Stephen King: Revival

[0neiros]

"The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed." Talk about an opening line that slams you right into the story. To me it literally ranks up there with the likes of "Call me Ismael".

 

[dbuck]

I finished it today at lunch. As usual his characters are incredibly real, but it's a middle of the road Kind novel. What I do like is that he rarely 'hollywoods' his stories, this one included. One reason I gave up on Koontz is that I could always tell who would live, who would be happy.......
I rather enjoyed it, but it'll never be on a must-read list.

 

[Slave1]

Love me some Stephen King, and have even hung out with his son, Joe Hill, a bit.

Favorite stories are numerous: The Boogeyman, Gray Matter, I Am the Doorway, Battleground, The Graveyard Shift, The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

Novels: The Stand, It, Salem's Lot, Thinner

The man has created so many great pieces we sort of take him for granted. Even his worst stuff is better quality than 90% of anyone else's.

I agree on Koontz. I loved his classic stuff like Watchers, Darkfall, Servants of Twilght, etc., but anymore it's just bland drama, with a little quirky and force humor thrown in with some sort of weird aspect. Most of his characters nowadays are very much the same as another. Odd Thomas would probably be the exception, but there were a couple of his books where absolutely nothing happened!

 

[CutThumb]

Stephen King actually made reading “Horror” respectable. When I ran out of reasonably good sci fi and fantasy he was my next choice in a genre I didn‘t really like (not that keen on the extremely gory side of things!!!) . His earliest work had by far the biggest impact and when he hit the mark it was a bull’s-eye and then some. His range and output are phenominal!!!
So the best novels (for me):
The Stand (unabridged) : Just such fantastic storytelling, I reread this every few years and everytime a new strain of flu gets on the news!!
The Green Mile: Mr Jingles and the characters got to me on so many levels , I can never reread it without seeing MDS now.
The Dead Zone: Just such a compelling (and heart breaking) journey for a character.
Christine: Better than the film!!!!
From a Buick 8: I guess not his best but I really liked it!!

Best collections:
Nightshift - Graveyard Shift/ Quitters/ The Ladder but there is hardly a bad story in the whole lot!!!
Skeleton Crew- The Mist/ Mrs Todds Short Cut and the rest are almost as good as Nightshifts
Different Seasons- All great apart from “Breathing Lessons”.Which is why they got made into films!!
Nightmares and Dreamscapes-Donlan’s Cadillac and Nightflyer, the rest are good but not as memorable as the first two collections.

Best Films adaptations:
The Shawshank Redemption- Just so uplifting and one of my all time film favourites (and stories -see Different Seasons)
The Dead Zone- So haunting and Christopher Walkin at his best ever!
The Green Mile- Heartbreaking for so many reasons.
The Mist - Budget monster brilliance for the most part , apart from that Ending!!!)
Stand by Me - Just a great story about what it is to be a kid when you were allowed to wander free. And the pie eatting contest!


Never that keen on Dean Koontz , I always felt alot of his stories seemed far too similar to many other stories and filmsthat came out BUT he did write a few that I enjoyed;
Lightning- If you read one DK novel let it be this. Outstanding!!!!
Intensity- Don’t give this to the wife/girlfriend=guaranteed nightmares
Hideaway- Liked the version of Hell
Strange Highways- Good collection of short stories
Dark Rivers of the Heart- Covers a lot of ideas and I liked the dog.

 

[dbuck]

Even his worst stuff is better quality than 90% of anyone else's.

This.

Even though Revival wasn't in the upper echelon of King novels, I enjoy his mediocre writing far more than almost anyone else's best. Most books I can take a break from for a few days or even weeks and pick it back up, but with King I will read with every free moment until the ending. With 11/22/63 (and a few others of his in past) once finished I read nothing for near two weeks, as picking up another book would have felt like cheating, destroying the experience I had reading it. After a while I can go back to the bubblegum crap most people churn out.

 

[Nth]

I think I've read the unabridged version of The Stand at least six times over the last fifteen years. I remember I got the paperback for Christmas one year and started reading it Christmas day and pretty much spent the rest of the break reading it. Read it so many times it actually fell apart on me. I also got Final Fantasy VI for SNES that Christmas and I would often describe to my friends that Final Fantasy VI was The Stand of video games.

Before I got my current job I had to spend weeks on end doing monotonous day labor. Used to listen to Stephen King audio books over and over. The short story collections were always great, especially Dolan's Cadillac which was one of my favorites. The thing is I never get tired of them, even after hearing the story a hundred times I am always ready to listen to it again. I am basically on the verge of going through the whole Dark Tower series again. I stopped before the last book because I ended up getting a new job two years ago and never got around to listening to the rest.
My current job allows for MP3 players so once I get some company approved ear buds I will definitely load up the MP3 player again.