Why the constant references to the Stand/Dark Tower?

pickarooney

In nearly every thread someone brings up this book/series and, not having seen it, I haven't a clue what people are talking about or why they think it's relevant to Lost.

What am I missing?

silsean

Great, no ones replied yet. I'm writing a reply and then never returning to this thread because i'm reading the stand right now. I already read today on the dr linus thread that they all go on suicide missions at the end. I'm only on the 4th chapter! Crap. Cool, but crap.

So they reference the stand and dark tower (not that i know the references) because they like those books and have talked about them from time to time on their podcast. They are influenced by that stuff and like it running into lost.

cooker3

The writers are huge Stephen King fans and they have said numerous times that his work and The Stand in particular has been hugely inspirational to them as a template for how to tell a sprawling epic story in a serialised format.
As such they have clearly borrowed heavily from it hence all the references.

blue_steel

Don't want to spoil for people who haven't read them but both have had an obvious influence of Lost (the concept of time and causality, alternate worlds, good vs evil etc). In my opinion both The Stand and The Dark Tower are fantastic concepts but awful pieces of literature. But this could be said for 90% of Stephen Kings books. He himself once described his work as: "balony but good balony."

Sad Professor

King doesn't exactly produce high art, but then neither is Lost.

The original edition of The Stand is excellent. The "uncut" edition, not so much imo. Novelists have editors for a reason.

I'm not a big fan of The Dark Tower either. The middle books were very enjoyable, but some of the stuff in later books were unspeakably awful.

Sid_Justice

My theory on the references to the Stand/Dark tower is that Sad_Professor is maliciously trying to spoil these books on my because he somehow knows I started both last year and never finished. :mad::mad::mad:

Sad Professor

Sid_Justice wrote: »

My theory on the references to the Stand/Dark tower is that Sad_Professor is maliciously trying to spoil these books on my because he somehow knows I started both last year and never finished. :mad::mad::mad:

But that's a good thing - the spoilers will encourage you to finish them. I'll be good in future though... I promise.

There sure is a lot of people reading them on here all of a sudden. Has all my constant harping on about them paid off?

In that case, everyone should read the final Narnia book (The Last Battle) as well. I'm convinced that's how this season will end. Quick, before I spoil it all! :pac:

cooker3

blue_steel wrote: »

Don't want to spoil for people who haven't read them but both have had an obvious influence of Lost (the concept of time and causality, alternate worlds, good vs evil etc). In my opinion both The Stand and The Dark Tower are fantastic concepts but awful pieces of literture. But this could be said for 90% of Stephen Kings books. He himself once described his work as: "balony but good balony."

Hi Adam!

Agamemnon

Whatever the links, I sincerely hope Lost doesn't end like the Dark Tower series - that was good while it lasted but the ending sucked an extraordinary amount of ass.

blue_steel

cooker3 wrote: »

Hi Adam!

No metaphor

blue_steel

Sad Professor wrote: »

The original edition of The Stand is excellent. The "uncut" edition, not so much imo. Novelists have editors for a reason.

I'm not a big fan of The Dark Tower either. The middle books were very enjoyable, but some of the stuff in later books were unspeakably awful.

Have only read the uncut version of The Stand because couldn't find an edition of the original which is now out of print. Found his idea of moving the story forward by 10 odd years ridiculous. If Orwell had lived another decade maybe we would now be reading 1994
+1 on The Dark Tower.
Novelists need editors but King could do with a team of them working around the clock. But I guess when you sell as many books as he does you can pretty much publish what you like.

Sad Professor

blue_steel wrote: »

Have only read the uncut version of The Stand because couldn't find an edition of the original which is now out of print. Found his idea of moving the story forward by 10 odd years ridiculous. If Orwell had lived another decade maybe we would now be reading 1994

Hell yes, changing the year was a terrible, terrible idea. Might have been okay if he did it properly, but there are so many inconsistencies. I'm convinced he just did a search and replace in his word processor - Find 1980, replace with 1990, all done. He also wrote some new stuff which sticks out like a sore thumb.

I've a very old copy that was printed in the 80s. I read the uncut version once and gave it away. It's annoying that you can't get the original anymore.