Stephen King Thread!!!

[FujiSkunk]

I have to say that I find it hilarious that the level of violence in the film version to "Misery" is toned down from the book version, while the level of violence in the film version of "The Shining" is cranked up from the book.

Same goes for "Carrie". The book was way more violent than the film.

Usually movies turn out how the directors want them to, not the authors or the screenwriters. Of course there are exceptions, but for movies based on novels, the novel's author is almost always pretty far down on the totem pole.

The original The Shining was pretty much Kubrick's thing, and King has said multiple times he didn't like how it turned out. He even bought the rights back so he could commission a new adaptation in the '90s.

[RockBandRocker]

I finally finished reading "The Wind Through The Keyhole".

All I have to say is this:

Any of you here that enjoyed the Dark Tower series NEED to read this book.

[Mega-Tallica]

I finally finished reading "The Wind Through The Keyhole".

All I have to say is this:

Any of you here that enjoyed the Dark Tower series NEED to read this book.

Just read this one myself, didn't expect it to be a complete sidestory (similar to Wizard And Glass), but I did enjoy it nonetheless. Even though it is a sidestory, it does have a lot to do with the main plot, so anybody who's read any of the other Dark Tower books should definitely find some enjoyment from it.

I'm reading another rather new King novel right now, 11/22/63, the JFK assassination one. It has a Dark Tower vibe to it as having portals to other worlds and other times and in this story's case, there is a portal to 1958 where the main character Jake plans to stop the JFK assassination however, altering even acute things in history has a butterfly effect to the future and changing just one thing causes numerous other things to change for better or for worse. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, but it's a good read so far.

[RockBandRocker]

Just read this one myself, didn't expect it to be a complete sidestory (similar to Wizard And Glass), but I did enjoy it nonetheless. Even though it is a sidestory, it does have a lot to do with the main plot, so anybody who's read any of the other Dark Tower books should definitely find some enjoyment from it.

I pretty much agree with all that.

There's only a couple things that bother me about little plot details, but I'm going to wait until more people read the book before discussing them.

(This forum could use some sort of spoiler tags so we can hide spoilers)

I'm reading another rather new King novel right now, 11/22/63, the JFK assassination one. It has a Dark Tower vibe to it as having portals to other worlds and other times and in this story's case, there is a portal to 1958 where the main character Jake plans to stop the JFK assassination however, altering even acute things in history has a butterfly effect to the future and changing just one thing causes numerous other things to change for better or for worse. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, but it's a good read so far.

What an interesting name for the protagonist.

[Mega-Tallica]

What an interesting name for the protagonist.

Yeah, I just realized that. It could be purely coincidental, but I doubt it, I think King used that name for a reason. I have a feeling also one of the forms of Randall Flagg or The Man In Black or Walter O' Dim or any of his other names is going to make an appearance at one time or another during this book (or maybe he already has, I'm not entirely sure yet). I'll find out soon enough I suppose.

[instantdeath999]

Right now I'm debating on whether I should finish up the seventh book, then just read the new one, or wait a year or two and just read the series with it included in the right spot.

I pretty much agree with all that.

There's only a couple things that bother me about little plot details, but I'm going to wait until more people read the book before discussing them.

(This forum could use some sort of spoiler tags so we can hide spoilers)

Color your text black. That way, you have to highlight to be able to make out the words clearly. Just make sure to put somewhere that you have hidden words.

[Mega-Tallica]

Just finished up 11/22/63 and while part of me wants to say it was a very well-polished book, there's another part of me that thought this book was very disappointing especially after you read the first 200 pages or so. It starts off very intriguing, the main character is going to time travel back to 1958, live in that time period for 5 years tracking the would-be killer of JFK, and stop him from doing it. That's essentially the basic plot right there, and King lays that out for you nice and early in the going and you have knowing of the climax already. There is so much waiting around in this book where pretty much nothing interesting happens. Just like the main character in this book, Jake Epping, you are just waiting for something to happen and nothing does for about a good 500 pages. There are some minor dramatic blimps in there, but nothing at all that I'd consider a page-turner. In other words, it was a very slow read for the majority of the book. It felt like I was running a marathon that never ends. There's too much dead space and King tries to build up those dramatic blimps, but it falls short each time.

This book is not really about the assassination, but it's all about it at the same time. You're going to be left disappointed if you think this is going to give you some interesting inside-information about it, this book's main focus is time travel and the effects it has on the future as you enter and leave the portal. If you do end up reading it, you'll read that King says, "the past is obdurate" about 200 times in this book. Not King's best work in my opinion and talking about his recent "big" books, Under The Dome is much better. I'd give it a 5.5/10

[Der_Lex]

My biggest problem with 11/22/63 was the section near the end where the main character leaves his little town and starts tracking Oswalt. That really should've been cut down a lot by a goo editor, because it was incredibly boring and didn't even do much to move the plot forward or add depth to any of the characters.

I thought the actual ending wasn't too bad for a King novel, though.

[Mega-Tallica]

I thought the actual ending wasn't too bad for a King novel, though.

I thought the ending was pretty good too, but if you read the afterword's bit at the end, King admits his son came up with a "new and better" ending which makes me wonder how King originally planned to end it.