treeduck Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 Over the next few weeks/months I'm going to revisit some classic Stephen King books as well as catch up on some newer ones that I haven't read yet. So I thought I'd make my own thread and do my own little reviews. Feel free to comment or ignore as you please... Ok I'm starting off with the 4th volume of The Dark Tower series, Wizard and Glass, which I read back in 1998. I need to read this as a recap for the 5th, 6th and 7th volumes that I'll be reading later on. When I came to read this last time I did so with a groan as it's a flashback to Roland's youth and not a continuation of the story itself in the current timeline. As I began to read it however I realised it was slowly becoming the best volume in the series (for me anyway) even better than The Drawing of the Three... And by the end I thought it was one of the top dozen or so novels of King's career... Here's what my copy looks like... http://www.stephenking.nl/images/boeken/skewizard_glass.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom_Fighter Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 i'm stuck on that one. so far i think it's excellent, but i just can't finish it, because i don't have time. plus i just don't have much drive to read right now. i always go through these phases where i read constantly and then stop altogether, and then read constantly again, and then stop altogether again for a little while. i think it's pretty crappy that i fell into my "stop altogether" phase when 200 or so pages into Wizard and Glass, i really wanted to keep going with the series, but i can't help it, i just can't read lately. i'll pick it up and re-finish it eventually though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rush! Posted October 9, 2006 Share Posted October 9, 2006 Cool Treeduck. Post some reviews in the Stephen King thread I have too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 9, 2006 Author Share Posted October 9, 2006 QUOTE (Freedom_Fighter @ Oct 8 2006, 06:48 PM) i'm stuck on that one. so far i think it's excellent, but i just can't finish it, because i don't have time. plus i just don't have much drive to read right now. i always go through these phases where i read constantly and then stop altogether, and then read constantly again, and then stop altogether again for a little while. i think it's pretty crappy that i fell into my "stop altogether" phase when 200 or so pages into Wizard and Glass, i really wanted to keep going with the series, but i can't help it, i just can't read lately. i'll pick it up and re-finish it eventually though. Yeah you can't force-read it'll just go in one eye and out the other, as it were... I'll make sure not to put in any spoilers just in case you get the reading bug again all of a sudden... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 9, 2006 Author Share Posted October 9, 2006 QUOTE (Rush! @ Oct 8 2006, 07:37 PM) Cool Treeduck. Post some reviews in the Stephen King thread I have too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom_Fighter Posted October 9, 2006 Share Posted October 9, 2006 QUOTE (treeduck @ Oct 8 2006, 10:01 PM) QUOTE (Freedom_Fighter @ Oct 8 2006, 06:48 PM) i'm stuck on that one. so far i think it's excellent, but i just can't finish it, because i don't have time. plus i just don't have much drive to read right now. i always go through these phases where i read constantly and then stop altogether, and then read constantly again, and then stop altogether again for a little while. i think it's pretty crappy that i fell into my "stop altogether" phase when 200 or so pages into Wizard and Glass, i really wanted to keep going with the series, but i can't help it, i just can't read lately. i'll pick it up and re-finish it eventually though. Yeah you can't force-read it'll just go in one eye and out the other, as it were... I'll make sure not to put in any spoilers just in case you get the reading bug again all of a sudden... thanks man, i appreciate that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 10, 2006 Author Share Posted October 10, 2006 Ok I'm well on with this one now and it's good stuff and it's cool how the story intersects with The Stand in the lead-up to Roland's tale... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 18, 2006 Author Share Posted October 18, 2006 http://www.stephenking.nl/images/boeken/skewizard_glass.jpg Ok I've finished The Wizard and Glass for the second time and just like last time it was an excellent novel a rollicking good read. If this isn't in King's top ten then it's definitely just outside it. The interesting thing is I forgot about 90% of it which meant it was almost like reading it for the first time and in places it was exactly like that. The story of Susan Delgado and young Roland, which is about 600 pages of the book is definitely the best part of the first 4 volumes of the Dark Tower, the final part though "All God's Chillun Got Shoes," where a few loose ends of Roland's tale are tied up and they find their way back onto the path of the beam, dragged a bit after the high drama of the Susan Delgado story, I hope that's not a bad omen for the three volumes I still haven't read... Best character? Well out of the "good guys" Probably Roland, a sort of King version of Clint Eastwood, but in this volume as you might gather I preferred young Roland... Best Villain: It has to be Rhea of the Coos, what a brilliantly drawn character, an awful bitch monstrosity, inside and out and the mother of all hags, she had me laughing out loud at times... Honourable mention: Cordelia Delgado, another great character who had me nervously playing with my hair as she went about her insane work... She's Susan's aunt and a woman who begins as a manipulating spinster who by the end has descended into a twisted, hysterical crone. One who reminded me of another relative of a Stephen King Susan, Susan Norton's mother, I think her name was Anne, she spiralled downwards in a very similar way to Cordelia. Both of these chracters have echoes of Carrie White's mother too. Constant readers will know which novels these characters are from. SK must have met some seriously deranged women in his youth is all I can think... Also good were the Eldred Jonas and the Big Coffin Hunters, a motley band of killers with an ambitious, preening leader in Jonas... Every chracter in this tale was worth his or her place though at the very least... You know you've read a good book when it pains you to leave it behind, I'll miss Hambry and all it's weird and wonderful places, The Drop, The Bad Grass, Coos Hill, Eyebolt Canyon, The Bar K, Citgo oil patch... I think that covers everything... You know I didn't feel like writing this little "review" I think I was suffering from self-appointed reviewers block or something... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 18, 2006 Author Share Posted October 18, 2006 One more thing about the Wizard and Glass, I'd say it's King's best in the fantasy genre, better than The Talisman, although I'll have to see what the final three in the Dark Tower series are like... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 18, 2006 Author Share Posted October 18, 2006 I forgot 90% of the last one but the next one that I'm gonna read I can't remember a damn thing about at all. I'm talking 650% of it!! The main reason for this is probably because I wasn't too impressed with it at the time and it drained right out of my memory... A good reason to read it then...and a bad reason. But read it I will... Here's what my 1998 hardback version looks like... http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/6885/bagofboneskz2.jpg Yes Bag of Bones or Bag o'shite as I call it... Maybe my expectations were too high back then? When they did publicity for it over here in '98 they were billing it as "better than The Shining" and silly me I believed them. It was of course very, very far from being better than the Shining, VERY far, very far in fact from being anywhere near in it's league. That's one thing I do remember. The only thing. I don't have a clue about the characters, the story, how it ended and that's a good thing since I'm going to be reading it. And with my expectations lowered maybe I'll enjoy it more... This was King's attempt at a more "literary" novel, a ghost story, where atmosphere is at a premium and the emphasis is less on gore and bawdy language and more on feelings and events threatening to happen but not quite making it ie: watered down King=literary. Oh yeah I remember that but again that's from the publicity. bad sign when you remember the publicity campaign more clearly than the actual novel in question. Anyway all I'm saying is King and his publishers were making a big noise about this book, but then they always do. King is as good a salesman as anyone, he's doing the same thing right now with his new one Lisey's Story. He's got this theory, which I read about in an interview with King in The New York Times, about writing good, great and not so great novels. he reckons they come in sevens, 6 average ones then a killer, and further after 7 lots of 7 you get the 49th and this book is the absolute most bad ass killing killer book of them all. I'm talking REALLY REALLY GOOD. And of course the 49th, this super novel just happens to be his latest book, oh of course it is!!! Lisey's story is the ultimate killer king book then!! This is a theory you can only come up with if you've written 49 or more books, which King of course has and only if you're a born bullshitter, because bullshit is what that theory is and SK is not the best storyteller in the world and not a bullshitter...I wonder what his next theory is gonna be? "The 17th book that I wrote in the bath with my feet in the air, after the fourth full moon of the millenium to the power of 9 with bells on is obviously the best novel I've ever written and errr it just happens to be my latest one..." So ok, according to Steve his latest novel is the ultimate book that he's ever produced. So that means that 1998's incredible "better than the Shining" literary novel, Bag of Bones, must therefore just be one of the average 40 odd then? Well let's find out shall we...before i forget about the book altogether... (hmmmm that's dramatic but I'm not actually gonna start it till tomorrow...ner ner ne-ner, ner ner) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeddyRulz Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 (edited) QUOTE This was King's attempt at a more "literary" novel, I haven't read it, but I gathered that from the dust jacket - with quotes from Amy Tan, a classy black-and-white photo of King, and a de-emphasis on popular horror in the author's bio and story summary. Collectively, everything about the book's promotion seemed designed to paint King as a "serious" novelist, and not the best-selling writer of paperback horror stories. Edited October 18, 2006 by GeddyRulz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 20, 2006 Author Share Posted October 20, 2006 QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Oct 18 2006, 05:30 AM) QUOTE This was King's attempt at a more "literary" novel, I haven't read it, but I gathered that from the dust jacket - with quotes from Amy Tan, a classy black-and-white photo of King, and a de-emphasis on popular horror in the author's bio and story summary. Collectively, everything about the book's promotion seemed designed to paint King as a "serious" novelist, and not the best-selling writer of paperback horror stories. I'm on with Bones right now and right away it was like night and day compared with Wizard and Glass. It's very dry, matter of fact, pretty boring, certainly not exciting. Literary? Compared to Cormac Mccarthy it reads like a shopping list. I think the problem with it so far is this: it's in first person and the character telling the story seems to do nothing much more than a lot of naval gazing and he is a little dull with it. Basically it's readable and the chapter about him storing unpublished novels was good (oh yeah he's another writer protagonist), but I don't feel the urge to read and the pangs when I put it down that I get from King at his best... This novel makes me want to read The Talisman again, I'll have to put that on my list... Ah well only about 440 pages to go... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 20, 2006 Author Share Posted October 20, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeddyRulz Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 20, 2006 Author Share Posted October 20, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 21, 2006 Author Share Posted October 21, 2006 Ok in the midst of reading Bag of Bones, it took 130 pages before it ceased to become a tedious chore to read this. I'm certain that those 130 pages contained only just enough story to cover around 20-30 pages. Even though it has got marginally more interesting it's very, very drab by King's own standards. If he was aiming to create a more literary novel he must equate literary with nothing happening. If he's going for atmosphere over action the irony is that this one has no atmosphere at all... So anyway it's not quite a chore now as it was, SOMETHING is finally happening even if it out of a poor man's John Grisham novel... I can safely say this is a forgettable novel as I can't remember a thing from it... Roll the Bones haters: maybe this is King's version of that, "Roll the Bag of Bones..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 22, 2006 Author Share Posted October 22, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 23, 2006 Author Share Posted October 23, 2006 Ok the last 100 pages of Bones has improved a little, probably because Mike Noonan, our main character, has been interacting with other chracters on a more regular basis and something's actually happening outside his self-obsessed inner world of dull bad dreams, totally un-terrifying ghosts and writer's block. It's still one the poorest King novels I've read, along with Insomnia and The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon. You can bet I won't be reading those two again btw... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadwing2112 Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 Pretty cool treeduck so far. How lucky am I? I got Dark Tower 2 and 3 for 2.50 each at some stand in a sucky mall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 (edited) QUOTE (deadwing2112 @ Oct 24 2006, 08:49 PM) Pretty cool treeduck so far. How lucky am I? I got Dark Tower 2 and 3 for 2.50 each at some stand in a sucky mall. Thanks mate... Those are good volumes too. I was pretty unimpressed by part one, so much so that I'm not even sure King meant for "The Gunslinger" volume to turn into a huge seven part series at all at the time he first wrote it. The difference between that and "The Drawing of the Three" is the difference between night and day... I haven't read the revised version of The Gunslinger though... King has said, now that it's all finished, that he's going to revise all the volumes and inisists The Dark Tower is one novel. I doubt he'll ever release the whole thing in one volume though, it'd be like a 3500 page book!! Edited October 25, 2006 by treeduck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 26, 2006 Author Share Posted October 26, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 26, 2006 Author Share Posted October 26, 2006 Ok next up is the most recent work that I've read by him, (which of course means I've read nothing by him this decade thus far), Heart's in Atlantis. I read this one when it came out back in 1999. Here's how my hardback version looks: http://img288.imageshack.us/img288/2433/stephenkingheartsinatlasz7.jpg It's not a horror novel, it's not even a true novel, it's a collection of five stories along the lines of Different Seasons but all five stories are connected and presented in chronological order. I haven't seen the Anthony Hopkins film version so all my information on it comes from that one reading 7 years ago. (Notice how they haven't filmed Bag of Bones in the 8 years since it was published, even Hollywood can't make anything out of that particular yarn). I remember this one being far from classic King but still an interesting, not bad little collection. Well I say little, once again it's 500 pages in hardback, he's not one to do things by half even if it uses up a ton of paper in the process. King once said upon announcement of one of his retirements: "I've killed enough trees already!" King though has retired more times than Sugar Ray Leonard, in other words he'll never retire. Yep he'll be typing in his coffin I expect, but let's hope that doesn't happen for a good few years yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadwing2112 Posted October 27, 2006 Share Posted October 27, 2006 QUOTE (treeduck @ Oct 24 2006, 09:18 PM) QUOTE (deadwing2112 @ Oct 24 2006, 08:49 PM) Pretty cool treeduck so far. How lucky am I? I got Dark Tower 2 and 3 for 2.50 each at some stand in a sucky mall. Thanks mate... Those are good volumes too. I was pretty unimpressed by part one, so much so that I'm not even sure King meant for "The Gunslinger" volume to turn into a huge seven part series at all at the time he first wrote it. The difference between that and "The Drawing of the Three" is the difference between night and day... I haven't read the revised version of The Gunslinger though... King has said, now that it's all finished, that he's going to revise all the volumes and inisists The Dark Tower is one novel. I doubt he'll ever release the whole thing in one volume though, it'd be like a 3500 page book!! I thought The Gunslinger was pretty good. Not worth spending 10 dollars on it though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 27, 2006 Author Share Posted October 27, 2006 QUOTE (deadwing2112 @ Oct 26 2006, 08:57 PM)QUOTE (treeduck @ Oct 24 2006, 09:18 PM) QUOTE (deadwing2112 @ Oct 24 2006, 08:49 PM) Pretty cool treeduck so far. How lucky am I? I got Dark Tower 2 and 3 for 2.50 each at some stand in a sucky mall. Thanks mate... Those are good volumes too. I was pretty unimpressed by part one, so much so that I'm not even sure King meant for "The Gunslinger" volume to turn into a huge seven part series at all at the time he first wrote it. The difference between that and "The Drawing of the Three" is the difference between night and day... I haven't read the revised version of The Gunslinger though... King has said, now that it's all finished, that he's going to revise all the volumes and inisists The Dark Tower is one novel. I doubt he'll ever release the whole thing in one volume though, it'd be like a 3500 page book!! I thought The Gunslinger was pretty good. Not worth spending 10 dollars on it though. You have to read it if you're gonna read the whole series but it's clearly just an introduction to the world of Roland of Gilead... Here's what my version looked like back in the day... http://www.stephenkingshop.com/images/books/king/covers/dt1/dt1_uk.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted October 31, 2006 Author Share Posted October 31, 2006 http://img288.imageshack.us/img288/2433/stephenkingheartsinatlasz7.jpg I've read the first story "Low Men in Yellow Coats" and it was good. It reminded me very much of Different Season's "The Body" but with a supernatural element to it as well. King is very good at writing stories about childhood coming to an end in a sad kind of lament set in a bygone era it seems, in this case 1960. This coming of age aspect to the story also reminded me of the kids in 50's derry in It. The supernatural part of it, Ted and the Low Men, reminded me of several tales but the one that came to mind was The Library Policeman from Four Past Midnight, just a feel of that really. The story is also heavily connected to the Dark Tower series via Ted. The tower, The gunslinger and more all get a mention even a one line recap of Roland's current position after The Wizard and Glass but without giving anything away... This story also has accounted for half of this whole book so that leaves 260 pages for the four other stories... The next one is the title story... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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