Is this the end? Posted earlier on threads.

I am going as Carrie this year and next year i'm gonna do a "Little Orphan Annie Wilkes" idea...anyone do any King inspired costumes

The Milwaukee Brewers just won the pennant.

The last two nights have been euphoric, and reading Black House referencing all its basement dwelling Brewers teams recently...

This is an amazing feeling.

Wisconsin, eat your heart out.

That’s pretty much it. The Carrie Miniseries was so well done.

I found this magazine on Archive.org, and it made for interesting reading. The issue features an extensive interview, the short story "The Fifth Quarter", and articles about the directing of the film Maximum Overdrive and collecting Stephen King books. Full Magazine.

About to finish The Stand and it was absolutely awesome. It’s my first time reading king and I want to read more like it. I searched this forum and didn’t see this question asked after a quick search.

I’m ready to order more king books that will keep me hooked like the Stand. Any suggestions on what I should buy next? I’m ready to dive head first into his books. Thank you!

My wife and I just randomly decided to watch Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, and I turned to her and said “the girl that plays Bev Keane would make a great Margaret White.

And lo and behold, who did they cast in that role? A+ casting decision

Oooo boy-howdy does that make me happy. I hate how long we're going to have to wait for this 💀.

Hey fellow fans of the King (writer type, not crimson type),

I just finished the Talisman today, (as a Tower fan, I am both ashamed it took me this long and elated because the book was excellent). One thing for me though, I couldn't picture anyone other than Walton Goggins' portrayal of Baby Billy Freeman in every description of Sunshine Gardener. I also kept picturing DelFino from the Big Lebowski as Sloat. (Pics for context). 😁

Am I crazy or can anyone else relate here?

Edit: Misspelled Gardener, can't change the title misspelling, but thank you to the person that pointed that out. 🙏

I’m reading The Shining for the first time and just finished reading the ballroom clock scene. A question mostly for people who were around when The Shining first came out - was REDRUM being MURDER spelled backwards a big surprise or sort of spoiler, or meant to be one? By now it’s so ingrained in popular culture that I think everyone has heard of it and knows what it means but I wonder if anyone was ever surprised or shocked by that revelation. Was that word ever used before The Shining?

I don't know if this has been shared yet in this sub, but the title cards progressively go from white to red by the final episode.

Now available for Android & iPhone

Added the ability to rate the books you've read.

Still 100% free.

Spoilers

I am on a Stephen King binge and read Cujo right after Pet Sematary. Overall I liked it. I was not anticipating the last two pages being that emotional for me but it definitely got me in my heart. The added almost offhand reminder that Cujo was as much a victim as the family and he really did want to be a good dog. I thought that really drove the book home and made it a worthy read, just for that emotional homecoming.

I didn’t love how directionless the first 50% of the book was though. It was a chore to read through a good chunk of the book. I know people say his books tend to be a lot of world building but it seemed like he didn’t know where he was going with it until he FINALLY had Donna and Tad go to the mechanic. I also just didn’t care much about a couple characters’ perspectives, such as the mailman and Charity. At no point was I hoping it would switch from Donna’s perspective and tell me more about Charity’s rich sister.

For the first half of the book I was wondering if I had been duped and the book was actually about an advertising agency. I had no interest in the Sharp Cereal plot line and it seemed like nothing essential came of it other than filling pages and keeping Vic occupied.

I did enjoy the infidelity dynamic though, and felt that added dimension to the characters. Overall, I do think it was a worthwhile read and enjoyed the book, I just felt it really dragged and lacked direction at several parts.

I'm attempting to read everything I can, going in release order. I'm sure plenty of others do this, but I still want to discuss my feelings as I go through it so feel free to come along with me.

As far as I can tell, I begin way back in 1959 when King is a little kid writing short stories for his older brother's fanzine called 'Dave's Rag'. A few seem to be lost media but I did get to read 'Jumper' and 'Rush Call' as well as most of his early short story collection called 'People, Places and Things'.

A few years later, he's publishing stories in his high school paper, 'The Drum'. I read two of those stories; 'Codename: Mousetrap' and 'The 43rd Dream' although the mousetrap one I only found a partial version. Around this time we also have 'I Was A Teenaged Grave Robber' which was his first non-self published work. It appeared in some fanzines but he wasn't paid for it.

In 1967 his first professional story is published, 'The Glass Floor' in a pulp magazine called 'Startling Mystery Stories'. That's a good stopping place for now, so what did I think of these early, uncollected stories?

Most of these are short. Like 1-2 pages short, with very little substance. They are heavily inspired by EC Comics, 50's sci-fi movies, and Edgar Allen Poe stories. Interestingly, there is a generic criminal character named Kelso Black that appears in multiple stories, making it technically King's first recurring character. He dies at the end of both stories though, so I wouldn't exactly call it more than just a young writer re-using a name he liked.

The best of the bunch is unsurprisingly 'The Glass Floor', the one that actually got him paid. It's a cute little story about a cursed room with a mirror for a floor and it has some interesting prose work at the very least. All of these are pretty derivative and juvenile, but you can tell he's getting better as he goes along. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do this, watching the progression of King as a writer is a really cool experience.

There are other stories from this era that I know of but couldn't find. I would appreciate confirmation that they are not readily available:

Land of 1,000,000 Years Ago
Thirty-One of the Classics
I'm Falling
Dimension Warp
The Undead
Trigger Finger
The Star Invaders
As well as the full version of Codename: Mousetrap

Anyway, that's all I've got to say about these early stories. Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts on them?

I had to wait until today. But I made a reservation at a hotel at the clean sea once I read the excerpt.
And now… finally, the journey can begin.