Thoughts on Stephen King?

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Salad_Dodger said:
I agree with you. I enjoy his short stories moreso than his larger works. My first exposure to him was The Body, the story that the movie Stand By Me was based on. How we wrote about nostalgia and childhood friendships hit me in the deep feels.

Slightly tangential, but he apparently edited his wife Tabitha's book Pearl. There were so many typos and grammatical errors that I'm not convinced that he read past the first two pages.
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This is the same The Body with the very necessary porn story one kid makes up for the other kids, yes?
 
Stephen King either writes some of the best shit I've ever read like Christene and Rage or he writes the most boring shit I've ever read in my life like Pet Semetary. Just depends on if he's on the coke or not, I suppose.
 
kcbbq said:
This is the same The Body with the very necessary porn story one kid makes up for the other kids, yes?
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Well, not quite. The writer kid actually tells his friends the story about the pie-eating contest, and it further mentions him telling his friends some kind of World War II combat stories. The porn story is just kind of dropped in to show that the writer continued to write after high school. In fact the porn story was written in college. I don't recall if it's made explicitly clear or not, but the clear implication is that it was the first story he sold commercially. It makes sense when you know King's own history, and how he used to sell short stories to porn mags to keep the lights on and the phone working.
 
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Karl_der_Grosse said:
Well, not quite. The writer kid actually tells his friends the story about the pie-eating contest, and it further mentions him telling his friends some kind of World War II combat stories. The porn story is just kind of dropped in to show that the writer continued to write after high school. In fact the porn story was written in college. I don't recall if it's made explicitly clear or not, but the clear implication is that it was the first story he sold commercially. It makes sense when you know King's own history, and how he used to sell short stories to porn mags to keep the lights on and the phone working.
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It's also not really a porn story. Sexually focused but not really sexually explicit, if that makes sense.
 
I saw one of his recent collection of short stories at my local Costco. Too many books despite intriqued
 
Echoing others when I say I prefer his shorter work. The Jaunt is wonderful.

I had no intention of reading Revival until someone spoiled the ending for me. It SOUNDED like perfect cosmic horror, but like most of his stuff it was an over-long bloated mess. Fun to read, sure. Because he can weave a yarn real well. If you want to read about a bunch of "aw shucks" good ole folk living their lives then you're in for a treat... but when I know there's a nugget of horrific horror at the end of the book the LAST thing I want to read is three pages of how the narrator learned how to whack off when he was 14.
 
I finished If It Bleeds.

It's one really great story mixed in with a few fine but unspectacular ones.

Mr Harrigton's Phone is fascinating because it's King writing from the perspective of a millennial looking back on the mid to late 2000s, not too dissimilar to the tone of works like Stand By Me/The Body although it's not exactly like that, but it's still quite a weird experience to read a Stephen King period piece about the 2000s, has it really been that long ago?

It's overall a fun little spooky Twilight Zone esque yarn, nothing spectacular but solid, the most interesting aspect about it though is it being a 2000s period piece.

The Life of Chuck blew my mind on the other hand, I might even go as far to say it's one of the best things King has written, I don't even want to give away too much because it's best to go into this one cold, but it's a surprisingly, some might even say eerily, timely story that gets into some deep and emotional territory, it actually made me tear up a bit, it's easily worth the price of admission alone, seriously, everyone needs to read this story.

The title story If It Bleeds is a semi-sequel to his 2018 novel The Outsider, I enjoyed that one and it's fun to return to one of the book's characters, Holly Gibney, who's also featured in the Finders Keepers series, who's now the protagonist of this story, we learn more about her life, she's a very well done and interesting character, but the plot of this one is pretty potboiler, it's a spin on a story King has already told, not bad but fairly meh to be honest.

Then the last story Rat, an interesting little yarn, the final line got a good laugh out of me, but there's not much to say about this one, it's fine, but that's basically it.

Overall I like this one better than the last novella collection from ten years ago, Full Dark, No Stars, but it's not on the level of Four Past Midnight or Different Seasons, save for one story, The Life of Chuck, which is great and feels like the one King really wanted to get out there.

Seriously, go read The Life of Chuck.
 
Despite it's simplicity, I found The Long Walk interesting. For a book about kids walking the east coast of the USA, it kept my attention easier than some of King's other books:

You walk, get up to 3 warnings for stopping or going under a minimum pace, and get shot on third warning, until only one is left.

He wrote it under his Richard Bachman alias.
 
I forgot to mention one thing I liked about If It Bleeds (the title story itself)

There's a reference to The Night Flyer, the King short story and later made for TV movie about a vampire travelling from airport to airport, that's a fun bit of fanservice that made me smile because I did not expect to see a reference to The Night Flyer of all things in the year 2020.
 
I really loved It and the first few Dark Tower books (the last two were downright awful IMHO). His terminal TDS is severe enough for me to longer want to support him .
 
Steven King is weird looking, has a face like a frog, and I would not have sex with him.

He did have a few really good ideas though, and his writing output is ridiculous.
 
Welp, I decided to read The Stand: Complete and Uncut Edition and finished it recently. I read the original "cut" version ages ago and now I wanted to see what I missed.
Not much it turns out.

Some random thoughts:

The Stand seems to be one of Kings most beloved novels among fans and I have a hard time understanding why. It's an immature piece of work by a young author that showcases all of King's worst tendencies: narrative bloat, meandering plot threads, cardboard-cut-out characters and cringy sex scenes.

But I read the whole thing through. All 160 million pages of it. And that says something for Steve's ability to keep you interested. Weirdly, the novel is kind of ok on the small scale but rather terrible when viewed as a whole.
There are some really good stuff in there, like Lloyd Henreid's terrifying experience of being trapped in a doomed prison. Or that whole episode where Trashcan Man joins up with a diminituive, gun wielding, alcohol fueled, psychopatic greaser known only as "The Kid". Not the kind of road movie your mama would like.


But the greatest thing in the whole novel is the evening prayer spoken by the mentally retarded Tom Cullen before going to sleep:

"The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want for nothing.
He makes me lie down in the green pastures.
He greases up my head with oil.
He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies.
Amen."

(Note: In the 1994 miniseries, Tom Cullen was portrayed by Bill Fagerbakke who is now famous as the voice of Patrick Star in SpongeBob SquarePants. You might want to imagine that prayer read in his voice.)
 
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Lungmos said:
Welp, I decided to read The Stand: Complete and Uncut Edition and finished it recently. I read the original "cut" version ages ago and now I wanted to see what I missed.
Not much it turns out.

Some random thoughts:

The Stand seems to be one of Kings most beloved novels among fans and I have a hard time understanding why. It's an immature piece of work by a young author that showcases all of King's worst tendencies: narrative bloat, meandering plot threads, cardboard-cut-out characters and cringy sex scenes.

But I read the whole thing through. All 160 million pages of it. And that says something for Steve's ability to keep you interested. Weirdly, the novel is kind of ok on the small scale but rather terrible when viewed as a whole.
There are some really good stuff in there, like Lloyd Henreid's terrifying experience of being trapped in a doomed prison. Or that whole episode where Trashcan Man joins up with a diminituive, gun wielding, alcohol fueled, psychopatic greaser known only as "The Kid". Not the kind of road movie your mama would like.


But the greatest thing in the whole novel is the evening prayer spoken by the mentally retarded Tom Cullen before going to sleep:

"The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want for nothing.
He makes me lie down in the green pastures.
He greases up my head with oil.
He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies.
Amen."

(Note: In the 1994 miniseries, Tom Cullen was portrayed by Bill Fagerbakke who is now famous as the voice of Patrick Star in SpongeBob SquarePants. You might want to imagine that prayer read in his voice.)
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Like a lot of his early work, it would certainly benefit from a round of contemporary editing but I'll admit, it's still one of my favourites. Tom Cullen was a gem. "M-O-O-N".

Stardust said:
Despite it's simplicity, I found The Long Walk interesting. For a book about kids walking the east coast of the USA, it kept my attention easier than some of King's other books:

You walk, get up to 3 warnings for stopping or going under a minimum pace, and get shot on third warning, until only one is left.

He wrote it under his Richard Bachman alias.
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The Bachman material is some of his best; The Long Walk, Thinner, The Regulators (better than it's alternate universe twin, Desperation, IMO), Roadwork and The Running Man (if you've only seen the movie, it really doesn't do the book justice, I think) are all worth a punt.
 
Meat Target said:
I really loved It and the first few Dark Tower books (the last two were downright awful IMHO). His terminal TDS is severe enough for me to longer want to support him .
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I had seen a few isolated posts from him, but I just scrolled through his twitter account.

Boggle:


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It would be incredibly sad if his account is actually him and not some random twenty something PR intern.
 
I have tried to read "The Dark Tower" once: from what scant chapters I read, it comes off as a cross between Post-Apocalyptic/Western tone-wise. I know fully well that Stephen King even planned to make it some sort of interactive fiction...piece around 2011-ich?

I even liked "Rose Madder" despite not finishing it.
There was an anthology hardback that in the first short story, the young boy was giggling as soon as he opened an adult magazine....still not over having edgy boys that curse and are exposed too early to sex, eh?
 
Meat Target said:
I really loved It and the first few Dark Tower books (the last two were downright awful IMHO). His terminal TDS is severe enough for me to longer want to support him .
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His TDS is very disappointing and it's also really shitty that he threw JK Rowling under the bus despite championing her work for so many years.

That's assuming it's really him behind it of course, King has always been very liberal so I'm sure he would never like Trump but you'd have hoped he'd be a little less hysterical about it, maybe it's his lesbian daughter running the account.


Miel67 said:
I have tried to read "The Dark Tower" once: from what scant chapters I read, it comes off as a cross between Post-Apocalyptic/Western tone-wise. I know fully well that Stephen King even planned to make it some sort of interactive fiction...piece around 2011-ich?

I even liked "Rose Madder" despite not finishing it.
There was an anthology hardback that in the first short story, the young boy was giggling as soon as he opened an adult magazine....still not over having edgy boys that curse and are exposed too early to sex, eh?
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Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that, there was supposed to be some web browser game for the Dark Tower but they only released one chapter of it, that was circa 2010, on his own website there was also the interactive "The Office" which started in 2009 but that was also never finished, it seems like they had all sorts of ambitious plans for his online presence that never fully panned out, what a shame.

The story you're referring to is Mile 81 from 2011 also collected in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, what's weird about the kid finding the magazine is it's stated that he's already seen nude women on the TV show Boardwalk Empire.

Troon Draugur said:
Like a lot of his early work, it would certainly benefit from a round of contemporary editing but I'll admit, it's still one of my favourites. Tom Cullen was a gem. "M-O-O-N".
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Yes, The Stand may be rough around the edges but it's still one of my favorites of his work.
 
Dom Cruise said:
That's assuming it's really him behind it of course, King has always been very liberal so I'm sure he would never like Trump but you'd have hoped he'd be a little less hysterical about it, maybe it's his lesbian daughter running the account.
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You could always tell there was a bit of the cow in him. I think it is Christine where he has the main character go off on this little tangent about how horrible people who eat home made hamburgers with bread slices instead of buns are. It's only a few sentences, but was my first real WTF moment with his writing.
 
Shield Breaker said:
You could always tell there was a bit of the cow in him. I think it is Christine where he has the main character go off on this little tangent about how horrible people who eat home made hamburgers with bread slices instead of buns are. It's only a few sentences, but was my first real WTF moment with his writing.
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Ha, Christine isn't one I've read but that sounds like classic King, that reminds me of in Insomnia where there are these anti-abortion activists portrayed as nothing more than cartoon, murderous villains.
 
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