Thread 24848659

Is Stephen King a good author?

>Grinch physiognomy
Tell this hack to pack it up to Whoville

Yes, his short stories rule. Night Shift and Skeleton Crew.

I liked Carrie and Salem's Lot.

>>24848659 (OP)
He's not a good author but he is an innovator. Stephen King was writing AI slop before there were personal computers.

>>24848659 (OP)
He's going to be remembered as the honorary genre writer to make it into the canon, as the man who basically invented modern genre fiction and somehow got his writing style adapted into every university creative writing class.

>>24848659 (OP)
No, and if you think he is then you're a simpleton.

>>24848662
kek

>>24848659 (OP)
he's the "writer's barely disguised fetish" meme, using horror.

>>24848659 (OP)
>The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
Does that answer your question?

>>24849105
Seems fine

He's great, I enjoy his fiction, whether he is overrated or not is up to you but I think he's earned his place as a writer.

>>24848710
yep

>>24848659 (OP)
I hate him because he copyrights good set ups or premise and then shits the bed, and you're legally not allowed to do a rewrite of it because it's still 50% similar.

I'm really enjoying The Stand. Am I a pleb?

>>24848659 (OP)
Sure, sometimes. Some of his book are good, some are bad and some are absolute slop.

If one defines an "author" as a professional writer, that is, one whose goal is to achieve fame and wealth by the craft of writing, then yes, he is a very successful author.

If you mean "good author"in the sense that his books are of good quality, then no. King is a hack. Though I suppose his editors share some of the blame, after all an author is seldom ever solely responsible for the final product. King's responsibility in that regard is to produce a manuscript, and it is the editor's job to make it into something appropriate for the market. If King's books are bloated and tedious in their final version he gets 50% of the blame for that.

>>24848659 (OP)
>is
nope
>>24848450

Good? No.

>>24849105
>Speech destroys the functions of love, I think—that’s a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. The word is the harm. Love isn’t what these asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words, can close those lovebites. It’s the other way around, that’s the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. I’ve made my life from the words, and I know that is so.
This is a better example. He can be pretty good at times. He's actually underrated by literary types.

>>24848659 (OP)
Hit-or-miss, really. Some things he does exceptionally well and some things he doesn't; some of his works are great, some not so much.

He's at his best with short stories, novellas and shorter novels, hands-down.

I really hate him, and I'm a retard, so it's not like it's because I consider him too low brow, or something, even though I do.

I.liked that one mystery book where they're trying to identify a dead body.. I can't remember the title.. The Cincinnati Kid? No that's a Steve McQueen movie..

>>24852008
It reminded me of that suspected spy they found on the beach in Australia.. The Somerton Man. Maybe I'm just not into supernatural horror.

>>24848659 (OP)
No. His writing itself is pretty bad and is saved only by his talent for plots and characters. There's a reason why so many of his works have been adapted to film. Unfortunately, while he knows how to begin stories, he has absolutely no idea how to end them and I can't think of a single King book that didn't disappoint me with the ending.

>>24852026
Revival has the goofy ending but the whole novel is setting itself up for it so it worked. 'salem's Lot had a good ending too. That's about all though. Cell didn't end too badly, not great though.

>>24848659 (OP)
Most of his adaptations are vastly superior to the original books

>>24848659 (OP)
Yeah. He has a very distinct style and voice. Excellent sense for characters, settings, scenes. It's not an accident a lot of his stuff has been made into movies, he has a lot of highly memorable scenes and images, with a distinctly unique "feel" to them. He also has a great talent for causing unease, for conveying the sense that something is off.
A lot of people like to look down on him for writing genre fiction, but I suspect those people might be giving more credence to the idea of belonging to a group of literary elites than to enjoying literature itself. Or maybe I'm wrong, but there's no way to know. Not like any of you dumbasses will ever convince me.
In any case, yeah, good writer. Definitely taps into some sort of collective unconscious.

>>24850173
>If King's books are bloated and tedious in their final version he gets 50% of the blame for that.
I'm not scared by thunk factor. 1200+ pages. I mean I was reading Michener and he always seems to break 1100 ages. (Space, anyone?) so King was fine in that regard.
WHat I liked about King, was that he was just different. He has a purposeful meandering. Pace goes up and down, not following the standard "ramp" formula. You never know when things will slow down or speed up. he turns on and off what i call his "ultra detail" description. I mean, he's just something different from all the others back then, is what it was. And yeah, I liked some of his more than others. (I read a lot of them)

>>24852885
>He also has a great talent for causing unease, for conveying the sense that something is off.
Yes. Reading most King is like watching a movie and you hear this little "tink tink... tink tink..." in the soundtrack. The hell is that? Its tension and you don't know where its coming from. He's awesome at that. In a regular length regula rauthor paperbacjk? I about know. "Okay, gonna start ramping up now, last 75 pages will be the big thing, maybe a "coda" come down at the end."
Not King. And somehow he can do "blood dripping from the walls" without it being just a splatter-fest cheap thrill.
>
PS - named my cat (RIP) "Takky". Now you must understand that I dont spell shit like an idiot. EVeryone wondered why I deliberately misspelled "Tacky". I would just smile and say..."Tak a wah! Tak a wan! iI Tak, al wan... Tak is god!"
...and, everyone would smile and nod and leave me alone which is what I wanted in the first place.neighbor asked what I was doing working on y house all the time (evil voice) "Making? And Building!"
(these references are all from Desperation)

>>24854450
>(these references are all from Desperation)
that's really good and that's a really great book you sound really fun!

>>24848659 (OP)
>is
Was. Mr Mercedes and everything after it was shit.

The tail end of the Dark Tower, too.

Salem and It were glories.

He's going senile or being ghostwritten by a leaking faggot.

I've read all his books, most twice and some more then 20 times (the stand). AMA

His books do not hold up well

>>24848659 (OP)
Yeah

I know a girl who got a huge back tattoo based on the Dark Tower series. I've always hated him for some reason, but the only thing I've ever actually read of his was IT when I was like 10 years old.

>>24848659 (OP)
People have said that he's terrible at the genre he's usually most obsessed with writing and I agree. His issue is that his prose, characters, and world building are artless and sloppy because he lazily leans on dank, miserable caricatures of mid-era Americana populated by cardboard cut outs and plot devices.

Whenever he can't do that and actually spools up things to try and actually be articulate, have some poetry in what he writes, and has to think long and hard ahead of time about the world of his work and can't just keep the plot trundling along with little drama episodes as filler drawing from that faux-realism he's known for, he's a lot stronger.

>>24856803
>always hated his
>for some reason
His cameos, Stan Leeing en scene like some extra. His grin spoils it.

>>24857380
He's such an ugly fucking creepy ass looking weirdo. Monkey faced bitch.
https://youtu.be/IniwjSfs4fs

>>24852674
The Long Walk, Misery, and The Shining all have good endings as well.

>>24848659 (OP)
He's better at short stories imo.

>>24857412
Which collections would you consider his best?

>>24848659 (OP)
A good author wouldnt recycle so many of his own stories. I can probably talk shit about Stephen King all day, but the worst thing about him is that he's really only written 5 or 6 stories total, but he's rewritten those stories 12 or 14 times each.

>>24857400
lol madman trying to use all eight lanes

>>24857420
Can you give some examples? I only know of The Institute which is basically a worse Firestarter, but other than that I can't think of others.

>>24857419
His earlier ones for sure, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew, Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

So far I have only read two Stephen King books: The Shining and Pet Sematary. I found The Shining was well-written and that it excelled at what it was trying to be: A thriller. A book doesn't have to be high culture classical lit or aim for that in order for it to be good. I read a lot of classical lit but get tired of that sometimes and just want to read something simple to refresh myself and The Shining was perfect for that. It was a thoroughly fun but shallow book.

Pet Sematary though, oh my gosh: SO OVERRATED. I genuinely can't believe that book is popping up on "best horror novels of all time" lists. It made me weary of ever reading anything by him again. Pet Sematary was an overly long build-up for moments of terror that are not really that big of a deal. That book made me weary of ever reading Stephen King again.

>>24858714
I completely agree with you on both The Shining and Pet Sematary. If you want another great novel by him, go for Misery.