steven king.

you know what the sweetest thing is? King is giving the money right back to the org. to help Youth Reading programs and shit like that. i know he already has a lot of money, but so do all these big shot actors you see doing commercials now-days, like they need any more fucking money. that's cool that King is not like that. i'm not even a big fan of his, but the dude is just alright with me.

i agree with Izen. i dont read king but the man does produce. and has lots of admirable qualiities as an American writer.

its funny, but i dont read his work either.
hes just one of those people that i respect despite my low knowledge of him.

that's about how i feel about him. he is a writing machine, i swear his brain is like a word processor. he has no end of original characters and extravagant plots, but i find his actual writing style very dull. i've never finished any of his books, although i got close to finishing the first Dark Tower book or whatever.

His writing is slow sometimes, until I get caught up in the story. Some of the science fiction stuff that comes in halfway through most of his books sometimes loses me though. I've never read or even looked at one of the Dark Tower books though...dunno why.

I read "It" when I was 17 and I thought it was a masterpiece. I still think so, but don't dare to read it again - I'm too frightened that the book mabye isn't that good as I still remember it ...

But of course, nothing beats the TV movie version ...

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by izen [/i]
[B]...he has no end of original characters and extravagant plots... [/B][/QUOTE]

i don't know about that. as a fan of his since ever, practically, i think some of his characterizations and plot lines are being recycled.

actually, i think psychokeety and i are the only remaining king fans in the world...or the only people willing to admit it

yeah, moe.ron, i guess i can't really speak since i haven't finished any books.
to be honest i'm getting my idea's from the movies, which i know is a terrible thing, but the characters translate over to movies strongly so i thought... i dunno, i'm uninformed, these are more my impressions of him.
you know he's writing a monthly column for Entertainment Weekly now, right?

He also did a major big favor for an unpublished (except in audio) writer, and is devoting an entire EW column to this guys' book.

Yeah, Stephen King is awesome. The only book I've ever finished of his is "On Writing," and, if you read that, you can't not respect him.

I read Stephen King, although not as much as I want to. About 6-7 books, not counting [I]Danse Macabre[/I]. I really like his writing style, and none of the novels I've read was boring. And [I]The Shining[/I] is the proud winner of The Book That Terrified Loops award.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by moe.ron [/i]
[B]i don't know about that. as a fan of his since ever, practically, i think some of his characterizations and plot lines are being recycled.

actually, i think psychokeety and i are the only remaining king fans in the world...or the only people willing to admit it [/B][/QUOTE]

SURVEY SAYS...

[size=20][color=red]X[/size][/color]

wrong!!!

i'm a huge stephen king fan. i think he'll be canonized eventually but he has to die first.

The only book of Stephano King I've read is "On Writing" and should be mandatory reading for anyone starting out to write a book. I still haven't gotten to 10 pages a day like he suggests. He is a writing machine!

yeah that type of book tends to scare me off of writing.

as if i was writing to begin with.

but really, reading advice on writing from a writer i already consider vastly superior to myself is enoguht o paralyze me for months.

i have problems.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by insomnomaniac [/i]
[B]i'm a huge stephen king fan. i think he'll be canonized eventually but he has to die first. [/B][/QUOTE]

He is already beginning to get canonised. We studied King at uni. Of course Gothic is not considered "proper" literature by some (wrong!), but he's already in the classrooms. We did [I]Carrie[/I] and [I]Salem's Lot[/I].

I'm a huge stephen king fan...when I was in high school I wrote an epic poem with the characters from the Dark Tower series...which just happnes to be my favorite work by Stephen King...I highly suggest everyone read the Dark Tower Series...in my opinion it's his best work.

you know the dark tower series is the only stephen king i haven't read.

"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" paralyzes me with its excellentness. imo, it's the best novella ever written.

The only Stephen King book that I have read so far is [i]On Writing[/i] - which I liked. Honestly, I'm surprised to find so many others here who admit to enjoying it after CP said how much he disliked it in [URL=http://www.portlandmercury.com/2000-11-30/ex.html]Sleepless in London[/URL]. I have to admit to being a little disappointed.

I can't trust other Stephen King fans, namely because they tend to think that The Stand is anything other than awful.
His short works are pretty good. They emphasize his strengths (character, premise) and cover his fatal weakness (story development).

I like his short stories better. I'm not a science fiction person at all, and most of his longer books tend to go in that direction after a while. Except for Bag of Bones, that was good because it went ghosty instead of monsters and aliens.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by pvt joker [/i]
[B]The only Stephen King book that I have read so far is [i]On Writing[/i] - which I liked. Honestly, I'm surprised to find so many others here who admit to enjoying it after CP said how much he disliked it in [URL=http://www.portlandmercury.com/2000-11-30/ex.html]Sleepless in London[/URL]. I have to admit to being a little disappointed. [/B][/QUOTE]

dude, don't be retarded. we don't do chuck's bidding. we certainly don't only read what he says he likes, or not read what he says he doesn't like. sheesh.

Speak for yourself. *wipes ass with On Writing; throws out Green Mile because it came after The Dark Half*

[i]"dude, don't be retarded."[/i]

I'll try my best. And where exactly does it say that I am/am not going to read anything based on Chuck's opinion - or anyone else's for that matter? Are you telling me that you have never read the same book (or watched a movie, or heard an album) as another person and least wondered why they did not enjoy it? Maybe "disappointed" wasn't the best word, whatever. Hopefully, you see what I'm getting at.

well, despite my request, you went ahead and did it anyway.

what you said, and what i was responding to, was that you were surprised so many people "admit to enjoying [on writing]" because chuck said he didn't like it "in Sleepless in London." (quotes from your original post).

what i was responding to was your surprise that we would "admit" to liking something chuck said he didn't like. i thought, and still think, that there's nothing to be surprised about, because, as i said, we don't only read/admit to liking things chuck says he likes.

Thanks for the clarification you cunt. I stand corrected: There are absolutely no Chuck fanboys anywhere to found around here. None. Zero. Got it.

[url]http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/[/url]
I like a few things King has done, but when it comes to him getting a national book award I've got to agree with this article. I'm not as crotchety and bitter about it as Bloom is (although I'm headed that way), but I can't see how this award is anything but 'congratulations for being popular'.
Maybe Michael Crichton can win next year.

king is an extremely prolific author who has defined a genre of writing and has brought so many people who wouldn't read for recreation to enjoy reading. as i've said before about the man, he could have stopped writing long ago and lived extremely comfortably on his earnings, yet he continues to write, and how can you not admire someone for continuing doing what he's doing. he obviously enjoys writing, and is very good at it, otherwise he wouldn't be [url=http://www.stephenking.com/pages/faq/awards.php]so highly acclaimed for his works.[/url]

you openly admit that king is a popular author, yet you don't see how he can win awards for his book, especially not the national book award? how do you gauge what is a good overall work (not based on your opinion) is? sure he's not writing a dissertation on the relationship between artic cooling and terrorism in the world or anything "world changing" like that, but all being a successful author (other than personal success) is is a "popularity contest".
when a lot of people like you, it means you're good in majority standing.

Harold Bloom is a grumpy, crotchety old man. He isn't even a presence at Yale anymore so much as he is a lump of flesh, hanging around and writing huge, pedantic books that no one will ever read. I pish on your face, Harold Bloom.

Anyway: I don't have anything else to say. It's sad that, in that article, when he's trying to make a point about Stephen King and his degradation of the culture that he goes into a long digression about J.K. Rowling. He's STILL stuck on Harry Potter.

U
G
H

I hate Stevn King so much, I'd rather be forced to spend a year reading nothing but those goddawful "Sweet Valley High" books than ever be confronted with a single word from the man.

The movies based on his books are *always* better than the books themselves, and his editor did a crap job.

Then again, he also thought that turning "Carrie" into a musical would be a good idea....

Heheh... King was quite sceptic about the musical, and rightly so:
Staged by regulars of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the play was a total failure. An outraged investor called it ‘the biggest flop in the world history of the theatre, going all the way to Aristophanes’ and a reviewer wrote that ‘ “Carrie” is not merely problematic. It is not simply a miscalculation. It is stupendously, fabulously terrible –ineptly conceived, sleazy, irrational from moment to moment, the rare kind of production that stretches way beyond bad to mythic lousiness.'

actually, when they called to ask him over the phone, he just paused a moment and said "okay, sure" or something equally simplistic (if he could only have found such brevity in his writing!)

he thought it'd be like, the next "sweeny todd" or something.

i know *way* too much about it.

A would recommend the DARK TOWER series to anyone who likes fiction. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was another good book of his... I was a huge fan of The Stand (Unabridged!)...Green Mile was fantastic... 95% of Hearts in Atlantis was great.... The Long Walk (as Bachman) was a good read as well... I was a fan of On Writing too. Not all of his books are real winners, most are 600 pages of good story and 50 pages of the worst ending I've ever read (Needful Things, Pet Semetary) but some of his writing (esp. his short stories) is worth checking out.

The Green Mile & The Running Man were superior in book form.

Harold Bloom should be beaten like an animal. Not for disliking King (understandable), but for his horrific fucking attitude.

trypdwyre, the national book award is not a popularity contest. If it was, Tom Clancy and Dean Koontz would both be long overdo for one, and I don't think anyone's arguing for that.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by pvt joker [/i]
[B]Thanks for the clarification you cunt. I stand corrected: There are absolutely no Chuck fanboys anywhere to found around here. None. Zero. Got it. [/B][/QUOTE]

well, you're the only one *I* see right now. *looks around* yep.

oh, and if you are reduced to calling me a "cunt" after an argument that lasts only three posts i suggest for your own personal health and safety that you leave now.

in case you want to stick around, might i recommend that you adopt an arguing style *other* than contradicting yourself in back-to-back posts, and then lashing out like a three-year-old at someone else when they point it out to you.

just lookin out for ya.

now let me say, yes i know the award is not a popularity contest. what i said was that the fact that king's works are so popular proves that the majority thinks that his works are good. and based on the fact that he has recieved so many awards for so many of his works again proves that in public opinion, king is a very good author.
"The recipient is a person who has enriched our literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work."
taken straight from the description page of what exactly king won. what that says is that the reason king won it was because so many of his works have been so highly acclaimed in a genre that he has helped to define or has defined on his own. many people have a beef with horror/suspense authors because the formula is fairly simple, shock people. king has proven he can do more than just shock people, and that is why he's recieving this award. he has earned the award, no one can argue that he hasn't.