stephen king c/d?

I might be inclined to give it up for The Long Walk. That thing is lean and perfect and horrifying.

If not for the literal hand-of-god ending The Stand would be his best in a walk. Nothing beats the chapter in which he describes all the people who were immune to the superflu but died via their own misfortune or through terrible accidents.

Well said Lauren: the book is full of so many of those moments -- it seems like thousands of them! -- that recalling the book is almost like recalling your own past, the infinite memories that pop up. It's just so much. It's overwhelming. Something about the fact that he made it about adults/kids and about memories lends it this staying power.

(re: IT, not The Stand)

Yeah there's something about the kid part that almost feels like they're my own memories? The library scenes as a kid I pictured happening in my school library

I still agree with my ranking from 5 years ago:

The Stand
It
The Long Walk
Misery
'Salem's Lot

Hard-pressed to argue with that ranking.

Also, yes, It should be read when you're a kid for the exact reasons posted.

would like to see It filmed with the same tone as Stand By Me, they're pretty similar... assume this point has been made upthread in one of the 1k messages skipped but hey

The previous adaptation of it was totally going for a stand by me vibe! And not unsuccessfully imo, it was just inept in other ways and the adult actors were awful

Stand By Me is a really weird and not especially good movie

xpost I will not stand idly by as you besmirch the chops of Harry Anderson.

lol which one was he

One of the weirdest things about that film is it's so restricted by being made for tv in terms of horror and language and sexuality and yet they are still able to throw the n word around

He was Richie Tozier. Even as a kid, I had no idea wtf the deal was with those casting decisions.

the original is bad. like tim curry is amazing. it's interesting for me to watch because it was filmed in vancouver including a shot on a street i walked every day for a year or so that was like a half a block from my old apartment. that's about it.

but terrible adaptation of a great, scary book

i think the first half of the miniseries is pretty good. second half is woof

Ugh yes. I also saw as a kid (for some weird reason) and its resonance is entirely down to the kids + curry

many xposts!

Young Henry bowers felt genuinely menacing when I first watched although he's just a mean tiny 11 year old with funny hair/music cues, even at the time I thought his adult counterpart was a joke

Nothing beats the chapter in which he describes all the people who were immune to the superflu but died via their own misfortune or through terrible accidents.

I think I said this here or in another SK thread but I love his writing about shit hitting the fan and society falling apart and going to hell, he does that really well. This part of the Stand was great as it was just piling on the chaos and misery.

I also want to know what experience he had as a child with a homeless person - there are crazed hobos who accost people in It and 11/22/63 and the whole murdering-and-burying homeless people thing in Apt Pupil.

Prominent quote on back of IT calls it the Moby-Dick of horror. Seems about right.

It's definitely a novel that is trying to put everything in. Idk about Melville but it seems like the ultimate 80s maximalist horror, cocaine and AIDS and the 1950s and a nightmare on elm st

ctrl-f "wtf with that gangbang" not found

it's been covered

me I'm still holding out for a film version

Bev: guys I have an idea
DISCREET CUT OR MAYBE DISSOLVE
(Awkward zipping up scene)

Everyone: *doesnt speak for 30 years*

I'm a big fan of It because it seemed a marvellous Moby Dick type epic when I was 13, and it scared the shit out of me. But I've never had this coulrophobia thing, more scared of giant spiders, pan-dimensional ancient aliens and Henry Bowers types. I went to school with a Henry Bowers type who is doing life for multiple murders.

Lol! I read that post of Wins; that his viewing of the 90's It mini-series was enhanced by having a Jalfrezi while watching it!

This movie does look ok so far, but they should have done a mini-series with the adults as well, and at least try and do it justice this time.

I went to school with a Henry Bowers type who is doing life for multiple murders.

Yargh.

ctrl-f "wtf with that gangbang" not found

do a ctrl-f for "magic punani"

DJP's adaptation is clearly the one that needs to happen.

ani get your pun

it's been covered

me I'm still holding out for a film version

Bev: guys I have an idea
DISCREET CUT OR MAYBE DISSOLVE
(Awkward zipping up scene)

Everyone: *doesnt speak for 30 years*

― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, March 30, 2017 1:11 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wikipedia so eloquently describes this beautiful passage:

After the battle, the victorious but badly shaken Losers begin to lose cohesion and get lost in the sewers, until Beverly has sex with all the boys to bring unity back to the group.[2] The Losers then swear a blood oath to return to Derry should It return in the future.

Salem's Lot is definitely King's best book, and I love The Stand (the original 70s version, not the bloated reissue); I don't really like his coked-up 80s books, It included. Some of his recent work - Duma Key, Under the Dome, and 11/22/63 - is really solid, too.

We have a couple of really good king poll threads and tbh I'd need to read them to even be sure which of his books I'd put top 5

The one that dare not speak it's name: hearts in Atlantis. Ya i said it. And i liked insomnia.

Duma Key gets legit scary in the middle; Under The Dome is great for about 3/4 but holy shit he whiffs the ending HARD

apropos of nothing I just really need to say

beep beep richie

Oh, and Revival was good, too. I read Mr. Mercedes but didn't like it enough to read either of the two(!) sequels.

I thought Hearts in Atlantis had a few moments, but yeah it ultimately seemed like what it was: some discarded attempts retrieved and stitched together.

I recently finished (finally) Dreamcatcher, discussed on another thread. That one's wretched.

I read Salem's Lot recently and was bit let down. The way he constructs this panoramic view of the town is fantastically executed, but it just wasn't as creepy as I had hoped.

spoilers for under the dome

Under the dome is his bleakest darkest comedy, like a better needful things, and I love the extreme deployment of the standard king "everything blows up" ending and wish he hadn't already played his one-time metatextual copout card with the dark tower because that would have been an amazing and dark substitute for the standard interdimensional lovecraftian copout card

the stand is his best, overall, though it falters toward the end when it becomes super obvious where everything is leading but king insists on dragging every parallel plotline out foreeeeevveeerrrr. it is great too, but i'd put the long walk in 2nd for the reasons mentioned by old lunch. burned a hole in my brain as a teen. hasn't been mentioned much, but the shining ranks up there with it, misery and salem's lot.

gonna get around the catching up w/ the dark tower series one of these days. dug the first book. more streamlined and self-consciously "literary" than anything else he's published under his own name. understand that the later installments are closer to his typical style tho...

Dark Tower is dope, flaws be damned

And i liked insomnia.

re-read that one last year and was surprised how much I enjoyed it this time.

The first Mr. Mercedes sequel is really good, more like his better Bachman work. The plot is kicked into motion by a guy stealing, at gunpoint, all the unpublished works of a reclusive Salinger-esque author.

i spent some time with stephen king a few months ago. my coworker and i drove a bunch of books over to his dressing room before a reading so he could sign them and then like handed him the books one by one in an assembly line fashion. extremely aloof guy.

nice though. nothing like his character IT.

Kind of afraid to read King's other novels because IT was a hugely disappointing colossal trainwreck (despite having some very powerful moments), but I still want to read Salem's Lot, Pet Semetery and Dark Tower.

You guys really love some awful, awful books

Awful is a relative term

James, if you know of another author beyond Stephen King and that dude who wrote the bible, I'd love to check 'em out sometime.

You know who written the bible?

it was that guy with the tablets. robert moses.