New Wave Outpost Forum

Anyone get into his novels ?

As a teen, I totally ate up his early novels...[i]The Shining, Tommyknockers, Pet Sematary, Christine, Firestarter, The Stand [/i]...how many late nights did I spend avidly reading his books with a flashlight under the covers ?! (b/c my parents wanted the lights out after a certain hour) Gosh, those stories were amazing, spooky, terrifying, so [i]real[/i] in an unreal way. I was addicted.

After the late 80s, I thought he went thru a boring stage and I just didn't get into his novels anymore. Cowboys, gunslingers, Western horror--not my thing. And everytime they made a movie out of his novels....ack![xx(] Horrible (with the exception of [i]The Shining[/i]). His style doesn't translate well to film, I think.

Anyway, I ask b/c I just finished reading [i]Cell[/i], the 1st King novel I'd read since [i]Misery[/i]--what was that, the late 80s? '89?
It was OK--the first 50 pages were insane, gory, gruesome, classic King. (the novel is about a "pulse" that goes thru people's cell phones and turns everyone into murderous zombies. Non-cell-phone users form ragged bands of survivors in a post-apocalyptic New England). King's writing has changed, though, and the rest of the book [i]dragged[/i] along.

Just wondering (in my rambling way[:I]) who among you still enjoy his novels, or who used to--or who always hated his stuff all along? 'Fess up!

[quote]Originally posted by KYYX4ever
[br]Anyone get into his novels ?

As a teen, I totally ate up his early novels...[i]The Shining, Tommyknockers, Pet Sematary, Christine, Firestarter, The Stand [/i]...how many late nights did I spend avidly reading his books with a flashlight under the covers ?! (b/c my parents wanted the lights out after a certain hour) Gosh, those stories were amazing, spooky, terrifying, so [i]real[/i] in an unreal way. I was addicted.

After the late 80s, I thought he went thru a boring stage and I just didn't get into his novels anymore. Cowboys, gunslingers, Western horror--not my thing. And everytime they made a movie out of his novels....ack![xx(] Horrible (with the exception of [i]The Shining[/i]). His style doesn't translate well to film, I think.

Anyway, I ask b/c I just finished reading [i]Cell[/i], the 1st King novel I'd read since [i]Misery[/i]--what was that, the late 80s? '89?
It was OK--the first 50 pages were insane, gory, gruesome, classic King. (the novel is about a "pulse" that goes thru people's cell phones and turns everyone into murderous zombies. Non-cell-phone users form ragged bands of survivors in a post-apocalyptic New England). King's writing has changed, though, and the rest of the book [i]dragged[/i] along.

Just wondering (in my rambling way[:I]) who among you still enjoy his novels, or who used to--or who always hated his stuff all along? 'Fess up!
[/quote]

I used to love King but gave up on him in the early 90's and haven't read anything of his since. My favorite novel of his is Pet Sematary with The Stand a close second. I also always loved the short stories and novellas he would put out. My favorite of those is Apt Pupil.

" Non-cell-phone users form ragged bands of survivors in a post-apocalyptic New England" ???

Please, please, please let this happen tomorrow! [:D][8D]

Its like now he just writes everything. Like a horror story about a trip to buy the paper in the morning. Enough already!
I will add that his movies stink to high heaven. The shining was good. But The Langolears? Trucks? I can go on.

KYYX--DITTO to everything you said. The first decade of King was awesome-but then he got into some dull crap. Hated the Gunslinger crap. Salems Lot and the Stand were alway my favorite, along with the short story the Mist.

The stand even made a good movie. Up untill the very last minute of the movie. Then as usual he ruined it. A giant hand? King you bastard! You got me again!

Do you remember the fuss when King spoke at the National Book Awards a couple of years ago? All the literary novelists objected because he is a genre writer. He in turn went off on writers who produce complicated prose but can't tell a story.

I haven't read much of his lately. I heard "Bag of Bones" was good. Anybody read it?

I think he is at his best when he's writing about kids, so my favorites are "It" and "The Body" (the short novel that was the basis of the movie "Stand by Me."

Although I'm a King fan, I haven't liked everything he's written. From a Buick 8 was probably one of the worst, in my opinion. Bag of Bones was good and so was IT and The Stand. I liked The Talisman, that he did with Peter Straub but absolutely hated the follow-up/sequel in Black House. Pee-ueeew.

It's a mystery to me why his stuff just doesn't translate well to the big screen.

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"I may be bad, but I feel good."

I used to be a huge Stephen King fan. After "Needful Things," I really couldn't get into anything he wrote. I read "Delores Claiborne" and the one where the chick is handcuffed to the bed and lost interest. I never had the desire to read the Dark Tower books. "The Green Mile" (1996) was pretty good.

My favorite is "IT." I read the whole thing cover to cover in one sitting (OK. It was an all-day, felt-like-my-head-was-going-to-explode sitting). I couldn't put it down.

I've always thought SK is a master of description and I think that's why movies based on his books flop. I don't see how it's possible to take his descriptions and translate them. Something gets lost. I think it's that he preys on our fears, and then we get the(personal)mental images. Once those images are Hollywood-ized, they lose something. JMO, anyway.

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I haven't read a novel of his in some time but he writes a semi-regular piece on the back pages of Entertainment Weekly magazine, good stuff and he's always talking about music and not your normal run of the mill bands! I like his columns as he pretty much calls it as he sees it!

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As Jim Gaffigan says... "I like the movie, you know why?... no reading."

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I liked [i]The Running Man[/i].

I loved Star Wars!
And what was Bag of Bones about? Lets see....a guy goes to buy the morning paper and the news stand is haunted. Come on man, I bet right now he is writing about his haunted cup of coffee.

I started reading SK when I was 12. "'Salem's Lot" scared the pants off of me. For years when the wind would cause a branch to brush up against my window, I was sure Danny Glick was coming after me. I reread 'Salem's Lot a couple of years ago and thought it was very good. Back in my teens I also read The Shining, The Stand, Christine, & Carrie. Then I sort of lost interest. I've been thinking of re-reading The Stand for a while.

[quote][i]Originally posted by birdmadgirl[/i]
<br>I've always thought SK is a master of description and I think that's why movies based on his books flop. I don't see how it's possible to take his descriptions and translate them. Something gets lost. I think it's that he preys on our fears, and then we get the(personal)mental images. Once those images are Hollywood-ized, they lose something. JMO, anyway.[/quote]
Totally. Film versions of his books always lose something. I would say not only is King a master of description, but also getting into people's---ours as well as the characters'--heads. And that's what doesn't translate onto film.

bear with me here: [i]Tommyknockers[/i] was my fave novel back then. But the film was atrocious! (However, former porn queen Traci Lords had a small role. That was hilarious!) It was simply awful. Now, the novel was amazing. In the beginning, they spend pages on how the protagonist, Bobbie, trips over what she thinks is a half-buried tin can in the woods. All the stuff that goes thru her mind as she digs at it and begins to realize it's something much [b]huger[/b] than a tin can really sets up the story. As her hand-digging turns into excavating, we are carried along into the story b/c of the spooky overtones of what this object could be. You kow ? BUT--in the film, none of that is apparent. It's just a woman tripping in the woods and then trying to dig something out. Blech!

philly--your comments about a haunted coffee cup are too funny, keep 'em coming ![:D]

I loved so many of his books. I can't remember when I stopped reading though. Maybe it was It? Or the one about the space ship buried in the woods? It seemed like he had the same characters saying the same things in every novel - heroic boys, troubled anti-heroes, girls who have sex & must die, pedophiles, etc. And he tended to use a lot of '60's slang that drove me nuts. The stories got boring, or I moved on - don't know which.

With that said, Salem's Lot, The Stand, Pet Semetary, Cujo, Christine, Misery, and other earlier ones left a huge impression on me & are some of my favorite books. The Stand is particularly my favorite - especially the longer, unedited version that came out in the early 90's.

The Mist still creeps me out! I liked the short story he wrote about the woman who kept leaving earlier & earlier for appointments & starting running into herself - at least I think that was the plot...

I really wanted to check out Cell.