The Stephen King Thread - Part 1

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This is a continuation thread, the old thread is [split]258190[/split]

 

[kainedamo]

Hey guys, could you recommend Stephen King books please?

I've read The Shining, part of Pet Cemetary (wasn't my copy didn't get to finish it), Shawshank Redemption, and part of Apt Pupil (which is upstairs and I intend to finish).

What else is good? He has so many books, and peoples opinions are very mixed about alot of them.

And does anyone have any other authors to recommend? "If you liked Stephen King..."

And could someone clear something up for me? I was reading comments about the Dark Tower series. Is the DT series a continuation or something of some other King books or is it just the odd comment (like how the Shining seems to be a theme in a couple of the books).

 

[Hound55]

Just bought 7 King titles for 7 bucks...

 

[Hound55]

You know an idea I do like?

Putting together a Castle Rock TV mini-series featuring all of the King stories which took place there. You could show cameos of the key characters from the other stories in each one... Tell a bunch of different King tales and when you think about it, the Castle Rock stories could all be shot on a relatively low TV budget.

Could either wrap it up with Needful Things or play out It grows on You (although I think Needful Things is a fairly explosive finale).

 

[SpideyInATree]

Just bought 7 King titles for 7 bucks...

I just did the same thing the other night. I wanted to get some more of his short stories collections. Got Night Shift, Everything's Eventual, Four past Midnight, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and Just After Sunset.

 

[squeekness]

Hey guys, could you recommend Stephen King books please?

I've read The Shining, part of Pet Cemetary (wasn't my copy didn't get to finish it), Shawshank Redemption, and part of Apt Pupil (which is upstairs and I intend to finish).

What else is good? He has so many books, and peoples opinions are very mixed about alot of them.

And does anyone have any other authors to recommend? "If you liked Stephen King..."

And could someone clear something up for me? I was reading comments about the Dark Tower series. Is the DT series a continuation or something of some other King books or is it just the odd comment (like how the Shining seems to be a theme in a couple of the books).

Bag of Bones is one of my top faves.

 

[SpideyInATree]

You can't really go wrong with The Stand. Pretty much all King fans enjoy that one and it's easily not just one of my favorite Stephen King books but one of my favorite books of all time.

Also Dead Zone is freakin' awesome and one of my other personal favorites are Needful Things.

 

[LOBO3315a]

The Dark Tower series is still my fave. I know it has lots of issues, but the breadth and scope is so vast, and took place over so many years, you can almost forgive them.

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

Yeah, The Dark Tower and IT are my favorites.

I'm almost finished with Insomnia right now.

 

[Victarion]

The Dark Tower series is still my fave. I know it has lots of issues, but the breadth and scope is so vast, and took place over so many years, you can almost forgive them.

Speaking about the Chap? I read about Mordred before I got into the novels and expected to hate him when I got to him. Surprisingly, I thought King did a pretty fair job with him. Unpopular as it may sound, I also felt he did alright with Flagg's role in Fedic.

Excellent way of emphasizing how advanced the Old People's society was.

 

[childeroland]

Hey guys, could you recommend Stephen King books please?

I've read The Shining, part of Pet Cemetary (wasn't my copy didn't get to finish it), Shawshank Redemption, and part of Apt Pupil (which is upstairs and I intend to finish).

What else is good? He has so many books, and peoples opinions are very mixed about alot of them.

And does anyone have any other authors to recommend? "If you liked Stephen King..."

And could someone clear something up for me? I was reading comments about the Dark Tower series. Is the DT series a continuation or something of some other King books or is it just the odd comment (like how the Shining seems to be a theme in a couple of the books).

It's a long one, and more dark urban fantasy (I guess) than straight horror, but start with The Stand. King's best book. Eyes of the Dragon, another fantasy connected with The Stand (same villain, who is also Roland's archenemy on The Dark Tower books, which are connected to several of his books, among them Insomnia, the aforementioned The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon, ) is also a must-read. His early horror is still, to me, his best. Carrie, Salem's Lot (another Dark Tower-connected book), The Dead Zone, Night Shift, can't go wrong there. Skeleton Crew has some decent stories. The original The Gunslinger is better than the revised version, but the subsequent books in the series fit the latter better.

The Dark Tower books are the center of King's oeuvre and several of King's other books revolve around it: The Talisman, Black House (both with Peter Straub), The Mist, It (Pennywise is a nemesis of the Turtle, who is a guardian of one of the portals to the Tower), Rose Madder (very tangentially), The Regulators (the villains of that book are very much like -- if not the same -- bad guys who show up in DT7), Bag of Bones (again, tangentially), Hearts in Atlantis (one of the characters in that book helps out the heroes in DT7), The Shining (the hotel is heavily implied in DT7, I think, to be some sort of hideout for henchmen of the series' major antagonist, and the hotel wants Danny to serve this antagonist), and there are other connections, I'm sure.

As for other (horror?) writers, I don't know many others like King except maybe Dean Koontz, who's decent. Peter Straub is a bit more cerebral, and very good. Thomas Ligotti is more Lovecraftian, but I'd recommend him. Laird Barron. Clive Barker, if you haven't tried that--The Books of Blood, the two Books of the Art (fantasy-horror, I guess), Abarat (fantasy), The Damnation Game, Weaveworld (fantasy), and particularly Imajica (great fantasy). Jack Ketchum is like Stephen King with no hope for humanity whatsoever.

 

[squeekness]

I love Weaveworld!

 

[childeroland]

Me too.

Oh, and I forgot the Bachman books. Some of King's best stuff, particularly The Running Man and The Long Walk.

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

Finished Insomnia the other day and I liked

Spoiler

the Crimson King's line about It. "You may not realize it, but shape changing is a time honored tradition in Derry."

 

[EML420]

I got a little bit left of Insomnia gotta get on it lol but I picked up The Dark Half at a used book store it was cheap so I got it any one read it? Im just going to assume its good because its a King book lol.

 

[squeekness]

I've read them all, lol. Never met a King or Bachman book I didn't like.

 

[childeroland]

I got a little bit left of Insomnia gotta get on it lol but I picked up The Dark Half at a used book store it was cheap so I got it any one read it? Im just going to assume its good because its a King book lol.

The Dark Half is excellent. King in horror/neo-noir mode. I think he cannibalized part of it from a crime novel he abandoned called Machine's Way (which I wished he would also finish and publish) and has said something to the effect that it or Machine's Way--i forget which--was written by Richard Bachman's own pseudonym George Stark.

 

[SpideyInATree]

Me too.

Oh, and I forgot the Bachman books. Some of King's best stuff, particularly The Running Man and The Long Walk.

The Long Walk was such a great book. It's one of those books where I didn't think think that I'd like it and then once I started reading I couldn't stop reading the book. Such a dark story but definitely worth the read!

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Finished Under The Dome. Took me just over a month to get through it but that's strictly bedtime reading so not too bad.

The book itself was pretty good though not as amazing as many have claimed I thought. I'd rank it under Duma Key and way way above Cell among his recent work..

next up: From a Buick 8

 

[Hound55]

Just finished From a Buick 8... Good stuff.

 

[EML420]

Does any one own The colorado Kid? Its really expensive on amazon im guessing im going to have to hunt for it in some used books stores. Is there a reason its so expensive?
Also im currently on the third book of the Dark Tower series and I thought it ended after the seventh book. Theres an eighth coming out is there a way to tell me with out spoiling the story why another is coming out or was the ending of the seventh just crazy?

 

[redhawk23]

11/23/63 garners a pretty good review from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/books/stephen-kings-11-23-63-review.html?pagewanted=all

 

[LOBO3315a]

Does any one own The colorado Kid? Its really expensive on amazon im guessing im going to have to hunt for it in some used books stores. Is there a reason its so expensive?
Also im currently on the third book of the Dark Tower series and I thought it ended after the seventh book. Theres an eighth coming out is there a way to tell me with out spoiling the story why another is coming out or was the ending of the seventh just crazy?

The Colorado Kid is probably pretty popular because there's a television show based on the premise called Haven. Pretty good show I'm led to believe.

The 8th Dark Tower book fills in a gap in 6th book. Think of this as book 6.5 in the series.

 

[squeekness]

Does any one own The colorado Kid? Its really expensive on amazon im guessing im going to have to hunt for it in some used books stores. Is there a reason its so expensive?
Also im currently on the third book of the Dark Tower series and I thought it ended after the seventh book. Theres an eighth coming out is there a way to tell me with out spoiling the story why another is coming out or was the ending of the seventh just crazy?

I bought the paperback of Colorado Kid cheap when it first came out so I guess I lucked out. I liked it a lot and it's a shame that anyone would make it so expensive that it's hard to come by.

 

[redhawk23]

Anyone picking up 11/23/63? I will most likely wait for Christmas.