stephen king c/d?

Except Rose Madder and Gerald's Game.

While on a v. short enforced vacation a couple of years ago, I tore through a couple of his early novels. Firestarter was much better than I was expecting, Carrie was OK and then Dreamcatcher was awful.

his short stories are, of course, the bomb. his novels usually have the equivalent of two or three short stories crammed in there by way of exposition or introduction. those parts are great too.

gotta agree on the endings, though. tacky! and he does have a bit of a tendency to repeat himself, both in and between works.

(I just started A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius last night and the first 50 pages are making me ill, so I need something new.)

"I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson is a good post apocalyptic story and possibly an influence on The Stand.

The Stephen King novel that I think holds up well is "The Dead Zone", I have read that one a couple of times. "Misery" is also pretty good, but the writer's novel part may get a bit long.

addictive stuff.

Man needs a fucking editor. But he can make you care a whole hell of a lot (why did that phrase just sound like a King phrase?) about his characters and their interactions (with each other and the "landscape/place").

Many classics: Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, Pet Sematary, It, The Dark Half, Misery, Eyes of the Dragon, Dark Tower series.

Indifferent: Needful Things, Christine, Salem's Lot, Thinner (great twist, tho), the Green Mile, Dolores Claiborne.

Duds: Rose Madder, Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, Tommyknockers, The Regulators, etc.

I think ultimately he'll be remembered/revered/lauded more for his novella collections -- The Bachman Books, Different Seasons, and Four Past Midnight -- than for anything else.

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/_images/db/9/17/king1.91743.full.jpg

"Hello kiddies!"

don't really know what else to say except that i'm totally with David A in that he's a strong enough writer to make phrases like "he makes you care a whole hell of a lot" sound good, and if you can't see the charm in that we've probably got irreconcilable subjective differences.

http://www.lamerkindustries.com/

One of his short stories, a sci-fi piece about how teleportation travel has finally been invented and popularized. For it to work, you have to be sedated, because you aren't supposed to have your eyes open during teleportation, though the specifics for why aren't explained. A family is going on a trip. They all come out on the other end, but uh oh, where's the son? All of a sudden he pops out. He somehow faked the sedation and went through with his eyes open. He has been turned into a grotesque pile of flesh, a la the inside-out dog from The Fly. This disturbed me greatly for some reason and I still think about it from time to time.

Stephen King on Celebrity Jeopardy. All the other celebrities are playing for cancer research or orphanages or something, King is playing for his local library. This strikes me as incredibly cool. He trounces the other celebrities handily.

actually, he went insane.

this is in the _Skeleton Crew_ collection.

-- vahid (vfoz...), March 18th, 2004."

OTM. Of all the writers who consistently sell millions and millions of books, he's one of the few who actually has a point of view. He's written some good stuff and written some shit, but a least he has his own voice.