stephen king c/d?

i really like the anti-fun of under the dome's ending! also cell, that one too

Duma Key was a lot better than I expected.

About 400 pages into Dome currently, digging it so far - I've not read any of his books for years, had forgotten how easy his stuff is to slip into. I'm only reading it on my 20 min return bus ride and am still just panelling through it.

(wld be great if any full on "this is the actual ending" spoilers could be avoided? thanks!)

Spoiler free zone, Bill, pinkyswear :)

Eyes of the Dragon is great. I loved loved Talisman, and The Black House too.

General question for everyone: what was the first SK book you read, and how old were you, etc?

Mine was Skeleton Crew, I think I was 12 (7th grade). It felt like a major discovery, like omg what IS this. 'Survivor Type' maybe my alltime favorite story of his, just for the pure nostalgia of it. I didn't even know what heroin was, lol.

I think it was Firestarter at age 11...?

xp - I've avoided the thread for UtD, precisely because I assume it will be rich with (justified) spoilerage, so thanks for keeping things at least vague here :)

First SK? I've a strong suspicion it was It, appropriate given strongo's revive. We had a family holiday to see my Grandma who lived in Italy and there was a copy on her shelves - I would have been 13/14 I think. I remember reading the whole thing in about two days, and then my brother (who was 12) did the same and then we argued about who could read it *again* first. Absolutely loved it.

I loved loved Talisman, and The Black House too.

oh yeah! king should be forced to work with peter straub

otm

I stopped reading him due to Gerald's Game which was also the first book I never finished.

I think his scariest, most upsetting books are The Stand, IT, 'Salems Lot and Cujo (HM to Misery). Pet Sematary was weird in that the most upsetting portion had nothing to do with the graveyard/supernatural horror stuff; it was the fallout from the funeral.

i think mine was little bits and pieces of "it" and "the dark half," swiped from my mom's not-for-kids reading pile, as mentioned, when i was around 11 or so.

first s.k. story that really got to me, though, was survivor type around 12 or so. (think i mentioned this in a previous revive.) probably the most horrific concept i'd come across at that point.

It appears most people here started earlier than I did: I think I was 20 or 21, and my first was Carrie. After that I pretty much went chronologically: Salem's Lot, Shining, Stand... I'm old, so I think the first one I bought as a new release was Pet Semetary.

xp to dan

some of his short stories are more unsettlin than any of those imo- crouch end towne in nightmares and dreamscapes for instance. and the one about quitting smoking and seeing the bat people is another level of wtf awesome in the same collection

ooh I just looked it up and I realized that the ending I liked so much wasn't Needful Things, it was The Dark Half. (NT was a much better book tho)

ooh I forgot about the Bachmann books, which word for word are another level of creepy

like, Thinner and The Long Walk both gave me nightmares

Aggh the Long Walk was kinda terrify

Also, "The Fog"...or maybe it was called "The Mist"? I imagined the supermarket as the little one in my hometown and I had dreams about it for weeks. But it was a great story.

Terrifying. Jeez.

Do you remember who the last competitor was in The Long Walk? I remember I worked it out once by process of elimination like it was an Encyclopedia Brown puzzle, but it's hazy now.

oh yeah his short stories > his books, no question

he usually doesn't have to fight for an ending in his short stories

the last competitor is never definitively identified but I have my theory (ie, he crazy)

I heard Merrilee Rush's "Angel of Morning" yesterday and instantly thought of the wacko dude in "The Langoliers".

I always think of him when I hear that song on the radio.

What was the book/story that he used 'Eli's Comin' by Three Dog Night?

Hey ho, let's go

I *think* the first King I read was Cujo, but I know I was reading The Stand by the time I was in the 8th grade. I wanted to read it, and my mother decided to let me, why because it look interesting. She figured I was old enough and mature enough to handle it. (This was back in 1982, btw, so this was before the "uncut edition" or whatevs.) I've never given up on a King novel, and I've read them all; probably the lowest ranking one for me is Rose Madder, which not only was not as good as his other "abused woman" novels, but seemed unnecessarily cruel and sadistic, even for him.

I heard Merrilee Rush's "Angel of Morning" yesterday and instantly thought of the wacko dude in "The Langoliers".

― VegemiteGrrrl, Monday, October 4, 2010 4:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I have four small dogs who show their affection by biting and sometimes they remind me of the Langoliers.

LOL

I haven't revisited it since high school but I rememeber that "Cain Rose Up" stayed with me for a long time, the one where the college kid goes on a shooting rampage.

This may be an old quote, or it may not even be a quote of Stephen King's, but it sounds like him...

http://i.imgur.com/oWHb5.jpg

^_^

Okay, list me some post-'92 books of his actually worth reading. I've been traveling a lot this summer and have already finished Dead Zone, Carrie, and 1/2 of Dolores Claiborne in the last two week.

which have you liked most?

dead zone / shining / talisman / black house / running man

offa the top of my head.

I'm still stuck 64 pages into Under The Dome.

i think i made it about that far before just....yeah

kingfish have you tried the dark tower? first four are very good, last three worth reading, lots of odd little links to his other books throughout.

other than that, since 92

Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Insomnia
The Green Mile
Hearts in Atlantis
On Writing
Black House
Everything's Eventual
From a Buick 8

i enjoyed all of these, though insomnia and hearts in atlantis draw a lot of hate in particular

Yup, read all the dark tower, and plenty of the other books that have the DT refs.

Reading thru Dead Zone, I was struck by how perfect it was to get David Cronenberg and cast Christopher Walken

To answer a question asked upthread, I believe the first SK book I read was _Skeleton Crew_ and I read it at the end of 9th grade, when I was 15 years old. The short story "The Mist" both terrified me and hooked me for life...

Reading 'Salem's Lot for the first time since I was maybe 10. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, but right now I'm sort of amazed at how little of this book I remember, and what I do remember is playing back differently than it did when I was a kid. Like the scenes I'm imagining now as I read it are different from the few that I can remember. I think I can attribute the lack of memory being due to so much grown-up stuff. My favorite SK at the time was IT, which had its share of adult situations that were unintelligible to my elementary school mind, but I must have been more invested in it due to the focus on children. Other favorites at the time were the first few Dark Tower books, Cycle of the Werewolf, and Eyes of the Dragon. I was also pretty into the Stand as well though, which I don't think had many little kids running around, so who knows.

i like when i see people still reading king books (new or old) on the train. i have to imagine even the worst ones are better than girl w/ dragon hoo-hah or the bodice-rippers that became true blood through some brand of hbo alchemy.

― strongohulkingtonsghost, Monday, 4 October 2010 20:58 (1 year ago)

OTM

I like Stephen King, but there are 2 problems with his books: they are almost always way too long, and he is so terrible at endings.

As said several times upthread, but it was so OTM i needed to repeat for the current page.

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