You read my mind. IT was exactly the book I was thinking about. I invested all that reading time only to find out it’s just a big <spoiler omitted>. I thoroughly enjoyed Bag of Bones for its depiction of the psychological despair of a newly bereaved author suffering writer’s block but then SK had to go ruin it by including a couple of ghosts throwing furniture at each other!
Cheers,
Hodge
Hodge – I had a different take on the (spoiler omitted) in It. I didn’t think it was a great big (spoiler omitted), but rather something rather Lovecraftian that the kids perceived as a great big (spoiler omitted) because their minds couldn’t conceive of what It really was.
And that wasn’t a big (spoiler omitted) that came out of the sky at the end of The Stand either, but sort of the same thing as the It in It. It just looked that way.
Read them that way, and the endings are much better. IMHO.
I haven’t devised anything to help with Bag of Bones though. You’re on your own with that one. 
It’s time King stopped writing about writer’s block anyway. Some block. Humphf.
I’ve loved horror since I was old enough to read. I love the feeling of being frightened, but movies can’t do it anymore… so I’ve turned to books, and the dark recesses of my imagination…
Okay, I have to mention this because I’ve never heard anyone else mention it, but maybe in this intelligent group of people someone else feels the same way. I LOVE Stephen King. I’ve been reading him since I was 8 and didn’t even understand everything. I re-read a lot in high school when I did understand everything. I think he’s funny! There are so many references between books that aren’t even related, and the visuals he creates are sometimes funny even while graphic. Everyone I talk to is so spooked by his writing that they don’t get the jokes! Can someone help me here? I can’t possibly be alone in this…
Hmmmmm…intriguing. I haven’t read IT in years, but I think that could work.
On the other hand, I think you’re pushing it in this case.
LOL!
Cheers,
Hodge
August Derleth is a cheap hack who nearly destroyed my love for Lovecraft.
If I weren’t so tired, I’d go put together a rant to put in the Pit about why Derleth sucks the slime off of Cthulhu…
khitkat:
Yes, SK is funny. example: Dolores claiborne, where he talks about a woman having a shit savings account. The shining; Winnie the poe. On writing: having a 300-pound babysitter fart in my face prepared me to deal with book critics.
king understands the value of balancing the humor with a little comic relief.
Zoggie: looking forward to it. Dolores claiborne: come on over to my “favorite king character” thread, in IMHO forum. All SK fans are invited, actually…
About bag of bones: at the climax of the book, reference is made to an outsider, which makes the opoonent that much stronger. very lovecraftian. y’all are right about it not being a normal creature, but a cosmic entity so alien and outre that they tanslated into a shape they could deal with. tak seems fairly HPL-influenced, too. Not quite sure about the climax to The stand, though. Where’s pepperlandgirl when you need her?
BTW, did y’all hear that the guy who hit King died? maybe it was divine retribution? 
–Roland, Roland, seeks the Tower, Roland, keeps the plotline rolling along! (to Rawhide)
I got into horror as a teenager via SK. I was babysitting and reading “Salems Lot,” and I had to turn on all the lights in the living room. Nothing has ever scared me like that. I still think SK’s best “true horror” stuff was earlier in his career.
It’s Stephen.
You know, about 30 seconds after I typed that, I realized that I had spelled his name wrong! :o
I liked horror when I was 7 years old.
However, I wasn’t old enough to read Stephen King (who, at the time, was a fairly recent phenomenon). So I read supposedly true ghost stories.
When I was ten, a buddy of mine told me how much he liked King. So I checked out Christine from the Library. My mother lectured me about how, while she would never censor the books I read, she really didn’t think I should read King.
What better reason than parental disapproval is there to read Stephen King. After that, I soon read all of his published novels, and have read all of them ever since (excluding the Dark Tower series, which I can’t seem to get into). I also starting reading Clive Barker (who I think is better than Stephen King), Ramsey Campbell, and the like. Though I now enjoy a much more intellectual style of fiction, I still sneak in several Horror novels.
Ah see my parents never forbade me to read anything. Which is why I probably never read “real” horror as a seven year old. Though I do have 3 short volumes of these scary stories that are kind of creepy (weird pics), but not horribly frightening. I did read R.L. Stine as a child but i think that was more b/c “everyone” was doing it and less of my appreciation w/ horror. I don’t really consider the stuff I read back then as my intro to horror, though maybe it was.
With IT, its not the <spoiler omitted> that I didn’t like, it was just SO much gore after awhile it got overkill. I just like psychological stuff so much more. Like I really was into the individual characterizations of the seven kids. And I really wanna reread IT again, i have the “urge.”
Stuff like Christine and The Shining got to me b/c of the characters and how I felt i could relate to them. I remember that Apt Pupil scared me- well…creeped me out, more you could say. Pet Sem- that was scary because it was so dark, and Cujo had great suspense and characters, plot, the works…contrasts, family life, wonderful coincidences.
Sigh. Next time i won’t dominate my posts w/ SK’s novels. I’ll try to reference a few other writers…
This is a perfect segue to the review you promised after you finished McCammon’s “Stinger”. Well? What did you think? Wouldn’t it make a perfect drive-in teen date movie?
Damnit, didn’t you get my message? I thought i posted it…I never finished it. 
I’m sorry, it just wasn’t for me. i’m not much of a sci fi gal, i’m afraid, Auntie Pam…
Zoggie! That’s okay, although I wouldn’t put it in the SF category. Are you going to try any more of McCammon’s books? Or did this one put you off him?
I don’t know. Perhaps. I was thinking of reading Swan Song a while ago, and I thought Stinger appeared to be written pretty well, even though I don’t really care much for aliens. Maybe I’ll give him another whirl. After I finish the six books I’m currently on now…
Christine Thats the one that started me. I also watched Creature Feature, TZ, Night Gallery, Outer Limits and this odd monstor movie show on saturday with this guy dressed in a sort vampire get up. Stephen Kings books are easily my favorite of the genre. Especially the Castle Rock sort-of-connected ones.
Speaking of King, is anyone reading the Dark Tower series, I really wish he’d get off his ass and get back to Roland and company.
I’ve noticed lately that some of Dean Koontz’ books have started to improve. Try Tick Tock and another one who’s title I can’t remember but involves a plane crash.
Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scared the shit out of me when I was a kid (Dreamed about carosel horses for a month afterwards…)
Twilite Zone, The Dark Side…
When I was in juni0or high, I got into comics. Some of the titles I read were horror like House Of Secrets.
Finally, When I was in high school, my mom practically forced me to read SK’s Christine, Dean Koontz’s Watchers, and Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire.
Overall, I wound up sticking with SK, with an occasional forey into Koontz and Clive Barker.
Oh I LOVED Christine. Absolutely adored it. (Have i mentioned this on other threads? I hope so.) It was my fourth book by SK and my fave w/ Shining and Pet Sem…It just rocked. Seriously. I’m glad you guys appreciate it. In an intro he said it wasn’t received as well as hoped but personally I think its one of his best.
Speaking of horror, I’m finishing Richard Mathesons I Am Legend. I’ve read I Am Legend and am reading the rest of the short stories. Its really good. The first one was a great vampire story and there are others too. The Dance of the Dead was one of the strangest, most bizarre stories i’ve ever read. So far in that book its my fave, though I liked Prey, too. Anyone else read it?
My grandfather had a stock of stories he would tell me when I was around four or five. One of them he called Dracula, though it was about a young couple on their honeymoon who end up staying a night in Dracula’s castle. It was years before I realized this bore absolutely no relation to Stoker’s story, and I should probably ask Pop where he got his version. I asked to hear this story again and again, but I can’t really say why. We also read a picture book of Cinderella together, and I think I might have liked the idea of Dracula’s castle.
In elementary school, my music teacher once played a video to celebrate Halloween. It was a cartoon set to Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, full of dancing skeletons and cemeteries. It was absolutely mind-blowing. Alas, it was only shown once, since I would imagine some parent complainging their seven year old had been traumatized by some black cats. Has anyone else ever seen anything like this?
Later, I began reading horror fiction, starting with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and progressing to Fear Street, Stephen King, Lovecraft, Koontz, Brite, etc.
Started off watching horror movies when I was five. I would watch the “Creature Feature” program late Fri/Sat nights on the local ABC affiliate, and it progressed from there.Can’t believe my mom let me, but it doesn’t seem to have done me any damage. If anything, it made my taste in horror movies a bit more, um, cultured. Early exposure desensitized me to the gore element, so that by the time I got into my teens, a horror movie actually had to be first and foremost a good movie in order for me to consider it worth watching.
Read The Amityville Horror in a single night when I was in the eighth grade. After that, my appetite for horror fiction was nearly insatiable for about a decade and a half. Kind of stopped reading SK for a while after The Tommyknockers, when his word processor went into overdrive. Really enjoyed the work he did as Richard Bachman, though.