Enjoyed listening to Revival. Actually had a fairly satisfactory ending for once. Nice mix of the American dream meets HP Lovecraft. The narration is really good too.
Really glad to see you say that, I was worried it was only me on this forum keeping the faith as a King Constant Reader. Revival was one of his best latter day books, I thought.
I used to enjoy his books when I was a slightly oddish teenager, but now view his works as a bit "blurgh" and ignore each and every new book he publishes.
Actually pacing's an issue with the longer (and later) books for me. They drag things out to such an extent I lose interest, "the Tommyknockers" put me off his works for years. In fact I'm not sure I read another Stephen King after that.and his books have a nice pace.
I'm not sure exactly when he started to go awry, but he's definitely lost the magic he had in the early days. I love his older novels, and he crafted some truly incredible short stories, but I wouldn't bother picking up any of his newer stuff. Which is a shame, as his vintage stuff isn't just among the best horror/sf writing, it's damn good literature on any level.
I like to re-read "the Shining" when we vacation in Colorado. Fun shivers in cool weather.
I'd like to second guess both the author and Kubrick for this story. Kubrick was too abstract with the visual scary stuff. I wanted a bit more exposition about what was shown on the screen. But he was wise in what he excised from the book--the topiary was just dumb and the "suspense" about the boiler/furnace seemed just padding, since the real scary story was about hotel ghosts and the deterioration of a marriage.
The first time I read the book, my cousin had said "well, don't start reading it now. You won't be able to stop and by 4 AM you'll be right at the part aboutand you'll regret it."the lady in room 217
I said, (being about 14 at the time) "Bah! There's nothing in a book that can scare me that much!"
Later, at 4AM
me: Aaarrrgh!!!
Cousin: I told you so.
Did he stay up waiting for you to get to that part of the book? Or did your exclamation of shock wake him up?
I'm looking forward to watching the IT remake although the cynic inside me can't help feeling that the last couple of decade's socially manufactured (IMO) trending 'clownaphobia' or whatever the medical official term is has played a part in this success .. I haven't watched this film yet so it might just be good anyway on it's own non trending merits .. I enjoyed reading the book and the TV series film release wasn't bad (or great) so I'll wait and see. Everyone pretending they've always been afraid of clowns because everyone else pretends the same because it's become fashionable gets on my nerves in the same way that people like to claim that "I've got OCD!" just because they like to be organised.Stephen King saves the box office!
IT is the biggest opening horror movie of all time:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...rd-us-box-office-stephen-king-skarsgard-clown