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Stephen King to Return to His Horror Roots

 
 
tsarstepan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 4 Oct, 2009 10:33 pm
@djjd62,
It just might be the first Stephen King book I will read since Nightmares & Dreamscapes came out.

However its ironic that it mirrors the major plot point of The Simpsons' Movie.
0 Replies
 
Region Philbis
 
  1  
Reply Fri 16 Oct, 2009 12:19 pm

warming up for the new novel with Just After Sunset...
djjd62
 
  1  
Reply Fri 16 Oct, 2009 12:29 pm
@Region Philbis,
reading JAS now

interesting stories
Region Philbis
 
  1  
Reply Fri 16 Oct, 2009 01:27 pm
@djjd62,

i read about half of The Gingerbread Girl, then couldn't wait to get back to it to see how it turned out.
reminded me A LOT of Gerald's Game...
djjd62
 
  1  
Reply Fri 16 Oct, 2009 01:35 pm
@Region Philbis,
i'm about half way through it now, just started the 9/11 story "The Things They Left Behind", very interesting so far
0 Replies
 
djjd62
 
  1  
Reply Tue 10 Nov, 2009 08:43 pm
grabbed the new book from audible today

downloading it now, gonna finish the wolves of calla (dark tower 4) and then start listening

almost 35 hours, big book indeed
tsarstepan
 
  1  
Reply Tue 10 Nov, 2009 08:44 pm
@djjd62,
Whose the narrator of the new book?
djjd62
 
  1  
Reply Tue 10 Nov, 2009 08:47 pm
@tsarstepan,
raul esparza

don't think i've heard him read anything yet
Region Philbis
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 Nov, 2009 05:47 am
@djjd62,

i just visited my friendly neighborhood amazon and ordered a copy...
chai2
 
  1  
Reply Thu 12 Nov, 2009 10:36 am
@Region Philbis,
I just ordered from B&N.

shoulda ordered from amazon.

this will be my plane reading when I take a vac in a couple of weeks.
0 Replies
 
djjd62
 
  2  
Reply Fri 20 Nov, 2009 03:13 pm
Steven Spielberg To Bring Stephen King's Dome Horror To Life

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/8/2009/11/500x_dome_01.jpg

Last week we learned that Stephen King's brand new book Under The Dome, about a town sealed off from the rest of the world, is getting a miniseries. Now Steven Spielberg has stepped in to make sure it's a success.

DreamWorks TV and Spielberg will executive produce the miniseries based on the 1088-page book. And it's good that they are trying for a miniseries, because this novel is big and full of characters. There's no way it could be a one-night affair. Under The Dome takes place in a little Maine village which is quickly and forcibly sealed off by an invisible force field. So quickly, in fact, that one towns person loses an arm.

If this is done well, it could mean more cable miniseries, which would be a good thing, The Prisoner notwithstanding. After all, we all know Watchmen would have been a brilliant miniseries. But let's hope this big project opens doors for more.

Synopsis:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when - or if - it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens - town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing - even murder - to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Nov, 2009 08:27 pm
(A bit of a side question, if I may? Just say a person had read no Stephen King novels before & was not too keen on horror? What would be your recommendation?)
tsarstepan
 
  3  
Reply Fri 20 Nov, 2009 08:33 pm
@msolga,
Good question.

Have you seen the movie The Shining? If not, read the book first. It loses something when you know what's going to happen from the film. Other then that? It's pitch perfect in the petrifying department! Mad

It is insanely scary. Not sure if that's a work for a Stephen King starter though it's pretty accessible literary wise.

If you have the time to dive into an epic, try The Stand, my favorite of his novels.

The best way to start on such a prolific author is to dive into one of his critically acclaimed short story collections:

Four Past Midnight
Viking Press
September, 1990

Night Shift
Doubleday
1978

Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Viking Press
October, 1993
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Nov, 2009 08:36 pm
@tsarstepan,
Thank you, tsar!

I'm Googling The Stand after I post this. See what I make of it.

Whenever I think of The Shining, I think of that manical expression on Jack Nicholson's face! Laughing
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Nov, 2009 08:48 pm
@msolga,
Hmmmm ...

Considering. Sounds interesting. And a long read...
I guess it depends what Kings my local library has on its shelves.

Quote:
.... In short (well, not so short), this is the book that has everything - adventure, romance, prophecy, allegory, satire, fantasy, realism, apocalypse, etc., etc. Even Roger Rabbit gets mentioned. ''The Stand'' does have some great moments and some great lines. A desperate character trying to save his mother reaches an answering machine: ''This is a recording made at Mercy General Hospital. Right now all of our circuits are busy.'' And there is a wonderful description of ''mankind's final traffic jam.'' But the overall effect is more oppressive than imposing.

In many ways, this is a book for the 1990's, when America is beginning to see itself less and less in the tall image of Lincoln or even the robust one of Johnny Appleseed and more and more as a dazed behemoth with padded shoulders. Americans seemed delighted but in an odd way humiliated when Vaclav Havel, a tiny man from a small country, entered the great halls of Congress and delivered an uninflated Jeffersonian address. ''The Stand,'' complete and uncut, is about the padded shoulders and the behemoth and the humiliation. Unfortunately, it also reproduces at length all the empty excesses that it appears to deplore.


http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/lifetimes/king-stand.html
Joeblow
 
  2  
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 06:02 am
@msolga,
It was nearly 25 years ago that I read it, and I don’t know if I’d feel the same way about it now, but I loved The Talisman (a collaboration of Stephen King and Peter Straub) and it’s remained (unparalleled, in my memory at least) my favourite Stephen King novel. Wiki classifies it as fantasy. It was the first Stephen King novel I ever read, and any others that I picked up were because of it.

Here’s a snippet of the plot summary from wikipedia:

Quote:
This book charts the adventure of a young teen boy named Jack Sawyer. The adolescent hero sets out from Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire in a bid to save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by finding an enchanted crystal called "the Talisman."

The premise of the novel involves the existence of a parallel world to Earth, called "the Territories", a strange fantasy world with ties (though these ties did not exist at the time of publication) to King's The Dark Tower. Individuals in the Territories have "twinners," or parallel individuals, in our world.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talisman_(1983_novel)
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 06:16 am
@Joeblow,
Another one to check out!
Thanks for the recommendation, JoeB.

I suspect I'll have to settle with what my local library has on offer. I'll take a list!
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  2  
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 06:20 am
@msolga,
I just finished listening to my cleaned up copy of " Hearts in ATlantis". It was read by William Hurt and was quite a good listen while Ive been driving up and down state.
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 06:22 am
@farmerman,
You'd recommend it (as a book) , farmer?
0 Replies
 
djjd62
 
  1  
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 06:31 am
i'd go right back to the beginning, salem's lot, the shining

enjoying under the dome, i'm 23 hours into a 35 hour audiobook, and it's very good

one of the villains seems ripped from the a2k political threads, he's a republican and a used car salesman (i suppose they could be one and the same)

i'm also listening to the 5th book in the gunslinger series, that series is pretty interesting, as the gunslinger and his companions move through "the worlds" they regularly rub elbows with elements, people and places from other king novels

0 Replies
 
 

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