I was reading “the Drawing of the Three” (Dark Tower 2) and the name “Flagg” came up. In that book he was a demon who was pretending to be human who appeared when the world was beginning to “move on.”
The name is familiar, but i can’t place it. Was Flagg the demon/sorcerer/bad guy in the Stand? I haven’t read the book in years and don’t remember.
If he was, does that mean that the Dark Tower series of books takes place in a post-Stand earth? 
I haven’t read the “Tower” series, but Flagg was definitely the Prince of Evil/bad guy in the Stand.
Thanks!
I knew that i read that name somewhere else!So The dark tower books is <almost> like a sequel to The Stand. Sorta shows what happenned to the earth after…the stuff in The Stand (don’t want to spoil it for anybody 
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Randall Flagg, aka the walking dude was indeed the bad guy in The Stand. Stephen King likes to use already established characters at times, like in Needful Things, the sheriff, Alan Pangborn was also in The Dark Half and Ace Merrill was in the short story The Body, Fall of Innocence(Or was it Fall from Innocence? I forget, at the moment, but it was the story that the movie “Stand By Me” was based upon.).
What I got from The Drawing Of The Three was not that it was in a post-Stand earth, but in a parellel place similar but not Earth. (Insomnia also has a tiny bit of the good guy in The Darktower series…and Insomnia sorta explains that all is not what it appears. I thought it was a pretty good book and lead me to that series.)
Flagg, no first name, was also the name of the bady guy in King’s The Eyes of the Dragon. Does anyone know why he seems to use the same or very similar names for bad guys in some of his books?
i know Eyes of the Dragon supposedly is in the same world as the dark tower series.
Maybe this Flagg guy whooped him when they were kids. 
There is a theory as to why King tends to use characters in more than one book. All of King’s worlds are supposedly linked. The Dark Tower series is supposed to be his masterpiece, and it on its own is a story of worlds all linked together by the Dark Tower. The band of gunslingers are trying to find this tower, to hopefully put right what is causing the break down of all worlds. It is thought that when the gunslingers reach the tower, it will be the culmination of all of King’s worlds, and we will meet many of his more famous characters, good and evil, there at the tower. Of course this is all speculation, and it remains to be seen if King will be able to continue writing the Dark Tower series.
It is by far my favorite work of his, having read the 4 volumes over and over again.
Lsura, sometimes it’s the initials “R.F.” too.
SPOILER for Hearts in Atlantis to follow!
One touch I was really tickled by in Hearts in Atlantis is the part about Carol’s radical group attempting to bomb an empty auditorium. The bomb doesn’t go off, and Carol attempts to remove it so no one will be hurt (we learn this, I think, through another character’s recalling it-- I borrowed the book from a friend and have since returned it). The leader of the group drags her away, refusing to let her stop the destruction. His initials are, ta-da, R.F.
King has a lot of repeating motifs. That horrible little burg in New England makes appearances in many of his books. Derry is near Salem’s Lot and is where It is. The Tommyknockers took place in or near Derry also.
The town is Castle Rock.
Don’t forget Insomnia, also set in Derry.
That is one of the things I like about SK, there is a continuity and a consistency about is whole work.
Oh, and a minor nitpick, IIRC (hey, it’s been almost fifteen years since I read the book), Eyes of the Dragon is set in the same universe as The Talisman. And wasn’t there a RF villain also in that book ?
There is a book called The Stephen King Universe that details the connections between all of his books. Even the Bachmann books and the ones he coauthored with someone else (can’t remember his name).
IIRC, King is working on (or just finished) the latest installment of the Dark Tower series, it’s due out late next year.
Yeah, it’s cause he’s a self-derivitive hack who discovered that he can simply reference his old material in lieu of creating new characters and storylines.
It started out in the late eighties with just an occassional allusion, but lately has grown into an embarassing crutch, drawing strength from his earlier, stronger work at the cost of diluting them as well.
At least, that’s my read on it. Maybe it’s just an elaborate cross-marketing technique encouraging readers to buying his older stuff to “catch-up” to all his older books they might not have read. But I’m not quite cynical enough to believe that.
Insomnia also had a reference to the Dark Tower series. There was a kid, a minor character, who was really good at drawing. One of his pictures was of the Gunslingers and the tower. And maybe Flagg, I can’t recall.
Diletante: While I agree somewhat in your overall opinion of King, I actually think this particualar aspect of his writing is pretty clever, or at least I did when I was a Stephen King fan. It’s certainly not uncommon: HP Lovecraft (of whom I am still a big fan) is probably the best example, since King frequently pays homage to him in his books (I had a pet theory that Randall Flagg was another form of Nyarlathotep, and I had the references to prove it. Damned if I can remember them now, though.) Plenty of other authors have used this technique, from Robert Heinlein to Salman Rushdie.
Of course, you could always argue that King uses this technique badly, which is another argument altogether. And one I can’t help on, since I stopped reading King after Insomnia came out.
>> Yeah, it’s cause he’s a self-derivitive hack who
>> discovered that he can simply reference his old material
>> in lieu of creating new characters and storylines.
I think the same argument can be reasonably applied to any book written by an author who re-uses characters. Consider for example all the mystery series like Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, and myriad others. We don’t expect any of them to come up with an entirely new universe with entirely new characters for every book.
As long as each work provides enough background so that a casual reader doesn’t feel that a significant story element has just been dropped in out of nowhere, I say no harm done. In fact, I think the re-use of story elements like characters and locations can provide an added value to the reader who is familiar with the author’s work. We know something else besides what is explicitly stated and can see additional layers of meaning. Personally, I think that is a strength in King’s writing, not a weakness.
Many of King’s works can be viewed not as a set of independent stories but as reports back from a small region in a parallel world. As such, it’s only natural that characters and locations would recur.
First, Stephen King’s next book, Black House (with Peter Straub, it’s the sequal to *The Talisman *) explains about Ted Brautigan (from *Hearts in Atlantis *) the breakers and the Crimson King. This all deals with the Dark Tower series, although the next Dark Tower book won’t be out until the fall of 2003 or so. Source- http://www.stephenking.com/
Second, critics are soooooooo predictable. If they like an author who refernces his old material, that author is revisiting familiar territory, if they don’t, he’s a self-derivitive hack. The fact is, there is a vast difference in King’s different works and to say he is referencing his old material in lieu of creating new storyline simply isn’t true.
In fact, the re-use of settings and characters gives his works his works a nice feeling of texture.
Having said that, I wish to point out the one really annoying reference he used and which I hate (and I have the feeling he dropped it in their simply for the reference’s sake). In *The Tommyknockers * the people who are transforming send their kids on a battery run into Derry. One of the kids thinks he’s hallucinating because he sees a clown in the sewer. He must REALLY be hallucinating because specific dates are given for both *The Tommyknockers * and *It *and Pennywise is dead and even if he isn’t, he’s well into his hibernation period.
i read the Talisman about 10 years ago (in grade 8) think i should give it another read? I don’t remember it well, just that the main character could travel back and forth between worlds(?)
What is the relationship between the Talisman/Black House to the dark tower series?
I’ve never read Hearts of Atlantis. Maybe i’ll pick that up tomorrow.
I think the clown from It also makes an appearance in The Tommyknockers. However, this is written as if the guy who sees it is hallucinating for those who haven’t read It.
Flagg was also a main character of The Eyes of the Dragon, which I thought the best King book of his. Then again, I’ve only read 8 out of the, what, 17,102,643 books he’s written.
Flagg was also the initially comical but later evil intelligence officer on “MAS*H”.
I just finished reading Dreamcatcher, King’s latest (?) novel… and Pennywise is again mentioned…
Spoiler warning!!!
There is a scene where Jonesy (possessed by an alien intelligence) drives to the top of a hill in Derry. There he finds that the standpipe from It is gone, and standing in its place is a small monument to the dead of the storm that destroyed the standpipe. Scrawled across it, in a graffito, is the phrase “Pennywise Lives”…
Made me wonder if there is a sequel to It coming…
I’ve been a King fan for a long time (in fact, I went to college at the University of Maine at Orono solely because he was teaching creative writing there… of course he stopped doing so the semester I arrived :rolleyes:, so I didn’t get to study with him…). Has anyone else noticed that his last several books seem to have taken a REALLY dark turn?
His earlier stuff was dark, of course, but lately his writing has the feel of chewing on tinfoil. It’s still good, but a little too disturbing… or is it just me?