I’m only 40% through, and man it’s such an uncomfortable read at certain parts. His stories have some expected horror stuff, but the most scary horrors are the problems in ourselves.
Alcholism, bad temper, accidentally hurting the child and immediately regretting, regrets for bad life choices, uncertainty in the future, job insecurity…
It’s like many problems you read hits a bit personally because there’s everyone has a bit these problems. And the fear in the reading is not “oh shit a severed head” but it’s a really personal reflection “shit am I like that; will I be like that?”
@unhedged ya, a lot of people speculate (i think he also confirmed a bit), a lot of The Shining was him working out how he could see he was also being a destructive force on his family. I think the fact was picked up by Kubrick, but his rendition of that, King famously hated.
I’ve read several of King’s newer books and they seem to lack the oomph of his older stories. I wonder if his addiction-pickled brain writes better. Ya bad thought- maybe it’s not correlated to addiction but it’s age related.
@unhedged Alamak, it was auto-tagged on my end (as the creator of the thread). And lol, you’re basically saying conventional wisdom about his output tbh. The sober era one i like most is really his non-fiction On Writing.
Oh I’ll have to get to that. I have the audiobook, but I’ve been avoiding most of his self-narrated books because he’s not that good at reading haha. Not really bad at reading, just that his reading makes me sleepy. Which is very bad because my reading room is actually my car.
Which other fiction writers do you like? For now i’m in a rut of Stephen King and science fiction
@unhedged these days I’m in too much trying to catch up on nonfiction and longreads, so fiction dah lama not read anything current. That I even read King is a surprise because I’m a chicken with horror.
My choices quite common I think: Terry Pratchett for sure, but he’s really a guy whose worldview really became nuanced the longer he went on that it’s almost a crime to say start with the early books in discworld, but they’re good to set the stage and also to see how the world developed (it’s a very loose series so you can really dive in and out). The other one is CS Forester - he does the Horatio Hornblower books and it’s really the worldview of a white British man who came of age before the British empire ended so it can be very rah-rah. But in the 1930s he’s got a good gig writing for Hollywood so his novels really go very fast - the Crichton of his time lol. I want to get into contemporary science fiction but i get really impatient with what they think is important and what i think (lol) but that said, Ted Chiang and his short stories are sooooo berhantu - his high-concept stories always stick in my head.
On SF, you might like Arthur C Clarke’s short stories. His novels are quite great, but his short stories are where the gems are. Best example is “The Star”, which the full text is easily found online. This kind of goosebump-raising stories.
The guy that wrote The Martian had a new-ish book called Project Hail Mary. That is stupendously good. It’s a bit movie like in the pacing, humour and concepts (perfect for an adaptation), but the plot is fantastic, level of detail is well balanced, twist is AMAZING, character development is quite good. His other one about the moon not as good though.
Stephen King’s “The Shining”
I’m only 40% through, and man it’s such an uncomfortable read at certain parts. His stories have some expected horror stuff, but the most scary horrors are the problems in ourselves.
Alcholism, bad temper, accidentally hurting the child and immediately regretting, regrets for bad life choices, uncertainty in the future, job insecurity…
It’s like many problems you read hits a bit personally because there’s everyone has a bit these problems. And the fear in the reading is not “oh shit a severed head” but it’s a really personal reflection “shit am I like that; will I be like that?”
@unhedged ah yes, and famously written during his addiction years too - it feels so personal because it was :(
@imaginelizard
Damn, no wonder he can articulate these dark thoughts so well.
@unhedged ya, a lot of people speculate (i think he also confirmed a bit), a lot of The Shining was him working out how he could see he was also being a destructive force on his family. I think the fact was picked up by Kubrick, but his rendition of that, King famously hated.
@imaginelizard
Why are you tagging imaginelizard?
I’ve read several of King’s newer books and they seem to lack the oomph of his older stories. I wonder if his addiction-pickled brain writes better. Ya bad thought- maybe it’s not correlated to addiction but it’s age related.
@unhedged Alamak, it was auto-tagged on my end (as the creator of the thread). And lol, you’re basically saying conventional wisdom about his output tbh. The sober era one i like most is really his non-fiction On Writing.
Oh I’ll have to get to that. I have the audiobook, but I’ve been avoiding most of his self-narrated books because he’s not that good at reading haha. Not really bad at reading, just that his reading makes me sleepy. Which is very bad because my reading room is actually my car.
Which other fiction writers do you like? For now i’m in a rut of Stephen King and science fiction
@unhedged these days I’m in too much trying to catch up on nonfiction and longreads, so fiction dah lama not read anything current. That I even read King is a surprise because I’m a chicken with horror.
My choices quite common I think: Terry Pratchett for sure, but he’s really a guy whose worldview really became nuanced the longer he went on that it’s almost a crime to say start with the early books in discworld, but they’re good to set the stage and also to see how the world developed (it’s a very loose series so you can really dive in and out). The other one is CS Forester - he does the Horatio Hornblower books and it’s really the worldview of a white British man who came of age before the British empire ended so it can be very rah-rah. But in the 1930s he’s got a good gig writing for Hollywood so his novels really go very fast - the Crichton of his time lol. I want to get into contemporary science fiction but i get really impatient with what they think is important and what i think (lol) but that said, Ted Chiang and his short stories are sooooo berhantu - his high-concept stories always stick in my head.
Oh thanks for the recs!
On SF, you might like Arthur C Clarke’s short stories. His novels are quite great, but his short stories are where the gems are. Best example is “The Star”, which the full text is easily found online. This kind of goosebump-raising stories.
The guy that wrote The Martian had a new-ish book called Project Hail Mary. That is stupendously good. It’s a bit movie like in the pacing, humour and concepts (perfect for an adaptation), but the plot is fantastic, level of detail is well balanced, twist is AMAZING, character development is quite good. His other one about the moon not as good though.