Anyone read Stephen King?

[Panache]

...I read "The Mist" when it come out in a collection of short stories, the name of which I forget (it had a toy monkey on the cover). That was the one story in the book which terrified, and, boy, did it ever!!!

I believe that was Skeleton Crew. I think that Stephen King is best when writing novellas or his "long" short stories. They tend to be a lot more focused plot wise. I very much enjoyed reading the The Mist and though not a fan of Modern Horror movies, wa actually thinking of going to see it. From what I have read and heard it deviates from the story at the end so I will forgo it.

"IT" has been mentioned. I too liked the book as opposed to the tv movie version which came out. I was terrified right up to the very end. Boy, talk about a disappointing conclusion!

Tim Curry was an inspired choice for Pennywise. Sadly the TV production obviously had no idea to convey the concepts of wrongness and how alien "It" was, and went with the simplest representation possible. To be fair it took S.K. a heck of a lot of exposition to get the idea across in the novel.

Also some of the characters got a bit shortchanged, like Stan.

A good read, makes me want to pick it up again since it has been years since I read it.

Cheers

Jamie

[ChromeScholar]

I liked his earlier stuff. I haven't cared for much he's written since his accident ("From a Buick Eight" was just awful). I prefer Dean Koontz.

[Tattoo Bradley]

I've been catching up on some of SK's earlier works. I read "It" a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it. What a masterpiece. I'm almost finished with the new novel (Duma Key) that came out about a week ago. It's utterly fantastic as well. I picked up a used Doubleday hardback edition of The Stand that's begging to be read. And, the same day Duma Key was released the latest Richard Bachman novel (Blaze) was released on paperback (hardback was several months ago) so I picked that up as well. All King all the time here as of late. B)

[Panache]

I'm sure you can see why The Deadlights and the Ritual of Chud would be virtually impossible to film (hence the otherwise excellent TV adaptation of the book failed at the ending).

Just remember Bradley,

We all float down here!






Cheers

Jamie

I've been catching up on some of SK's earlier works. I read "It" a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it. What a masterpiece.

[davedove]

The only one of his books I have read is The Stand. I decided to pick it up and read it after watching the mini-series. I enjoyed both and found that the mini-series pretty closely followed the book. Of course there were some minor differences, but that's to be expected. However, I didn't really like the ending of either the show or the book.

[Zardoz]

Brad, if you read The Cell, be sure to see the movie version, the Japanese horror film "Kairo" from 2001; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_%282001_film%29 I think big Steve or at least whomever is doing his ghosting now must be a fan! There is also a US version of the film from 2005 called "Pulse"



For original work Koontz and Barker are hard to beat!

[ScottEPooh]

I would also HIGHLY recommend "On Writing", a wonderful autobiography he wrote some time ago (early 90s?). It's very good, and a very fun read. I have always had trouble reading his novels, but I chalk that up to my ADHD rather than to the author, but Cell has been a really fun ride. It's nice to see how King twists the standard zombie flick.

[Jerry]

I am a King fan. but like a lot of others, I prefer Koontz. I love the Christopher Snow books and any of his others that deal with animals. Deans Golden retriever, Trixie, recently died, and he has a lot of things on his web site in tribute to her.

[Tattoo Bradley]

I did read Cell. I've gotta say: wasn't my favorite King book by any means. And, as far as Koontz, I just never could get into his stuff the way I did King's.

[Kilted in Maine]

Being from Maine, I am a huge Stephen King fan.

Unfortunately the seem to fail to adapt to the big screen.