Stephen King to Return to His Horror Roots

Reading Stephen King may be hazardous to your health
posted Friday December 04, 2009 09:21am EST
Mark Graham



I am about 200 pages away from finishing Under the Dome. Reading the book has made me extremely uncomfortable, and not in the way you might think. Perhaps the following anecdote will give you some idea.

This is a true story. In 1986 I had back surgery. In that ancient year, a person actually stayed in the hospital for a few days after such a procedure instead of being sent home in a couple of hours. So there I was, a day or two post-op, sitting up (more or less) in bed reading Stephen King’s It, and my doctor came in to check on me. When he entered the room, he started laughing out loud. I looked around wondering what could have set him off like that. I didn’t see anything funny; my back still hurt. “It...It,” he managed to say between giggles.

Here is what he told me. He had just come from visiting an elderly patient who had been brought to the emergency room by ambulance complaining of chest pains. After X-rays and an electrocardiogram the staff found that his heart and lungs were strong for his age. They could find no reason for his suffering. However, when my doctor examined him, he discovered a bruise on the man’s sternum. Had he fallen or been struck there? No, he couldn’t remember anything like that. Finally, the cause of the chest pains was diagnosed. The old fellow had been reading It in bed, and, in his frail condition, the 1100+ page tome had beaten him black and blue. The doctor prescribed putting the book on a table and reading sitting up. He was released from the hospital sooner than I was.

Under the Dome is about 60 pages shorter than It, but King’s latest must have nicer paper, because the new novel actually weighs a few ounces more, coming in at nearly four pounds.

Even knowing about the old guy with chest pains, I’ve tried reading Under the Dome in bed, and I’ve tried reading it on a stationary bike (I think there is an SK story there), and found that nearly impossible until I got near the middle and had a couple of pounds on each side as I balanced the weighty novel on the handle bars. Mostly, I’ve read it sitting in a chair. Still, holding the book open makes my thumbs hurt.

Maybe it’s time to put a warning on Stephen King books: “Reading in bed may be hazardous to your health,” and a list of possible side effects would be helpful.

Next time I write about Under the Dome, I’ll have finished the book, sore thumbs and all. The folks in the town of Chester’s Mill have been extremely uncomfortable so far, and for the reasons you might guess. And very few of those hospitalized in the small town will ever go home.

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58396

I wonder if owning a Stephen King novel then could be considered an appropriate medical excuse for health insurances to drop a potential customer on the basis of owning the book being a preexisting condition?

Health insurance DENIED as the applicant owns the complete hardcover set of the works of Stephen King!

paperbacks are a little less wieldy, but don't age as gracefully as hardcovers...

ok, no joke this....

My husband and I have read all of SK's books.

One night, the movie "Tommyknockers" was on TV, so we were watching it while we started eating dinner.

My husband collapsed into his dinner, having a V-fib episode, and had a seizure.
At first I thought he was fooling around, what with a SK movie being on TV.

He wasn't, he had no idea what was happening and if I hadn't been there to witness it, he would have been dead within the month.

about 1/2 way through Dome.
good stuff.
a real page-turner...

Im gonna get a copy of "Under The Dome" as an audio book. Ive gotta do some driving next few weeks.

3/4 thru now.
don't want it to end, but can't wait to find out how it does...

Im getting a really uncomfortable feeling that SK based"Under the DOme" on the SIMPSONS MOVIE.

I don't really know much about this joker. I read The Stand, and in an edition with big splash advertising that it was the unedited, unabridged version. Since i wasn't familiar with any other edition, that didn't mean much to me, other than that i thought the story wouldn't have worked if you had left any part of what i read out of an abridged version.

Since then, every time i've tried to read one of his books, i've gotten bored and tossed them aside. Maybe The Stand in its unabridged version left me with expectations his other work couldn't meet.

That was mildly hilarious, Boss. In the 18th and 19th century, novels were usually issued in several volumes, perhaps to obviate problems like this. Charles Dickens produced most of his novels one chapter at a time, so that they could be serialized in a popular magazine. They then sold like hot cakes when issued in the full edition (go figure). The novels he wrote for his own satisfaction, such as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, and which were not serialized, are much shorter than books like Little Dorrit or Our Mutual Friend.

Maybe King should exploit his audience by issuing his novels in several volumes, with an intentional lag time between volumes.

He did just that with The Green Mile.

He did it in 6 monthly installments, and each one could be read in just a couple of hours.

He really had that cliffhanger thing down, ending each intallment at a point where you would invariably say "oh MAN, you're driving me crazy Steve!"

As soon as the next section came out, I'd rush out to get it.

I never read it again, once it was put all together into one volume. I'm sure you could recognize where he got to a part where he cut it off for the month.

I really enjoyed under the dome.

oh man, what was I thinking?

The Dark Tower series, Roland DeShane the Gunslinger. That is a mega series.

1. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982)
2. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987)
3. The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991)
4. The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)
5. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003)
6. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004)
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004)

apparently there's an 8th book on the way too

Stephen King Promises Another Dark Tower Book
Books Dark Tower Stephen King

A big screen version of Stephen King's The Dark Tower may have just hit a roadblock (read that story here), but during last night's "Times Talks Live with Stephen King" to promote the author's latest novel Under the Dome, he revealed some pretty big news about a possible eighth book in the series.

According to King-centric site Lilja's Library, Zach Dionne of GQ provided the following quote: King stated he will write another Dark Tower novel. It will center around supporting characters and revolve around some important events between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. One fan asked him to make sure Oy comes back, and King said not to worry, that Oy would return.

No one should be too surprised by King's decision to return to the world he created for The Dark Tower. After all, the series has become the anchor that ties many of his works together. As more details become available on Book VIII, we'll have them for you here. For everything else Dark Tower related, visit Discordia, the books' official "online experience".

well, I sure would avoid those lobstrosities this time around.

Ca-Chink Ca-Chunk

i finished the entire series as audiobooks last year, not a bad listen

done (finally).
liked it a lot, but thought the ending was too abrupt.
he hinted in the author notes that his editor pared it down quite a bit from the orig.

hoping to see Dome in tv/mini-series format in the near future.
could do without the gore that would accompany a possible full-feature film...

my one complaint with king fro awhile now has been the "oh ****, look how long this things getting to be, i'd better end it now" kind of rushed endings, he spends pages developing really good in depth characters, but sort of leaves the danger a vague (but usually horrifying) entity, that gets revealed and wrapped up in a very short time

but i still like the books, the original concept for the book was a not published novella called "the cannibals", started i believe in the early 80's, in which folks are trapped by an unknown force in an apartment building

My overall opinion of Under The Dome was not to waste any time on this. The totally screwed up and desheveled ending and the plot rresolution was poor, almost like he had some kid do it for him.

(huff)

oy, I will have an urgent need for a haircut on that day.