stephen king c/d?

i gave up on mr mercedes v early

i know its supposed to be couched in hard-boiled cliches but i found it almost intolerably cliched from the beginning

idk. maybe i was just in a bad mood

Mr. Mercedes -- a nice, kind of humble everyday detective story. It's the start of a series -- two more are coming.

Revival is pretty good, despite a mid-book 200 pages or so that was, like, so unnecessary, but in SK fashion, readable anyway.

Revival has its share of typical SK lapses -- some poor editing, odd pacing, and laughable OTTness -- but overall I enjoyed it. Usually I expect his books to start strong and fall apart in the last act, but this was the opposite ... the first chapter or two are so wholesome and bucolic I was tempted to bail, until some gore was splattered; the final chapters, while derivative, are intense, creepy, and ultra-dark.

I enjoyed those Guardian posts linked upthread but was sad the writer stopped with Gerald's Game ... it's the books after that I'd like more help to sift through.

11/22/63 so far is really good!! The show, haven't read the book.

The ending of Revival scared the bejeezus out of me. It's the first time in quite a while I genuinely regretted finishing a book before lights out. For a while there it actually really upset me, until I just thought, "Well, of course that doesn't happen". I think SK tapped into a certain fear really effectively there.

http://www.avclub.com/article/idris-elba-and-matthew-mcconaughey-confirmed-star--233053

Enjoying mr Mercedes

any word on who will play Stephen King in the Dark Tower film? presumably won't play himself but who do you even cast to play him...might have to get Johnny Depp or something...

also mr mercedes and the sequel are great, if you like stupid hard boiled detective novels, not exactly King's wheelhouse but he's pretty good at it

he wrote a sequel?

yep, called finders keepers, strays a little bit more into weird/supernatural King territory near the end, which is probably a good thing

though if you like mr mercedes at all I implore you to check out the "hard case" trilogy by dan simmons, another horror writer trying his hand at the hard boiled detective thing and doing a much better job imo, he could churn one of those out every month and I'd gobble it up like so much nasty candy

So this seems like it's going to be a year of King adaptations going really big -- The Dark Tower and It kinda make for a hell of a one-two. Still no Dark Tower trailer yet but here's a footage report:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/we-have-seen-the-first-footage-from-the-dark-tower-1793703645

As for It:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnCdOQsX5kc

reading IT for the first time, about halfway through, obviously King's masterpiece - wish I hadn't waited to read it for so long... so much better than The Stand.

so this is set in the 80s and won't include the adult timeline?

I dunno if Stephen king has a masterpiece but if he does its surely one from book 2,3 or 4 of dark tower

whoever's behind this must've been pretty stoked to see Stranger Things clean up

no handjob scene no credibility

wasn't IT stephen king's cocaine novel?

he had a few. tommyknockers maybe the most notorious.

Cujo is the one he can't remember

so this is set in the 80s and won't include the adult timeline?

They're doing this as two parts, but yeah looks like they've shifted the first half of the book to the 80s, presumably the second half/film will be the present.

well that trailer does look good tbh

he tweeted a couple weeks ago that he saw the movie, loved it, and said that it's just part one of the book.

should be noted that King reps for a lot of terrible things

this looks like it has potential though

looks like it has the atmosphere down...i think the problem w/most king horror adaptations is they get the gore factor well enough, but they miss the pervasive creepiness.

Hope it's up to the standard of 1997's triumphant the shining

trailer looks awesome

i have a good feeling about this It

also agree it is the quintessential SK book (of the doorstop phase)

Is it a sure-thing this movie will be a two parter? This looks pretty stand alone, and no details seem to be confirmed for a second one

It is very sure -- been widely reported/noted, including from King himself per upthread.

According to IMDB, some fans tried to start a thing to get them to cast the child actors from the miniseries as the adults in this version. Which -- even apart from Jonathan Brandis being, you know, dead -- would be silly. Especially since one of them was Seth Green.

Petition for Tim Curry to star as pennywise's dad and if possible to have a line or two of dialogue about how the female ghostbusters was s terrible idea

the trailer looks v good. i'm less sure about the time jump

I'd've preferred that they cast the adults from the miniseries as the kids in the new movie.

This kid they've cast as Patrick Hockstetter definitely looks like the kind of guy who would give his pal a handy in the junkyard before getting eaten by flying leeches.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4977122

heh I revisited it earlier this year (in audiobook form) and was surprised at the gay panic running all throughout. It's one of his coke novels but also maybe his AIDS novel??

Yeah some of that was rough to read. I imagine the thing he'd most want to retcon out of existence though is that child sex scene

You don't think we'll finally see that realised onscreen?

christ this looks incredible!

Is it bad that I'm looking forward to seeing the balloon in the library pop & be filled with blood

Or was that the spider

Either way HI YEP HELLO INTO IT

I'm not ready for a movie that actually gets this right tbh

lol

It's weird, I've read It twice, and watched the mini-series a couple times as well, but that was all before I had kids of my own. Not sure how eager I am to revisit this now.

It's difficult (and, understandable, therefore attractive) to make a case for any other SK book as his best book. I mean, if IT was the only book he ever wrote, it'd still be a horror landmark.

For all the many terrors in the book, one of the most horrible scenes for me is when Eddie's pharmacist tries to tell him he doesn't really have asthma and his inhaler is a placebo. Just that sense of betrayal by adult authority figures, plus the illumination of his mother's domineering personality and probably Munchausen-by-proxy going on.

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.