log_jammin: an older sexy Danny enters the adult film industry. There he "wows" the twins from the hotel with the help of "Tony", his large member. Tony informs the girls Danny is going to give them "STRETCHPUSS"(wrote on the wall in seman) while Tony hides in the back of the girls throat.

/I disturbed even myself writing that.

In cursive or printed?

Panting, I sat down to read, not being able to wait another second, with the sweat running freely now and I knew it
(the book, the book it's glowering now)
I knew, somehow knew that the King that I knew, back on the farm in Derry where the air was so warm and red and here and now and real, that King was gone.

But, he was also here.

"You worm."

He had been here the whole time, the stench
(just like a compost heap in the summer, eh Paulseta? Just like it...)
growing stronger with each passing second.

Time stopped, and the world stood still while King and the critic stared at each other in front of me. The egg salad I'd made just minutes earlier was a ruin on the counter
(and how do those eggs look now - look like dead eyes, don't they!!!!)
and I knew, knew then more than the time Grandpa whipped me after I broke the horse in the wrong way (and no-one was there to hear those screams that day, were they Pauly-boy... ) that I was trapped in a King narrative, and the only way out was some sort of explosion or meta-crap.

The darkness had come, and brought pathetic closure with it. It was over.

Or so I thought. It had really just kicked into high gear, like the engine on my GTO.

Stephen King got the story knocked out of him when he got hit by that van. It's sad, but true.

I thought the Dark Tower 4.5 was the next book coming out?

paulseta

Panting, I sat down to read, not being able to wait another second, with the sweat running freely now and I knew it
(the book, the book it's glowering now)
I knew, somehow knew that the King that I knew, back on the farm in Derry where the air was so warm and red and here and now and real, that King was gone.

But, he was also here.

"You worm."

He had been here the whole time, the stench
(just like a compost heap in the summer, eh Paulseta? Just like it...)
growing stronger with each passing second.

Time stopped, and the world stood still while King and the critic stared at each other in front of me. The egg salad I'd made just minutes earlier was a ruin on the counter
(and how do those eggs look now - look like dead eyes, don't they!!!!)
and I knew, knew then more than the time Grandpa whipped me after I broke the horse in the wrong way (and no-one was there to hear those screams that day, were they Pauly-boy... ) that I was trapped in a King narrative, and the only way out was some sort of explosion or meta-crap.

The darkness had come, and brought pathetic closure with it. It was over.

Or so I thought. It had really just kicked into high gear, like the engine on my GTO.


That just gave me a headache....

I bet there's a big explosion at the end. Or something very like a big explosion.

Confabulat: Confabulat: I'm sure King will make it readable.

Well until the last 200 or so pages, of course.

/m-o-o-n that spells lousy endings

I cannot read any of King's books and I've tried at least a dozen times with different books to get into it. I just don't like his style although I admit that he has skill. Give me Chuck Palahniuk and I'm happy though.

First read The Shining in high school. So scary I was afraid to turn the page. Joey put the book in the freezer.

The sequel had better be good.

ddam: Confabulat: Confabulat: I'm sure King will make it readable.

Well until the last 200 or so pages, of course.

/m-o-o-n that spells lousy endings

I cannot read any of King's books and I've tried at least a dozen times with different books to get into it. I just don't like his style although I admit that he has skill. Give me Chuck Palahniuk and I'm happy though.

In comparison, Stephen King is like your grandpa doing the "got your nose" trick while Chuck's writing is more like "here's a strong hallucinogen and a knife, have fun!"


Bunny Deville: Stephen King got the story knocked out of him when he got hit by that van. It's sad, but true.

I wish I didn't agree with this...

He needs to go back to coke, all of those books were good.

/Needful things is my favorite followed by the Dead Zone

Why make a sequel when he's telling the same story over and over anyway? Let me guess: Danny Torrance is a recovering alcholic living in New England?

Brainsick: I wish I didn't agree with this...

Read Full Dark, No Stars. He's still got it, just took time to heal.

But they're "PSYCHIC" vampires, so this is original right?

\weeps
\\it'll be under the christmas tree next year i bet
\\\and i'll read it in a couple days anyway

Bunny Deville: Stephen King got the story knocked out of him when he got hit by that van. It's sad, but true.

Actually, King got the story knocked out of him when he quit drugs/alcohol after his loved ones gave him an intervention in the late 80s. (which would make MISERY and DARK TOWER 3 the last of his great stories)

Lumbar Puncture: Brainsick: I wish I didn't agree with this...

Read Full Dark, No Stars. He's still got it, just took time to heal.

Get out of my head. I was just going to post that FDNS was awesome. King has always been better in short-story form IMHO.

I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

Confabulat: Yeah that does sound horrible but then the original could be described as "pyschic child gets advice from his finger while his alcoholic father runs afoul of hotel full of bartending ghosts"

You never read The Shining, did you.

Shining Film: hedge maze, axe, twins, finger talking, frozen Dad.

Shining Novel: Topiary Animals, Oversized Mallet, Take your medicine, Crispy Dad.

But they BOTH had that the furry blowing the old man. THAT is the only thing Kubrick & King could agree on.

So, there's like, a half-dozen King books and then he went into reruns?

Also from this author from Ballentine Books


The Signal
A demonic left hand turn signal from a 1974 Pinto has bloodlust. Watch as its victims curse more while trying to restore their vintage Fords. Extensive quoting of Zeppelin.

Maine Tourism Board
A group of elder statesman elders have a dark secret. The town has a secret. The secret has a secret. Halfway through, everybody knows the secret, but that's a secret. Clown found drowned in sewer. Secret. Half the state has collapsed into multidimensional vampire spider alien misty wasteland, but come for the fall colors.

DeathByGeekSquad: I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

He's coming out with another Gunslinger book in 2012, but I wish he was done with the universe. I farking hate the revised version of the first book.

RoosterCogburn: The original, an allegory for a struggling writer. Takes a failed writer, puts him in a hotel where he loses his sanity and attempts to kill his family.

The sequel, the son - all totes growed up, yo - uses his Kevorkian skills for good when a bunch of sparkly vampires are like YUM YUM biatchES and tries to kidnap him or something. And then this werewolf named Jacob comes out of nowhere and is all NUH UH...

Cmon, King... you're taking a popular character and dropping him into a generic story based around Vampires, because that crap is popular these days (albeit, waning in popularity). Why do you need to shiat on your old stories like this. One thing has nothing to do with the other, in what way is this considered a sequel if all your doing is taking the name of one of the characters? You're ignoring the theme, premise, idea, plot, and idea of the original. Unless these vampires drag his ass back to the hotel where Jack comes out of nowhere and hacks the hell out of them - I think I'll pass on your glitter infused ripoff of a third rate hack writer.

Actually the original was an allegory of a mans struggle between doing what is right for his family and what is right for his career.

The guy just happened to be a writer because King apparently can't imagine a man choosing any other career.

Lumbar Puncture: I farking hate the revised version of the first book.

THIS!

I was just nerd-raging about this to Mrs. Brainsick yesterday...

The first Gunslinger book is, IMHO, a work of art that really can stand on it's own, warts and all. Going back and shoehorning in all the crap from the later works is like changing the hairstyles on Mt. Rushmore every decade to make them 'current'.

Confabulat: Confabulat: I'm sure King will make it readable.

Well until the last 200 or so pages, of course.

/m-o-o-n that spells lousy endings

At least with King I know the ending's gonna suck 200 pages prior to the end. With Koontz he drags you along on a road of broken glass and vodka for 280 pages and in the last 5 it's all tied up in a nice, neat, shiatty deus ex machina ending with angels, aliens, mystic Native Americans, uplifted golden retrievers or a guy who can see ghosts. You ride a roller coaster of suspense just to find out Ellie Arroway's aliens were just her goddamn father at the end.

Disappoint me if you must, but disappoint me early. That being said, King is not exactly a consistent writer, much as you don't enjoy the newer Stone Temple Pilots as much as the old when Weiland was sweating black tar heroin out of every pore. Writers evolve, and King has had a sine wave of success in MY opinion, and some of his more recent stuff is damn near unreadable (yes, I'm talking to you, Duma Key and Cell). Nevertheless the man is in my mind a modern Faulkner, and some of his works are destined to be classics (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption being one clear example). Dark Tower, meh, The Stand, better on paper, sucked as a movie, Pet Sematary will always remain a good book and film to me, and I'd take King's traditional Nosferatu vampires over the modern sparkly or androgynous ones any day of the week.

I would think from a writer's perspective, if everything you wrote was universally hailed as a success, you're not doing it right. Modern literary critics still dislike him and many other "genre" writers. People should get pissed off (and they have, vis-a-vis Bachman's "Rage") and disturbed by a story from time to time, whether it's an inflammatory topic, boring story or lousy writing, all of which he has publically claimed to be guilty of.

I figure I've tossed his salad enough for now so I'll end there.

Fair_Poopsmith: he runs afoul of a gang of wandering psychic vampires who feed on people's energy.

{confused_dog.jpg}

Lumbar Puncture: DeathByGeekSquad: I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

He's coming out with another Gunslinger book in 2012, but I wish he was done with the universe. I farking hate the revised version of the first book.

What was in the revision? I'm beginning to wonder which one I read...

In the book, Danny is a hospice worker who uses his powers to help ill patients to pass away without pain. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of a gang of wandering psychic vampires who feed on people's energy.

Please let the climax be Danny dressed up as Elvis and along side him is an elderly black man who thinks he is John Kennedy.

Stephen King reads a passage from his upcoming "The Shining" sequel. REDRUM REDRUM

More like GNIROB GNIROB amirite?

I've never read The Shining, but I'm a big enough fan of the Kubrick film that I may read it and this sequel

/Still marveling that the dog-costume-guy giving a blowjob was the weirdest part of that film.

DeathByGeekSquad: I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

OK it has been years sence I read the Shinn'n and I have refused to read the Tower Books (except book 1) sence 7 came out. Where do the stories cross paths.

Time Traveling Bunnies: What was in the revision? I'm beginning to wonder which one I read...

If the word 'Taheen' or the number 19 was in your version, you read the revised edition.


/The original reads more like someone describing a fever-dream

Fair_Poopsmith: At an awards ceremony at George Mason University last Friday, Stephen King regaled audiences with a chapter from Doctor Sleep, his upcoming novel about a grown-up Danny Torrance from The Shining.

Really? Wow... this could be farking interesting.

In the book, Danny is a hospice worker who uses his powers to help ill patients to pass away without pain. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of a gang of wandering psychic vampires who feed on people's energy.

Oh fer farksake...

So basically he condensed three seasons worth of Ghost Whisperer?

FerneJohn: I've never read The Shining, but I'm a big enough fan of the Kubrick film that I may read it and this sequel

/Still marveling that the dog-costume-guy giving a blowjob was the weirdest part of that film.

Kubrick's film bears only a passing resemblance to the novel. I like both the novel and the film for different reasons. There was a TV mini-series done of The Shining in 1997 starring Steven Weber as Jack Torrence. It's MUCH closer to the novel and IMHO it doesn't work nearly as well.

I know Shining 1997 must've been released on DVD at some point, because I burned a copy - but I don't know how easy it is to find.

Apparently, not that hard (new window)

/IIRC, the mini-series was also shot at the hotel that inspired King to write the story.

Time Traveling Bunnies: Lumbar Puncture: DeathByGeekSquad: I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

He's coming out with another Gunslinger book in 2012, but I wish he was done with the universe. I farking hate the revised version of the first book.

What was in the revision? I'm beginning to wonder which one I read...

Roland was a bit more in love with Jake in the revision as well as the previously mentioned changes. In the original he never hugged Jake and felt his heart beat. He was much more detached, and I felt the change was completely out of character.

Saiga410: DeathByGeekSquad: I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

OK it has been years sence I read the Shinn'n and I have refused to read the Tower Books (except book 1) sence 7 came out. Where do the stories cross paths.

The abilities possessed in The Shining are referenced within the Gunslinger series. There are some other references as well.

It's similar to Hearts of Atlantis, which also makes references...

Hey Rooster, did you ever happen to read Salems Lot or better yet Jerusalem's Lot. Stephen King was writing vampire stories when many current hack writers were still crapping there nappys.

RoosterCogburn: The original, an allegory for a struggling writer. Takes a failed writer, puts him in a hotel where he loses his sanity and attempts to kill his family.

The sequel, the son - all totes growed up, yo - uses his Kevorkian skills for good when a bunch of sparkly vampires are like YUM YUM biatchES and tries to kidnap him or something. And then this werewolf named Jacob comes out of nowhere and is all NUH UH...

Cmon, King... you're taking a popular character and dropping him into a generic story based around Vampires, because that crap is popular these days (albeit, waning in popularity). Why do you need to shiat on your old stories like this. One thing has nothing to do with the other, in what way is this considered a sequel if all your doing is taking the name of one of the characters? You're ignoring the theme, premise, idea, plot, and idea of the original. Unless these vampires drag his ass back to the hotel where Jack comes out of nowhere and hacks the hell out of them - I think I'll pass on your glitter infused ripoff of a third rate hack writer.

Lumbar Puncture: Brainsick: I wish I didn't agree with this...

Read Full Dark, No Stars. He's still got it, just took time to heal.

Them endings are bleak, that's for sure. Back to the sort of quality oh shiat stuff he had in his best short stories

Lumbar Puncture: Roland was a bit more in love with Jake in the revision as well as the previously mentioned changes. In the original he never hugged Jake and felt his heart beat. He was much more detached, and I felt the change was completely out of character.

Huh. I don't remember all that. I assumed mine might have been a revision because I bought the 4-pack DT box set when it came out around 05. Guess I got lucky or either blocked that part out.

DeathByGeekSquad: Saiga410: DeathByGeekSquad: I thought he was done with the Gunslinger universe. The Shining was one of the many books that touched on the universe.

The movie....didn't do the book justice, at all.

OK it has been years sence I read the Shinn'n and I have refused to read the Tower Books (except book 1) sence 7 came out. Where do the stories cross paths.

The abilities possessed in The Shining are referenced within the Gunslinger series. There are some other references as well.

It's similar to Hearts of Atlantis, which also makes references...

From the Wiki:

The ShiningRoom 217 is a major plot point, as a room to avoid due to high activity of an unrestful spirit - 2+17 = 19, a recurrent number in the Dark Tower series. Another instance of the 19 occurs during the climax of the novel, when Jack is attempting to kill his wife, and it's revealed that there are 19 stairs from the lobby to the first floor of the hotel.

Additionally, the name of the Colorado Lounge in the Overlook Hotel was once the Red Eye Lounge, the Red Eye being a major symbol of the Crimson King. One of the Crimson King's major objectives is the collection of powerful psychics to use as Breakers (those who attempt to destroy the Beams upholding the Dark Tower and all of reality itself) and one thing that the Overlook's "management" wants to do is to take control of Danny Torrence. The Crimson King, through the Sombra Corporation, has been known to ally itself with the mafia, and the mafia (through Horace Derwent) has long held controlling stakes in the Overlook Hotel. When Jack is conversing with the bartender Lloyd, at one point his form shifts and a description of the bartender explains that he has drops of blood coming from his forehead, a descriptive point also used to describe certain other servants of the Crimson King, who are described as having singular bloody eyes on their foreheads.

I think "The Shining" is the best, most complete, and nicely wrapped up King book there is. I love his books and I'll never stop reading them, but the criticism re: his endings is totally justified.

The Shing though, the ending is perfect. Much better than the movie.

This sequel sounds unnecessary and not very good...but I'll probably read it.

schubie

So is it good or bad that reviewers compare my husband's books to early Stephen King?

It means he's a potboiling hack.....I believe.