All Stephen King Books

Kaines

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All Stephen King books:

400 pages of genius

10 pages of the worst ending you can possibly imagine.
 
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Kajiimagi

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Finished 'Holly' last night.
Reading it through I thought it was a rehash but it's King and they all roll together & it's at least easy reading.
Then at the end King has author notes basically stating that it's a rehash of a story 'if it bleeds' redone to reflect COVID.
There are pages and pages of fucking mask discussions and are you vacced and what brand etc.

I want my money back and I stole the damn book!
 
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Arbitrary

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All Stephen King books:

400 pages of genius

10 pages of the worst ending you can possibly imagine.

Hey! Salem's Lot ends just fine! Our survivors fill up a U-Haul with gas cans and return to the town to burn it all to ash. Damn straight.
 
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Kajiimagi

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I read 'the stand' while I had a mild flu case and it fucked with me. We didn't know any better at the time but my mother had a 1st edition of that book. Of course it's gone now but still

'it' scared the ever living fuck out of me to the point where I was scared to open doors afraid of a red balloon and the old TV movie pennywise still makes all the hair stand up on my arms.

What he's putting out now is just sad though......
 
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LiquidDeath

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All Stephen King books:

400 pages of genius

10 pages of the worst ending you can possibly imagine.
Tonight Show GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
 
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Brodhi

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Yea, pre-2003 King is amazing. Post 2003 king is a spiral of shit that gets worse and worse until we reach peak retard with TDS-era King
 

Arbitrary

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There's like a ratio involving the size of the work and how old it is to determine the liklihood you're setting yourself up for an ending that isn't satisfying. The shorter it is and the older it is the better the chance the ending is going to work. The reason it's such a meme is because basically everyone's got themselves 1100 pages in to something like The Stand only to have the villain be his own undoing with another 100 pages of epilogue to close it out.
 
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Chukzombi

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There's like a ratio involving the size of the work and how old it is to determine the liklihood you're yourself up for an ending that isn't satisfying. The shorter it is and the older it is the better the chance the ending is going to work. The reason it's such a meme is because basically everyone's got themselves 1100 pages in to something like The Stand only to have the villain be his own undoing with another 100 pages of epilogue to close it out.
His best novel ending is still the ending to The Running Man. The movie ending is abominable.
 
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LiquidDeath

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His best novel ending is still the ending to The Running Man. The movie ending is abominable.
The book and movie are so different that I can't get behind this. The book is great and the movie is great for way different reasons.
 
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Chukzombi

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The book and movie are so different that I can't get behind this. The book is great and the movie is great for way different reasons.
but thats why its abominable. the book is so fucking serious and well thought out that its a goddamned crime how differently Arnold's Running Man was. if King had wrote that book now, people would have accused him of being a conservative anti globalist. honestly, his earlier works are all pretty blue dog democrat or straight up conservative. even his hippie utopia story, The Stand points out how fucking stupid and inept the "good" guys are that it can be seen as parody. ive had this discussion with Arbitrary many times. when i see King act the fool with his TDS posts i cringe because i know goddamned well he is just pretending. very badly at that. he wrote a lot of fucked up shit in his career, he has to cover his ass so he doesnt get canceled.
 

Djay

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The Dark Tower were the first Stephen King books I read. The ending didn't bother me that much, so I didn't get the hate on his endings. The Running Man was the next book I read, because I loved the movie...the ending for that was the worst ending of any book I've ever read, so that tainted the entire book for me.

I actually liked Fairy Tale. I generally don't like fiction that's written in first person and it wasn't really suspenseful, but it was an enjoyable read.
 
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Witless

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The Eyes of the Dragon was my first, I was but a wee lad and my mother wanted to make sure I didn’t get nightmares from reading horror stories. My second was It. I’m not sure I could have selected a book more drastically opposite from the first considering how graphic and intense It was. I’ve always enjoyed his short stories more. Just long enough where he can portray the weirdness of a situation or wonder of a world, but not long enough for you to question how it all fits and expect a satisfying ending.
 
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Chukzombi

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The Dark Tower were the first Stephen King books I read. The ending didn't bother me that much, so I didn't get the hate on his endings. The Running Man was the next book I read, because I loved the movie...the ending for that was the worst ending of any book I've ever read, so that tainted the entire book for me.

I actually liked Fairy Tale. I generally don't like fiction that's written in first person and it wasn't really suspenseful, but it was an enjoyable read.
i guess i dont understand why you thought that was a poor ending. it perfectly encapsulates what Ben Richards frame of mind was after learning about how the Games Network completely fucked him and his entire life. you probably wont like "Roadwork" either or any of the other Bachman books.
 
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Djay

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Without going back and rereading it, I can just say that my feeling was that it was abrupt and not satisfying. It may have been an appropriate ending...but not the type of closure I prefer from my fiction, maybe? Again, I'd have to go back and reread it to give a more nuanced opinion of it.
 

Chukzombi

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Without going back and rereading it, I can just say that my feeling was that it was abrupt and not satisfying. It may have been an appropriate ending...but not the type of closure I prefer from my fiction, maybe? Again, I'd have to go back and reread it to give a more nuanced opinion of it.
the last third of the story is kind of abrupt. i really dont want to spoil it because its one of my favorite books and i dont want to ruin it for anyone. just that its almost nothing like the movie, but its amazing in different ways. anyways. the abrupt last third plays out for a while, you see the signs of something amiss through the entire thing.
ah fuck it. spoilers. dont click this shit if you dont want the story ruined
Ben through half the novel has been trying to get in touch with his wife, he gets through one or two times to make sure she's getting the money from the network which in turn is intended for their daughter's medication. after a while he cant get through her anymore and when he gets caught. Killian tries to recruit him. mentioning that his wife and daughter have been murdered and so he can become an agent for the Running Man show, (no agent is allowed a family for ransom/blackmail reasons) wew never find out if Killian had Richards's family killed, its likely they were murdered because of his involvement or due to him outfoxing the other agents and it was done intentionally.

either way, Richards only reason for competing in The Running Man was to help his daughter and for him and his wife to have a better life out of the city. now that this was taken away from RIchards, he has nothing left to live for, his only goal is revenge on the people he felt were responsible for their and most of the people's problems. the assholes running the Games Network which supplies freevees for everyone to watch poor people murder each other for nickels. he hijacks the jet and suicides right into the Games Network building right into Arthur Killian's face. building explodes and its a massive fire. i dont know how that can be construed as a poor ending, but to each their own
 
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Dr.Retarded

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You guys talking about the first King books you've read had me trying to remember. I want to say it's Graveyard Shift and Skeleton Crew but rad them right together, can't remember which one first. Think the first novel was The Talisman than The Gunslinger.
 

Kajiimagi

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New short story collection by Stephen King out today - called 'You Like it Darker'


Have not started it yet, I'm currently in the middle of Malazan re-read #3 but this is in the line.
 
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OU Ariakas

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I picked up his last two short story collections because I have always been a sucker for them. I was sure that my reading was going to be colored by the fact that he is unhinged and fucking retarded on Twitter/TV now.

I was dead wrong. The dude is a master at horror short stories and I am eating them up. I want to go back to a time where these lunatics would just do their art and I never had to hear about the rest of their lives.
 
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