stephen king c/d?

Like he obviously isn't High Art but I don't honestly think King is even that bad. Flawed, for sure, but not bad. Those who pillory King have clearly never tried to hold down their lunch as they fought through something Koontz has written.

I mean, dude isn't striving to join the pantheon of literary greats so it feels more fair to judge him among his genre peers, where he more than holds his own.

or like pattersonbot 3000 xp

I've been plowing through King books this month in a periodic attempt to catch up. I re-read Dead Zone and Night Shift, and read Mr. Mercedes, Revival, Doctor Sleep, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Danse Macabre, The Gunslinger and Drawing of the Three for the first time. Jesus, there's still 27 books I haven't read yet.

James Morrison otm lol, my engagement/enjoyment of Stephen King restricted to brief period in jr. high and my initial exposure to horror fiction. and hatewatching half a season of that James Franco time-travellin Lee Harvey Oswald stalker tv show

oh and his Creepshow segment

Oh you mean that segment that was called 'the entire movie'?

Some weak King-hatin' there, bro.

(And yes, I know you probably mean Tales From the Darkside: The Movie but I'm being willfully obtuse in the face of your hatorade.)

no I literally meant the part where he appears on-screen and gets turned into fungus

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fd12vb6dvkz909q.cloudfront.net%2Fuploads%2Fgalleries%2F32314%2Fcreepshow-1.jpg&f=1

(yes I know he wrote it)

Your engaged critique of an author based on his inadvisable foray into acting and a television show adapted from one of his novels is noted and officially on the record.

Okay, I'm done being Captain Obnoxious Save-A-King. For the moment.

I don't really hate him or anything - he's not objectively awful in the way certain other mega-popular authors are - I just find the flaws in his stuff usually outweigh the strengths, and I don't find his recurring obsessions/tropes interesting, so I find his stature/success odd. (fwiw in the aforementioned period I read The Shining, Night Shift, Cujo, and I tried to read It but never finished. I remember my favorite piece of his writing was "Quitters, Inc.") And obviously some great films have been made of his material, along w a ton of crap.

I'm just more of a Lovecraft/Poe/Chambers type of guy when it comes to horror writing, I guess.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes is a lovely little today across his range

Foray

I have room in my heart for the Lovecrafts and the Kings (although, yes, I love Lovecraft's craft more).

I just find the flaws in his stuff usually outweigh the strengths, and I don't find his recurring obsessions/tropes interesting, so I find his stature/success odd

This is how I feel about Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, et al.

Nightmares & Dreamscapes has a story wrote originally for a Lovecraft tribute anthology!

I like his Creepshow performance too. It's like he's trying to transform into a Jack Davis drawing.

Even among horror authors of his generation, guys like Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, his buddy Peter Straub and a few others are generally considered better. But Campbell's short fiction is valued much higher than his novels, Etchison didn't write many novels.
But that whole era that prioritized the bloated novel is not aging well.

I think Revival was supposed to be kind of a Lovecraft thing too.

This is how I feel about Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, et al.

don't get me started on these clowns

Based on what I've read, '1408' is King's most successful attempt at Lovecraft's brand of uncanny existential terror.

"Crouch End" was okay.

What's the story with the guy who sees a finger coming out of his bathroom sink drain?

Slightly different generation but Clive Barker's reputation has fared much much better (although some of his recent stuff hasn't been so well received).

I guess he started writing a little later, but isn't he actually older than King?

hm just 5 years apart

T.E.D. Klein is probably the horror writer of King's generation with the best rep, but he only put out 2 books

Was just thinking about Klein. Some imperfect elements in his work but the four stories in the Dark Gods collection are all to one degree or another perfect nightmare fuel. "Petey" in particular but "Nadelman's God" might be the best of the four.

Klein recently started getting back to work on a novel he started in the 80s.

Keyes- there's Reassuring Tales too, but it's supposed to be mostly lesser work, odds and ends.

Charles L Grant fits in there too but I haven't really liked anything I've read so far.

there's a funny podcast called King Me where two comedian dudes (one is a former clickhole guy) are going through every single movie adaptation and talking shit about them, it's v much from a haters pov & has renewed my interest in his oeuvre

that reminds me, someone told me about a King focused podcast called The Losers' Club where they talk about/analyze his books. haven't checked it out yet, waiting til i finish IT. reading this thread has been a bit treacherous in that regard

there's a funny podcast called King Me where two comedian dudes (one is a former clickhole guy) are going through every single movie adaptation and talking shit about them, it's v much from a haters pov & has renewed my interest in his oeuvre

― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Friday, 31 March 2017 19:06

Hope they decide to do something else. That's a lot of films.

lol They're 50 episodes in and up to 1999

Sorry for earlier coming in and shitting on king, i know it was boring, i was having an extraordinarily bad day, pls carry on

Gonna check out Long Walk, I've never seen it mentioned as one of the essentials before.

A quick tangential recommendation - Joe Hill's graphic novel series Locke & Key is really, really good - it's kind of "what if Stephen King did a high school TV show and it was much less bad than it sounds"

I keep watching this trailer and can't get excited at all.

Agreed. It is ... competent and golden-hued.

Good choice, Chuck. That's my go-to recommendation for non-fans. You can read it in a weekend or less and it's totally worth it.

lol They're 50 episodes in and up to 1999

I emailed them to demand that they go back and review michael jackson's ghosts (1996) as they'd missed it out

I liked all the Bachman Books but Long Walk is definitely the best and one that sticks with me the most.

Also I remember doing a book report / poster assignment for that in 7th grade and drew the halftrack and like a road littered with bodies which feels maybe like things 12 year olds could do in 1987 but not anymore?

I liked all the Bachman Books but Long Walk is definitely the best and one that sticks with me the most.

Also I remember doing a book report / poster assignment for that in 7th grade and drew the halftrack and like a road littered with bodies which feels maybe like things 12 year olds could do in 1987 but not anymore?

Here's something: son Owen King is a fab non-genre writer. I'm hoping he'll rein in dad on their collaboration.

In other news, avoid the third Mr Mercedes book. It goes supernatural. He couldn't stay straight for even a trilogy!

The short stories, Skeleton Crew, Night Shift, Different Seasons, even Four Past Midnight were all really rich grounds for my teenage imagination to go crazy ... I think that was where I really became a deep fan & it was a real training ground for the crazy shit in his novels (plus the novels rarely stayed on the library shelf at school, which is why i had to settle for reading & rereading the short stories until a novel became available)

I remember picturing The Mist happening in my local supermarket

The Mist in 3D sound is second only to The Shining in my favorite King-associated media.

I'll defend Barker any day - maybe my favourite 'pop' author. But King is a great writer; he seems to fall between two stools, in that no one cares about a genre writer repeating themselves, or a literary writer repeating themselves (they're just exploring their preoccupations), but he gets a lot of criticism on that front. But I haven't read any King since I was a teenager, maybe 20 yrs ago, so who knows. I have a copy of his time travel one which I have t read. But teenage does used to read and enjoy Herbert and Koontz, so...

Teenage dowd, that is