"It's been in neutral for the last month or so,” he says via e-mail. "I have no clear sense that they know where they're going. My initial interest could be rekindled, but right now it's... er... getting lost."
Yeah, Steve, don't you hate when it's painfully obvious that a writer is just rambling and stretching things out and has no idea how to end a story? By the way, you wrote The Tommyknockers.
He'll always be the Stepfather to me. He could cure cancer, win an Oscar and learn how to fellate himself and he'd still be the Stepfather.
Posted by: michele at February 25, 2005 11:53 AMHow cool was it when he saved up the hair in his cell in Stepfather 2 to make himself that prison toupee?
Stephen King also wrote IT, Gerald's Game, Hearts in Atlantis, Bag of Bones, etc. All rambling, disjointed novels which reek of a superstar author publishers are afraid to edit. Pick any novel after PET SEMATARY, and I dare you to find one which wouldn't read better with 100+ extraneous pages cut.
Posted by: Kevin Parrott at February 25, 2005 12:23 PMStephen King: a Mavis Bacon typing course gone terrible, terribly awry.
Posted by: iowahawk at February 25, 2005 12:47 PMWith the exception of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Black House, I didn't like anything after Pet Sematary. I tried and put down nearly ever one of them. Dreamcatcher being the worst of the lot.
Posted by: michele at February 25, 2005 01:21 PMI'm a little surprised that nobody's mentioned any of the "Dark Tower" novels yet. Far from perfect, admittedly, but I thought "The Drawing of the Three" was one hell of a read.
Posted by: Jeff Harrell at February 25, 2005 01:47 PMHow can they avoid mentioning Terry O'Quinn's role as Peter in "Millennium"? He made me want to shave my own head.
PLUS he was the only person in Hollywood since William Powell that can carry off a pencil-thin mustache and look GREAT.
PLUS we're both 52!
Posted by: Beryl Gray at February 25, 2005 02:41 PMThe entire second half of the last Dark Tower book was on neutral, Steve!
Posted by: dzd at February 26, 2005 09:05 AM"Lost" sounds like "Twin Peaks" of the 21st century; rambling, disjointed, spooky and weird, and crashing under its inability to resolve a storyline to anyone's satisfaction.
Posted by: Bill Peschel at February 26, 2005 04:34 PMApparently he was so coked up during writing The Tommyknockers that he has no recollection of writing it.
Posted by: Sam at February 27, 2005 10:29 AMIndeed, the one thing that took away from Needful Things was King's desire to wedge these novella-sized biographies of the characters into the main story.
Posted by: Shawn at February 28, 2005 09:36 AMI really dug "Twin Peaks" too, at least in the beginning, but the comparison isn't really valid, other than each show is/was not a straightforward, resolve-the-conflict-each-week type of formula. In fact, I find that I enjoy "Lost" without having to compare it to any other TV shows- works just fine.
My favorite part was how Ashlee Simpson was exposed as a talentless turd on the first episode, and eaten at a big beach bonfire/barbecue celebration.
Posted by: Rob at February 28, 2005 01:23 PMplus, don't forget the Terry O'Quinn role in one of the best ice skating love stories EVER, The Cutting Edge.
Posted by: Sarah at March 3, 2005 08:33 AM"It's named for the number of feet between his eyebrows and hairline."
That is the funniest thing I have read this week.
Posted by: Easycure at March 4, 2005 12:17 PMOh Steve. Were you so far out of ideas that you had to write yourself into the storyline, and make yourself the indispensable nexus of a multiverse of worlds?
Yeah, I didn't mind the Dark Tower set, but only when Roland or Eddie was in the picture.
As for the ending...sheesh...if you could remember one thing, it would be to put the gun of Eld to King's head and finish the nonsense.
I've never seen the Stepfather movies. I have a policy of avoiding dysfunctional-family-with-serial-killers movies (not to mention the entire Lifetime Channel lineup) and I believe that has made me the happy woman I am today.
Speaking of Stephen King, I've never been able to make it through any of his novels. I skimmed Salem's Lot (skipping large chunks) once because my friend recommended it, but the weird homoeroticism drove me batty. The only thing I liked by him was his short story The Mist, and another short story about a drifter who becomes a murderer to please a ghost girl. But what I think I liked most about his short stories are 1) the format doesn't permit him to shoehorn in paragraphs and paragraphs about that alternative jazz/punk station in Bangor, his character's Vietnam memories/abusive childhood flashbacks/cutesy-sinister Maine oldster antics, or men declaring manfully how much they love each other and/or want to devour each others' souls, and 2) they are short.
As to Lost -- well, it's a bit too soon in the game to start writing off the show as having become another X-Files. We haven't even gotten to the aliens yet.
Oh, you didn't know about the aliens?
Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 6, 2005 08:08 PMAliens ?
I think Lost could go down the Twin Peaks route. I'll be really T.O. if the dancing Drawf showed up.
Posted by: Alien Grey at March 7, 2005 07:26 PMThe problem with LOST is that it is a SERIES.
This should have been a limited number of episodes with a clear story arc. There is too much soap opera padding. Eventually we need some answers about the hatch thing and the monster in the jungle...not more wacky Korean Couple Divorce Court, or beach blanket bingo with Shannon and Saheed.
Isn't Claire about 16 months pregnant by now? I know the birth will be the cliffhanger of the season, so prepare for horrified looks and gasps from the ad-hoc midwives.
BTW what the F**K happened to Smallville? Why is Lana Lang yelling Latin magic spells, firing lightning bolts from her hands and performing Wire-Fu fight moves in China fer cryin' out loud? And when the hell does Lex meet Otis Sprague?