TET - you mean it isn't based on Consider Phlebas? poo-kak, that's another argument with the wife lost....

Killa - I'm not saying i didn't enjoy it. it had some truly creepy passages and I enjoyed the dark mysticism, much of the tale I found very compelling. I'd read quite a few similar themes about survivors of a worldwide epidemic and this was a different twist on the same idea. it's just that I thought it was very deeply flawed on several levels and unnecessarily long-winded and verbose and mawkish. Back then I think SK must have been paid per word.

Rec - I very much enjoy SK's early short stories. I think i mentioned earlier that Toys is one of the best stories I've ever read. Recently i read another SK story about a couple who end up trapped ina town run by all the dead and disappeared celebrities of the last few decades - Elvis, Janis Jopin, Jimi Hendrix et al. can't remember the title though, haven't actually got the book. And some of the film adaptations are superb, Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile for example. I didn't know either of those were SK stories until I'd seen the films.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/22/2006 2:43:37 PM

The film adaptations of his stories help to remove over long descriptions and some of the unnecessary tangents. I read Nightmares and Dreamscapes several years ago and although I enjoyed the ideas (eg. a bizarre story of a man suffering with shy bladder syndrome and a strange monster that rises out of his toilet bowl resembling an overly long human finger with multiple knuckles!), i found the actual writing style boring quite often. I should probably give him a second chance.

I've just embarked on reading A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, so it's going to be a while before I get round to Stephen King! (btw, you might like it Taw, the author's a history buff and apparently he takes a wide range of European medieval history for inspiration - definite links to the War of the Roses in there and supposedly the Albigensian crusade, though I wouldn't know enough about the last one to make a comparison)

Cathars and the domini canes? - I keep hearing about this Martin fella, i s'pose i should give him a try.

Hat off to Taw, first poster here in eight days.

only 'cos Rec was talkin, 'bout Cathars.

Well, it seems that The Stand was the only good book I get to read for the next five years. I've tried reading about five books since I finished The Stand, and I haven't gotten one that was worth a damn. I've tried (these three by SK) The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half and Stand By Me, and they all sucked. I've tried reading Midnight and Seize The Night by Dean Koontz (he kind of sucks) and neither one of them was able to keep my intrest for more than five minutes. Tomorrow, I guess I'll start on The Client by John Greshim (sp?) because I need something to read at school tomorrow and everyone in my family says it's really good.

Wish me luck, and prey with me that I don't have to read anymore crap for a while.