What are you reading right now?

Wodanaz said:
Disclaimer: I cheat by using audiobooks, but I have been doing it for a decade now so it's not changing anytime soon.

I'm just past the intro where they escape the shop agents and find a motel after hitchhiking out of the city. I can see the skeletons of Carrie and The Dead Zone in Firestarter, and I can feel the lessening of the quality inherent in repeating yourself. Perhaps that sounds a bit too vague and retarded of a criticism but I've read enough King now to know when he's phoning it in. I've read 20 of his books at various random points and now I'm simply reading them chronologically.
Click to expand...
is there any Stephen King worth reading? I've never read anything by him.
 
Rustle 44 TWRD LGHT2 said:
is there any Stephen King worth reading? I've never read anything by him.
Click to expand...
I liked The Eyes of the Dragon and many of King's short stories, but personally I'm not a fan. His stuff, particularly the last ten or twenty years, has some heavy duty, incredibly crude champagne socialism that really wrecks the story flow, and he writes a lot but much of it is extraneous. Everything of his that I've ever read could be cut down by a third and not lose any actual content. King has amazing ideas but he struggles massively with getting them down on paper coherently, and he can't write an ending worth shit.

I love pulp horror but there are many better writers out there IMHO. But King has such a massive following that I pick up a book of his semi regularly to try and find the magic for myself, but so far I've not had much by way of luck.
 
  • Like
  • Agree
Reactions: Vecr, Wodanaz, Cheesegirl78 and 1 other person
Cheesegirl78 said:
Tales From the Grid Square.
I love hearing supernatural stories from the military.

Alas, Babylon for the millionth time.
Click to expand...

Have you read Nevil Schute's On The Beach or George Stewart's Earth Abides?

glass_houses said:
I liked The Eyes of the Dragon and many of King's short stories, but personally I'm not a fan. His stuff, particularly the last ten or twenty years, has some heavy duty, incredibly crude champagne socialism that really wrecks the story flow, and he writes a lot but much of it is extraneous. Everything of his that I've ever read could be cut down by a third and not lose any actual content. King has amazing ideas but he struggles massively with getting them down on paper coherently, and he can't write an ending worth shit.

I love pulp horror but there are many better writers out there IMHO. But King has such a massive following that I pick up a book of his semi regularly to try and find the magic for myself, but so far I've not had much by way of luck.
Click to expand...
I just don't trust him to entertain me. That's it. I'm sure he works for people, but I'd rather just look up another Weird Tales pulp magazine author or Twilight Zone writer.
 
Rustle 44 TWRD LGHT2 said:
is there any Stephen King worth reading? I've never read anything by him.
Click to expand...
I would say, probably. You would probably be able to find something to enjoy in at least one of his books, but you also have to ignore his boomer outlook and general libtard tendencies. If you suffer an autism attack every time someone mistakes magazine for clip, then don't bother because King is the worst offender at that.

Literary criticism is too complicated for a forum post (and I am far too stupid and lazy) so I think you can split King into "good" and "extraneous".
Carrie is... decent. We will not judge it too harshly because it was the first published.
On the other hand, The Long Walk is good. Really good. And it was the first one he wrote, it just took a while to be published.
The first four Dark Tower books are good. The last three are really not good and extraneous.
The Running man is good. Rage is good. Misery is good. Revival is good. Most of the short stories in Night Shift are good.

calibre-parallel_TNT7c6v1pC.webp
There is no word for this other than extraneous (and virtue signalling). It has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, which is a supernatural detective story where the detectives are too stupid to know it's supernatural. Inner city pavement apes have no bearing on this. It's also one of the worst King books, The Outsider.

Formerly Chuck's
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Vecr and Rustle 44 TWRD LGHT2
Wodanaz said:
I would say, probably. You would probably be able to find something to enjoy in at least one of his books, but you also have to ignore his boomer outlook and general libtard tendencies. If you suffer an autism attack every time someone mistakes magazine for clip, then don't bother because King is the worst offender at that.

Literary criticism is too complicated for a forum post (and I am far too stupid and lazy) so I think you can split King into "good" and "extraneous".
Carrie is... decent. We will not judge it too harshly because it was the first published.
On the other hand, The Long Walk is good. Really good. And it was the first one he wrote, it just took a while to be published.
The first four Dark Tower books are good. The last three are really not good and extraneous.
The Running man is good. Rage is good. Misery is good. Revival is good. Most of the short stories in Night Shift are good.

View attachment 7247044
There is no word for this other than extraneous (and virtue signalling). It has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, which is a supernatural detective story where the detectives are too stupid to know it's supernatural. Inner city pavement apes have no bearing on this. It's also one of the worst King books, The Outsider.
View attachment 7247041
Formerly Chuck's
Click to expand...
hahaha I wasn't expecting that in the audio clip.

Thank you for this very informative post, I'll check these recommendations out.
 
Bigfootstinker said:
I've not delved much into psychics in pop culture. Do you have any movie or book recommendations with some cool psychics? You've probably already seen it if you like psychics, but have you seen Scanners by Cronenberg? I'm not a big Cronenberg guy and I need to rewatch it, but I remember enjoying it.
Click to expand...
Sorry for the misunderstanding, that parenthetical was a satirical joke meant to poke fun at the fact that King keeps reusing the concept of psychics over and over. Carrie, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, End of Watch, etc. I myself don't go particularly out of my way to read books about psychics. Not sure if it counts, but Leto II in God Emperor of Dune is basically the ultimate psychic. He's so psychic that he doesn't even need to read other people's minds, because he has basically all knowledge of all previous human ancestors at his disposal. The ultimate example of that "where do you work out" meme where the guy replies "at the library".
 
Blood song, I just got the book after listening to it on audible, pretty fascinating book, might be one my favorite books i ever read.
 
Rustle 44 TWRD LGHT2 said:
is there any Stephen King worth reading? I've never read anything by him.
Click to expand...
His best stuff is his pre 1990s stuff honestly. And I find his short story collections as a whole the best among his usual works. His Bachman books are also more solid than most of his newer slop, even if he tried to write them worse to pretend to be younger.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rustle 44 TWRD LGHT2
Again, Dangerous Visions. I'm nearly finished it but I skipped a story near the end because it was just run-on sentences, and read like the rantings of an acid casualty. It was incoherent. I decided I didn't want to endure that for nearly eighty pages.
 
Bronson's Loose: The Making of the Death Wish Films by Paul Talbot. Which is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Death Wish films, with details of alternative cuts, deleted scenes and nixed ideas, and all sorts of little details.

On the last day of shooting on The Stone Killer, Winner told Bronson about the Death Wish vigilante character. The director recalls, "I said to Charlie, 'This is a wonderful script.' He said, 'I'd like to do that.' I said, 'The film?' He said, 'No, shoot muggers.' I said, No, no, no, Charlie, what about the film?' He said, 'Yeah, I'll do the film'".
Click to expand...
 
  • Winner
Reactions: glass_houses and Jameos Del Agua
Haven't been reading much because I've had issues with my eyes lately and looking at books/screens was giving me migraines. It's gotten mostly under control now. Book club is reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, author of A Gentleman in Moscow.

1745125223068.webp

It's okay. It's not really bad, but it has the same issue that Gentleman has which is that there's not much in the way of tension or stakes so while I can't say I dislike what I'm reading, I don't have much motivation to move through at more than a leisurely crawl. For some reason, Towles has set aside quotation marks in this novel, and a lack of dialogue tags is one of my pet peeves. It's also not about what you would think it's about based on the title or the back cover:

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: glass_houses and Rustle 44 TWRD LGHT2
Cheesegirl78 said:
I've read On The Beach, (have it in my library), and I'm going to read Earth Abides next.
Click to expand...
Yeah I've been just looking for copies as I drift through used bookstores of varying degrees. Got a copy of Earth Abides and Alas Babylon. On the Beach currently eludes me. It's one of those books that's stepped above just being "genre fiction" to "proper lit" so it's an inevitability, like 1984.

DoomsdayElite said:
Again, Dangerous Visions. I'm nearly finished it but I skipped a story near the end because it was just run-on sentences, and read like the rantings of an acid casualty. It was incoherent. I decided I didn't want to endure that for nearly eighty pages.
Click to expand...
I feel like both volumes are historically interesting. Dipped into the first volume but stopped at the Farmer story. It a rough read and I felt tired. I'll definitely finish them, however.
 
Wodanaz said:
Correct opinion. However if you continue reading Anthony Ryan expecting the same level of quality as Blood Song, you will probably be disappointed.
Click to expand...
Ya that unfortunate part for me, alot these books sequels kind suck, I think wolf call was recent one and that was good in my opinion.
 
What's your favourite fantasy book? I own a few but I've never really read much. The first one that I'm gonna read is Between Two Fires.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back