I never read a Stephen King book.
 

And I never will.

good for you

That's too bad -- your missing out.

you're

:2 cents:

true dat.

Thank you for this en-lightening information (pun intended), I am sure to rest easy tonight in the comfort of this knowledge. :pimp

Read Dean R Koontz. Hes much better author, plus hes not nearly as wordy as King.

Neither have I, I'm not much of a reader though.

your missing out some good reading

I'm not a fan of some of his books (The Dark Tower series, for instance) but The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption (called something else IIRC), Carrie, Cujo, and others I really like. Right now I'm reading Duma Key and enjoying it. You can tell he pulled a lot out of his experience with getting hit when he was walking several years ago - some VERY graphic details about pain :(

you can read?

salem's lot was great book.

I never had the urge to read any of his work

I fucking love him :)

That was actually one of the books we read in one of my English classes in HS. :thumbsup

I was just about to post pretty much the exact same thing... I used to like reading King... Then I got into Koontz and much prefer him for the exact same reason... Less wordy :)

I like Koontz too - you can read both :)

("Hi, I'm Peaches and I'm addicted to reading." "Welcome, Peaches.")

i just watched "The Mist" and the ending was really
frustrating.

Stephen King used to write for porno mags and live in a trailer before he "hit it big".

Not too many people know that.

same here . ..

Read The Dark Tower - it's much more than just awesome!

I still like him a lot.

And?... who cares about it?

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the Dark Tower series. Love his writing.

Dean Koontz, on his very best day, could never write a book that even approaches The Shining, Salem's Lot, The Body, Pet Semetary... any of a half-dozen King books. I have plenty of material from both and they're not on the same level or anywhere remotely close to it.

Koontz is clumsily political (on the right wing side) and every other novel features some good guy who has a 'psychic connection' to the bad guy. I read him because there's a real scarcity of good horror genre novelists, but honestly... he's repetitive and just not that good.

The movie ending is completely different from the book.

you must

I s'pose that's why he's only sold tens of millions of books, huh?

What qualifies you as a fucking literary critic?

And since when did it become a competition between the authors?

Have you read 'The Face' ?

I read King until I got into highschool. By then he was already on the strange-fetish-tied-and-gonna-die-and-be-eaten fetish. Deloris Clayborne was, and shall be my last.

That said, I quite enjoyed "The Stand", but "It" was pretty stupid.

Shit I dunno, I had some comparative literature in College and I read about three novels a week, I guess that'll have to do. If I had to and if I cared enough, I could go to my bookshelf right now and pick at LEAST three DK novels with very nearly identical plots. And probably more like 10.

Why the attitude?

I thought SK started slumping when he began reacting to literary critics and started trying to write books that would be more acceptable to them, Hearts in Atlantis etc, the plucky heroine heroically struggling past her tragic history, so forth and so on. I also though Cell and Duma Key brought him out of that slump, I liked both of those books a LOT.

yep I have it, but I can't recall the story to mind right off the top of my head.

That's nearly 8 years after I gave up. "Needful Things" was OK, but it was still his same damn story with a little bit of bizarre sex and murder all mixed together without much of a plot. Wow, a rewrite of "The Monkey's Paw." I dunno. I wouldn't pay for another book of his. If bored, I might read one, but I'm certainly no longer an avid reader.

Perhaps my earlier tone was somewhat unwarranted - with apology.

You don't see the irony of someone who once took a college class in 'comparative literature' dismissing a best-selling author by simply saying "He's not that good,"?

True, Koontz has some repetition - quite a number of prolific authors often revisit the same creative well over the span of a career. Just like a photographer, painter, performer or any other creative artist.

I grew up with Stephen King, later shifted gears to enjoy Dean Koontz - and think both authors have a marvelous storytelling gift that isn't easily dismissed. I just don't understand why people have such a tendency to turn everything in to a competition/comparison.

And yes, I also took several English lit courses in college myself back-in-the-day. But I don't feel it qualifies me as any sort of critic to accomplished authors.

I really don't see the similarities other than they're both horror stories. I thought NT was a great book, with a mephistopholean shopowner gradually drawing out the townspeople's little problems with each other and then blowing those up into murder and mayhem.

I'm not saying that SK is the greatest writer that ever lived, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion in this kind of thing anyway, but imho he's the best HORROR writer that ever lived. Matheson probably had greater overall ideas, but he can't match SK in execution.

For me DK is just something to read when there's nothing better out there, a time killer. I'm not saying YOU can't like him, but I think it's a little ridiculous to try to put him on the same platform as SK.

It's always the same basic plot. Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, The Stand, It. "Some evil magical force that may or may not be from outer space influences people and may or may not inspire them to do things that causes harm to someone else, but the outcome is that someone always dies and in the end the hero is either dead, or levels up." It gets kind of boring. The only thing I really found from NT that provided actual insight into psyche was when he mentioned that the child put the stones into his bookbag and carried them, rather than using those on the scene. That stuck with me, for some reason.

HAHAHAH. DK vs SK is the nerd's Tool vs Radiohead.

You obviously dont know how many top sellar books he has. He also doesnt write the same shit over with a much wider range of subjects as well. King gets off on describing every nut hair his character has at the expense of the story and its reader.

I have read several books by Stephen King and Dean R Koontz. Both have books that are hit and miss with me.

You just described every horror or sci fi novel ever written, not just SK's books. That's the whole premise of supernatural thrillers. Something unexplainable happens, somebody dies. The hero saves the day, or doesn't. Hardly a unique SK plot device.

However, he also wrote straight fiction with enormous success - Shawshank Redemption, The Body (Stand by Me), and Apt Pupil, all contained in one collection, Different Seasons. That's pretty fucking good, and it seems he can do that whenever he wants. Lucky for those of us that like horror, he'd rather write scary shit.

Needful Things isn't his best book by a long shot, but I think it's really good. Made for a pretty good scary movie too.

The Odd Thomas series by DK is pretty good, he actually seems to take the time to edit those before sending them to the publisher.

You should read From a Buick 8

I really liked Cujo and Green Mile. The others like TommyKnockers etc didn't do it for me. I used to like reading his books when I was young and morbid. :upsidedow

I will ... and did/do

okay...:)

I think Stephen King sums himself up pretty niceley, he says he is the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries.

He understands his craft much better than you or I ever will.

I love his early work, he went through a slump for a while but seems to be back on track.

I started reading SK as a kid, probably around the age of 8. DK got added a little later and I went through a lot more of his books at a young age than I did SK, simply because they're easier reads. Both are good storytellers, but I would say SK has a better handle on making the readers feel intense as they're reading. I've mostly dropped both authors from my reading list as I've gotten older, yet I still revisit The Stand every few years. DK gets more action out of me because he makes a better book to take to the pool in the summer.

I won´t do it neigher. There are so many great writters to read, there is not enough time in life to read them all, so I don´t want to waste my time reading shit...