What about the Tommyknockers has all of you hard for it?

[grendel]

I noticed it on a number of your 'Favorite King' lists. Why? Y'all have obviously read quite a bit of his stuff and yet that one pops up again and again.


This is not criticism of you all. I am a writer, and I am also a huge fan of King's. What I want to know from all of you is WHY the Tommyknockers worked for you, because it sure as hell didn't for me. What about the story made it cool?

[Blofeld]

I just like alien invasion stuff. There are definitely parts of the book that didn't work, and it's been a long time since I have read it (I'm on a slow re-read of all King's stuff, and doing it in publication order -- haven't come to Tommyknockers again yet) so I don't remember a lot of specifics.

I like the whole digging the ship from the forest, and the increasing "take over" stuff as the ship was uncovered.

I don't honestly remember the ending of this one. Just remember the general enjoyment of the read.

[grendel]

My favorite part of it was the oxidization of the ship's hull. What a cool fucking idea. The rest of it though, I felt harmed. I mean, you don't understand, King saw me through hard times, King and Tolkien and others. The Tommyknockers WAS hard times! I wanted to go 'A Boy and His Dog' on its ass!

[Blofeld]

I'll tell you about King ASS:

The Regulators
Dolores Claiborne
Gerald's Game
It (the last 100 pages or so)
Christine
Rose Madder

I need to go back an re-read Eyes of the Dragon -- I did not enjoy it first go around.

...and I'm about "this close" to putting Wizard and Glass on this list -- I thought that book was a huge paranthetical to The Dark Tower saga, and that no one is any closer to the Tower for the events in that book. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong -- maybe I missed some important themes here.

[DJEvil]

Whether or not they got closer to the Tower, it was still a helluva book. A western, King-style.

[grendel]

Rose Madder....ahh, Blofeld, curse your black and evil heart! I had forgotten that book!

Ah well, there you have it then, I must now die...


And you're right and I agree with you, IT was great up until the big fat WTF ending. Turtles? Your Mom? WHAT?!?!?

Liked Gerald's Game though. That's the only one that ends up creepier AFTER you find out what the dark shape in the doorway was.

Dolores Claiborne? Well written, but it could've been condensed into an article for 'Esquire', or 'Woman's Day'...

And I was not nearly as amused by 'The Regulators' as everyone else, either...

Oh, and Roadwork sucked. Maybe not at the time, but in MY generations, where we had already grown up seeing a thousand made-for-TV movies just like it...well, whatever...


Wizard and Glass. It's lyrical and violent, and as far as the approach to the Tower goes, it gets redeemed in the last ten pages.

And 'Insomnia' is a fucking treasure once you hit page two fifty or so...


Love you all, leaving work now and going home...sleep calls to me!

[Johnny Butane]

Strange, I thought 'Wizards and Glass' was one of the most emotional books I've ever read. When Roland's lady is being burned alive at the end, I cried. Sad stuff, man.

The Tommyknockers was a good book, not of the best, though, so I'm with ya grendel.

As far as the worst of his goes, I agree with all of them except 'IT'. I don't know if you had 'Needful Things' in there, but it should be.

[generalzod]

DOLORES CLAIBORNE was very good. KIng took a chance on the style. It was an excellent movie.
NEEDFUL THINGS was lame.

[grendel]

I like 'Needful Things', on kind of a base level. I like that I figured out it was a Dark Santa tale, totallty taking all of the elements of Christmas and our St.Nick myth and warping them, and that a couple of years later King confirmed that for me. It was only like the third of his that I read, so since it was all fresh and new it didn't harm me like it harmed others.