Goodreads Malaysia discussion

Anyone here is Stephen King's fan? I have just started on 11/22/63 and I think I regret picking it up. I don't understand what the hype about him is all about so please someone explain to me. Anyone?

I like his movies better. He's famous for creating a bunch of cult works like Carrie, The Shining, It, The Long Walk... .. and also giving the birth of oldest meme of internet..

I'm a late comer to the 'Stephen King Fan Club'. I like most of his works especially the early ones when he was stoned. Now that he's sober he's not as great (good but not great).

I haven't read the JFK book yet so I can't comment. It's not horror per se. It's more sci-fi what with all the time travel. What about it that you don't like, Norain? Can you tell us (no spoilers if possible). Is it the pages and pages of absolutely nothing going on? That's King's style. He's good with character building, a slow build up to the horror. If you like your character driven stories (and I do) then King is perfect.

King is much better in my opinion with short stories. Try those. Several have been collected. 'Skeleton Crew' and 'Night Shift' are just two of his short fiction books.

Stephen King, I think, was wonderful before he was hit by that truck in the late 90s. He was even better when he was taking drugs. 'Salem's Lot', 'Misery', 'Pet Sematary', 'Christine', 'The Stand' are some of his better stuff.

What I like:

- good with characterization
- better with short stories and novellas

What I don't like:

- can go on and on and on over stuff that has got nothing to do with the story. It's become worse when he became a superstar and rich. It's like the editor was afraid to stop his star author and just let him type away.
- he's not as good since he stopped taking drugs. Can someone hook him up with a cocaine dealer?

Avoid the movie adaptations of his books. My God, they're horrible. The only good ones are the non-horror movies like Stand By Me, Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption. Okay, Misery was good and that was definitely horrific albeit non-supernatural but Misery is an exception to the rule. Even King himself hated Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining.

I'm now reading Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption and I'm liking it.

Khairul H. wrote: "Is it the pages and pages of absolutely nothing going on?"

Yes, that. It was a horrifying experience reading about this dull school teacher marking and grading papers and wondering at which point JFK would come into the picture. He kind of used 10000 words to describe what normal people could say in 10. 11/26/63 could have been better, or bearable, if it was half as long (or short). Or if it was about parallel universe instead of time travel.

I was never a fan of movie adaptation but I did like Shawshank Redemption. I wanted to try reading the book but right now, I don't think I can see any of King's works without a chill running down my spine.

That JFK book really only had plot for the last 25% of the book, and while the ending's pretty bittersweet, it doesn't make up for 75% of it being verbal diarrhea.

King's famous because when his books are good, it's great. Under the Dome and The Stand were two favourites of mine, and in those two his tendency to vomit words is tolerable since it revolves around so many characters. Shining and Carrie were short and lovely. That's what he's famous for - the good books.

He writes a lot though, and I can say that for every hit, there's at least two misses. I think you'll be better off sticking to the more famous King books.

(I'd suggest staying away from the Darktower series though. Gawd, those.)

Oh, God. I suppose, I suppose I picked up the wrong books. Like the Dreamcatcher or this JFK book. The latter seemed so promising. I was tricked.