down when he writes around the same level she does, of course he has more experience than she does. He shouldn’t judge an author who hasn’t been in the business as long as he has.
Also, he shouldn’t judge a novel the way he has hers when it is GETTING KIDS TO READ!!!! I feel you should support any novels that get kids and teenagers to read. I’ve always loved reading but I have friends that don’t like it, but they’ve read Twilight and loved it. As long as it is drawing kids to literature, it has to be good!

She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career.

She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career.

She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career.

When Dean Koontz is on, he fucking rocks fyi.

As long as it is drawing kids to literature, it has to be good!

this sentiment always quickchanges me into harold bloom it's the worst feeling

xpost otm, there are a few Koontz books that are badass

I read one as a teenager, The Bad Place? I remember that one being really good

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/20/Phantoms.jpg/200px-Phantoms.jpg

I kind of do, but OTOH I worked with a woman who was dumb as a box of rocks, hadn't read a book since high school (if then), etc. - over the course of 2-3 months she worked her way through all the Twilights. That's some kind of win, imo.

That was an xp to feeling Bloomy.

phantoms is a blast, yeah, but it's also the only koontz i've enjoyed

lol koontz

Haven't read Koontz since I was a kid, but remember tearing through The Bad Place in a single day and loving the first half of Twilight Eyes (but not the second). The hierarchy of horror was definitely King > Koontz > John Saul.

Mine was King, then Peter Straub/Dean Koontz

never read Saul

No Clive Barker stans?

only Books of Blood were really worth reading IME

Barker and Straub are probably the best of the bunch, but, for me anyway, they came a bit later.

Imajica was alright. The Great and Secret Show was a big ball of crazy. This paragraph from the Wiki summary covers the first, like, 50 pages:

While working in the dead letter office in Nebraska in 1969, a disgruntled postal clerk named Randolph Jaffe discovers hints to a mysterious part of society known as "The Shoal" that are ostensibly practicing what seems to be a form of magic only vaguely known as "The Art". His search eventually brings him to Trinity, New Mexico, where he encounters the mysterious "Kissoon" who claims to be the last of the Shoal. From Kissoon he learns of the mystical dream sea Quiddity and the islands within it known as the Ephemeris. Quiddity, as it turns out, is visible exactly three times to an ordinary human: The first time we ever sleep outside our mother's womb, the first time we sleep beside the one we truly love and the last time we ever sleep before we die. However; this simply is not enough for the megalomaniac Jaffe, who wishes to actually visit the dream sea in person and gain control of it. Jaffe flees when Kissoon tries to bargain for his body, and later teams up with a scientist named Fletcher who is able to create a liquid called the 'Nuncio'. Nuncio is theoretically able to enable a human to evolve to a state that would enable him to physically reach Quiddity. Fletcher has second thoughts however, realising that Jaffe will only use Nuncio for evil, and destroys his laboratory. Jaffe arrives and both are exposed to the Nuncio. The two battle each other for a year and their spirits arrive in Palomo Grove in California in 1971. There, they rape and impregnate four teenage girls. One of the girls is infertile and fails to give birth while another kills herself and her child after giving birth. The third, Trudi Katz, moves away with her baby Howard while the fourth, Joyce McGuire gives birth to twins, Jo-Beth and Tommy Ray.

~ scans thread ~

hang on .. reprints of stephen king books get the remix/update treatment ?

i mean, are they glaring trying to remain relevant updates, i mean, for example do the references to the ramones get replaced with greenday ?

that's a bit unusual isn't it ?

do other authors (who are still alive and kicking) do this ?

I'm trying to remember which Clive Barker book I tried to read, maybe The Damnation Game? I thought it was super super boring.

xp: AFAIK this updating only happened to The Stand

my gf got 'the stand' as a present a while back and i've been thinking of giving it a go. never read any king except for the 'on writing' book and a few of the short stories. unfortunately, it's a new paperback so i'm pretty sure it's the updated version -- does it make a huge difference?

stephen king is cool but he has pretty untrustworthy taste. i think he rated carrion comfort by dan simmons as one of the best novels ever and i couldn't make it past fifty pages.

also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygWMy-QQNbw

oh shit I forgot Barker

Great & Secret Show (and sequel? am i remembering right?) was awesome, and I love Weaveworld

King himself described the film as a "moron movie" and stated his intention to never direct again soon after.[4] In a 2002 interview with Tony Magistrale for the book Hollywood's Stephen King, King stated that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and [he] really didn't know what [he] was doing." In spite of this, King stated in the same interview that he "learned a lot from the experience," and would "like to try directing again sometime."[5]

my gf got 'the stand' as a present a while back and i've been thinking of giving it a go. never read any king except for the 'on writing' book and a few of the short stories. unfortunately, it's a new paperback so i'm pretty sure it's the updated version -- does it make a huge difference?

I loved both versions in high school.

the odd thomas stuff from koontz is a pretty fun fast read, ive been digging it quite a bit. i will also throw down for several barker things (great and secret show, and weaveworld for sure) but man when he sucks he really really sucks.

Weaveworld is my favorite Barker, followed by the Books of Blood.

I really liked On Writing, though I'm always a bit surprised by how *much* other people like it. There's some great stuff in there, and the biographic bits are ace. But the sections that are just like "don't use adverbs" are kinda disposable, aren't they? Danse Macabre, on the other hand--now that's a book that will change a kid's life if he grew up in an isolated small town in the 80s. I'm still tracking down all those books, movies, and TV shows.

Would dig some koontz recommendations since I've never. Phantoms and Odd Thomas = noted.

Straub is always super interesting but is also one of the strangest most misshapen storytellers to ever make the supermarket. Like, the dramatic architecture/narrative skyline of his novels is deeply, deeply odd in a way that sometimes strikes me as just plain bad but then I'm not sure and wanna go reread the whole thing.

Also Straub has legit awesome taste in other writers.

apparently DFW (seriously) ranked 'the stand' at no. 2 in his (kinda amazing) list of top 10 favorite books:

http://emdashes.com/2008/09/david-foster-wallaces-reading.php

The Stand is absolutely one of my favorite books, I basically recommend that everyone read it in any form

xpost jon: I agree with you 100% about his odd style. He's certainly not as easily digestible as King, and in a weird way he feels very old-fashioned, like I feel more like I'm reading Henry James at times. not that his style is similar, but it's just a ~feeling~ I get

I remember Koontz's Cold Fire and Hideaway being good too, but god it's been so long since I read any

No Clive Barker stans?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Thursday, July 11, 2013 12:02 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

only Books of Blood were really worth reading IME

― "Post-Oven" (DJP), Thursday, July 11, 2013 12:03 PM (54 minutes ago)

had the same E. loved the books of blood, but bogged down in the damnation game, weaveworld AND imagjica.

ang on .. reprints of stephen king books get the remix/update treatment ?

i mean, are they glaring trying to remain relevant updates, i mean, for example do the references to the ramones get replaced with greenday ?

that's a bit unusual isn't it ?

do other authors (who are still alive and kicking) do this ?

mark e wrote this at 2013-07-11 19:07:28.000

Only The Stand, as far add I can tell. It was a tenth anniversary edition or something?

VG otm re Straub - James vibe.

I've seen Maximum Overdrive more times than I've read Stephen King in 25 years. Is there a book equivalent of a basic cable staple? The kind you come across in a vacation home? Leave a book, take a book?

So am I correct that the original "Stand" is not in ebook form? Because screw reading the longer one.

ahh cheers HL ..

just thought this practice was a little weird to go without some degree of kickback ..

No, it was a big deal book release when it came out - OMG, I can't believe Doubleday robbed us of 400 extra pages of post-apocalyptic life back in 1978!- but I don't think he's done it again. The

Is there a book equivalent of a basic cable staple?

The Stand is absolutely one of my favorite books, I basically recommend that everyone read it in any form

― "Post-Oven" (DJP), Thursday, July 11, 2013 3:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Despite my griping about the changes above, me too. Since I was 13, I've read it once in every decade of my life and get something new out of it each time.

yeah it's definitely in my top 10

Its no the talisman or IT tbh but the i liked insomnia....

I don't know if King or Straub or some combo thereof wrote this passage, but when I first read The Talisman as a teen boy it just struck me as a particularly amazing moment - a boy about my age hoofing it down a highway offramp to a giant shopping mall all lit up under a magic-hour sky, burdened with a terrific (in the old-school sense) responsibility, having discovered incredible things about himself and yet still just an American teen. It feels like King - the Americana, the mental asides, the brand names, all of it.

The huge yellow-and-purple sign reading BUCKEYE MALL floated ahead of Jack as he came around the final curve of the off-ramp, drifted past his shoulder and reappeared on his other side, at which point he could finally see that it was erected on a tripod of tall yellow poles in the shopping-center parking lot. The mall itself was a futuristic assemblage of ochre-colored buildings that seemed to be windowless — a second later, Jack realized that the mall was covered, and what he was seeing was only the illusion of separate buildings. He put his hand in his pocket and fingered the tight roll of twenty-three single dollar bills which was his earthly fortune.

In the cool sunlight of an early autumn afternoon, Jack sprinted across the street toward the mall's parking lot.

If it had not been for his conversation with Buddy Parkins, Jack would very likely have stayed on U.S. 40 and tried to cover another fifty miles — he wanted to get to Illinois, where Richard Sloat was, in the next two or three days. The thought of seeing his friend Richard again had kept him going during the weary days of nonstop work on Elbert Palamountain's farm: the image of spectacled, serious-faced Richard Sloat in his room at Thayer School, in Springfield, Illinois, had fueled him as much as Mrs. Palamountain's generous meals. Jack still wanted to see Richard, and as soon as he could: but Buddy Parkins's inviting him home had somehow unstrung him. He could not just climb into another car and begin all over again on the Story. (In any case, Jack reminded himself, the Story seemed to be losing its potency.) The shopping mall gave him a perfect chance to drop out for an hour or two, especially if there was a movie theater somewhere in there — right now, Jack could have watched the dullest, soppiest Love Story of a movie.

And before the movie, were he lucky enough to find a theater, he would be able to take care of two things he had been putting off for at least a week. Jack had seen Buddy Parkins looking at his disintegrating Nikes. Not only were the running shoes falling apart, the soles, once spongy and elastic, had mysteriously become hard as asphalt. On days when he had to walk great distances — or when he had to work standing up all day — his feet stung as if they'd been burned.
The second task, calling his mother, was so loaded with guilt and other fearful emotions that Jack could not quite allow it to become conscious. He did not know if he could keep from weeping, once he'd heard his mother's voice. What if she sounded weak — what if she sounded really sick? Could he really keep going west if Lily hoarsely begged him to come back to New Hampshire? So he could not admit to himself that he was probably going to call his mother. His
mind gave him the suddenly very clear image of a bank of pay telephones beneath their hairdryer plastic bubbles, and almost immediately bucked away from it — as if Elroy or some other Territories creature could reach right out of the receiver and clamp a hand around his throat.

Just then three girls a year or two older than Jack bounced out of the back of a Subaru Brat which had swung recklessly into a parking spot near the mall's main entrance. For a second they had the look of models contorted into awkwardly elegant poses of delight and astonishment. When they had adjusted into more conventional postures the girls glanced incuriously at Jack and began to flip their hair expertly back into place. They were leggy in their tight jeans, these confident little princesses of the tenth grade, and when they laughed they put their hands over their mouths in a fashion which suggested that laughter itself was laughable. Jack slowed his walk into a kind of sleepwalker's stroll. One of the princesses glanced at him and muttered something to the brown-haired girl beside her.

I'm different now, Jack thought: I'm not like them any-more. The recognition pierced him with loneliness.

A thickset blond boy in a blue sleeveless down vest climbed out of the driver's seat and gathered the girls around him by the simple expedient of pretending to ignore them. The boy, who must have been a senior and at the very least in the varsity backfield, glanced once at Jack and then looked appraisingly at the facade of the mall. 'Timmy?' said the tall brown-haired girl. 'Yeah, yeah,' the boy said. 'I was just wondering what smells like shit out here.' He rewarded the girls with a superior little smile. The brown-haired girl looked smirkingly toward Jack, then swung herself across the asphalt with her friends. The three girls followed Timmy's arrogant body through the glass doors into the mall.
Jack waited until the figures of Timmy and his court, visible through the glass, had shrunk to the size of puppies far down the long mall before he stepped on the plate which opened the doors.

Cold predigested air embraced him.

I didn't get around reading Talisman for a long time, not until college...but man it was worth it, god I loved that book

Stuggling to get into 11/22/63 - worth persevering? The Talisman sounds interesting tho'.

I should revisit the Talisman, read it in my teens along with just about every other King novel but thought it was a real slog.

don't forget Black House - the sequel that was written 17 years later