What books are you reading now?

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Maxus
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Post by Maxus »

I broke down and decided to read a Stephen King book, and went for It.

I have had three different Who's On First exchanges trying to talk about this.

I'm 700 pages in out of more than a thousand, and so far I'm digging it. I'm not scared of the clown, or any of its other incarnations. Hell, I kinda dig that there's something of an identifiable person there, and it's not all-powerful or infallible. It makes mistakes and errors in judgment and people get away or drive it back because of it.

The parts with the childhood bully bother me way worse than Pennywise does, if it comes down it. Hits closer to home, and it's right that bullies don't back down when they're stood up to, instead they go crazy.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by Ancient History »

Oh man, you had to pick that book. Jesus. That's the one where Stephen King's editor completely lost the battle and the war. I mean...well, you're not there yet.
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Post by Leress »

Ancient History wrote:Oh man, you had to pick that book. Jesus. That's the one where Stephen King's editor completely lost the battle and the war. I mean...well, you're not there yet.
I agree with this.
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Just a heads up... Your post is pregnant... When you miss that many periods it's just a given.
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus »

Ancient History wrote:Oh man, you had to pick that book. Jesus. That's the one where Stephen King's editor completely lost the battle and the war. I mean...well, you're not there yet.
I'm aware of what you're talking about, I think I saw someone having an 'oh christ' moment about it.

But the book was cheap and, c'mon, evil-clown.

I'll let you know down the road if I had to grab a garbage can to hurl into.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I didn't even make it all the way through to "that scene". I plodded through about 75% of the book as a sunk cost fallacy thing, before I decided I didn't even really care about how it ended.
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Post by Shrapnel »

You're talking about the scene where
the kids are lost in the sewers after defeating the clown the first time, and so they all fuck... Beverly, I wanna say? And then after that they are somehow able to find their way home.
right?

I mean, I'm a humongous King fan, but I won't even try to defend that.
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Post by MisterDee »

Honestly, while that particular scene is squicky beyond belief, my pet peeve with It is
the whole Turtle cosmic horror clusterfuck. It really drew me out of the personnal horror/triumph over past trauma theme straight into OMGWTFBBQ befuddlement.
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Post by erik »

I don't remember that in the tv movie, presumably thanks to sane tv editors. Thank goodness for small favors, I only made it a hundred or two pages when borrowing it off a hotel nightstand one evening as an impulse read.
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Post by Ancient History »

Shrapnel wrote:You're talking about the scene where
the kids are lost in the sewers after defeating the clown the first time, and so they all fuck... Beverly, I wanna say? And then after that they are somehow able to find their way home.
right?

I mean, I'm a humongous King fan, but I won't even try to defend that.
Yeah. They edited that out of the film, for obvious reasons.
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Post by Shrapnel »

See, I think It could've been one of his best works... if that scene didn't exist. I don't even know why it's in there; it's totally unnecessary and detracts from the narrative flow.
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus »

Well.

THAT was gratuitous.

And the ending dragged on for too long.

Had some sweet bits, especially the Ritual.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by phlapjackage »

I really liked King when I was younger. But now, whenever I pick up one of his books, it seems really meh. Like, I heard all kinds of praise for 11/22/63, but after finally reading it, I didn't think it was particularly good. And let's not talk about Under the Dome...

And King really makes me uncomfortable with his black characters. Maybe I'm being sensitive or have white-guilt or whatever, but it seems there's always a black character in his books that talks like a terrible slavery-era caricature of a black person, with plenty of n-bombs thrown in for good measure. Cringe-worthy.
Koumei: and if I wanted that, I'd take some mescaline and run into the park after watching a documentary about wasps.
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Post by Nebuchadnezzar »

I've only ever read a couple of short stories by S. King. Having seen a few adaptations, he's never struck me as an author I'd be into. I'm currently laid up from recent surgery, and painkillers are rendering me willing to give him a shot. What one-and-done book might be a good choice for this?
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Post by Maxus »

phlapjackage wrote:
And King really makes me uncomfortable with his black characters. Maybe I'm being sensitive or have white-guilt or whatever, but it seems there's always a black character in his books that talks like a terrible slavery-era caricature of a black person, with plenty of n-bombs thrown in for good measure. Cringe-worthy.
As someone who works with a lot of black people, I can verify that this isn't uncommon, at least in my corner of the South. Well, not the talks like a caricature. But the n-bombs? Spot on.
Last edited by Maxus on Wed Apr 06, 2016 4:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by phlapjackage »

Maxus wrote: As someone who works with a lot of black people, I can verify that this isn't uncommon, at least in my corner of the South. Well, not the talks like a caricature. But the n-bombs? Spot on.
Yeah, I'm from the south also (and I have black friends!) so I know about that too...it wasn't so much that there were n-bombs, but how they were used...seemed, i dunno, unrealistic and gratuitous to me (shock value, I guess). I might post a few examples later if I can be arsed about it...
Koumei: and if I wanted that, I'd take some mescaline and run into the park after watching a documentary about wasps.
PhoneLobster: DM : Mr Monkey doesn't like it. Eldritch : Mr Monkey can do what he is god damn told.
MGuy: The point is to normalize 'my' point of view. How the fuck do you think civil rights occurred? You think things got this way because people sat down and fucking waited for public opinion to change?
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Post by erik »

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:I've only ever read a couple of short stories by S. King. Having seen a few adaptations, he's never struck me as an author I'd be into. I'm currently laid up from recent surgery, and painkillers are rendering me willing to give him a shot. What one-and-done book might be a good choice for this?
The Stand is a good un.
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Post by fbmf »

erik wrote:
Nebuchadnezzar wrote:I've only ever read a couple of short stories by S. King. Having seen a few adaptations, he's never struck me as an author I'd be into. I'm currently laid up from recent surgery, and painkillers are rendering me willing to give him a shot. What one-and-done book might be a good choice for this?
The Stand is a good un.
...but a long one. If you're looking to edge into this slowly, grab a collection of short stories or the novel from a decade or so about the girl lost in the woods.

Game On,
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Post by Shrapnel »

fbmf wrote:
erik wrote:
Nebuchadnezzar wrote:I've only ever read a couple of short stories by S. King. Having seen a few adaptations, he's never struck me as an author I'd be into. I'm currently laid up from recent surgery, and painkillers are rendering me willing to give him a shot. What one-and-done book might be a good choice for this?
The Stand is a good un.
...but a long one. If you're looking to edge into this slowly, grab a collection of short stories or the novel from a decade or so about the girl lost in the woods.

Game On,
fbmf
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, right? I would highly recommend it. Did you know they adapted it into a children's pop-up book?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Stand. It's not the length that gets me, it's the fact that Molly Ringwald ruined it for me.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Wed Apr 06, 2016 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by RobbyPants »

Shrapnel wrote:You're talking about the scene where
the kids are lost in the sewers after defeating the clown the first time, and so they all fuck... Beverly, I wanna say? And then after that they are somehow able to find their way home.
right?

I mean, I'm a humongous King fan, but I won't even try to defend that.
Cracked mentioned that scene about a week ago. I remember being utterly confused when I got to it.

MisterDee wrote:Honestly, while that particular scene is squicky beyond belief, my pet peeve with It is
the whole Turtle cosmic horror clusterfuck. It really drew me out of the personnal horror/triumph over past trauma theme straight into OMGWTFBBQ befuddlement.
Yeah, I felt anything that had to do with that was unnecessary and weird. I liked how the movie handled it, better. I'd rather just see that the person is catatonic rather than knowing what's going on inside their crazy head.



I think my favorite part of the book that didn't make it into the movies was the stuff regarding Patrick Hockstetter. A loosely based a D&D villain off of him.
The idea is that he was a sociopathic kid who had this delusion that he was the only thing (or at least person) who existed. He didn't really care what he did to anyone, because he figured it didn't matter. Oddly enough, he had an understanding for rules and consequences, so he knew not to get caught. Still, I'm not sure why he was concerned with rules and consequences from people who weren't real. He ends up smothering his baby brother because he fears that he might also be real, and this disturbed him.
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Post by Meikle641 »

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:I've only ever read a couple of short stories by S. King. Having seen a few adaptations, he's never struck me as an author I'd be into. I'm currently laid up from recent surgery, and painkillers are rendering me willing to give him a shot. What one-and-done book might be a good choice for this?
The Stand
The Gunslinger (revised edition), but I recommend the series (Wizards and Glass and the ending of the series suck, though. When King warns you to stop reading in book 7, please listen.)
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I recommend not bothering.

Seriously, Stephen King is probably the most overrated author of all time.
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Post by Longes »

Rule 34 is real, you guys.

Image
Tired of crooked politicians and broken promises, Lorp is perfectly fine with not even voting during this presidential election cycle. They’re all the same, anyway, aren’t they? But when Lorp’s roommate introduces him to the hot, handsome democratic socialist Bernie Sambers, Lorp immediately starts to change his tune. Soon enough, they are at a Bernie rally supporting the sexiest candidate in the game. However, things start getting fishy once wilderness creatures begin showing up at the event. How is Bernie so perfect, anyway? Could some sort of magic be involved? Lorp finds his answers soon enough in a political anal reaming that will have your jaw on the floor! This erotic tale is 4,000 words of sizzling human on unicorn presidential candidate action, including anal, blowjobs, rough sex, and gay democratic socialist love.
Image
Last edited by Longes on Wed Apr 13, 2016 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Stahlseele »

Found in the "How to get bestiality by Amazon" category.
There's all sorts of strange stuff like that out there.
Millionaire Bear Boss.
Dinosaur Pornfiction.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

Chuck Tingle has to be some kind of parody writer, right? He wrote Fucked in the Butt By My Butt and the sequel: Fucked in the Butt By "Fucked in the Butt By My Butt".
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Post by Maj »

My favorite title is "Living Inside My Own Butt For Eight Years, Starting A Business And Turning A Profit Through Common Sense Reinvestment And Strategic Targeted Marketing".
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