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Stephen King |OT| - Era Ka-Tet
- Thread starter Dalek
- Start date
- Entertainment OT
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I'm reading through Doctor Sleep and I have a big complaint about a part of the story.
When Crow Daddy kidnaps Abra and knocks out Billy he takes Billy's truck. Billy is unconscious for the trip Clearly this means that at some point Billy will be part of Abra's rescue. Why didn't Crow Daddy just kill Billy? It just seems very unlike him.
I'm reading this now and I'm also about 60% in. This is one of the longer books I was putting off because I wasn't super interested in the concept on paper. I'm liking it way more than I thought, it's a great story.
Dark tower vii was excellent. What an ending. Like to believe the horn of eld was a sign things will change next cycle.
I started reading The Dead Zone and oh my, feels like another King novel I'm going to absolutely love.
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i think the only spoiler is that a character from that trilogy is in The Outsider. I would imagine that they don't reference it in the HBO series for the sake of simplicity.
The only reason I could see them mentioning it is they own the rights to Mr Mercedes but they canceled that show I think so I doubt they mention it.
I thought it was great, already hooked...can't wait for next week. Super creepy and intriguing.
No dedicated thread? That's a shame.
It's not really canceled yet, it could totally live on on HBO Max which AT&T owns and who owned the Audience network it originally aired on.
My updated collection moved to a new book case, including today's new arrival, the Letterpess Pub edition of Revival. It's an awesome book!
Nice collection, and as someone who loves revival that edition looks killer.My updated collection moved to a new book case, including today's new arrival, the Letterpess Pub edition of Revival. It's an awesome book!
Yeah, it really is. I can't wait to see how it all works out in the end.
The book does spoil the end of the trilogy but yeah it's unlikely they would mention it in the show.
Just saw the first two episodes of The Outsider. The first episode is great and had me completely hooked, but the second one is pretty bad and has pretty much killed my interest for the whole series.
I have not read the book and I'm guessing that they're just following it, but did they really have to kill Jason Bateman's character. He seemed like the crux of the whole show - with him gone it feels pretty much pointless.
Me too, it felt like an early King book in plot, atmosphere, themes, even book length that would have fit in well with Carrie, Salem's Lot, Dead Zone. However it also has everything he has learned in the decades of writing applied to it in a way that young King couldn't have written that, at least not as effectively as he did and it's one of the few modern classic Lovecraftian tales that actually gave me chills.
Top Shelf.
Couple pics of that Revival:
It really is up there for me. There's structural & thematic similarities to Dead Zone (his other works too) but those two make good back to back reads. Excited to read the Josh Boone introduction in this (he's directing a movie adaptation) and the Bev Vincent essay.
80% through 11/22/63 now and it's still great. There was a little hiccup I didn't love --
but I get it, it adds some tension. it's back on track now and I'll probably blast through the rest tonight. I only listened to a couple hours of the audiobook version but that's really good too.
It really is up there for me. There's structural & thematic similarities to Dead Zone (his other works too) but those two make good back to back reads. Excited to read the Josh Boone introduction in this (he's directing a movie adaptation) and the Bev Vincent essay.
80% through 11/22/63 now and it's still great. There was a little hiccup I didn't love --
where Jake has amnesia after getting beat up
I follow the thedarktower.org forums. The people there are really into collecting. I had to read a lot about what's out there and what good secondhand prices are because there's a ton of stuff. skcollector.com is a good resource. There's usually small print runs. And say the run is numbered 1-1200. A few publishers let buyers have first refusal on their same number if they've bought another book from them. Which makes it pretty frustrating when a new book goes on sale and it's snatched up by the same 1,200 people again
I've been waiting for Revival since august, it's from a new publisher, but I somehow missed the preorder and had to get it on another site (thankfully they had it retail price).
Some publishers to look out for-
Cemetery Dance - they'll have a limited The Stand sometime this year. I hope it's not impossible to get. They have a version of Night Shift coming out that I think sold out years ago and still isn't out.
Suntup - don't know if they have a new King planned, but their books are amazing. I have their "gift" (cheapest) edition of Misery and it's one of the nicest books I have. The lettered edition (most expensive, thousands) has goddamn royal typewriter keys embedded into the cover.
Letterpress - they might announce their second book this year
PS Publishing - UK publisher
Amazon passed on the dark tower pilot :(
https://deadline.com/2020/01/the-da...ad-pilot-amazon-not-going-forward-1202830606/
https://deadline.com/2020/01/the-da...ad-pilot-amazon-not-going-forward-1202830606/
That sucks, on paper a series mostly based on WaG is pretty promising. And it sounds like there was already a ton of work put into it. Hopefully Glen Mazzara can get the pilot looked at elsewhere.
Reading updates - finished 11/22/63, really great book, might be somewhere in my top 10 SK now. I love how it has SK style written all over it but the genre feels kinda unique for him. It's like...historical suspense fiction...romance? Closest I can think of is Dead Zone (some historical fiction here, a well-meaning character, an asassination plot, clairvoyance instead of time travel) + Revival's way of telling the story (first person, main character recounting earlier events) but it really feels like its own thing for SK.
I'm like 110 pages into Cujo now. It took ~90 pages for Cujo to just growl at someone :P I thought it was interesting how the book basically opens up with fairly big spoilers for Dead Zone.
I've been reading so much King lately that the characters and words and descriptions in Cujo so far just feel like a pastiche of SK tropes. Not necessarily a bad thing, these are things he does well, but it might be lacking in some individual flavor to make it stand out. Only 25% in though
Have to admit that I'm a little jealous. I'm still waiting for my copy to ship. Looks gorgeous.Couple pics of that Revival:
It really is up there for me. There's structural & thematic similarities to Dead Zone (his other works too) but those two make good back to back reads. Excited to read the Josh Boone introduction in this (he's directing a movie adaptation) and the Bev Vincent essay.
80% through 11/22/63 now and it's still great. There was a little hiccup I didn't love --but I get it, it adds some tension. it's back on track now and I'll probably blast through the rest tonight. I only listened to a couple hours of the audiobook version but that's really good too.where Jake has amnesia after getting beat up
Mine was from Camelot Books. It sounds like the other sellers (Cemetery Dance at least) were a little behind and shipping out other stuff before they got to it.
I think this was the first book I followed from announcement to release, and it really takes forever for these things to come out
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I usually hate these, but this one, I want this one.
Yeah I got the Outsider audiobook and I still don't like it even though the narrator is amazing the book is just weak. I don't get it King knocks it out of the park everytime he writes a short story or a novella but his full length books have been so hit or miss lately.
Had never read any King. Just finished Mr Mercedes and really loved it.
What next? I have a copy of The Stand I bought years ago but have been too intimidated by its size.
What next? I have a copy of The Stand I bought years ago but have been too intimidated by its size.
The Stand is great if you wanna read something more recent everyone loves Revival and 11/22/63 or if you want short stories all his recent collections are good.
Read the cover and see if it is the uncut version, if not go and get that one, it is bigver.
Lol
If you liked Mr. Mercedes you should read Finders, Keepers and End of Watch since as was noted it's a trilogy.
As for the stand, top tier and you should read it, but if you do read the uncut version, it's the preferred text.
I've heard mixed reactions to Finders Keepers. Should I skip to End of Watch or is it worth a read?
You can skip it and not miss much. It doesn't really concern Brady at all and Hodges doesn't show up until a little more or less than halfway through the book. It's more about another branch of how the Mercedes killing impacted another group of chracters.
I liked it, but it also had to do with books and rare manuscripts so it was doubly interesting to me, but if you are going to skip it you should still be fine going into end of watch.
I decided I'm going to start reading Revival today. I hear nothing but great things. Will post my thoughts when I'm done.
If anyone has thought about reading The Dark Tower and wanted a podcast to go along with it the show Kingslingers just recently started and finished The Gunslinger. The hosts are two guys who've done a lot of deep analysis on books and movies on their podcast Doofcast and We've Got Ward. One of the hosts is a huge King fan and has read the books, the other hasn't so they're going through it like a first time read.
Just thought I'd recommend here as it's got me contemplating a reread as this podcast made me realize something about the end of the series that completely blew my mind and made it even better than I already thought it was.
Just thought I'd recommend here as it's got me contemplating a reread as this podcast made me realize something about the end of the series that completely blew my mind and made it even better than I already thought it was.
Barnes and Noble also has a bloody exclusive available now for anyone interested
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/toys-games-pop-icons-stephen-king-w-axe-and-book-b-n-exclusive
My copy finally arrived this week from Cemetery Dance. Took them long enough. What a beautiful book.
Nice! I keep staring at mine lol. If I had one complaint, I'm not a big fan of the printed marble endpapers, you can tell they're printed on (at a not super high resolution). I mentioned this on TDT forums and the guy who runs Letterpress (Brian James Freeman) responded and acknowledged there was a problem there:
Brian James Freeman from Letterpress Publications said:
Really minor complaint, just found that interesting & cool that he's aware of it for the next book. I'm no expert but to me LP Revival is already just as nice as some of the more expensive signed/numbered editions. It doesn't sound like their next book will be King (maybe, he just said "NYT Bestseller") but I'm still interested.
On the subject of non-King special editions...Suntup announced their edition of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris:
Red Dragon - Suntup Editions
Hailed by critics as “gruesome, graphic, and all too realistic,” Red Dragon by Thomas Harris was first published in 1981 and marked a turning point in the way crime novels were written. The first novel in the widely acclaimed Hannibal Lecter series, Red Dragon added a sense of realism to the...
suntup.press
I caved was able to grab the numbered edition right before it sold out. The gift edition is still available (with its fantastic dust jacket art)
He is great! Usually if i'm switching between Kindle or physical book and audio, I lean toward reading it when I can and listening when I'm walking around and stuff. But multiple times in Finders/End of Watch (I don't have the first one on audio), i'd stop reading so I could hear him read the current chapter instead. He really elevates Hodges' character in particular and his narration just make the story feel more foreboding and serious or something
Nice I'll check this out. The only SK podcast I got into was The Losers Club. They're pretty fun to listen to after finishing a book
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I absolutely feel the same way. I love how he even has a different style of narration when its a Brady chapter vs a Hodges chapter. He's a true talent-and a fellow Carolinian from what I can see!
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I really wish there was a Stephen King podcast I could listen to-but I'm a pain in the ass and I'm very particular. I just started pulled up an episode of "The Losers Club" (great name) but it seems like every episode starts with this obnoxious song - and it's really difficult for me to deal with that-even if I manually skip it. I know this is a "me problem"
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My friend has been listening to the Dark Tower audiobooks FINALLY after only about 20 years of me pleading with him. He's in love with them-but has now gotten to Wizard and Glass-and he feels it's ground the momentum to a halt. I told him I felt the exact same way - and you have to stick with it. In the end-it's probably the best DT book.
Edit: I thought that Audible had versions of The Dark Tower audiobooks up that were narrated by King himself - but now I don't see them...are they regional?
Edit: I thought that Audible had versions of The Dark Tower audiobooks up that were narrated by King himself - but now I don't see them...are they regional?
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