Stephen Kings 'The Stand'

Thargor wrote: »

200 pages in and agreeing with this post so far, pure classic King as you say. I wouldnt have touched his books before as I always assumed he was cashin in on the family relation even with the pseudonym but Ill grab his other stuff when I see it from now on...

Deleted User wrote: »

The fact that he refused to use his fathers name and then tried to hide his identity implies that he wasn't interested in cashing in. If he'd wanted to he could have made a big deal of his family connections but didn't and you have to respect him for that.

Did not enjoy this NOS4A2 book at all, it started out great with what seemed at first to be a genuinely disturbing paedo kidnapper character in the classic Stephen King mould then just went downhill. This book to Stephen Kings books is like the way 18 horror films used to be when we were kids, genuinely disturbing with proper gore and proper scares, this book was more like modern horror films, sterile affairs with a max 15 rating instead of 18 with no real fear factor, just bland mush to fill as many seats as possible. Joe Hill didnt seem to be brave enough to give King fans what they want, this book was 12A instead of the 18 you get from his father, stupid ending aswell.

I didnt get any joy from it anyway, well maybe for the first half, the rest was just a chore.

Ive got a load of Richard Laymons on my reader I must get around to reading, he writes some genuinely fcuked up stuff, Quake is his best, an Earthquake destroys LA and a fat geek uses it as an excuse to go mad, hilariously violent.

Bacchus wrote: »

I'm 61% of the way through this according to Kindle :cool: I've stopped reading it twice and just 2 nights ago picked it up for the first time in months to give it another go. I enjoy reading it but it's sooooo long that I eventually want to take a break from it. I find it very easy to pick up though and just read on. My favourite part has to be the early days of the plague though, the way he touched on so many aspects of it, fantastic world building right there. Loved it. Since things have settled down and the main story got going, I found it less interesting (and have since taken 2 breaks from it) but it's picking up again I think.

98% :pac:

It did pick up again Excellent build up to the conclusion.

I've another 2% to go but overall I thought it was an excellent read, though a bit bloated in parts (I read the updated/expanded edition). In particular, there was a laaarge chunk of the book where the evil doings in the West were entirely ignored and the focus was solely on the protagonists ( .

Totally agree, when they went to that place for the ending I was just thinking "WTF am I reading?", wont be bothering with him again anyway.

I read Duma Key and Mr Mercedes recently by King and he's gone from one of my favourite authors to complete indifference. They're so flat and boring compared to his older stuff. Mr Mercedes especially I was cringing at how badly it was written in places.

Thargor wrote: »

Totally agree, when they went to that

evil Christmas-land

place for the ending I was just thinking "WTF am I reading?", wont be bothering with him again anyway.

I read Duma Key and Mr Mercedes recently by King and he's gone from one of my favourite authors to complete indifference. They're so flat and boring compared to his older stuff. Mr Mercedes especially I was cringing at how badly it was written in places.

Wow really I have to say I enjoyed them both along with Revival and Finders keepers. I usually save them up for my holidays and I read them in a day or two, I read a couple of Joe Hill's books and while they weren't up to his dad's standard I did enjoy Nos4R2, Heart Shaped Box and Horns!

youcancallmeal wrote: »

The Stand is up there in my top 10 fav books of all time so decided to give Swan Song a go. I Just finished it and must say I did not enjoy it at all. Very poorly written and full of cliched one dimensional characters. I really can't understand its popularity? It reads more like a young adult novel, some of the lines are just laugh out loud bad, just one off the top of my head is "The bullets were flying about like flies at a bin man convention". That is an actual line in the book and there are many more like it.

IMO its a better story with better characters.I also love the post nuclear setting more. Until I read Swan Song ,the Stand was my no 1 post apocalytic book.
But its great that The Stand is your favourite.

Just for info.... Swan Song won the 1987 Bram stoker Award ,and tied with King's Misery .

Trailer released last night......

Not impressed with that trailer at all I have to say. For a world supposedly reeling from a viral plague it all looks very slick and civilised. I always pictured the Randall Flagg character as this grungy gnarly creep along the lines of Willem Dafoe or maybe Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker. The Flagg character in that trailer looks more like a mildly pissed off male model. A missed opportunity I think. And of course it has to be all politically correct and in conformity with the culture war rules of engagement - I don't recall Stu Redman being an African American in the book.