Aegon the Unruly...

[Funky Cthulu]

Originally Posted by Boaz

FC, sorry to rehash bad memories, but can you clarify on King breaking the fourth wall (where an author/artist inserts himself into the work)? It's been twenty years since I read Eyes of the Dragon and my memory is hazy, but are you saying King was the king, one of the princes, or the evil wizard? Thanks in advance.

Hi Boaz,

It wasn't in Eyes, it was in his more recent Dark Tower series. And he didn't use a kind of substitute character for himself, he actually wrote HIMSELF in.
I'll explain. In the Dark Tower series, there are numerous worlds out there, closely parallelling each other. And they all depend on the fate of the central world, and each world feels the echoes of the others, but have taken different paths from major events. So he referenced some of his earlier works - f'r'instance, the world where his characters live is (set some hundreds of years later) where the 'Captain Trips' virus wiped out 99% of the population - the same world (or close) as the one in his novel 'The Stand'. So, of course, his motley band work out how to travel between the worlds, and must save them from the Crimson King by following this quest to reach the Tower (the axis of the universe, sort of), blah blah blah.

And in one of the worlds, the 'central' or 'most true' world, they encounter Stephen King. The writer. And they find a series of books called "The Dark Tower" series, which is about THEM, our world hopping heroes. So they're amazed and frightened, because it's all correct, just unfinished. They rush off to meet King, which an oracle has advised them to do, and find him on the verge of not finishing the series, because he's lost his inspiration. It's clear his characters exist independently of the writer, but King has been chosen to document their travels by some divine power, and just thinks he invented the whole shebang.

So King is pretty freaked out when his characters turn up (they discover they don't like him much either, which King (as the real life author...see how confusing this gets??) seemed to think he deserved brownie points for - "Hey! I made myself complex and flawed! This isn't just some self congratulatory Mary-Sue ego trip!") and they have an akward chat about the importance of continuing to document their journey and sell it as fiction. Because King and his writing is integral to the success of good over evil.
Then the Crimson King tries to knock King off by having a drunk guy run over him with a panel van (sound familiar?) and he almost dies, Roland and co save his life whilst erasing any memory of their interaction from King's mind. So, King (the character) just knows he has to finish the novels but is blind to the bigger supernatural implications.

I don't know of any other writer who has done this, but there's probably someone out there, or several someones who have done this. I'm sure there are readers out there who loved the concept, and felt King did it well. I felt it was a gamble that failed.
So, the first 3 - 4 books were highly enjoyable, for me. The others (in fact, most of them published after King's accident) feel rushed and weak.

[KiwiBird]

The books of bakker are the crusades with fanasty.
i rather like the plot twist at the end of book 3
also i like about the fact that anasurimbor is shown as the godlike hero, who to the people is not just some hero who defeats the baddies (aka Belgarion) he is godlike to them.

I can see why people turn away from he dark side (look i made a star wars reference), but the crusades where a lot like that.

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Funky Cthulu

I was really into the Dark Tower series up until the last 3 books. It was a massive disappointment - I would rather believe now that the last 3 just didn't exist, and I can then imagine my own ending. I also found Eyes of the Dragon incredibly juvenile. Maybe my disappointment is heightened by how high my expectations were, but I lost all patience when King started writing himself in as a character. A better author might have made it work, but I found it very pretentious and a pointless distraction to the plot.
/rant

It's been too long since I read Eyes of the Dragon, but it was written as if he intended it for a younger audience, which obviously wasn't the case. From the first few pages you got this children's book theme (in the narrative as well as the writing style), and although it does get a bit darker, especially when they lock (Peter?) in the tower, it doesn't seem to get any more... mature. As for the Dark Tower, I completely agree, and like I said, I thought it left a little to be desired and part of that came from King writing in his normal convention; which is to say that he sometimes seems to pull plot randomly from a hat on occasion, throwing in odd twists and turns that are beyond nonsensical for a particular book. I like King, so I don't want to make this seem like a cudgeling, this is purely my opinion of this and some of his other more eccentric works.

[Wiggum]

Wolves of the Calla was decent, I actually thought Song of Susanna was pretty f'ing brilliant, The Dark Tower made me want to rip my eyeballs out.

AN ERASER?!?

You've got to be kidding me.

[Boaz]

Thanks for the clarification FC.

All crusades should include some f'NASTY!

[Funky Cthulu]

Originally Posted by Wiggum

Wolves of the Calla was decent, I actually thought Song of Susanna was pretty f'ing brilliant, The Dark Tower made me want to rip my eyeballs out.

AN ERASER?!?

You've got to be kidding me.

Oh yeah...now I remember that bit. Thanks, Wiggum *dark look*
Did you or anyone else get the feeling we were supposed to recognise the tongue-less kid from somewhere? It felt like one of those off-hand references to a character from another of his books.
Heh heh..it does set the scene for bad jokes about the Crimson King being 'rubbed out', though. Guess he pissed off the Mafia, or something!

[Funky Cthulu]

Originally Posted by Commonmind

I like King, so I don't want to make this seem like a cudgeling, this is purely my opinion of this and some of his other more eccentric works.

I definitely like (a lot of) King's work, which is why my disappointment is so strong with some of his later works. IT? Classic. Night Shift? A favourite. Cujo, Pet Sematery and Needful Things? Some of the best in the genre, IMO, along with Salem's Lot. The Stand, Tommyknockers, The Shining and Firestarter were over-long, to my mind, but still well worth the time to read (and I admired the epic scale of The Stand, especially the descriptions of the spiralling chaos as human civilisation is destroyed by a virus). Green Mile, Dolores Claiborne and Rose Madder were a bit of departure from his usual visceral horror style, but still enjoyable and absorbing. I also liked his collaboration with Peter Straub on The Talisman and Black House, although I preferred thecomplex evil characters to his cardboard cutout Good Guys (tm). Gerald's Game, The Dead Zone and Thinner felt a bit clumsy to me, but I felt I could see where King was honing his technique and practicising with ideas, and later works showed improvement. They were still satisfyingly trashy and creepy, and hit a lot of the right horror nerves.

Then he started throwing out stuff like Bag of Bones, Desperation, Imsomnia and Dream Catcher (Not to mention From a Buick 8) - WTF?! Ugh, I hated them. Sentimental, weak and self-indulgent. King has had enough success that I imagine he can pretty much dictate terms to his publishers now, but this stuff was wandering all over the place - not to mention the blatant (if a little strange) Christian messages being pushed in Desperation and a need to link all the books and characters together in off-hand references to each other.
The reviews of Lisey's Story aren't encouraging thus far - do we need more cutesy characters with yet more in-joke slang and repressed memories? More alien parallel worlds? Has our world run out of the potential for horror, after 9/11? (I only say this because King is, well, fairly America-centric).
Curiosity may drive me to borrow it from my local library at some point, but I'm not holding out hope for more than an average, mildly gripping read. At best, I won't be actively hoping for his main female lead to die a horrible death. (King's female characters are a whole 'nother topic)

I probably should stop the novel-by-novel dissection before the mods ask me to take it to a proper King forum.
I'd be interested in your further thoughts, Commonmind and Boaz, if you have any further to add. Style-wise, I don't think King can hold a candle to GRRM, but I do feel he has something unique to offer, and his commercial success is well earned. The ability to write enduring popular novels is possibly under-rated by devotees of the 'Writing as High Art' school. Alas, I fear we may have already seen the last of the great horror novels (or even short stories) by King. And I'm not talking about anything he's published after 2000.

[Boaz]

FC, I've not read enough Stephen King to give him a fair shake. By this I mean I've not read enough of the horror... I just can't do it. I got thirty pages into Gerald's Game and had to stop. I admit I am the Samwell Tarly of reading or viewing horror. (I went with my friend to see 28 Days and I covered my eyes half the time.)

I have read Different Seasons, which was excellent. I enjoyed Eyes of the Dragon. I must say that I stayed up late to finish it... I was all alone in the house in the third story refurbished attic at 3 am reading the part where Flagg comes running up the stairs, holding the huge axe, and screaming, "Peter! I'm coming to chop your head off!" The parallels in Peter's location and mine almost scared me to death. The Green Mile was very though provoking about human actions, behaviors, and plans.

The only other, yet the best, of his works that I've read was Hearts in Atlantis. I confess I almost quit reading when the low men appeared. But as a tweener (I fit profiles and timeframes of both Baby Busters and Gen X'ers, yet I was raised solidly with the morals of the Baby Boomers), I found King's search for meaning, joy, love, forgiveness, and redemption to be quite engrossing. I sat on pins and needles while Bobby and his mother learned the hard lessons of life, while Ted waited, while Carol tried to grow into the woman she already thought she was, while Peter wasted his time, while Willie balanced redemption and ambition, while Sully tried to understand life, and all learned the necessity and dangers of dreaming of the future. For me, this book was not fantasy, horror, or sci-fi... it was almost about me, but it was shifted enough for me to be able to disspationately examine the actions and emotions of the characters and compare them to my life. I thought King did an extraordinary job of telling the stories.

As for style, I can only say that a few of his sentences and paragraphs went straight to my heart and mind. I cannot recall these at the moment, but Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Hearts in Atlantis all touched me. I find it strange that a writer most known for his horror (which I cannot read) has such a great way of expressing the value, the beauty, the tenderness, and the gift of life.

As an aside I must say that tranferring the written word to the silver screen is always fraught with danger. Stand By Me, adapted from The Body, was a tremendous movie, yet it focused more on the innocence than on the anger... the novellete (?) is almost a different story form the film.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption became the film The Shawshank Redemption. This to me is the extremely rare case where a film surpasses it's written origins.

The Green Mile on film is as good as the book(s).

But for me, Hearts in Atlantis failed completely on film. It was way too short. It needed to be multiple films, say the way Different Seasons has been done. I know Different Seasons was four novellas, but Hearts in Atlantis was almost like four related novellas. So, so much was left out even from the Bobby and Ted storyline that I was very disappointed.

[Commonmind]

Good input Boaz. And FC, your breakdown of King's work is a carbon copy of my own. I agree on all fronts. I can't say I've been pleased with King's later works, but to say I've been displeased would be a bit too demeaning. I liked almost all of his work for some reason or another, but as works of literature some of his later books just didn't stand on their own two feet (compared to his older novels).

As for how he stands against G.R.R. I would have to say that I've not read enough of Martin's work to make a fair assessment. There were times in King's career were there was a measure of brilliance in his writing, and I think saying Martin is superior would be unfair considering I've only got 3 martin books under my belt. I will say this, however, and maybe this is a hypocritical way to finish this paragraph, but I find Martin grabs me on a level no other author has. His work is masterful, his characters are three-dimensional, his world is believable, living and breathing, and his realistic approach to the story and his dedication to the craft is tremendous; i.e. killing off major players instead of the oft overused concept of the immortal good-guy.

I really only check back here once in a while. There are just too many topic titles that give information away and I don't want to be rude and ask people to stop posting topics with this type of information, but I hope you guys have some more input and I'll check back when I'm done with A Clash of Kings (soon in other words)