Octopus Overlords

Carpet_pissr wrote:I’ve abandoned Stephen King’s Faery Tale, and am starting to read “It” to ‘wash my mouth out’ as it were.

Worst. King. Ever. (That I’ve read at least).

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 9:46 pm I’m kind of partial to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 6:27 pm Wow, that really surprises me. I also thought it was fantastic.

Carpet_pissr wrote:

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 6:27 pm Wow, that really surprises me. I also thought it was fantastic.

Dang it. You guys are killin’ me. Someone upthread said the second half is worse than the first, and I’m just about half way.

Now two of you chime in saying it’s a great book, which makes me think it’s gotta get better in the second half.

It’s King, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and keep plugging.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 6:12 pm

Scuzz wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 3:33 pm Wait, you don’t like Andy Weir?

All respect gone.

Yeah, sorry. Just hate that writing style, which feels written by an engineer as opposed to a writer.

It’s not even prose, just excessive detailed descriptions and very little creativity, making that book (have not read any of his others) super boring IMO.

I know it was widely praised, and fully accept it’s “me”, and I’m OK with that.

It reminded me very much of a neighbor I used to have that would come back from a trip, or describe an event at work, and he would literally spend 5m describing, say, his hotel room, what was where, what wall was north facing, where the bed was, and it’s relative size to the room, what you saw when you walked in…all completely irrelevant to whatever ‘story’ he was eventually going to tell me. Used to drive me insane.

“So you walk into the room, you’ve got your main living area in front of you, then if you turn left there’s a kitchenette there, with a Kenmore Elite refrigerator, glass top stove, then you keep going and you see …”

Hipolito wrote:If I ever read Fairy Tale, I'll be following this advice.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 11:33 am I'm generally annoyed by all of King's books featuring a female lead. I don't think he knows how to write women very well.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 11:36 am It's been a really long time since I read Cujo. As I vaguely recall, it's one of the King novels that convinced me that he's a really good writer that just happens to write horror, which is why he could spend half a book making me really care about the characters without anything bad happening, then spend the rest of the book torturing me as he destroys their lives.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 12:18 pm King's worst is still his cocaine haze Tommyknockers.

Carpet_pissr wrote:His best, in his opinion, is Lisey's Story.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 2:38 pm King's "Survivor Type" (a short story in Skeleton Crew) is the only thing I've ever read that actually left me shivering. Or shuddering. Whatever. It was horrifying. I read it in 1986, and never since, but it still makes me feel a little squeamish to think about it.

Both stories in this episode are fully animated in a comic book style.
...
"Survivor Type": Richard Pinzetti (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) is an unscrupulous surgeon with ties to New York City's criminal underworld.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 1:58 pm I have yet to read a single Stephen King novel. I read the first half or so of The Stand, but never finished it (I have no idea why - I was enjoying it.) That's the only King I've ever read.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 3:58 pm One thing that bugs me about King is he will often set up an intriguing story, only to cop out with a supernatural explanation. His version of "a wizard did it."