The Stephen King Master Thread

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Re-reading Lisey's Story...man, is this thing tedious. No wonder I barely remember anything from the first time I read it.

Not one of my favorite King books, this one is kind of out there.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
This doesn't seem to have a current UK publication, Amazon seem to be selling a US import and there is no mention of the book at all on King's official UK website! Weird.

Beautifully written and with some gorgeous illustrations throughout, this is a fun read. The werewolf is an intimidating creature and its kills are appropriately gruesome. But it's extremely short length is both a benefit and a hindrance.

In many ways, it's nice to find a King story that isn't so wordy. I loved that this is able to effectively be twelve short stories and that each of them is full of atmosphere and wastes no time, but it also lacked for characters and I feel like it's not going to stick in my memory.

The only thing that helped me remember who the main kid was is that I kept misreading his name as "Coleslaw". Plus that his dad's way of speaking just made me picture him as Ned Flanders.

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by LeftHandedGuitarist

Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
This doesn't seem to have a current UK publication, Amazon seem to be selling a US import and there is no mention of the book at all on King's official UK website! Weird.

Beautifully written and with some gorgeous illustrations throughout, this is a fun read. The werewolf is an intimidating creature and its kills are appropriately gruesome. But it's extremely short length is both a benefit and a hindrance.

In many ways, it's nice to find a King story that isn't so wordy. I loved that this is able to effectively be twelve short stories and that each of them is full of atmosphere and wastes no time, but it also lacked for characters and I feel like it's not going to stick in my memory.

The only thing that helped me remember who the main kid was is that I kept misreading his name as "Coleslaw". Plus that his dad's way of speaking just made me picture him as Ned Flanders.

I have the original limited hard cover of this. Very nice book, Unfortunately, I do not have the signed and numbered edition. Bernie Wrightson was an amazing illustrator.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

Pet Sematary (1983)
I found this one both difficult to get into and difficult to put down, confusingly. It's an extremely dark examination of grief and King manages to convey an emotional state of mind extremely well. There's an incredible sense of building dread almost from the first page (this is largely due to King's introduction which cheats a little in that it sets up your expectations for something truly unpleasant).

I had seen both of the film adaptations of this previously and knew the basics of what was going to happen, but the book flows quite differently from the movies and dwells on the difficult things for much longer. It feels like the focus is in a different place here. The big moments I was waiting for don't even begin until the final third. In that respect, I found the book a little too long, but I was never bored at any point. It's a slow story that still feels like its always moving.

One thing I really did appreciate is that, for once, the book was full of pleasant characters. King has a tendency to showcase truly nasty people and that's just not here. Hooray! It was so easy to fall in love with Jud as the sort of neighbour we would all want. Louis Creed himself is a decent, likable man susceptible to the human flaws we all possess, and when he's pushed to an extreme he makes decisions that you can truly understand.

The later stages of the novel pushed my anxiety up to high levels and there were times I felt I needed to take a small break. But the long build up to that point really makes me feel that I wasn't as engaged as I could have been, and I think that this one would have worked better as something shorter (and it's not even all that long compared to King's epics). A disturbing tale that goes to some places that are difficult to open yourself up to. Liked it a lot, but didn't love it.

The final moment is bloody fantastic, though!

[atomik kinder]

Just finished Billy Summers. Really enjoyed it.

[Dr. Seymour Love]

Originally Posted by atomik kinder

Just finished Billy Summers. Really enjoyed it.

I finished it yesterday as well. Found it a tad formulaic, but still enjoyed it. I'd give it 4 outta 5 s.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

The Eyes of the Dragon (1984)
Something quite different from Stephen King, and something I clicked with easily. This is more of a fairy tale style fantasy aimed at a younger audience (although I would hesitate to say it's aimed at children). His writing style is changed quite dramatically but I think this demonstrates some of his best prose at times. The entire dragon sand sequence was vivid.

It makes use of an entertaining narration device and is a charming story full of strong characters who are well realised despite not having a lot of depth. Both the princes Peter and Thomas have simple character traits that they stick to throughout. But it works.

Set in the same world as the Dark Tower novels and utilising an antagonist that King has shown us before (Randall Flagg), this still feels like its own separate thing. I was swept up in this tale quickly. I think it will stick with me as one of King's more interesting and adventurous stories, with no danger of being bogged down by being overlong or having too many moving parts.

UP NEXT: The Talisman

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

The Talisman (1984)
I can see the DNA of what The Dark Tower books would become here. This is an adventure across worlds that involves a quest for a mysterious object at the centre of them all, spilling over into our own world at the same time. I would say it's quite a bit lesser than what those books would do, though. It's very hard to tell what material was written by Stephen King and what was by Peter Straub, because they blended together in a very familiar style, but this feels like a King book through and through.

Jack Sawyer makes for an enjoyable protagonist. A 12 year old boy who seems wise beyond his years, I'm guessing that's because of his life and upbringing up to this point.

[Show spoiler]He's brave and true and rarely does anything wrong, somehow to find strength or skills to overcome all the obstacles in his way. This does make him seem invulnerable and takes away the sense of danger the further into the story you get, but I couldn't help but like him despite his ability to constantly survive any situation with little more than luck.

The book starts off poorly with a slow, drudge of greyness. But once Jack flips over into this new world, the Territories, it picks up considerably and continues to be thrilling for quite a while. I found myself unable to put it down for most of the time when he had a companion named Wolf, and these sections are probably the most intense parts of the novel. The Sunlight Home chapters in particular are nightmarish and incredibly compelling.

It was when I reached the final third of the book that things seemed to hit a wall. The story meanders strangely and the quality of the writing drops massively. Things happen without much explanation or reason. We are introduced to a new character, Richard, who is one of the worst characters King has come up with. There is no way a 12 year old boy speaks like this or even thinks like this. And oh my is he whiny, literally bringing the story to a pause numerous times. He reminded me of Milhouse in that episode of The Simpsons where all the school children were stranded on an island.

This bad writing somehow spills over to Jack as well and from here I was never connected with the story again. The main villains, intimidating up to this point, become caricatures of themselves and resort to running around screaming and dancing like madmen. "EEEEEE! AXIOMATIC! BAD BOYS! EEEEEE!". One of them put his thumbs in his ears and sticks his tongue out at the heroes and jumps up and down seemingly out of frustration. I mean, how are we seriously supposed to visualise this? King and Straub could have done anything with the finale but they chose this.

I found The Talisman to be a very mixed book of highs and lows with the terrible ending leaving me with bad feelings towards it. The final third wouldn't have been such a huge stumbling block if the novel wasn't so long, which means I had to get through hundreds of pages of this. I think I've unfortunately encountered the beginning of King's messy phase.

UP NEXT: Thinner

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

Thinner (1984)
In some ways I found this to be both unlike typical Stephen King and also very much like him. This is a darkly pessimistic story which presents King's usual bleak outlook on people but also is written with far less of a wink than he often includes. This made it a more difficult read than usual.

But the further I got into it the more I felt like I was in on the joke. This isn't meant to be a little romp to frighten you, this was written from a place of real resentment. Nobody in this book is a good person, and it becomes more and more apparent that that includes the main character, Billy Halleck. At the start its easy to feel sorry for him but that had more or less disappeared for me by the second half. Instead I was caught up in a rollercoaster of needing to know how it was all going to play out and just who was going to end up with the largest punishment.

I'd say this actually feels like a short story that's been expanded into a full book and it does suffer from that. But it finds its voice more and more as it goes on.

The book doesn't get off to a very interesting start, because the big inciting incident happens "off screen" and we only hear about it all after the fact. It's actually quite a slow crawl to get to the point where the book grabbed me, and that begun in earnest shortly before the halfway point. The second half of this is moves with incredible pace and doesn't waste a single word (which is kind of uncommon for a lot of King's writing).

It's certainly a book that's hard to stomach (pun not intended), not because of the horrible curse that's eating away at Billy from the inside, but because of the uncaring nature of everybody here. The racism and abuse towards women is done in such a throwaway manner that it really got to me. But there's a gripping central mystery that brings this all together and the results build up a delightful mess of nastiness.

I can see why King published Thinner under the Richard Bachman name instead of his own. Revenge, grudges, bitterness and absolute hate drive the whole thing and while I wouldn't want to read a lot of things like this, for this short tale I could get into it.

UP NEXT: Skeleton Crew

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

Looks like another new 2022 book is coming from King:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/boo.../9781668002179

[ceeece]

That sounds amazing!!

[atomik kinder]

Over 800 pages, sounds epic. Can't wait until Sept.

[ceeece]

Originally Posted by atomik kinder

Over 800 pages, sounds epic. Can't wait until Sept.

Website says 608.

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by ceeece

Website says 608.

Somewhere I read it was over 800 pages. Hmm.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

Gwendy's Final Task is out today.

When Gwendy Peterson was twelve, a mysterious stranger named Richard Farris gave her a mysterious box for safekeeping. It offered treats and vintage coins, but it was dangerous. Pushing any of its seven colored buttons promised death and destruction.

Years later, the button box entered Gwendy’s life again. A successful novelist and a rising political star, she was once again forced to deal with the temptation that box represented.

Now, evil forces seek to possess the button box and it is up to Senator Gwendy Peterson to keep it from them. At all costs. But where can you hide something from such powerful entities?

In Gwendy’s Final Task, “horror giants” (Publishers Weekly) Stephen King and Richard Chizmar take us on a journey from Castle Rock to another famous cursed Maine city to the MF-1 space station, where Gwendy must execute a secret mission to save the world. And, maybe, all worlds.

[Dr. Seymour Love]

I have the first of the Gwendy books, but haven't read it yet.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

The Stand (1978/1990)
I finally finished reading The Stand (yes, out of published order as I had been going so far) and what a journey. Stephen King's epic is not something to be taken lightly, and I mean that in every sense. The book is ridiculously big and heavy, and could easily be used as a murder weapon (in fact, I'm surprised that King himself hasn't used that in one of his stories).

The Stand was originally published in 1978 as an already lengthy novel, then was re-released in 1990 as an "uncut" edition, incorporating several hundred pages of material that had been removed during the editing process. This is the version which is most commonly available now, and is the version I read. It's an absolutely gripping ride. King shows us a world that has been devastated by a plague with only a few scattered survivors being naturally immune. As things progress a supernatural element also begins to take shape, leading to a showdown between good and evil... but of course, things are never quite that simple.

First and foremost, this story focuses on characters. King is able to bring them to life with incredible skill. Each of them feels unique and interesting, each of them has their own way of dealing with things. Nobody is entirely good or bad and everyone has reasons for being who they are. It's always compelling, and as the characters meet each other and communities are formed I became completely engrossed. Everyone has a story, everyone is rounded, everyone is interesting.

This is also a story about America - the people, the land and the idea. Being an outsider to that world myself, it's all the more intriguing. I was constantly thinking about how differently the story would play out if it were in a different setting, and indeed there's no way we would have The Stand if that were the case. America is absolutely central to its telling.

The only thing I can really criticise about the book is its damn length. It's both a blessing and curse. I had to split the book into its parts with breaks in between, but I was always surprised at how eager I was to get back to it. Reading the book itself is an endurance test of sorts and I think it's fair to say that it could be cut down without issue, but I also ended up adoring the amount of detail we get here. Spending time with Stu, Nick, Larry, Nadine, Frannie, Harold, Tom, etc. is quite simply wonderful, and the memories I have of reading this are going to stay with me until maybe one day I feel the need to read it again.

I'd recommend it in a heartbeat, but just understand what you're getting into first.

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by LeftHandedGuitarist

The Stand (1978/1990)
I finally finished reading The Stand (yes, out of published order as I had been going so far) and what a journey. Stephen King's epic is not something to be taken lightly, and I mean that in every sense. The book is ridiculously big and heavy, and could easily be used as a murder weapon (in fact, I'm surprised that King himself hasn't used that in one of his stories).

The Stand was originally published in 1978 as an already lengthy novel, then was re-released in 1990 as an "uncut" edition, incorporating several hundred pages of material that had been removed during the editing process. This is the version which is most commonly available now, and is the version I read. It's an absolutely gripping ride. King shows us a world that has been devastated by a plague with only a few scattered survivors being naturally immune. As things progress a supernatural element also begins to take shape, leading to a showdown between good and evil... but of course, things are never quite that simple.

First and foremost, this story focuses on characters. King is able to bring them to life with incredible skill. Each of them feels unique and interesting, each of them has their own way of dealing with things. Nobody is entirely good or bad and everyone has reasons for being who they are. It's always compelling, and as the characters meet each other and communities are formed I became completely engrossed. Everyone has a story, everyone is rounded, everyone is interesting.

This is also a story about America - the people, the land and the idea. Being an outsider to that world myself, it's all the more intriguing. I was constantly thinking about how differently the story would play out if it were in a different setting, and indeed there's no way we would have The Stand if that were the case. America is absolutely central to its telling.

The only thing I can really criticise about the book is its damn length. It's both a blessing and curse. I had to split the book into its parts with breaks in between, but I was always surprised at how eager I was to get back to it. Reading the book itself is an endurance test of sorts and I think it's fair to say that it could be cut down without issue, but I also ended up adoring the amount of detail we get here. Spending time with Stu, Nick, Larry, Nadine, Frannie, Harold, Tom, etc. is quite simply wonderful, and the memories I have of reading this are going to stay with me until maybe one day I feel the need to read it again.

I'd recommend it in a heartbeat, but just understand what you're getting into first.

First of all, I did not know about this awesome thread.

The Stand is, so far, my favorite Stephen King novel and, according to some interviews, it is King’s favorite ( It a close second for me). My favorite character of the novel is Larry Underwood. He starts off being an a$$hole, and towards the end he matures and redeems himself. I also liked the idea that an apocalyptic event would delineate a good and evil crowd.

Captain Trips…from all his monsters/evil entities, this one frightens me the most (sorry Randall Flagg). I would recommend his collection of short stories Night Shift before this Goliath. I really liked your analysis/summary. Keep it up

Glad to have found some King fans on this forum. Regards.

[Dr. Seymour Love]

RIP Peter Straub (1943-2022)

Some great stuff on twitter about him from his daughter

https://twitter.com/emmastraub/statu...mlpost14159957

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by Dr. Seymour Love

RIP Peter Straub (1943-2022)

Some great stuff on twitter about him from his daughter

https://twitter.com/emmastraub/statu...mlpost14159957

Rest In Peace

He wrote one of my favorite novels of all time (without an once of exaggeration)



Not my favorite, but still a good read: