Stephen King - The Catch All Thread

[RottingCorpse]

After "Cell" and "Under the Dome," I'm not sure why I'm excited about this new King novel. Maybe it's the whole JFK angle.

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

http://www.amazon.com/11-22-63-Stephen-King/dp/1451627289

Nacho can probably copy and paste a "King jumped the shark long ago" rant from any number of other threads.

[nacho]

Yeah. This didn't even hit my radar. Especially in the flurry of 1Q84 anticipation.

After Cell and Under the Dome, I find myself almost incapable of even giving this one a whisper of a chance. King really let me down...

[RottingCorpse]

But Alan Cheuse loved it!

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/01/141911595/book-review-11-22-63

[nacho]

Yeah, yeah...

[monkey!]

11/22/63....

I didn't know we have 22 months to a year. Are you using a different calendar?

[nacho]

I have co-workers who see the European style of dates and assume that the rest of the world is on an entirely different calendar. Seriously. With 28-31 months.

[monkey!]

Yeah, like that big event that happened on 9th November.

[RottingCorpse]

So.... did you know there's a new 'Dark Tower' novel out?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Wind-Through-Keyhole-Tower/dp/1451658907

I thought the series was done. Is this King trying to lay 'The Silmarillion' on us?

[RottingCorpse]

Our house-sitter gave me a copy of "Doctor Sleep," King's sequel to "The Shining" this AM. I can't put it down.

[RottingCorpse]

Wow. So I just finished reading a 500 page novel in one day. It's been years since I've done that.

"Doctor Sleep" is worth a read. It starts off like gangbusters. The first half of the novel is especially amazing. In the second half, King slips into some of his more maddening habits. (There's a hundred page section before the big climax that has a lot of filler in it. He also plants secrets for big reveals later that fizzle mostly from making too big a deal of themselves.

In the final analysis, it's a worthwhile yarn even if it is a less than worthy sequel to "The Shining." No matter what, the inevitable movie should be pretty good.

[monkey!]

I should really get around to reading The Shining.

Yes, I know... bla bla bla - fuck you.

[nacho]

Does that 100 page section feature a sentient Corgi obsessed with getting a cracker?

[RottingCorpse]

Nothing that bad. Though with some sleep behind me, the villains of "Doctor Sleep" are really sort of laughable.

[nacho]

We've all been following the strange tale of Emily Schultz, yes? Also the tale of how stupid the literary culture of America has become...


http://stephenkingmoney.tumblr.com/

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-writer-mistaken-for-stephen-king-20131010-story.html

Canadian writer Emily Schultz published her first novel, “Joyland,” in 2006 on ECW, a small press based in Toronto. A coming-of-age tale set in a video-game arcade, "Joyland" did not make bestseller lists or sell in large quantities. So Schultz was rather surprised when her publisher reported a surprising recent sales bump.

And it was all thanks to Stephen King.

[RottingCorpse]

And she's a St. Vincent fan!