I'll probably be reading all of these this year:Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Firestarter
Carrie
Salem's Lot
Pet Sematary
It
The Dead Zone
With 'Salem's Lot being the first of the bunch. I read these when I was in Jr. High, so I am sure I will appreciate them much more now.
"Pet Semetary" is one I felt rather lukewarm about. It had its moments for sure, but I also found some of the attempts at terror a little silly.
As for my King ratings/ranking, it'd probably be something like this...
Salem's Lot
The Dark Tower
a) The Drawing of the Three
b) The Gunslinger
c) Wolves of the Calla
d) Wastelands
e) The Dark Tower
f) Song of Susannah
g) Wizard and Glass
Insomnia
The Mist
The Shining
Cell
Gerald's Game
Pet Semetary
Rose Madder
Hearts in Atlantis
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I think he is a masterful storyteller, with a distinct prose style and wonderful dialogue.
He deserves much more respect from the reading community than he gets.
I feel that people who fancy themselves learned readers - very similar to wine connoisseurs - often do so based on what they exclude from their tastes, rather than what they enjoy. I find this attitude pretty silly.
King has gotten me thinking about certain moral dilemmas and world views with more depth than many "classic" or "more imporant" authors of this time or the past.
So sue me. I'd take King over Marquez any day of the week.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
But that's because marquez is teh suck! :P
anyway, D, you really like Everything's Eventual that much? i bough it at boston airport, finished three stories while flying to la, didn't care about them, so i just left the book on the plane. but if you insist that the rest are much better, i will give the book another chance. i'm always craving for more good King's short stories and of opinion that a lot of his stuffs before the '00 are superb.
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
Is "Everything's Eventual" the one with the story about the teacher's "revenge" on her students?
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Never read a single King. Not that I'm averse to genre fiction, of course. I'm rereading "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul" right now, which is a definite genre mix-up: comedy with detective fiction with odd-fantasy.
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
Look, I really like King, in fact 'Salem's Lot is in my top 30 books, but the man can write some extremely corny material. To put him on a level with Steinbeck/Dostoevsky/Marquez/Greene/McCarthy/Updike/Krakauer etc. etc. etc., is simply ludicrous.
I don't mind putting King on a "lower level," or whatever, than some of those mentioned authors, and many others. However, at the end of the day when making the choice I'd pick to read King over any of those authors because he is one of my favorite storytellers. I simply love his stories. He may not be the best writer, and he can often times be clunky as hell, but damn can that man spin a rippin' good yarn when he's on, and he's on a lot.
It's the short form where King excels on a more literary level - that's for sure.
My placement of Everything's Eventual is probably tainted by my absolute love for "The Little Sisters of Eluria" - a side story with Rolland which is superb.
I can get on board with that (though I'm not as enamored with him as you, and there are many other authors I'd read before him). Perfect description for him. He's a storyteller. Can't take anything away from him on that front. But as a writer, more often than not he's the definition of mediocre.
I disagree with that, too, though. I think he's a wonderful writer.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Just about done with the first 1/2 of the first book. It starts to drag a little while Severian is in the gardens. But that's the only complaint I have thus far. Imagining two men fighting with giant flowers cracks me up. This book must have been a major influence on the Berserk anime series. I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been turned into an anime - it seems to be full of the crazy kind of SF/Fantasy mix the Japanese love so much.
In my head, I visualized the avern as more of a giant palm from a palm tree than a flower. By first half of the first book do you mean halfway through shadow + claw or halfway through the shadow of the torturer?
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
A little late to the party...
I love:
Salem's Lot
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three
The Stand*
The Long Walk
The Green Mile
Misery
The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass
Skeleton Crew
The Dead Zone
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
The Shining
I like:
The Eyes of the Dragon
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger**
Hearts in Atlantis
Carrie
The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla
Cell
Pet Sematary
The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower
The Running Man
Everything's Eventual
The Talisman
Night Shift
I don't like:
Insomnia
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
It
Firestarter
Needful Things
Thinner
I kinda hate:
The Dark Half
Black House
The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah
Cycle of the Werewolf
Christine
Dreamcatcher
*I prefer the original version, which cuts out some stuff I like, but the revised version bloats the hell out of some stories (the dueling journals, the Kid).
**Again, I prefer the original, mostly because I enjoy seeing a series gradually define itself, even if there are inconsistencies (Farson as a town, not a man).
i really want to know why.
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
I remember thinking of it as childish self-therapy for King, with a goofy mythology that felt like such a contrived excuse for the plot to exist. I doubt I'll ever return to it.
Great opening though.
Started part 2 - Claw.
Again, it's good. I'm really liking it, but I feel it is lacking something. There isn't really any amount of immediacy to the narrative - no drive. It's a series of engrossing moments, and Severian is a great character, but after 250 pages I don't feel a pressing urge to continue. I will continue because I am liking the writing, but the scope of the narrative is unclear at the moment, and I am not feeling that same amount of compulsion to read more as I do from books like The Divinity Student, or Last Dragon, both similar in tone, containing elements of bizarro fantasy/weird fiction.
Still really good though.
The play was my favorite part so far. I thought it was a neat meta-narrative device.
I keep expecting more weird things to happen. For instance, while in the gardens I expected Severian to just continue through the jungle, on onto new adventures there, never to return to his old world. I expected the play to finish having somehow changed the world. I keep expecting Wolfe to mess around more with genre conventions, perhaps to get more meta and really break down the reality of the world.
I think reading Cisco first kind of deflated the wow factor here. Thus far, in terms of bizarre fiction containing elements of fantasy, SF, and weird fiction, I think the Divinity Student is superior.
There is scope to the series, but that scope isn't visible from where you are in the narrative. Severian has a destiny, and he encounters many things, on that way to his destiny, and indeed it can be a bit episodic.
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
What did you think of Jonas?
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
Haven't learned enough yet. Only about 50 pages into Claw. He just completed the execution, and
[]
I am still really liking it - I only wish that I didn't have any preconceived notions about it.
I thought that the play was at the end of Claw?
Remind me again, what are the contents of the letter?
I could tell you what Severian's drive really is, but that'd be a spoiler so huge I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
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