Stephen King....anybody?

[hansosjesusstick]

lol this is a section for anyone who has read any stephen king book and has enjoyed it my personal favorite is "it" it still gives me nightmares and i'm offically scared for life of clowns. i'm right now in the middle of "The Stand" which is a farely good book but they drag it out in the begining. if the mods don't think this is doing well or whatever they may delete it. tell me or whoever looks at this what ur favorite stephen king book is and give us what u think are it's pros adn cons.

[mbison]

I think my favorite Stephen King book has to be "The Long Walk". It's a short story that he wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman. It's really unlike anything else I've ever read. A close second is Pet Cemetery. SCARY!

And believe it or not I've never read or seen "It"! I always mean to rent it but for some reason I never do.

[jacksloststepkid]

Read through the whole dark tower set. It basically is a kind of uber-universe in which all the rest of King's books fit into. The Stand has some great tie ins to it, and in some ways, the series is kind of like a very extended Stand like story.

I liked the Stand quite a bit as well.

JLSK

[benxtaron]

I agree, the Dark Tower series is phenomenal. Although I hated the ending of it all at first, I began to understand that he kinda in a way deserved it. Anyway, does anyone who has read the Dark Tower series agree?

[bungledin]

I loved The Stand .... don't think he dragged the beginging out at all.... maybe the end a bit ... but still loved it... I started the Gunslinger in the Dark Tower series, but I put it aside to read something else but I'm going to pick it up again soon

[faye]

I love shinning it's a great books !!! i like read this book when I'm alone ^^

[hansosjesusstick]

see i never got into the dark tower series. ohhh and mbison just a heads up u'll hate clowns forever after u see the movie. my dad made me watch it when i was 7......i had nightmares for three months lol. ohh yeah the pet cemetary uggh made me never to have pets lol. Who in here has read or seen the greenmile great series of books in my opinion it was like kind of a brighter side on stephen king

[jacksloststepkid]

First book of the dark tower series is a bit tough to get through and get hooked on - the Gunslinger - it is shorter though, plug through that to #2 and you'll be hooked.

I agree about the ending. I still think a bit that it was a cop out ending. But I understand why it went that way.

[hansosjesusstick]

the ending of which book JLSK?

[jacksloststepkid]

benxtaron said:

I agree, the Dark Tower series is phenomenal. Although I hated the ending of it all at first, I began to understand that he kinda in a way deserved it. Anyway, does anyone who has read the Dark Tower series agree?

I was refering to the ending of the Dark Tower series - the end of book 7... Basically the whole series is building towards this ending, so reader's have pretty large expectations as they read through to the end.

JLSK

[benxtaron]

SPOILER: Click to show

He did leave Roland, The Last Gunslinger (love saying that ;D ) with a chance to redeem himself. Remember, he wasn't able to blow Eld's horn because he left it out in the desert. But after he reached the top of the Tower, and was brought back, he picked it up, so maybe he will be able to redeem himself. I just wish that Stephen King would have gotten away from his "there is never such a thing as a happy ending" crap and given him one. Oh well.

[flawedprefect]

I am putting on flame-resistant armor before typing the following...

The Dark Tower Series put me off Stephen King.

There: I said it. It was a self-indulgent, long-and-winding-road to nowhere. I've read shorter pieces that had similar conclusions. I found the characters two-dimensional, and enemies only there for two main purposes: one, to provide necessary tension, and two, to explain and build a forced interconnectedness between SK's other works. I have to say, I found "Wolves of the Calla" my favourite, as it had the best story out of all of them.

While on the journey (ie: reading through them) I felt it was a terrific exercise in illustrating intertextuality, but by the end, I could think of better ways King could have proven his point. And if a writer leaves you with that feeling, they're not worth reading, as they have ceased to amaze.

[benxtaron]

This is not a flamethrower . . .

I agree . . . to an extent. It is long winded, and self-indulgent, well, let me defend him there. I myself am a writer, and am currently working on a trilogy. Is it for my (very) small fanbase? NO! I am writing it because it fulfills me, fulfills my destiny (something I believe in very strongly) and it makes me full wonderful. Will I try to listen to my fans when they don't want me to kill off any major characters? (sorry friends) I'll try, but that doesn't mean I won't do it. If it fulfills the story, then I will do it. Sure, it will make people mad, but guess what? I am writing the book, not you. (this isn't directed at you, flawedprefect, just everyone in general) Stephen King wrote the series because he felt compelled to do it. Was it longwinded? Yes. Was it drawn out way too much just to fill 7 books? Yes. Was there a lot in each book that could have been done without? Yes. But he wrote it, and it wasn't for his fans. Otherwise,

SPOILERS!!!!!!!

SPOILER: Click to show

Roland wouldn't have climbed the Tower just to go back in time to the beginning of the desert. I understand why he did that, and I applaud him for not backing out. Now, granted, I was pissed at first at the ending, but I thought about it for a while, and decided that conclusion. Nothing whatsoever at you, my friend, just trying to help writers get less lashings than they deserve.

[jacksloststepkid]

I have to agree that it was self-indulgent. From the point at which

SPOILER: Click to show

he included himself in the book, I started to feel like it seriously was going downhill. I think he could have gotten away with it ok, if he himself didn't play quite cuch a central figure in it at the end. Personally I kind of thought that he started to not know where to go with it all and that the ending and all was a let down. I also felt that the whole part with being hit by the car, etc. was almost like a personal therapy session to work through his own issues related to the real life event

I still appreciated the series and felt it was a good if not great read at times, but felt like the last book or two took the easy way out and kind of dropped the ball.

Ben, also, I spoiler texted your last portion - that is a big spoiler to leave in plain text. When you write spoilers, there is a little button in the text editor with two exclamations. !! if you type whatever you want to be spoiler texted - highlight the text then press the button it hides it for people not wanting to be spoiled.

Oh, I'd also agree that especially at the end there he was writing it purely for himself - like I said, almost a personal therapy session.

JLSK

[flawedprefect]

Wow - wearing a flame-resistant jumpsuit was overkill! That was the nicest reply to disagreeing with someobody's taste I've ever encountered... period! lol.

Yes, I don't mind if an Author puts himself in the work. For example, Clive Custler does it all the time in his Dirk Pitt novels. I find it cheeky and amusing, because it is the ultimate Deus Ex Machina: the AUTHOR comes down into the story to save his hero's butt from certain death.

But King took it a little too far. I was just getting into the whole mythology of the beams, and the animal guardians, and the universe he created, when he begins to foreshadow constantly on how OLD Roland feels; how he gets this sense of de ja vu, etc, that the ending was predictable by the time you reach books six and seven. He really made you feel that each character was going through the motions, and jumping into the near future where all seems well really diluted the tension for me. It was that sense of anticlimax, that Roland has seen a future, where the guardians of the Tower in New York encountered in the past have kept their word, fullfilled a legacy even before their tasks in their own present have been completed, that gave the ending away before we could get to the conclusion.

re: his other books, I remember really loving Carrie; IT; the Dark Half; and Pet Cemetary. The Shining was pretty good, too.

I see less and less in common between the Dark Tower and Lost as the episodes roll by, but I think it's a good thing. Lost is proving to be a unique and more original storyline than I originally thought it was, even though - like the best serials - it draws upon the mythology of the past.