Comments on: Telegraph pays for lying

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:51:39 +0000

Not sure about that given that I spent some of my younger years obsessed with role plays, games workshop and all manner of Tolkenesq things.;) It was his writing; I just found it a chore to read, the films worked better for me…

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:41:42 +0000

Perhaps the whole travelling-across-mystic-land-with-kelpies thing is just not your scene. Which is probably the category that The Talisman falls into as well.

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:38:28 +0000

I er tried reading LoTR too and didn’t get far either…liked the films though.

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:34:10 +0000

Oh god The Talisman bored me too tears so much so that I couldn’t finish it.

No!

This is like when my dad said that he couldn’t be bothered to finish Lord of the Rings because “there are too many names”!

I am distraught!

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:27:01 +0000

I didn’t think much of The Green Mile, preferred Frank Darabont’s earlier King story The Shawshank Redemption…

By: William

William — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:25:28 +0000

Not sure whether I should have posted 8

However

“Could tell people a few stories about old Howard but I’ll keep it zipped!!! ”

Nothing serious or bad.

By: William

William — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:24:14 +0000

Still can’t get into novels even Stephen King ones.
But the “The Green Mile” was a superb film.

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:11:34 +0000

Oh god The Talisman bored me too tears so much so that I couldn’t finish it. I remember I started reading the unedited The Stand years ago on a bus (a long journey from Croydon to Camden) and just as I got to the bit about the virus breaking out random people started coughing and sneezing around me! Cue me thinking “Er!”:D

Was a good book that, shame the made for TV movie was a pile of stinking horsesh*t…

Needful Things was another fave of mine, might have to go back and re-read some of these. Anyone here ever read any Dean Koontz?

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:44:26 +0000

The Dark Half is v good. My favourite is The Stand (unedited), and The Talisman, co-written with Peter Straub (don’t bother reading the sequel, it isn’t nearly as good). I liked Bag of Bones, too, which is one of his few very good recent books.

I liked the Dark Tower vols 1-3 and 5, but was quite disappointed by the rest of them. I think he got bored.

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:13:08 +0000

I found Stephen King was something me and my mates loved as teenagers but as adults not so much…one of my favourites of his was The Dark Half.

By: Kulvinder

Kulvinder — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:05:01 +0000

I hated the stand, i hated the long walk, i hated carrie. I gave up after that i watched the movie version of the shining…and hated it.

Far from being engrossed in his books i just feel like shouting ‘get on with it…whats your point!!…hurry up‘

By: Tim Ireland

Tim Ireland — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:58:38 +0000

Oops. Pardon my tangent.

)

By: Kismet Hardy

Kismet Hardy — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:44:03 +0000

King’s like a lot of great rockstars. They sober up and turn shit

By: Kismet Hardy

Kismet Hardy — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:41:47 +0000

The Stand, Shining, Misery, Pet Semetary, Carrie, Firestarter, Christine, Dead Zone, It, all the Bachnar books, Tommyknockers are all pure and utter genius

I read an interview with him where he said he wrote Cujo pissed out of his head and high on coke so I re-read it and boy does it show…

The best writer of the 20th century

By: Chairwoman

Chairwoman — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:20:03 +0000

And The Stand.

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:14:07 +0000

King’s few decent works

Ooh, that’s a bit harsh. I suppose his books can be a bit too long sometimes, and some of his later books lack the edge of the earlier ones (Cell = excellent; Lisey’s Story = mediocre, in my humble opinion). But then all of those criticisms could easily apply to Dickens too – who was also derided for having the cheek to be broadly popular. The Long Walk is definitely one of his best, though.

By: Tim Ireland

Tim Ireland — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:51:15 +0000

Heh. I’m right now re-reading one of King’s few decent works; ‘The Long Walk’… and even in this all-male cast there appears to be a significant dig at an ex-girlfriend.

By: Chairwoman

Chairwoman — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:51:41 +0000

William – I think there are more than a few authors who base their works of ‘fiction’ rather more than losely on their own experiences.

While it can make for good reading, it causes me to have concerns about Stephen King’s life.

By: William

William — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:44:32 +0000

Chairwomen.

Let you into a secret. Howard Jacobson used to be our English lecturer on a mature students undergraduate course at Wolverhampton Poly in the early 80’s. He wrote a book called Coming From Behind. Those from the college who read it new straight away that it was based on the Poly and the characters in the college.

He gave me crap grades but he really was a person I admired. His intellect and charisma that is.

Could tell people a few stories about old Howard but I’ll keep it zipped!!!

By: Chairwoman

Chairwoman — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:37:21 +0000

William – Howard Jacobson, like myself, has got older, and can’t run as fast as he could

BTW as an author, he captures the atmosphere of ’50s Jewish homelife better than anyone I have ever read. My cousin, who is a contempory of his from Manchester finds that she can almost ‘taste’ his books set in that period.