Thoughts on Stephen King?

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As much as I loved The Running Man, The Green Mile and The Dead Zone I do have to admit that I find him very hit and miss- at least with me anyway.
 
King's books are a mixed bag. Sometimes you might get something entertaining and decent like The Stand, Carrie, or Pet Sematary. Other times you'll get hot garbage or something completely batshit bonkers. I think he's good at presenting concepts with potential, but sometimes has a hard time executing them. I still do enjoy his more early works. Though I'll admit that the man has no idea how to write kids. It was a guilty pleasure for me and I'll flat out say that he writes his kids like they're mini adults.
 
Alto said:
King's books are a mixed bag. Sometimes you might get something entertaining and decent like The Stand, Carrie, or Pet Sematary. Other times you'll get hot garbage or something completely batshit bonkers. I think he's good at presenting concepts with potential, but sometimes has a hard time executing them. I still do enjoy his more early works. Though I'll admit that the man has no idea how to write kids. It was a guilty pleasure for me and I'll flat out say that he writes his kids like they're mini adults.
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This was my biggest complaint with Desperation. I thought it was actually a fascinating setting, but the fact that it had middle schoolers acting like old grizzled coal miners was a constant distraction, and it wasn't forgivable since one of them wound up being the main character.
 
I really like his short stories( Night shift) but his regular novels are too exhausting to read for me. A couple of years ago I trie to read it but I stopped halfway through since I just got bored.
 
I was introduced to Stephen King waaay back in high school when I discovered I had a love of reading. The Cthulhu Mythos is partially responsible for my appreciation of sci-fi, and in one of those mythos anthology books was a story of his called Jerusalem's Lot. So I followed his work for a tiny bit, mostly the short stories and the only full book I've read was Dreamcatcher. I've always wanted to read The Mist, although I'm not even aware if it's a full novel or short story, and From a Buick 8 is another I really really want to check out.

He's great at setting up an atmosphere of dread or mystery, and I always liked how secondary or background characters feel more like they're part of the setting rather than characters proper. When shit hits the fan it truly shows how little control the protagonist has over his environment. My only complaint though, is that the protagonists kinda feels cookie-cutter.

As for the movies, apart from IT, it seems very hit-or-miss with the population at large. In my main circle of friends, only myself and another enjoyed The Mist out of 9 of us. Night Shift is the other one of my favourite King movies. I liked Dreamcatcher even though I didn't like that helicopter scene. I'm aware of The Dark Tower series, and I know a little about the story, but it doesn't sound like my cup of tea so I'm not sure if I'll watch the movie(Idris Elba has been a roll lately with his work). I dunno, I'm not a movie critic or buffed enough to say whether or not something sucks, art is subjective after all.

I remember watching a documentary maybe 15ish years ago which said he was going to be blind by now, but I guess not because he's still writing?
 
CwChalk said:
I remember watching a documentary maybe 15ish years ago which said he was going to be blind by now, but I guess not because he's still writing?
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I remember reading about that. He also said he was going to retire from writing in 2000.

I have read a lot of Stephen King books during my lifetime. The problem is I finished a majority of them as a young teenager so it’s hard to remember whether they were good or bad.

Inspired by @Elwood P. Dowd and his amazing spreadsheet, here’s a list of the ones I’ve read recently, or fairly recently, and can say something about.

Autastic alphabetized sort order!

11/22/63 – Loved it. Has a great time travel mechanic. I admired how it established Occam’s Razor as a theme and came back around to it.

Bag of Bones – Decent ghost/mystery story, but again, King is really weird about black people.

Desperation – Alright. Good omnipresent villain. Kid with psychic powers/embodiment of God theme is a bit redundant after consuming a lot of King’s bibliography.

Doctor Sleep – Despite a lot of negative feedback I’ve seen about this one, I didn’t hate it. I liked the underlying message about alcoholism and anger issues running in families. Did not like how the villains were so utterly helpless and easily manipulated. The scene where Dan and Abra mind-linked in the pickup was badass.

Hearts in Atlantis – I got the idea, but found it boring. Was confused about why the first half of a book ostensibly about Vietnam was more Dark Tower tie-in shit.

Rose Madder – Kind of a chore to get through. The villain is an all-human psychopath with resources at his disposal instead of an ancient demon or space clown. That's refreshing. What’s not good is how the book, IIRC, climaxes around “all men are beasts” feminist bullshit. But then the book blatantly states that one of the characters is supposed to be Bea Arthur, so I can’t stay angry.

Salem’s Lot – One of my favorite vampire stories. I’ve read it at least twice and it’s never lost its luster.

The Regulators – Pretty damned good. I like the idea of an autistic child’s playthings being turned into brutal kill weapons (imagine the Sonichu comics coming to life and murdering people.) Nobody, not even children or beloved family pets, have plot armor when the guns start blazing. Also, confining the story to such a small space makes it work all the better.

The Shining – Classic King. Like The Regulators, limiting the setting to a small space makes the story claustrophobic and uncomfortable. As a kid I loved creepy old places with sordid histories, so bonus points. The book also does a great job of establishing Jack Torrance as a man who just can’t be good no matter how much effort he puts into it, even before the hotel ghosts make him crazy.

The Stand: Complete and Uncut – 1,500 pages of a well-told epic with some big snags dragging down the pace. Every time I think of the ending
I picture the Hand of God looking like the one from Monty Python.
That was fucking ridiculous.

The Tommyknockers – King was so blacked out on booze and narcotics when he wrote this that he claims he doesn’t remember writing most of it. It’s pretty long-winded and overstays its welcome, like a big pot of hot soup that gets cold and coppery tasting before you’re done with it. A Tommyknockers: Sober Revision might make the book better, but that will never happen.
 
I've read some of his books, they're not bad. At least seems like I haven't read those that everyone hates. I think Misery was amazing and very scary, same as Pet Sematary. I enjoyed Cell even if it's kinda weird.
 
This is what happens when you remake old literature in 2017:
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He got absurdly boring and preachy after going sober.
 
Cujo is actually pretty good. It's too bad he wrote it while he was high off his mind and now can't remember any of it.
 
Stephen King is an okay author. Most of his older books and short stories are more interesting than his newer works. Like Sleeping Beauties, I got the PDF from a friend and read up to where the short tempered black guy verbally abused his daughter and then destroyed some drug addicts hot rod after he hit a cat. It just felt unrealistic and I couldn't connect to the characters at all.

If the Big Bang Theory show is what your mom thinks nerds and geek culture are, then King's views on women are what "male feminist" think feminism and female identity is.

Loved both 1408 the short story and the movie based on it. Children of the Corn was okay. Too much bickering though! Rainy Season had a similar them with a couple arriving to a mysterious small town only to be devoured by giant toads in the end! But thankfully they came across as more likeable since they never argued. The Raft was awesome as well.

One thing I want to mention, and this is not only about King, but I miss the incredible artwork that his book covers used to have. Today they're not that impressive if I was given a choice of one of his older books or newer; I would pick the former.

Both The Long Walk and the Gunslinger first edition covers are so simple looking yet imposing. Just by the cover alone, I feel like I'm able to use the picture as a portal and travel into the story. All without having read it in the first place. That's where I'm coming from when I say cover art does a whole lot in making book or a movie look awesome to the customer.
 
For the most part, I love Stephen King and because I grew up reading his novels and shorts there is an element of nostalgia that may or may not lean me on the side of bias, at least to some degree, if I'm being honest. I'm sure some people out there feel the same. I don't remember Cujo but I specifically remember reading it, It and Pet Sematary as a kid. I've revisted them since and It and Pet Sematary are solid horror novels, arguably fantastic examples of his better work. Like really solid, batshit roller-coaster stories that have a take-no-prisoners honesty and cutthroat way of painting the characters in a believable way. Cujo, however, I found weak as if the backbone of the story isn't there in the same way. It may just be personal preference but as a big fan I can truly say some of his work is a total miss. I couldn't get through Under the Dome, I stopped reading Cell after 30 pages and some of Skeleton Crew is like, what the fuck am I even reading right now. Thinner, Misery, Joyland, Needful Things, however, are each great.

A friend of mine who likes Stephen King tried to read It and gave up after about 400 pages due to it being boring to him. King is really good when he's good but one major complaint I hear is that he drags on and on incessantly at times. It and Pet Sematary to this day are my favorite books(with Joyland somewhere after that) but even reading It I can admit there are parts that I just want the story to progress faster and a good probably 200 pages of the novel could be gutted. As for the orgy scene, it's bizarre. Im not one of the people who thinks it should be in the book but I can understand why amd what he was going for. I really love the skeleton of their stories, the idea underneath, but King does go off sometimes and lose the reader. I think he's written more successes than failures but he isn't perfect and he's definitely put out some snoozers.
 
Steven King is an author who can come up with a genius idea but can't write a story or flesh out the world.
A glass dome has cut a small town off from the rest of the world and nobody can leave or enter; Perfect in concept but When Steven King writes it, it's only ok.
A family move into a closed hotel and are either being attacked by the paranormal or are slowly being driven collectively mad, A creepy Clown stalks a bunch of childhood friends and seemingly cannot be stopped, Machines gain self awareness and try to enslave humanity, Mist descends on a town and horrific monsters crawl out. All Great concepts but can't live up to the hype that steven king creates them with.
I believe one of the main reasons is, besides Kings reliance on old tropes, Steven wants to explain the monster, phenomenon, the ghost. He wants to make it believable and make it seem like it could happen to anyone in the real world. On a surface level, this seems like a good idea, whats a better scare then a believable scare then one that could actually happen right? But this is Kings biggest flaw for one huge reason.
This has been explained by a youtuber by the name of SuperEyepatchWolf in this video:
But the key principle is that if you explain the evil, you know more about it, the more you know about it, the easier it is to survive it.
The Dome? Outlast it by hermiting yourself or Alpha'ing your way through
The Hotel? Escape it
The Creepy Clown? Gang Rape a little girl
Machines? Outlast that too, preferably by boat
It loses its horror value because the stakes are lost once you hit all the checkboxes, The checkboxes King gave you on a silver platter. Compare this to something like the slenderman. Sure, its concept has been butchered and made infinitely not scary since its creation but still, Its writing is genius. Once you see him or even know about his existance, you're fucked, no living witnesses, it appears in pictures like a ghost, you only have to think and post about it and suddenly you're gone, the more you think and post the sooner it'll get you. No where (at least in the old threads where it was done well) Is there any indication that you can beat it, survive it or even buy yourself time. Compare something like that to Kings usual spooks, there's no contest at least in concept. This is also why The mist is one of his best works (in my opinion) The mist seems so unbeatable and dangerous that it feels like less of an enemy to overcome and more of force to avoid.
Although he has created some fantastic works and has an incredible mind for initial spooks, Steven kings greatest Weakness is Steven King.
 
I am still pissed off that the Crimson King turned out to be Bowser-Santa Claus who gets defeated by a pencil eraser. Fuck that guy.
 
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As someone who doesn't care enough to dive into the Steven King lore, I only read a little bit of the third Dark Tower book and put it down after 30 pages. My number one turn off is fluff and that guy knows how to deliver it in bulk.

I think he's one of those writers that works best for realistic stuff (Like Green Mile, Dolores Caliborne, and Shawshank Redemption), but his fantasy and horror stuff is dreadful to read/watch.

People keep saying Pet Semetary is scary and depressing, but I only saw it as a lame zombie movie with some of the most retarded characters to ever be in a horror story (and that's saying something).

It doesn't help that his star horror story, The Shining, was written completely different than the movie. The movie is amazing and a classic, while the book is a perfectly good waste of potential, and ironically Steven King himself hated the movie(most likely out of cocaine-fueled jealousy.)

I could go over every one of his stories and talk about how crappy they are, but this rant has been long enough.

In my opinion, he's a hack of a writer that got a dream job of writing whatever dumb idea pops into his head and getting paid millions for it. As a person, he's a generic degenerate celebrity that does what anyone getting more money than what they deserve for their effort: do drugs, waste money on personal projects that fail instantly, and complain about Trump.
 
I have a tendency to think that he’s great at setting things up, but I’m usually left underwhelmed by the reveal. I would have been far more satisfied with Bag of Bones and Under the Dome had he not revealed a lot of the details behind the mysteries. That being said, I really enjoyed some of his shorter, more intimate novels. Carrie and Misery are really great character studies. And though I ultimately think The Dark Tower series is undone by self-indulgence, Wizard and Glass so captivated me that I read the entire thing in 36 hours, foregoing sleep to finish it. That has never happened to me before and it hasn’t happened since.
 
I like most of his stuff. I agree with people who say he's overrated, but his books have been a big part of my life since I was around 11 or so. The Dark Tower series, without powerleveling, especially means a great deal to me. His On Writing book is a great primer for people wanting to dip their toe into creative writing. His Danse Macabre book, though dated, I find a very interesting look at the nature of horror as a form of entertainment.

I don't agree with his hate boner for Kubrick's version of The Shining, and his political sperging on Twitter can get really obnoxious, but that's easily ignored. His books aren't high literature, but they don't pretend to be. They're enjoyable light reads and I remain a fan.
 
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