Stephen King calls it quits!!!

[Tyjenks]

Or so says the cover from Entertainment Weekly. I hate it personally, but what can you do. He just looks tired. You evil, evil detractors have driven him from the business!! :wink: I hope you are all happy now! :cry:

I think I heard him say, "You won't have Stephen King to kick around anymore." However, instead of holding up the two fingers in a peace signs as he exits, King is holding up the pinkly, index finger, and thumb in two devil signs. :twisted:

[Met_K]

http://www.stephenking.com/rumors.html?

[Tyjenks]

Yeah, but that's dated 3/27/02. Which is also my 1 year old daughter's birthday........wierd.

[Alan Dunkin]

It was announced on the news the other day, but I'm pretty sure that's old news as I remember discussing it with a friend (who's a big King fan) awhile back. As long as he finishes Dark Tower I'm happy with that ... I think King realizes his horror stuff just isn't doing it any more, and Dark Tower is kind of refreshing. And fantasy.

I think he'll probably still help produce or write some movies, though.

--- Alan

[Bub, Andrew]

From what I've read about the man, he can't stop writing. Not even rehabilitation could stop him. My only problem with King is that he needs to stop publishing so much. He's a solid writer. Maybe the best genre writer today, but he needs to cook things a bit more. He'll quit, but he'll keep writing. Hopefully that'll prompt him to finally take his time and craft something truly great.

[Toddy]

It's not in him. He could take 50 years to work on the successor to From a Buick 8 and the end result would still be the same old timekiller crap that people leave behind in laundromats. King himself described himself as the literary version of McDonald's, and he was dead on there.

[Jason McCullough]

Have to agree with Brent here; humanity will just have to miss out on the latest developments in the Killer Housewares series.

[Tyjenks]

Have to agree with Brent here;

Brent who? :wink:


I still liked Dreamcatcher. :P

[Erik Andersson]

The only book of him that I've read is Dolores Claiborne. While it didn't strike me as a masterpiece, I did like the language (I read it in English), and the story was pretty well told. It was better than I expected, or in other words: it was better than a Big Mac.

[Mark Asher]

Slate or Salon had something about this several months ago. He had 5-6 projects he was committed to finish and then he said that was it.

I like a lot of his books, but they're not enduring works.

If he feels tapped out in horror, I wonder why he just doesn't try something else? Why not write some hardboiled stuff, or jump into sci-fi?

[Tyjenks]

If he feels tapped out in horror, I wonder why he just doesn't try something else? Why not write some hardboiled stuff, or jump into sci-fi?

Dragon's Eye was actually the first book I read of his way back in high school. While I do not know if it would stand up well now, I thought it was decent fantasy at the time. Wizard and Glass was almost a love story and he has written much that is not straight horror. It's strange that he has not at least tried more strictly sci-fi and/or fantasy stuff. Maybe someone from his fansite boards knows.

[Alan Dunkin]

Dark Tower is more fantasy than everything else, which is why I'm happy to see he's concluding it with a bunch more books. 3 at least.

--- Alan

[William Harms]

Have to agree with Brent here; humanity will just have to miss out on the latest developments in the Killer Housewares series.

I think the man deserves a great deal of respect and credit, if for no other reason than his astounding commercial success. He's the best-selling novelist of all time (with around 270 million copies sold) and he's done it in a marginalized genre. Clearly he's been doing something right.

Most likely, this will end up being the final nail in the horror genre's coffin. Most publishers no longer publish (or market) "straight horror" and with the genre's tent pole packing it in, there's not much incentive for anyone else to carry on the torch.

[Erik Andersson]

He's the best-selling novelist of all time (with around 270 million copies sold) and he's done it in a marginalized genre.

According to Guinness Book of Records:
"The world's best-selling fiction writer is Dame Agatha Christie (née Miller, later Lady Mallowan, 1890–1976), whose 78 crime novels have sold an estimated 2 billion copies in 44 languages."

[Anonymous]

Dark Tower is more fantasy than everything else, which is why I'm happy to see he's concluding it with a bunch more books. 3 at least.

--- Alan

There are exactly three more books, two of which are already completed (but not set to release until 2003 and 2004). I read the article, being King's NUMBER ONE FAN and he mentioned that he will continue to write, likely will until the day he dies, but after the final Dark Tower book, he is done with publishing (he makes a comparison to JD Salinger who supposedly drops off a manuscript into a safe deposit box once a year). That means we will likely see SOME writings by him after his death, though one hopes it won't be for a long time.
Oh, and useless trivia, though King nearly died in the accident, he has managed to outlive the guy who hit him.

[Ben Sones]

Although I personally think the Gunslinger is the best book King has written, and I also very much like The two following books, I dread the rest of the series. His writing has been heading south pretty rapidly since he started the DT series, and the latest book (The Wizard and the Glass) was pretty mediocre. I hate the way he has become attached to the idea of weaving all of his various stories together in some big, weird comic-book style crossover (I expect his next subtitle to scream "Cujo vs. Randall Flagg: Superpower Showdown in Derry!"). It's one thing if you've come up with some sort of mythos and decide to write a series of books that draw upon it (like Lovecraft, or Anne McCaffrey); another thing altogether to create the mythos after the fact. King currently seems bent on hobbling together some sort of Frankenstein's monster of all his past work.

Worse still, his recent sequel to the Talisman dipped pretty heavily into the Gunslinger mythos, and it was awful. I love the Talisman--another of my favorite King books--but I couldn't even finish the The Black House. I put it down in disgust a little over halfway through, and I almost never do that with any book that I've actually started. It's a prime example of how utterly he has lost all grasp over the elements that make his stories (or that used to make his stories) good.

[Tyjenks]

I hate the way he has become attached to the idea of weaving all of his various stories together in some big, weird comic-book style crossover (I expect his next subtitle to scream "Cujo vs. Randall Flagg: Superpower Showdown in Derry!"). It's one thing if you've come up with some sort of mythos and decide to write a series of books that draw upon it (like Lovecraft, or Anne McCaffrey); another thing altogether to create the mythos after the fact. King currently seems bent on hobbling together some sort of Frankenstein's monster of all his past work.

I thought it was pretty interesting until I realized he will never ever bring it all together. The Crimson King vs. Monster Island was rumored to be the big final battle novel. :wink:

[Alan Dunkin]

Oh, and useless trivia, though King nearly died in the accident, he has managed to outlive the guy who hit him.

Oh the dude died? Not surprising, really.. having read King's description of him and the accident in On Writing, it's rather funny, in a way. King didn't seem to think of him one way or another, other than being a homey-kind of guy.

--- Alan

[Bub, Andrew]

The EW article makes much of King relating an Urban Legend that suggests JD Salinger has been, yearly, delivering an 8x10 box to a Safety Deposit Box in a bank. The story says the teller asked him if they were books and he answered, "yes". She asked "Why don't you publish them" and he said "Why should I?"

Then King claims he is going to continue his 9am to 1pm daily writing schedule. How much do you want to bet there's going to be a FLOOD of wild and crazy King novels published soon after his death?

After reading Bag of Bones (not a good, but an interesting, book) I believe this. The author protagonist gets a bad case of block and lives for years on old stuff he tucked away and didn't publish. King makes much of the insane demands a publisher places on a successful writing to produce, constantly. King strikes me as an "aims to please" kind of guy... maybe the only way he feels he can get a break is to dramatically quit.

[Anonymous]

I've never read King, though I've liked some of the movies based on his novels. I've recently read some nice things about his most recent book of short stories, and wonder if folks here would recommend it.

Peter

[Tyjenks]

Actually, I have not read it yet (waiting for paperback).

Read:

The Talisman
Needful Things
The Gunslinger and it's 3 sequels

There are more and many better, but my mind is a blank.

[Bub, Andrew]

Don't believe it Peter! I agree with Brett Todd, the new short story collection is tripe. Read his early stuff, the classics. The stuff Harms loves. The stuff they made into movies you liked. Salem's Lot, Carrie, The Stand, The Shining, Pet Semetary, and, yeah, I like Needful Things too.

[Anonymous]

Don't believe it Peter! I agree with Brett Todd, the new short story collection is tripe. Read his early stuff, the classics. The stuff Harms loves. The stuff they made into movies you liked. Salem's Lot, Carrie, The Stand, The Shining, Pet Semetary, and, yeah, I like Needful Things too.

If you want short stories, indeed avoid his need book "Everything's Eventual" (it's not all bad, just MOSTLY bad, I did like the one about the creepy painting he was sent, as well as the one in the hotel, and LT's Theory of Pets.. hell, it really wavered between REALLY good and REALLY bad) and go for his older short stories like in Skeleton Crew and Night Shift, most of which are fantastic and still linger in my mind. I am STILL waiting for a good film version of The Mist!

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I'll check out the earlier King collections.

I did look some at the King novels that were foundations for movies I've liked, and invariably was disapointed. Having seen the movies first, it was difficult not to measure the books against them.

Did anyone watch The Dead Zone series on TNT? I had a bug when it ran over the recent holiday weekend and wound up watching it sort of involuntarily. (I watched the god-awful Rose Red with the same excuse.) A good deal of The Dead Zone series is drek--the movie spun out over a dozen hours--but the last episode of the season wasn't bad. Its image of the apocalypse was simple but effective, and given recent events, somehow pertinent.

Maybe this is right place to ask about another book. I don't think it's King's (too early), but it's horror.

In the late '60s, when I was about 13, my family spent the summer in Welfleet on Cape Cod. Beach at Cahon's Hollow in the morning, hikes through the wildlife sanctuary (in which the house was located) in the afternoon, soft ice cream in town in the evening.

I don't think I brought much with me for entertainment. (Comics may have been forbidden; my parents probably didn't want me sitting inside.) So I had to fall back on whatever was on the shelves in our furnished house, where everything seemed to have been published before I was born.

But in my bedroom, stuffed behind a radiator, I found a horror paperback. Probably hidden from parents by another kid. Or so I imagined at the time.

I can't recall the book's name or author. Over the years, I've picked up many books by many writers (most recently Richard Matheson's series of "Shock" books) in the hope of finding it again. Never with any luck.

The book made a huge impression on me.

What distinguishes it in my mind is that its author found horror in utterly mundane situations. For instance, in one story (the only one I remember in any detail), a man discovers that his wife, who he's slept beside for years, is a monster. (A real monster.)

I realize I'm going out on a limb here--barely providing any info at all--but does this ring a bell with anyone?

Peter

[William Harms]

I did look some at the King novels that were foundations for movies I've liked, and invariably was disapointed. Having seen the movies first, it was difficult not to measure the books against them.


Were you disappointed in the books or the movies? If it's former I'm shocked because King's books are infinitely better than the adapations.

[Tyjenks]

I did look some at the King novels that were foundations for movies I've liked, and invariably was disapointed. Having seen the movies first, it was difficult not to measure the books against them.


Were you disappointed in the books or the movies? If it's former I'm shocked because King's books are infinitely better than the adapations.

I thought "The Dark Half" with Timothy Hutton came the closest to capturing the feel of the book. I always liked Pet Sematary, too, but that was one of the few which I saw the movie adaptation first. The Stand was decent. I would like to watch it again to see how much worse it is now that I'm older and ever so slightly wiser.

[Anonymous]

I did look some at the King novels that were foundations for movies I've liked, and invariably was disapointed. Having seen the movies first, it was difficult not to measure the books against them.


Were you disappointed in the books or the movies? If it's former I'm shocked because King's books are infinitely better than the adapations.

It's not so much a case of "better" as simply different. When the movie comes first in one's experience, it becomes the text--rightly or not.

Peter

[Ben Sones]

Were you disappointed in the books or the movies? If it's former I'm shocked because King's books are infinitely better than the adapations.

Most of King's movie adaptations are awful, but there are a few exceptions, and they are pretty big exceptions. I thought the Shawshank Redemption was actually better than the story it was based on--a rare event. Stand By Me was pretty damn good--like a macabre version of the Wonder Years. Some people like the Shining (the Kubrik version), but I hated it. I recently saw a newer made-for-TV version that was pretty good, though.

[Tyjenks]

Shawshank was definitely the best. Short stories I think are simply more accessible for adaptation as you do not have to cram as much into two hours. The Green Mile was pretty good, as well.

[Anonymous]

A few disparate thoughts on King features.

I think The Dead Zone stands up best. It's extremely tight and restrained, and it uses Walken's oddball qualities to excellent effect. Martin Sheen's first presidential role.

I enjoyed The Shining when I saw it in the theaters, and revisited it after it was parodied on the Simpsons ("no TV and no beer make Homer ... something something"), and then thought it was just silly. Kubrick does some interesting things--he always does--but I see it now as the beginning of Jack Nicholson's descent. (I suspect the recent made-for-TV version is more faithful to the book, but I thought it dull. At least you can't say that about the Kubrick version.)

I loved Stand by Me at first, but repeated viewings over the years brought out the sappiness and cliches. Though the performances (especially River Phoenix's) still stand up.

I find Misery kind of insubstantial--it's a Twilight Zone episode, not a movie--but Kathy Bates was brilliant.

I was attracted to The Lagoliers by Patricia Wettig's presence, and the movie does have the odd moment. (Mainly those involving Bronson Pinchot; is that spelled right?)

But, god, it's endless.

Pet Cemetery has always struck me as a bad TV movie.

Rose Red was a ghastly The Haunting of Hill House/Hell House rip-off. Bad in so many ways it's laughable. The one thing that made me giggle was when King had the dor slammed in his face.

I saw the commercials for Tommyknockers and just avoided the movie.

I didn't know Shawshank Redemption was from a King work. Or didn't remember. I liked it the first time out, and then saw it on TV and thought it kind of syrupy and trite. I think I like my movies darker and less noble.

Hey, can you name the Stephen King computer games?

Peter

[Alan Dunkin]

I like Shawshank and The Green Mile.. Apt Pupil was supposed to be okay but I haven't seen the movie yet. Stand by Me is ok but starts to get old -- can't stand Cory Feldman. It and the Tommyknockers was okay, and the Stand slightly more so. I kind of liked the Golden Years series.. the early movies are so far removed from me that I hardly remember watching them anymore. Rose Red was complete crap. Dolores Clairborne was not too bad.

--- Alan

[Bub, Andrew]

Pet Semetary the book is excellent. Pet Semetary the movie is blah. Except for Fred Gwyne. Can't have enough Fred Gwyne in any movie really.

Ahyuh.

[Slothrop]

http://www.top-biography.com/9139-Stephen%20Edwin%20King/novels.htm

For my money, 1987 was the last year King published anything worth the time to read it. I remember when I lost faith in him, it was The Tommyknockers. Up to that point every new King book was an automatic must-read for me, but Tommyknockers just slid off the page and landed on the floor with a wet thunk. I liked Misery, and Eyes of the Dragon, and Dark Tower II, so I thought maybe Tommyknockers was a fluke, that he had a bad week while writing it (:P), so I gave him another chance with The Dark Half, but I found it ridiculous and boring.

I rented a book-on-tape for a drive some years later, but ejected it part way through the first story when I realized that the "bogey monster" was a possessed set of novelty teeth with a penchant for latching onto the crotches of the unwary. :shock:

[Alan Dunkin]

Oh yeah, Storm of the Century.. I absolutely loved the first 2 1/2 parts (5 hours).. then the last hour happened and I felt robbed.

Dreamcatcher (the movie) looks very interesting. Features 2 of the cast from Band of Brothers (Damian Lewis and Donnie Wahlberg), among others (Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore).

--- Alan

[Jason Levine]

Oh yeah, Storm of the Century.. I absolutely loved the first 2 1/2 parts (5 hours).. then the last hour happened and I felt robbed.

I felt the same way about "It." Really enjoyed the story, and Tim Curry as "It", right up until the end, and then all of a sudden it became a bad giant spider movie.

[Bub, Andrew]

The book ended the same way AND

SPOILER


featured a very questionable 12-year old gangbang. The idea was that carnal knowledge among these youngsters would render Pennywise powerless. That's the kind of stuff King jumps to too often. Pat trite endings. Look at the Shining. Kubrick outdid King with the ambiguous ending. King just has the Hotel go boom.

[Jack]

Hey, can you name the Stephen King computer games?


"F13" and "The Dark Half." What do I win? :)

I've been reading through these posts and I find it a bit sad that some of the posters can only cite films based on King's books. It's very rare for a writer to have meaningful creative input on a screenplay -- particularly if the writer isn't a household name.

If you've only seen The Dead Zone movie, but haven't read the book, you're missing a fine example of tight writing and a fantastic story arc. Structurally, it's one of his best.

I've read all King's novels up until It, at which time, I completely gave up on him. He's become a paradoy of himself.

I also had the good fortune to meet him once and have a chat with him. That also kinda killed my respect for his later books. He's a celebrity and damn well knows it; the hokey shit he puts in the Forward section of his novels is just as much fiction as the chapters that follow.

[Anonymous]

Also, The Mist (Mindscape, released for 8-bit systems in the mid '80s, IIRC).

[Jack]

The Mist? Wow, never heard of that one. It must have been as good as the other two. :)

[Anonymous]

I can't really disagree with you on the books vs. movies issue. But at least I liked the movies. Had I started with his books, I might never have felt the urge to see the movies. On those few occasions when I did try to read King, I never found anything to latch onto.

Peter

[Jack]

I don't blame you for that, especially if you were introduced to the movies first. By 1980 or so, King was becoming a brand-name and his particular style of characters and writing were becoming all the rage. If you were introduced to his novels after everyone jumped on the bandwagon, the style was already old and not nearly as engaging as it used to be.

Clive Barker's short stories were a breath of fresh air to the genre -- "The Body Politic" is one that stays with me as incredibly bizarre, but entertaining. His novels aren't so hot, however. I tried three or four times to get into The Damnation Game. But, as you said about King, I had nothing to latch on to.

[Anonymous]

Funny that you mention Barker. I saw the movies of his books first, too, loathed them--the Hellraiser movies are cheesy in a very '70s way--and felt no urge to read the books at all.

(I don't want to sound like a snob, even if I am being one, so let me add that I do still read Lovecraft now and then, some August Derleth, all of M.R. James, and bits of Matheson and Bloch.)

Hey. I'm still wondering who wrote that horror-of-the-mundane book of short stories I referred to in an earlier message. Anyone have a clue?

Another horor short story, not from that book, that stuck in my head was called Camera Obscura. I have no idea who wrote it, and I didn't understand all of it, but it was in one of those old Alfred Hitchcock paperbacks, which I read devoted through my teens, and it scared the daylights out of me. Anyone know the author?

Peter

[Anonymous]

The last book of his I read aside from "On Writing" was probably "misery" or "tommyknockers."

After Christine, It, The Shining, Carrie, Firestarter, The Stand, Pet Sematary, Night Shift, etc etc, his later stuff just didn't grab me. I liked "Creepshow" the movie and "Green Mile" and "Shawshank."

I think he was best with short stories or novellas. Different Seasons is probably my favorite King but I like the Bachman books too, Thinner and the four short stories.

[Tyjenks]

Is anyone going to pick up his new book? I saw it debuted at #1, per usual, but I have not heard whether it is decent or not.

[Slothrop]

The King book I have read and re-read with the most pleasure has been Danse Macabre, his survey of American horror after WWII.

[Tyjenks]

Speaking of bad King translations. I finally saw Hearts in Atlantis. The makers successfully sucked every bit of mystery and entertainment right out of it. Anthony Hopkins staring into space early and often was actually a high point.




Spoiler for the book and movie although I hope no one intends to watch the film. Ever again. No one.
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The eerie Low Men who were back to capture the poor bastard for his abilities that could aid the Crimson King in securing his release from the Dark Tower were relegated to being govt. agents sent to get Hopkins so his psychic power could fight the Nazis, Japs, commies or something. Yuck!

[David Vems Jasper]

The eerie Low Men who were back to capture the poor bastard for his abilities that could aid the Crimson King in securing his release from the Dark Tower were relegated to being govt. agents sent to get Hopkins so his psychic power could fight the Nazis, Japs, commies or something. Yuck!

King's works has been hit and miss over the last 15 years or so to me.
Personally the good includes: Bag of bone, Black House, and Everything's Eventual. I couldn’t stand Desperation, Regulators and Insomnia.

Almost every one of his stories coverted to TV or for the Movies have been painfully awful. So I wasn’t really surprised when I picked up this book and later saw the movie..

Hearts in Atlantis was a tedious and uneven mess; the first third of the book is about the only part worth reading. The rest doesn’t even fits with the supernatural tone King sets with The Dark tower and Crimson King References. As for the changes to the movie, the writer/director explained it by saying since most of the potential audience wouldn’t have a clue about the Dark Tower Mythos; he decided to rework the reasons behind Hopkins’s hiding. I'll agree with him on that point, but I wish he could have come up with some sorta of hybrid explanation. The whole Government thing was kinda silly.


I'm pretty worried about the Dark Tower books though, The Drawing of the Three and The Wastelands are great, but I was pretty unimpressed with the fourth book. The whole “young love” story line seemed weak. And now King seems to be rushing to finish the last three volumes inside a year. I hope to god he can pull that off without making a mess out of it.