The Thread of Stephen King

I just finished up my inherited copy of the !UNCUT! copy of The Stand myself. As far as other works of King goes I've only read Carrie, but The Stand really elevated my opinion of his work- I've actually been surprised it hasn't gotten more mentions in this forum. My grandmother is absolutely addicted to his work, though she has also warned me away from some of the work he wrote when he was in "his slump" to quote her. I'm not sure if I'm going to have time for another doorstopper like The Stand with the school year starting up again, but I'd like to give another bit of King's work a shot. I'm partial to The Gunslinger- both to try to get it under my belt before the aforementioned film and because gunslingers are frickin cool. Recommendations?

I´m thinking about getting the Dark Tower series (ever sice i´ve read Sanderson i love novels which play in different worlds/universes but are interconected), but i´m wondering if you can start with that series if you haven´t read other works by King first. Can anyone help?

The first few books stand on their own pretty good, as the references to other books aren't really necessary to understand the plot. The middle book, where the protagonists pass through the post-apocalyptic America of The Stand, marks the turning point into "only uber-fans may pass" territory. After that book, characters from King's other books show up and play major roles, and King barely explains their backstories because he assumes you've already read them.

I guess i will put the Dark Tower series on low priority then until i´ve read his other stuff. May take a while...How much has he written about 20 books? Whats a good starting point or should i just go by publication date? If i get hooked i think i could be done in 1-2 months

This blog post looks like a pretty good suggested reading order.

Tentative SK reader here. I own IT and Pet Semetary and not sure where to go from there.

I'd like to get into the Dark Tower but I hear it gets awful.

It's very good until, IMHGO, the last book and then yeah it kind of turns to shit.

I recommend the early stuff, the Richard Bachmann books...and then proceeding cautiously.

So I've started reading the stand and am enjoying it so far which King novels should I check out and which should I avoid.

Salem's Lot is good but it feels too much like a rip off of Dracula.

That's at least somewhat intentional

It is but that doesn't justify it to me. I thought the concepts were good but he could've done something more original with the whole thing.

edited 24th Oct '17 10:31:18 AM by MadSkillz

The Talisman, which he did with Peter Straub, The Eyes of the Dragon, and Salem's Lot I would recommend now, updating any previous recommendation.

I think I'm about half way through the stand my current thoughts:

The US military is run by idiots

The constant jumping viewpoints can get disorienting but I got used to it

This book actually took a while to get to the apocalypse which I am in two minds about: on the one hand it feels like it drags in places but on the other hand it's always neat to see how society functions before and during the apocalypse. Most stories just cut to after it happens with maybe a brief prologue

Larry was unlikeable at first but he's gotten better

I really can't stand Harold

Poor trash can man

Over all I really like it.

Have anyone here read Blaze?....is really depressing, specially since the child have mental issue and going with a crimine....yeah.

I admit to having a soft spot for Harold because I was a lot like that at his age. I regard him as a Jerkass Woobie but if you don't. well there's a reason the Woobie tropes are all in the YMMV section.

So I'm reading The Gunslinger. It's my first Stephen King novel.

It's really raw.

The rednecks are kind of extreme. The worst part is, there's this sense that they turn to religion to save them, and it just doesn't help at all.

Me again.

Been reading It.

Got to meet Tom Rogan.

I regret to say that it reminded me of my childhood.

As bizarre as his plots look from the outside, Stephen King's characters actually are imbued with staggering amounts of humanity. Even his maddest monsters.

I guess I should brace myself for when I read The Shining.

edited 9th Dec '17 11:04:38 AM by TheHandle

I thought this was a forum for genre fiction fandom. Is nobody interested in discussing Stephen King? Doesn't he have fandoms? Aren't people interested in discussing his work? What's going on? I'm seriously confused, here.

I gave up on King after the ending of the last Dark Tower book and his horror version of the Simpsons Movie. So...

What do you mean?

King is a guy that writes by the seats of his pants, so you should really never expect amazing payoffs on his part. It's all about the little vignettes and character moments and human insights.

Although, honestly, as far as monsters go, I'm finding It more "gross" and "vile" than "scary". The Man in Black, on the other hand, is much more frightening, because of the way he keeps setting traps that exploit people's wants and feelings and perverts them for his own ends. Wait, It does that too... but it's a lot more clumsy about it, and a lot less of a Magnificent Bastard. A total Dirty Coward, in fact.

But all of his villains I've met so far are of the Card-Carrying Hate Sink sort: they're really smug, and they really evoke a response of wanting to annihilate the shit out of them.

edited 13th Dec '17 9:44:35 AM by TheHandle

Apt Pupil is a story about a teenage boy who finds out one of his neighbors is an ex-Nazi who ran a death camp, blackmails the details out of him for fun, and then puts that shit into practice. It ends in a mass shooting. That book came out in 1982.

Do we have more prophetic stories of this kind? Your neighbour, The All-American Boy, could be a fucking Nazi and may kill you tomorrow?

Because that hits fucking close to home.

Question: Does Pennywise need to eat or is it solely doing it For the Evulz, like how cats don't need to eat mice but like to screw with them anyway

It's hungry, and it can. Need doesn't matter.

Bit of both? It's pretty much said that It doesn't have emotions as humans understand them. It's also implied that the killings have something to do with It's breeding process.