stephen king c/d?

fun fact: "The Mist" was part of the inspiration for Half-Life

Argh I forgot to add King content in that last post.

Carrie is an excellent read because it's short and the way it's written is really, really compelling; I don't know that he's done a book like that since.

Other fun fact: Infocom made a text-adventure game of the story

> drop pig's head

Yikes, Dan, I had forgotten about the burning part. Ouch!

And more S.K. info:

BTW, I had just finished Desperation when I went into preterm labor with Alex. Connection?

Then, when I was pregnant with J., I decided to go on a massive Stephen King re-reading binge, starting with The Stand (because I had a cold). Stephen King is, apparently, my comfort reading.

css

I agree with much that's already been recommended here. The Stand is still my favourite, for the apocalyptic thing, sure, but all those compelling characters, and probably for the circumstances in which I read it. Thinking about it now, it's like the ultimate reality show, albeit on a way bigger backdrop than, say, the Cook Islands or Vanuatu -- "Survivor: the Continental United States". (And it has Trashcan Man!)

I reached the end of The Dark Tower with some trepidation after hearing about all the disappointment, but I loved it! To me, it was only way he could[ have ended it without it appearing forced. There's another thing he does toward the last two or three instalments, though (and I won't say what in case anyone on this thread decides to read the whole thing), that I'm not so sure about.

Everyone OTM (or 808080808 or whatever the new OTM is) re: his collections. They're probably better written than his novels over all, as he is finally forced to edit something! Skeleton Crew and Night Shift are excellent, yes, but don't forget the collections of shorter novels like Different Seasons and Nightmares And Dreamscapes. The former is almost perfect (and contains the two stories that formed the basis for two of the few decent King-inspired movies -- Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption -- and both stories are better than the films.

I read his latest, Lisey's Story, and I'm still trying to get my head around it. It has its faults, but it may well be the most beautiful of his novels, and is quite achingly tender at times without necessarily falling into the maudlin trap he's sometimes prone to. Cell is fun, a lighter, breezier The Stand and an obvious tribute to George Romero.

Dan OTM re: Carrie and the way it's constructed, very readable and nowhere near as bulky as most of his novels. A good start for anyone new to King. Although I loved Pet Sematary (while being utterly horrified by it in a similar way to Cujo, that Sara has already alluded to).

Sorry, this is long.

(And if I haven't fucked up any of that code, it'll be a miracle, so apologies ahead of time if everything ends up in italics.)

How could I forget Different Seasons? Sooooo awesome.

I liked Lisey's Story for a lot of reasons - and was surprised to find myself in tears at the end of it - but some of the "inner language of a marriage" stuff was kind of grating.

Also, I think I've heard about what you're referring to in the latter [i]Dark Tower[i] books, Lostandfound, and I kind of dread it... but maybe it will work for me, who knows.

He's terrific at plot constuction and spookily poetic imagery, however he has a ridiculously undisciplined style, to the extent that most of his books could probably be half the length and still have the same ammount of story (maybe why they're good for filming?). I haven't actually read too much of his stuff because of this.

I think his inability to effectively end a story actually worked to his advantage in Needful Things.

I would blame editors for that problem.

i think part of the reason Pet Sematary is my favorite novel of his is because it's just the right length.

I think his editors are either afraid to do anything to his work at this point (and for a long time now) OR they don't care, since the stuff is going to sell like mad anyway. I mean, the entire first chapter of Black House should have been scrapped.

(King's not the only author with this problem; the 5th Harry Potter book desperately needed editing. Someone must have stepped in for #6, though, as it was a lot better...)

I liked Lisey's Story for a lot of reasons - and was surprised to find myself in tears at the end of it - but some of the "inner language of a marriage" stuff was kind of grating.

Yes, exactly. The pet words they used, etc. But other than that, there was a pretty hefty emotional payoff, wasn't there? Surprised me a bit. Especially after the whole can opener scene (I didn't think he could rescue it after that, which was also surprising in that King isn't usually sadistic).

Also, I think I've heard about what you're referring to in the latter Dark Tower[i] books, Lostandfound, and I kind of dread it... but maybe it will work for me, who knows.

It was odd. I still can't decide if it was audacious or gimmicky (or both!), but it didn't ruin the series in the end (for me). I know that he's been accused of phoning in the last three books, but I was there for the whole ride and loved every minute of it, even though you can tell he had no idea where to go with the plot at various points. as with a lot of his stuff, it comes down to characters -- when they're stock clichés, it's boring, but when they compel you, you can't interrupt the damn thing even to go to the bathroom. For me, [i]The Dark Tower (in spite of a few sagging sections) is in the latter group.

See, I knew I'd fuck up this code.

Not to worry, I'm still following you.

but when they compel you, you can't interrupt the damn thing even to go to the bathroom...

Or sleep... or study... when I read Wizard and Glass I was going through horrible insomnia, so it worked out perfectly.

King isn't usually sadistic.

Wait, are we reading the same Stephen King books? (Misery leaps to mind first).

So, I'm gonna try picking up The Stand -- should I definitely grab the extended edition? (I've got all summer...)

Okay, now I'm going to sit here and think about all the other things in his books that might be considered sadistic.

Maybe sadism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

The Amazon reviews for the Langoliers miniseries are INCREDIBLE:

STEPHEN.... KING .... THE GENIUS OF THE STRANGE, October 4, 2003
Reviewer: BOT Alain (Saint-Martin au Laërt, Pas de calais France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This movie is a very good discovery witch has "provide you are reciptives" SCIENTIFICS REFERENCES OF TEMPORAL QUANTUM PHYSICAL because what's accurately the TIME FACTOR ? The material SUBSTANCE ? WHAT ARE EXACTLY THE DIFFERENTS POSSIBILITY INHERENTS AS THAT ? STEPHEN KING who was writting this book whitch has inspired this movie is compulsory to know these NOTIONS .... MATHEMATICALS and with its dreams witch are almost communicables the scepticism of any pepople who look this splendid MOVIE disappear inevitably !!! THIS MAN IS REALY A GENIUS AND OF COURSE THE MOVIE IS BECOMING WITH HIM A MASTERPIECE ! A airpline witch never find the ground for crash-land, the odour witch is not there in this atmosphere every OFthese THINGS CREATED THROUGHT THE TERRIBLE YOUTHFULNESS OF A POOR MAN TOOMY !!! INNOVATOR STEPHEN KING... REALY with many thrillers, actions, emotions, some science, very much compatibility with the reality in despite of slows averages !

DEFINITELY get the extended version of The Stand.

But what this review is about whether there is going to be a sequel to Langoliers. Here is MY prediction of a sequel: The funerals of Don Gaffney,Nick Hopewell,Dinah Bellman,and yes even the psychopath banker Craig Toomey are held in where else?,Boston,Mass. The characters still goes as follows: Captain Brian Engle is still going to his ex-wives funeral,Don Gaffney's grandaugther is going to Don's funeral,Laurel Stevenson is going to the funeral of Dinah,Don,and Nick,Albert Kaussner and Bethany Simms are now married and are going to the funeral of Dinah,Don,and Nick,Bob Jenkins is not only going to the funerals of Don,Nick,and Dinah, but he is going to write a novel of his previous trip on AP #29,Rudy Warwick who is also going to said funeral (and hopes that there is plenty of food at that funeral),Craig Toomey's unmentioned brother Greg has 3 things on his mind:1,Going to the funeral of Craig 2,Finish what his brother started (attend that important meeting in Boston at 9:00) and 3,Makes sure he dosen't suffer the same fate as his brother,Nick's father is going to his son's funeral since he found out about the disaster of flight 29 in a England paper,and last but not least,an unknown mercenary who ISN'T among the 10 survivors of flight 29 who is just going to Boston to get away fom the stresses of L.A. But he also has the psychic powers of Dinah,and his vacation turns into a all fought out battle for the lives of the 9 NEW passengers of AP Flight 58 and for time against the Langoliers who now want to eat more than just lazy boys and girls and the past. Same goes as follows:Time rip (now caused by a brutal t storm before the 2nd trip to Boston,not an auora borealias) sleeping people survive,awake people die,Brian takes over as new pilot AGAIN as the 2 pilots of aP 58 are the only ones that die,fuel of past works with plane of the present but takes longer to join time stream,and Brian puts plane on autopilot before decreasing pressure. See the battle for time and life of 10 NEW passangers aboard AP Flight 58 in:Return Of The Langoliers:Saving The Past,Present,and Future. Tell me if you think that there is going to be a sequel and if you have a same or different prediction of a sequel.

My 2 cents for the unabridged: some of the added scenes are really excellent. BUT it was my favorite book before that and the unabridged came out just before I graduated from high school. I have a great memory of my friend T0dd and I racing to finish the "new" version first. (He won, but only because he tricked me.)

Re: The Stand, I think the original version is hurt by heavy editing, but the extended version is bogged down by no editing. It's my favorite book by him, but for a beginner I'd recommend The Shining and Night Shift, a good novel and a great story collection.

I was reading the Shining at age 17 in my bedroom. My mom came in, flipped out, and asked me why I was trying to channel Satan. Good book, though.

ha ha, my Mom just asks, "why do you like such WEIRD things?" (I mean, she's still asking this and I'm 35 now. You think she's just have accepted it by now. Next time I'm going to tell her "I'm trying to channel Satan.")

EASY TIGER

It was, Ryan Adams says, this girl he’s been spending time with; the title of this album is her fault. “She wanted to go out to dinner at eight; I wanted to go right away. She said, ‘Easy, Tiger.’ And that hit me. It stuck with me to the point where I called up Neal [that would be Neal Casal, guitarist of The Cardinals] and left a message on his answering machine with those two words. ‘Don’t forget this,’ I said, ‘cause I want to use it.’ ”

Adams laughs and adds, “I think he’s still got that message.”

And I understand that. Some things you just save, because they’re worth playing over again.

I think there are really only two kinds of pop music CDs these days. There are the ones you listen to only once or twice, maybe downloading the single good song to your iPod or computer; then there are others that grow stronger, sweeter, and more necessary each time you play them. Gold was that way; Cold Roses was that way; so was Jacksonville City Nights. I won’t say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young…but I won’t say he isn’t, either. What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as Easy Tiger; it’s got enough blue-eyed, blue-steel soul (with the faintest country tinge) to make me think of both Marvin Gaye and the Righteous Brothers. Probably ridiculous, but true. And the songs themselves are beautiful—the lyrics tightly focused and brief, the feeling one of melancholy calm that will probably be a revelation to fans that remember the old, sometimes angry Ryan Adams.

He agrees that the tone of Easy Tiger is different — not dark, just different—and suggests in passing that it may have something to do with both sobering up and growing up (he’s 32). Then he goes on to talk about the process, which is clearly something close to his heart. “I write on a manual typewriter,” he says. “I get up, I have a cup of coffee, I sit down at the typewriter. I never spent a useless day behind a typewriter.”

I say amen to that, but he’s already going on.

“It’s like—I don’t know, sometimes it’s like chasing a pretty girl on the beach. And things I never thought I could do…I can do.”

I mention how prolific he is, aware that I might be touching a sore point. After all, there are plenty of critics who seem to think that’s a bad thing. Adams, however, just laughs.

“Yeah, yeah, in America people give you shit for working hard,” he says. “But…it’s process, that’s all. I process things. I went into the dream business. If people need ‘em, I’ve got extra.”

He talks enthusiastically about all the unreleased material he hopes to set free in a box set, maybe at the end of the year (“If people hear it all, then they’ll get the connections,” he says), but that’s then. Now there’s this, maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever. And I know you want to listen to it right away. But slow down. Take your time. This album asks for that, and it will reward your full attention.

In other words—easy, Tiger.

--Stephen King

they don't care, since the stuff is going to sell like mad anyway.

bingo.

Yeah I really wouldn't start out with the Stand. Soo big. Start with something a bit more managable to get a feel for him before you dive into an epic.

I started reading him when I was 8 and my mother never said shit. Then I would've thought that was cool now I think it sucks.

I think his inability to effectively end a story actually worked to his advantage in Needful Things.
-- HI DERE, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:56 (Yesterday)

I'm curious as to your rationale behind this. I only ask because I was a huge SK fan as a youth and Needful Things was the first time I realized that he couldn't wrap up his novels. I began to lose my taste for him with the ending of this book. How did it work to his advantage?

IIRC, at the end of Needful Things the entire town is in shambles and the nascent relationship that had been budding throughout the book is in total shambles; all of the survivors are sitting around completely shellshocked and at a loss as to what they're going to do next... and then the novel just stops. It was more unsettling than the total freakout Armageddon that preceded it.

(I admit I may be mixing in parts of the end of The Dark Half here.)

I was thinking as I was driving up to the Cities for class tonight that not much mention has been made (if any) of his non-fiction work. I love love LOVE Danse Macabre and On Writing. Hell, I love the little notes he writes to his "Constant Reader."

Also I sometimes enjoy reading his column for Entertainment Weekly... and attribute the fact that I realized that I had totally lost touch with current music and that I missed it to an article he wrote at the end of 2005 for that column. I even still have it bookmarked. Here:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1052645,00.html

Danse Macabre is great! That alternate scene from 'Salem's Lot!

My copy is in desperate need of a re-read; I'd forgotten all about that scene.

I used to use it as a reference for going to rent videos. Actually, I just bought a video copy of the original The Haunting... but he makes it sound so scary that I'm afraid to watch it. (yes, I'm a huge dork; I know this isn't news to you).

I've also taken book reading suggestions from it - the one I remember most is that Anne Rivers Siddons novel... ugh I can't remember the title right now. But it's about a house that is "haunted" in that the architect who designed it made it... wrong. It's pretty good.

The scene that sticks with me from On Writing is King's description of having his eardrum lanced as a child to treat infection. OMG, nothing could have made me more happy to be born in the post-discovery of antibiotics era... wow.

have picked up part 6 of dark tower thinking that i've come this far i may as well finish it (i read part one in the b&b after leaving home but before sorting out rented accomodation for first job in sept '89, 18 fscking years ago...). i have a dreadful feeling he's about to appear as a character himself. i hate it when they do that.

read everything of his up to delores claiborne(?) and only the dark tower since (on, and black house, which forced me to remember more stuff from 20+ years ago, the talisman).

i wish he'd update "danse macbare".

and then the novel just stops. It was more unsettling than the total freakout Armageddon that preceded it.

Okay, I can get behind that. But what ruined it for me was the transformation that the bad guy goes through at the end, which IIRC takes all of two or three pages. I mean it's obvious throughout the book who the bad guy is, but doesn't he turn into a (spoiler alert) fucking magical goblin and just zoom off or something like that? It seemed like SK needed to wrap the book up really quick.

Hahaha see, I'd read The Tommyknockers before this one and was there fully expecting a horrifically awful ending.

I think part of the reason that my King re-reading project fell apart was that I just can't fathom re-reading The Tommyknockers, Insomnia, or Gerald's Game. (And yet they continue to sit on my shelf...)


i wish he'd update "danse macbare".

That would be soooooo awesome.

totally! danse macabre is easily one of my favorite things he's ever written

His best story was in the New Yorker, around 01 I think. Called "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away." In that 'Everything's Eventual' collection.

That story made me lose my shit. So well-written, so darkly melancholic, yet so funny and mundane at the same time. I still think about the line, "Save Russian Jews, Collect Valuable Prizes" ALL THE TIME.

Anyone who hasn't read it, plot synopsis here.

I didn't realize the russian jews line was in it... now i should re-read that.

Completely agree with that, table. "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" is astonishing. Didn't realise it made the New Yorker, though. King's slowly been receiving more literary kudos of late, not that it matters.

Sara, I'm still thinking about the sadism thing! If I get a minute, I'll post more thoughts.

i've only read a couple of short stories by SK ("the jaunt" and that one about the kid whose grandmother is a witch) and they both freaked the hell out of me. i don't think i've got the constitution to make it through a whole novel.

OMG THE WITCH ONE, BRRRRRRR

Isn't that one called "Gramma?" Completely creepy.

I've seen two or three Stephen King short stories in The New Yorker. One of which was some kind of gangster story set in the area I grew up... and which mentioned a certain Spiral Bridge that used to be there. That was weird.


Sara, I'm still thinking about the sadism thing! If I get a minute, I'll post more thoughts.

Okay! Really, Misery was my huge example, but Dan reminded me of the scene that didn't make it into Salem's Lot... and now I'm thinking of a nasty scene with The Kid that's in the unabridged version of The Stand...

Still, I'm kind of in love with the idea that sadism is in the eye of the beholder now. :)

One of which was some kind of gangster story set in the area I grew up...

okay WAHT??????????

It's also in Everything's Eventual. The story is titled "The Death of Jack Hamilton." It's set in St. Paul (which, you have to admit, is certainly near Hastings). Here's the paragraph that REALLY got my attention, though:

We crossed the Mississippi about twenty miles downriver from St. Paul, and although the local cops were all on the lookout for what they called the Dillinger Gang, I think we would have been all right if Jack Hamilton hadn't lost his hat while we were making our escape. He was sweating like a pig - he always did when he was nervous - and when he found a rag on the backseat of the carpenter's car he whipped it into a kind of rope and tied it around his head, Injun style. That was what caught the eye of the cops parked on the Wisconsin side of the Spiral Bridge as we went past them, and they came after us for a closer look.

Wait, the Wisconsin side of the Spiral Bridge? lol the spiral bridge must have been HUEG!

i don't know if he's a sadist, but he's really good at spending 200 pages making you fall in love with a character and then spending the remaining 400 pages beating them to death with a stick. i always felt that way about john irving too. i suppose that's the nature of horror though. or tragedy. in king's case. melodrama in irving's case.

I don't know if he's a sadist himself, I just think there's a lot of sadistic stuff in his books! John Irving, I don't know... he has a lot of dark humor in his books, though. (I love "Sorrow," the dog in Hotel New Hampshire...)

lol the spiral bridge must have been HUEG!

Dan, have you been out to the place in Hastings where the crazy guy has built a Spiral Bridge, a scaled down model of St. Boniface (the church I went to growing up), and all kinds of other weird stuff?

omg YES! I think we took a school field trip to that place in 1st or 2nd grade!

A friend of mine got married at the St. Boniface model. I had no idea that place existed when we were in GRADE SCHOOL. Wow. (You should totally take J031 there.)

Hmmmm, you know if the Spiral Bridge were further south than really was, it might have crossed from MN to WI. (I'm thinking of Prescott; I think it's still MN on the other side of the river there...)

I'm pretty sure the Spiral Bridge was at the bottom of Hollywood Hill where the current bridge into Hastings is; in order to reach Wisconsin, it would have to cross the St. Croix, which, given where it was, = HUEG BRIDGE LOL