The Stephen King Megathread

[MLJames]

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[MLJames]

SiorX wrote:

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Can anybody recommend any of his short stories (not novellas)? It struck me that he might have written some really powerful ones, given his penchant for terrifying atmosphere. Any suggestions where to start?

I'd recommend picking up two of his collections, Everything's Eventual and Just After Sunset. JAS has four or five really good ones IMHO, although the best one, "The Gingerbread Girl", is edging into novella territory at 55 pages long in my hardcover copy. Three of the stories in EE were filmed: "1408", "Riding The Bullet", and "Autopsy Room Four" (the last one was done for TNT's Nightmares And Dreamscapes anthology series).

[ToddPence]

Ubik wrote:

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Different Seasons (both Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption are from this collection

"Apt Pupil" as well.

[MLJames]

Can't see anyone filming "Breathing Method" any time soon, though, given the subject matter.

[Starbreaker]

Ah... they've done Human Centipede. There is no line left to cross in movies.

[MLJames]

Good point.

[issreliant]

My fav Stephen King books are.....

1. The Dark Tower series....I started reading this series in 87, and finally finished in 05, In my opinion, Kings greatest work!

2.The Stand....A fantastic book, it has everything!

3. Desperation and the Regulators.... I count these books together, a great duology!

4. Cell.....Zombies done the SK way!

5. Different Seasons....One of his best!

6. Eyes of the Dragon.....Kings version of a bedtime story

Also i would like to mention the talisman and and its sequel black house, two great reads!!!!!

[timothy]

how would star trek be if stephen king did a story.

[label]

timothy wrote:

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how would star trek be if stephen king did a story.

The Season 6 episode (Frame of Mind) where Riker goes nuts and he's in that play......the whole mind-f**k type of story....that'd be what King would do.

That or Schisms, another Season 6 episode.

[Starbreaker]

I'm listening to The Drawing of the Three on audiobook and it's a hell of a story. I like it a lot more than I did when I was in high school and read it.

[label]

Starbreaker wrote:

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I'm listening to The Drawing of the Three on audiobook and it's a hell of a story. I like it a lot more than I did when I was in high school and read it.

The Drawing of the Three is one of the best books from the Dark Tower Series......I'd say books 2-4 are the highlights of the series whereas the rest are not quite as strong.

[Python Trek]

My wife and I own a copy of every piece of fiction that he's ever written, including comics, and we've read about 75% of it so far. My faves:

1. Different Seasons---I've actually re-read this one a couple of times

2. Eyes of the Dragon---very solid sword n' sorcery stuff

3. Salem's Lot---the prototypical "eclectic group of characters team up to fight the bad guy" story

4. Storm of the Century---I watched the mini on TV before reading the screenplay---very interesting premise

5. Cell---I would love to see this one made into a gazillion dollar blockbuster---the visuals are so intense

6. Lisey's Story---gut-wrenching and disturbing---man, do you root for that heroine!

7. Dark Tower---haven't finished the saga yet, but I'm really getting into it

The only things of ol' Uncle Stevie's that I did not enjoy were a few of his early short stories---too many Lady or the Tiger endings, and Dreamcatcher, which was a fantastic idea for a 600-page book, but it was, unfortunately, a 900-page book.

King-based movies and TV minis have been all over the map, but I would say that my faves (be they faithful to their sources or not) were Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and Kubrick's The Shining. Carrie, Cujo, and Christine are enjoyable, in a B-moive kind of way.

He has said in his articles and in interviews that he's a liberal Democrat, but I don't recall any of his books that give that fact away. Perhaps I am obtuse.

BTW, I used to love King's articles in Entertainment Weekly. He still do those?

[timothy]

anyone see famliy guy's version of stephen king ?

[Admiral2]

label wrote:

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What was silly?

The whole thing was an ants under a magnifying glass experiment from some other species who viewed us as little more than insects. Just underlines all the pointless, self-inflicted suffering that went on there and paralleled nicely the story told in the middle of the book where those girls were picking on Julie, but one of them took pity on her and gave her something to wear to get home with. That bully and Julie didn't become friends or anything afterwards but she showed just a little bit of mercy. Same thing here.......one of the aliens took a little pity on the people left in the town and let them go.

That's exactly what makes it silly.

"Wow! The super powerful extra-dimensional alien bully showed mercy just like that little girl bully showed Julie mercy. That's the way everybody should live. Let's all sing Cumbaya!" It's hard to take the tension of the rest of the book seriously when it's saddled with that "ABC Afterschool Special" ending.

[Lapis Exilis]

SiorX wrote:

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The thing I love most about Stephen King is how he makes me feel so nostalgic about my childhood as a young boy in America in the '50s. There are at least three ways that ought to be impossible.

I've come to King quite late, so I've not managed more than a few of the more famous ones yet. What I'm discovering is that he writes an utterly fantastic first halves of books. I love the conceits, and the atmosphere he creates in It, Pet Semetary, Cujo and Carrie, but I wasn't much moved by the pay-off in any of them.

Can anybody recommend any of his short stories (not novellas)? It struck me that he might have written some really powerful ones, given his penchant for terrifying atmosphere. Any suggestions where to start?

Just read Night Shift for a start. Most of the stories in it are marvelous. Different Seasons, while less straight horror, is fantastic as well - it's a collection of 4 shorts.

Read his earlier work, which suffers less from the lack of pay off problem. I quit reading his stuff for that very reason, but Dead Zone, 'Salem's Lot, Carrie - basically all the pre-Cujo stuff is very strong and often have great endings. Except The Stand. Hard core King fans love it, but I thought it was the worst offender in the great build up, lousy ending arena.

This is a little off topic - but has anyone read Justin Cronin's The Passage? It kind of reminded me of King at his best.