PeeperStorm on 24/1/2010 at 17:44
The only King stories that I've ever enjoyed reading were the short ones. Otherwise he's just too boring, wordy, and formulaic. Some of the movies that come out of his writing have been good...as long as they don't contain the phrase "Stephen King's" or "Stephen King presents" in the title, because that always indicates that he was the producer and that every single goddamn word that he wrote is going to be in the script, making it boring.
I'd like to see a King novel where none of the following characters appear: The Writer, The Alcoholic, The Special Child, The Retarded Person, The Speech Impeded Person, The Complete and Utter Irredeemable Non-supernatural Asshole, Saintly Exposition Person. The Asshole is especially jarring when they show up, because they're never evil in a realistic way. They're always dog kicking, mortgage forclosing, orphan bullying, wife beating, adulterous, alcoholic jerks who, if they could get away with it, would burn your house down while you're in it just because they don't like the tie that you're wearing.
june gloom on 24/1/2010 at 18:45
That's King alright. I quit reading him some years ago when I realized he was running out of ideas. I used to be a pretty big fan ever since I read Skeleton Crew (and that book still gives me the willies, 13 years later, though nothing quite reaches the sheer freakout of 1408) but then I realized he was close to my mother's age yet still writing for an audience of one.
doogle on 25/1/2010 at 16:08
Hi. This place has changed a little since I was in last! Just logged in for the first time in 4 years!
I'm currently reading Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. It's about the re-invention (after so many hundreds of years) of film, but with a twist. The film is really like a gateway for creatures from the dungeon dimensions to gain access to the world.
Before this one I just finished reading Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals which is about the university of wizards taking up football.
I'm a Pratchett fan if you'd not noticed :)
Another good book I've read recently is Orcs by Stan Nicholls. That one is a fantasy based on a world where Humans are classed as invaders who eat the magic of the land. It is shown through the eyes of a warband of Orcs sent on a mission from their queen, but when the mission goes wrong they have two choices, try to fix it or go home to a likely death at the hands of their leader. I think it's a really good story, lots of battles and stuff and lots of mystery :)
Fragony on 26/1/2010 at 10:55
Quote Posted by Renzatic
But despite that, it is one of King's better written novels. I loved it...er...up til the end.
He is great at building tension but he can never wrap it up, it is great for a holiday on the beach-read it doesn't always have to be clever. Just hide it when you are back.
SubJeff on 27/1/2010 at 20:15
I happened upon a bunch of Waterstones staff in Dublin city centre who were clearly into sci-fi. Since I was after some Ursula LeGuin I was toying with 2 books, asked for an opinion and ended up with The Lathe of Heaven.
Imagine my disappointment when, after having some stew and sitting down with my new book and a Guinness, I realised that the pages of the book had not been properly guillotined and on many pages the last few lines were missing. There was something ironic about this, I thought, being that lathes and guillotines are somewhat related.
So I took it back, it was the only copy, and swapped it for Ender's Game which I am greatly enjoying so far.
metal dawn on 30/1/2010 at 00:45
I know I'm going to get hate for this one.
I read 1984 by Eric Blair (notice I'm using his real name, I refuse to use that silly alias) last summer. It had it's decent parts, but by-and-large it's vile tripe.
It's supposed to be a seminal dystopian work.
Well, if seminal means it needs to be jizzed on, then I agree.
There's no atmosphere. No meaningful description of the scenes, really. All Blair seems to do is hammer on about how greasy the walls in a cafeteria are from filthy bodies touching them. Every fucking time Winston goes to the commisary, the same fucking thing is described. I get it okay? The food sucks, the decor sucks, the world decidedly sucks. Blair couldn't flesh out decent metaphors if his life had depended on it. The words do not compell me at all.
The attire the characters where make no sense at all. And the mighty all-seeing Party leaders wear...denim overalls?! WHAT THE HELL? How is that supposed to be compelling or imposing or threatening? Overalls are for rednecks. I did something I rarely do...force myself to go against continuity. I made my self picture the party members as wearing coveralls/fatigues. Yeah, that was more like it.
Also, something never showed up in the story that was supposed to be there. Something that I was always to was supposed to be there...something that Blair's fanboys have ALWAYS FUCKING INSISTED WAS THERE AND YET IT'S NOT:
Fear.
The story at no point made me understand or get an idea of fear from the main character.
That's because Winston is a crapsucking ignoramus who has no situational awareness, no imagination, no willpower, and is pretty much the archetypal pussy.
At no point does Winston's behavior ever make sense.
In fact, almost none of the characters make sense. Inquisitor O'Brien and Agent Charrington are characters that interest me. O'Brien's a Machiavellian puppeteer. Charrington can change his physical appearance - apparently by sheer force of will.
They're the kind of villians I love to hate. Unfortunately, there are no heroes to balance them. No even resisters. Because Winston is pussy ass fuckmunch and Julia is a vapid empty headed floozy.
I'm ashamed to admit I was joyous when Winston and Julia were captured. The capture itself was hardly a surprise. Seriously, what the fuck else could have happened. Winston got the bloody genius idea to go to a senior party official and say "Hey, I'm think of defecting to a anti-government faction. Think you could hook me up with some of that?" O'Brien of course had set the trap, so he plays along and tells Winston he will take him to safety. The doofus BELIEVES HIM.
Huh?
Julia and Winston's "rebellion" makes no sense either. Let's destroy the Party by having sex, righting in journals, and buying paperweights! Meaningless acts + ? = Success!
I guess I've really missed something, because I do not see anything redeeming about the book.
It is completely undeserving of all the hype it gets.
The writing is hackneyed, the sequence of events is predictable, and the story itself is unoriginal.
A powerful government using subversive/dubious/evil means to subjugate the masses?
Brave New World did the same thing years before 1984 and did it much, much, much better.
Fuck Eric Blair and his pedantic drivel. Huxley and Bradbury blow his over-hyped ass out the water.
FUCK ERIC BLAIR.
Thank you and good night.
Sulphur on 30/1/2010 at 00:49
You're like 62 years late with that rant.
And unless you happen to be talking about Tony Blair's malformed and misbegotten son who lies chained up and growling like an animal in his basement, and of whose existence only a few people in the world are even dimly suspicious of, I see no reason why you can't use 'George Orwell'. Ah, right, you're ANGRY at his taste in noms de plume. Good reason.
june gloom on 30/1/2010 at 01:02
Quick thing about O'Brein- he actually is a member of the resistance, he just threw Winston and Julia under the bus to shore up his Party cred.
Illuminatus on 30/1/2010 at 01:52
metal dawn: I think you suffered from something akin to “Godfather” syndrome when you read 1984: the work has been so influential/copied/parodied since its release that encountering it for the first time makes its overwhelming originality seem almost cliché . It’s the bible of political dystopia. Cultural legacy aside, nearly all of its descriptions/ideas are sadly not fiction: there’s a reason it was still banned in half of Europe in the actual year of 1984. It’s very hard to deny its atmosphere and impact when actual citizens of totalitarian regimes were kept from reading it because it conveyed the grayness of their own world too accurately.
As to some of your points: Winston's affair with Julia is an extremely significant and brave action because it celebrates love and the individual, concepts which the Party have all but eroded. His gradual portrayal as a pathetic coward emphasizes the Party's terrifying omniscience and soul-crushing power: all rebellion is found, all heroes are quashed, all will is sucked out. These and many other examples show the overwhelming sense of fear and loss of control that envelops the book so thickly. Winston’s capture is framed like a dream that suddenly traps you into inescapable nightmare: I find it hard to believe you can’t find terror in that scene (or the entire Ministry of Love).
dethtoll: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."
O'Brien is the highest ranking Party member present in the book: next to the likely non-existent Big Brother, he best represents the unflinchingly amoral and power-obsessed state. He hints he is a part of the resistance so as to lure Winston towards thought-crime, but the scenes at the Ministry of Love make it extremely clear O'Brien is 100% Inner Party material.
PeeperStorm on 30/1/2010 at 02:14
Quote Posted by metal dawn
(notice I'm using his real name, I refuse to use that silly alias)
Tell us your real name. I refuse to use that silly user name.
