Stephen King

[Denzil]

What do you guys think of him as an author, I heard good things somewhere but after reading about 1/4 of Desperation i'm not too sure I like his style.

Denny

[GeneralHankerchief]

I personally like him, but his best work is behind him. Case in point: I'm reading The Stand (for the first time) right now.

IMHO, his best book was written in the 70s not even under his name. It's called The Long Walk and while not his usual supernatural gruesome style, it's still got this extremely haunting quality of its own. I sincerely suggest you check it out.

Finally, as far as epic series go, you can't beat The Dark Tower.

[Denzil]

That was quick! Yh sure my mind is not set on him being useless. I'll check out his other material,

Denny

[drone]

I prefer his older stuff, but I haven't kept up with his recent work to be a decent judge of it. His short story compilations are pretty good (Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, etc.), as well as Different Seasons (4 novellas, 3 of which were made into movies, including the Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me). More weird tales than horror, but he does that very well.

With some of his longer stories, I get the feeling that he didn't know how to finish up, and the endings were just lacking. But there is some quality there, The Stand, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Misery.

[Beirut]

I've read a few of his short stories and enjoyed them a lot. Never read a whole novel of his, though.

His book, On Writing, a writer's guide, is excellent. I took it out from the library countless times and ended up getting it for Christmas this year. It's on the shelf right beside The Elements of Style by Strunk & White.

[Ramses II CP]

King is a good story teller. I own all of his books, except the most recent because I wait for them to go paperback these days. Unfortunately, like so many artists, much of his best inspiration came via chemicals, and when he gave up the drugs his furiously paced prose fell off. Being nearly killed in a car accident (He was walking and got hit by a drunk) a few years ago didn't help either. Desperation was an odd kind of companion novel to one he wrote as Bachman called The Regulators.

It is by far my favorite King book.

Four Past Midnight is another good set of short stories/novellas that are good, as are the previously mentioned collections (Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and Everything's Eventual are the rest of his collections as far as I remember off the top of my head).

Salem's Lot and Carrie are very good, from among his older works.

I'd recommend the first three in the Gunslinger series, but the rest fall off from the premise as he goes too long between picking up the pen. Still good books, but not the same driven brilliance as the first two in particular.

[Denzil]

very nice thankyou, what are the best novels/authors around? Like is War and Peace as good as it is made out? Also is Isaac Asimov good? (he is the sci-fi writer?)

Denny

[Geoffrey S]

Isaac Asimov is entertaining, particular his short stories. As with King, I think his longer works, decent as parts may be, are long-winded and far weaker than the shorter, snappier texts.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Ach, King...i still can't get over the horror that was Misery.

I don't mean horror as in his story, i mean horror as in how good it was and the contents.

[Fragony]

He's good at creating tension and mystery but less succesfull wrapping it up. His best story is The Fog imho.

[Denzil]

Ive read another few chapters of Desperation and it does seem a little long winded, lots of information that can just be skipped. I mean there is a really good, if stereotyped, story of a kidnap in the desert but he keeps flcking back to road trips and such. I just think keep with the main story, tension is lost because you already know that the person on the roadtrip is either imprisoned or killed.

[TinCow]

My opinion on King: An author with an incredible imagination who comes up with wonderful stories, but who can't write worth a damn. His plots and worlds are great. He just isn't very good at the whole writing part of it.

[Geoffrey S]

Exactly. That's why I prefer his short stories. Doesn't get the time/space to write too much, he needs to tell the story.

[Beirut]

...but who can't write worth a damn. His plots and worlds are great. He just isn't very good at the whole writing part of it.

Funny you should say that, because his instruction book for writers is very, very good.

Maybe he hasn't read it.

[TinCow]

He definitely understands how to write. As others have mentioned, his short stories are almost always outstanding. I think part of his problem is that his excellent ideas are relatively simple in nature and do not involve elaborate plots. I've read before that he gets a lot of his ideas from his dreams, and jots down notes about them when he wakes up. This is perfect for a short story where you are focusing on a single plot device where elaborate character backstories and complex relationships are skipped. However, novels require a lot more meat to them and I think King has a lot of problems coming up with this 'filler' material. That is why his books alwas seem to start off great, then grind through lots of stiff character interactions until the major plot point appears, then they end with a bang. Maybe it's not a failing of his writing so much as a failing of his inspiration. He writes well when inspired by a story, but languishes when the plot goes through territory that was not part of the original concept.

[Beirut]

Interesting. You'd probably make the guy cry if you ever told him that.

In his book, On Writing, he says that his books come from simply questions. "What would happen if..." Perhaps that is better for a short story. But I can't say much about his novels as I've never read one. (And probably never will.)

[Ramses II CP]

One of the major differences you can see in his novels post-abuse is that they balloon uncontrollably. Compare The Dead Zone, which was a nicely spare development of a pretty decent small ball idea to the later Dreamcatcher, which was a fairly crude, one note idea to start with and still managed to try to fill six hundred pages. Of course publishers encourage that bloat too, but Dreamcatcher just barely would've made a decent short story.

The clearest example of this problem is in comparing the first Gunslinger book, which evoked a clearly alien, and interesting, world and managed to tell a good story in it at around two hundred pages, to the fifth Gunslinger book. It was one of the first books he wrote free of his issues (AFAIK), and it's a mess.

All that being said, one of the reasons I enjoy the massive It is because it's as complete an exploration of the impact of a well imagined monster as there is in the business. That's one of the reasons why I call him a good storyteller, rather than a good writer.

[GeneralHankerchief]

The clearest example of this problem is in comparing the first Gunslinger book, which evoked a clearly alien, and interesting, world and managed to tell a good story in it at around two hundred pages, to the fifth Gunslinger book. It was one of the first books he wrote free of his issues (AFAIK), and it's a mess.

See, that's interesting. While I agree with you on the first point about Book 1 (and just for clarification, Gunslinger series and The Dark Tower series are the same thing), I found that one a mess. Even King admits that it's not very good.

Whereas #5, while long, was much more clearly structured and longer but still managed to fill the entire book with meaningful, non-filler material. I wonder if it's any coincidence that I read #5 much faster than #1, even though #5 is three times #1's size.

The only ones in that series that bogged down, IMHO, were #s 4 and 7.

[Ramses II CP]

I think King's issues with book one derive, in large part, from what I took to be it's intentionally disjointed narrative. It bounces back and forth, but that actually helps establish how alien a world it takes place in. Most of all, it explains very little, things simply happen. When the backdrop for the story is as odd and complicated as the one from the Gunslinger books I find that approach more often compelling than excessive detail or explanation. Also when a lead character, like Roland, has a blank faced, grim acceptance of even the most outlandish and horrible happenings, it's a good idea to explain little and leave the reader with no choice but to follow in his wake.

Whereas in Calla King drags in elements from all over the place, including his own earlier books, struggling to actually anchor his crazy fantasy world in a larger reality of some kind. There are multiple major themes erupting every few pages in the first four chapters, and none of them get a satsifying end, despite pages of detail on the lives of side characters.

For me it's the difference between a book that spends pages doing things, going places, and a book that spends pages trying to explain why things were done and why places were visited.

...but that's what great about good books, they speak to everyone differently. I know some people who thought the end of the series was just wrong, intolerable, but I can't imagine it ending in any other way.

[Crazed Rabbit]

A very good storyteller, my favorite of his works is The Stand and Salem's Lot, the former of which is marvelous in its ability to create tension and terror.

CR

[Beirut]

For the King fans out there, and are interested in the man himself, read Cujo. He says he was blind drunk the whole time he wrote it and doesn't remember a thing.

In vino typrewritus?

[drone]

I never really knew about his drug problems, just booze. That would probably explain the short story "Survivor Type", in Skeleton Crew. It's about a surgeon marooned on an tiny island with a surgical bag, a bunch of heroin he was smuggling, and no food. It's written as a diary the guy kept. King's drug use would explain a lot.

[Beirut]

I never really knew about his drug problems, just booze. That would probably explain the short story "Survivor Type", in Skeleton Crew. It's about a surgeon marooned on an tiny island with a surgical bag, a bunch of heroin he was smuggling, and no food. It's written as a diary the guy kept. King's drug use would explain a lot.

That was a great story!

[drone]

That was a great story!

Wasn't the last diary entry dated something like Feb 40th?

[Good Ship Chuckle]

I've never read any of his stuff myself, but I know some people that have. The all share one thing in common. They are all a little messed up in the head...which is my reason for not reading him. Not to offend anyone here, though.

[Beirut]

I've never read any of his stuff myself, but I know some people that have. The all share one thing in common. They are all a little messed up in the head...which is my reason for not reading him. Not to offend anyone here, though.

If we weren't a little messed up in the head, most of us wouldn't be here.