Topic: New Movies

[8ullfrog]

Dark Tower wrecked him.

[goldshirt*9]

I think that Mr King writes the best "first halves" of books of anyone I have ever read, but then he has a tendency to lose the plot (literally) and have to resort to cheating to get to the end. He is better than Dean Koontz, in that he often cheats in different ways, where a DK book is so formulaic you can tell in advance the page number of the deus ex machina. Having alien babies, or fluke immunity, or supernatural forces descend and resolve the issue is cheating, as it invalidates everything that went before (the resolution could have just as easily come at the beginning of the book, and saved us all the bother). I find it particularly irritating in his 'straight' books that he gets nearly all the way to the end, and then bottles it with supernatural intervention (Gerald's Game is a good example).

I keep reading them, because the plot set up is often brilliant, but rarely does the end match the beginning. Salem's Lot is a good example, because the supernatural is an integral part, rather than a bolted on 'escape hatch'. Carrie, too. He is at his best when he sets up a situation that we all know is unbelievable, but so do the characters, which is what makes their position all the more difficult, and then has them figure out how to resolve it - without cheating.

The Talisman / Stand gripped me then"O is that it" that is my limit, must admit I didn't know Salem was a book, may venture.

I have read Herbert, The Dark especially made me look over the shoulder a lot.

Dark Tower wrecked him.

never read but watched the film, enough said

[6pairsofshoes]

I think that Mr King writes the best "first halves" of books of anyone I have ever read, but then he has a tendency to lose the plot (literally) and have to resort to cheating to get to the end. He is better than Dean Koontz, in that he often cheats in different ways, where a DK book is so formulaic you can tell in advance the page number of the deus ex machina. Having alien babies, or fluke immunity, or supernatural forces descend and resolve the issue is cheating, as it invalidates everything that went before (the resolution could have just as easily come at the beginning of the book, and saved us all the bother). I find it particularly irritating in his 'straight' books that he gets nearly all the way to the end, and then bottles it with supernatural intervention (Gerald's Game is a good example).

I keep reading them, because the plot set up is often brilliant, but rarely does the end match the beginning. Salem's Lot is a good example, because the supernatural is an integral part, rather than a bolted on 'escape hatch'. Carrie, too. He is at his best when he sets up a situation that we all know is unbelievable, but so do the characters, which is what makes their position all the more difficult, and then has them figure out how to resolve it - without cheating.

Carrie made for a very good movie, even if it's a tad dated.  I was, likewise, engaged by the television adaptation of The Stand (I've read neither book), but the latter begins well and then just gets lost with all kinds of goofiness.  I still remember one of the actors having to climb over all the dead as they died of the plague in their cars in the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River.  But the clans of good guys vs bad guys just beggared belief, and the trope of occasional crows on highway signs was just stupid, but I don't know if they're in the book.

I don't generally read horror novels, although I'm open to pretty much anything.  Stephen King wrote a short story several years back that was published in the Halloween issue of the New Yorker Magazine that revolved around a boy going out by himself trout fishing.  It was about 8 pages long and really well done.  I think it's hard to keep up a momentum for such long works of fiction.  He's really good at describing creepy, frightening places that are scary or unnerving in themselves without really integrating anything odd, just reflecting our own insecurities and fears of harm.  I had originally thought him just another pulp fiction author, but he has real talent in several respects.  The novel plot setup and those descriptions are among them.

I've never read Dean Koontz, although my sister, who read a good deal while traveling, said he was good but scary.

[8ullfrog]

The stand has two editions, I read the very long one.


The miniseries is not very good. It isn't so much settlements as it is good vs evil, but his good was sappy crappy in the miniseries, but they were better than doomsday preppers. The mystic black old woman was cringey poo even back then, but her being super old was kinda interesting.


The whole world died of the plague, everyone left was a game peice.

Pretty sure the crows were used by the bad guy like surveilance cameras, but I could be mixing it up with game of thrones.



Dean Koontz tends to be regarded as a hack amongst hacks, like the discount bin at the airport bookshop.

Like he'd have the bad guy just be a skeleton, and expect that to be A+ most best SCARY!


Personally, I think King goes a little heavy in the Maine tomfoolery, but hey, Omelas is based off a street sign in a rearview mirror, and that's one of the first times they upset you on purpose at school!


My first King was Saturday School, someone left a copy of Needful, and I burned through it. I kind of resent the book now, and the movie was poo, but it set a bar that was way too high.


What I meant by Dark Tower wrecking him is like how valve said they were gonna release more Half Life faster through episodic content. Yeah, that worked out great.


And anytime you jam harry potter into anything that isn't fanfic, well that's uncomfortable. poo, she wrapped that up with the mystical scavenger hunt of collect poo! That's how you know a cartoon is dying!


King is a great writer, but a lot of the places he wants to take the reader are places I don't really want to go.


I had forgotten the actual ending of langoliers, so I asked my pilot buddy what would happen. He kinda sighed at me because yeah, it ain't exactly clancy level techno-accuracy to begin with, but he said the guy just vanished. My brain had conjured up that he's essentially in hell. Langoliers already ate yesterday, so they're gone, and he's just falling until he starves to death. like how hell was supposed to be the outer darkness before the flamey poo. Can you get to the afterlife if you're stuck in empty yesterday? DANG!

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm finishing up The Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett who has been praised by people I respect.  I can't say I have enjoyed it.  It's too Disneyfied.  Everybody is a woman and they're all good and the overall tone is sort of flippant and hip.

Oh give me Anthony Trollope.  I'm going back to the Gereon Rath novels by Volker Kutscher.  I keep reading them faster than they can translate them.  Really, I just need to improve my German.  He is the writer behind the Babylon Berlin series, which is really great.

I agree with you about Stephen King, especially about your observations re the miniseries.  The best part of it is the first episode and it goes downhill from there.  I'm not a big fan of horror.  The GOP is scary enough for me without inserting dead people and the supernatural into things.

[goldshirt*9]

Terry Pratchett books ref the Witches are a scream personally.

[8ullfrog]

You nail poor Stephen to the wall. One interesting thing from fanfic is that as the writers mature, they often pull the recycling move. Maybe they have a line they like to throw out. Maybe they like a certain way a line of events play out. It's actually fun to see a writer who chiseled their way to something good from something that was originally crap.

If you ever get a chance to read about "The Desk" of Stephen King, it's a really unique view into how he works.

Also, the man probably burned less brain cells than I have, but in a far more harmful manner. I've never drank mouthwash or aftershave.


But as to some things he has recycled, the magical negro really needs to go. It was offensive in 1977, and it's still offensive.

[smokester]

The Stand is possibly the best example of exactly what I mean. When it was a "post-apocalyptic disease killed nearly everyone" book, it was very good. As soon as it introduced supernatural bad (and good) guys, it jumped the shark.

Shame, because Stephen King writes the absolute best "natural" bad guys (Harold Lauder from the Stand is the baddest character in the book, Satan notwithstanding, Big Jim Rennie from Under the Dome, Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone, etc., etc., etc.) without resorting to the supernatural.

Dark Tower is the personification of an issue that Mr King seems to have. He seems to have one book in him, that brings a disparate set of ideas together in a particular plot. But he can't seem to get the book out: he keeps using (and reusing) themes and ideas, recycling and refining them, and using them in different situations, in the search for a way of getting it right. The Dark Tower saw him at least subconsciously recognise that, and attempt to draw them all together and tell the reader that everything was connected - it essentially attempts to unify all of his work in a world, but doesn't recognise that the set-ups for different books are essentially the same with different clothes on. I think his attempt to write as Bachmann were another outlet for the same problem: He is constantly trying to find a direction from which he can approach the problem that will allow him to fully express the themes that he needs to share.

It doesn't help that the "clothes" that he used for the Dark Tower were a "Ka-Tet" that really didn't work for me at all, I really liked the overall theme of the (possibly never-ending) spiral of time but disliked the people that he used to express it.

Flippant is Pratchett's home ground. I'm not sure that I would say 'hip', but his bread and butter is parody - in his early work he parodied broad themes such as "tourism" - and in his later works (particularly using Moist von Lipwig) he was reduced to parodying more up-to-date trendy themes such as sexism/ internet/ banking/ transport so I can see how the 'hip' label could be applied.

I prefer (to the point of fanboy-ism) books with Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax or Mr Vimes the policeman (and Carrot) - DEATH is also a favourite: they tend to be more broad brush rather than modernist but if you don't like flippant, you can't really like Pratchett.

I was going to say that I don't do much reading these days.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm back to Volker Kutscher and the 3rd of the Gereon Rath mysteries, Goldstein.  It reads a good deal better than the Monstrous Regiment.

Pretty soon, the next installment of the Expanse novels will be out.  I'll pounce on that.   Can't get enough of those books.  I really like the series and when I ran out of that, I moved onto the books.  They're not great literature, but engaging science fiction at least.

[goldshirt*9]

I was going to say that I don't do much reading these days.

 

[8ullfrog]

So one time I was lounging on a pool float at my Aunt's house, and she mentions Dan Brown.

My aunt is rich, and loves to brag about trips to Italy. Personally, I'd sit on that money, but maybe that's why I'm poor.

But she starts describing Angels and Demons, and I say it sounds like a Hardy Boys mystery.

We haven't had a civil conversation since.

Such movies!

[6pairsofshoes]

The very idea of Dan Brown makes me run the other way.

[8ullfrog]

Greasiest of the Tom Hanks protaganists!

Really weird too, since the Da Vinci turd book flat out said "Brad Pitt".

[goldshirt*9]

Be warned you may like it

[goldshirt*9]

Be warned you may like it

so i did watch on a dank Saturday night with a few shandies, laughed to bits