Bookslut update

[yendi]

(okay, I've run out of interesting, or even not-so-interesting, ways to incorporate "slut" into my monthly self-pimpage).

My latest column is up, and it's my Stephen King column. It's also the snarkiest piece I've ever published outside of LJ. May I never wade hip-deep into either snark or the last fifteen years of King's writings again.

The latest issue is, as always, worth a read. Aside from the usual columns, there's a good interview with Warren Ellis by hangingfire, some nifty reviews (including one by lizlet), and some good interviews. And that's on top of Jessa's daily blog. Adam says check 'em out.

Comments

[lizlet.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the plug. And totally dug your column! You, like, did research and stuff. I just bitched for a page or two. *g* But it was a good look back at da King, and a sweet reminder as to why I really shouldn't care about him.

[lizlet.livejournal.com]

Okay, not "shouldn't". There are reasons to care. And I don't hate him. I just "don't", is all.

[yendi]

You're welcome for the plug, and thanks for the kind words! And if I'd known what a pain the column would have been to write, I'd have picked an easier topic!

[shellefly.livejournal.com]

My heart is warmed by the nod to GRRM. Yay Fevre Dream!

I think you're right about King, both on the pioneering and the jumping the shark.

Baby, can you dig your man?
He's a righteous man ...

[dpaul007.livejournal.com]

I am *SO* glad we hooked up.

Anyone who refers to Fevre Dream and quotes Larry Underwood is well on their way to becomeing my new best friend.

What did you think of the miniseries of The Stand?

[shellefly.livejournal.com]

I saw a bit of the mini-series but not enough to get an impression.
That's my one pop-culture black hole - no TV in recent history, little TV before that.

[blergeatkitty.livejournal.com]

Love the column. Love it. When I was 12, I read my first King book (Misery) and it got me totally hooked, but I agree that with the possible exception of Bag of Bones he's written mostly crap since then, and I spent most of high school feeling like he let me down. Which isn't to say I wouldn't still read his reinterpretation of the NYC telephone directory if he published it...

Your column managed to both highlight his importance to the genre while taking him to task for a few things that he needed to be taken to task for and pointing out that he's not the be-all and end-all of horror writing. Nothing you said was too harsh. I know you feel like it might be a little too snarky, but honestly, I think most people I know spend all their time slagging him and forgetting that he ever did anything worth reading so I'm coming from a different place here. Plus, it's clear that you really, really know your shit. :)

Can you recommend a few competently-written horror titles to an ex-King fanatic who devours 3 books a week on the subway? I haven't read a decent horror novel in years.

[kizlj.livejournal.com]

Michael Marshall Smith's Spares.

Because I never miss a chance to plug Smith.

[yendi]

:-) Although The Straw Men is probably a better "traditional" (as close to it as Smith can get) horror novel, since some folks don't like sci-fi horror.

[kizlj.livejournal.com]

Oh, very true. And I see we have a sequel coming soon.

[yendi]

First, thank you!

Well, there's lots of good horror out there, depending on your tastes. No one is producing stuff as good as King did In The Day, but who could? However, all of Smith's books (as kizlj mentions, are great (he's a master of short stories, too). I'd highly recommend Spencer's Resume With Monsters as a quirky Lovecraft book, The Ignored by Bentley Little for a good horror read (anything else by him is usually fun, excluding The House). Scott Nicholson and Simon Clark are good newcomers to the genre. Where do your tastes tend to run?

[dpaul007.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'm probably as big a King fan as you'll find outside fan clubs and "appreciation societies." I take offense at "real" authors dismissing him as a hack and a panderer to the lowest common denominator. Therefore, it pains me to say the following.

You nailed it, bud. Square on the head. The Tommyknockers is where Steve, for all intents and purposes, flew right over that Mako with nary a wave goodbye.

His only redemption in the past decade, IMHO, is Nightmares And Dreamscapes, a bloody huge collection of short stories. Several of the bits in there are wonderful, like "Crouch End," the Lovecraft-inspired tale of dimensions and Americans loose in London (some might say Steve ripped off H.P. like a heroin junkie in a room full of stereos), the slowly unfolding insanity of the narrator in "Dolan's Cadillac," or the amusing (for me, anyway, since I'm a musician) "If There's A Rock N' Roll Heaven."

I'm going to go curl up with my tattered, dog-eared copies of Salem's Lot, The Dead Zone and The Shining and remember what it was like to be waiting at the bookstore for the newest release by The Master.

Oh, one more thing - I did my American Lit. thesis on The Stand, and I disagree that it's in the horror genre. I would place it firmly in the SciFi millieu, with a taste of Fantasy here and there. Sure, there's supernatural shit in it, but no hints of Shambling Things From Beyond The Grave. The idea that our beloved Gubmint/Military creates a super virus that gets loose and wipes out 98% of the Earth's population could have just as easily come from Robin Cook or *gasp* Michael Crichton. Granted, Messrs. Cook and Crichton wouldn't have done such a good job, but that's a dice roll.

All in all, you're still my bookslut hero.

[yendi]

Thank you!

And yeah, Nightmares and Dreamscapes had some good stuff (and some utter crap), but I'm not sure how much of it was pre-1987 or so. THe stories you name are all good, as was the one from Book of the Dead (although they edited out at least one line in the reprint). The Holmes/Watson story was also quite fun, as I recall.

As for The Stand, I come from the school of thought that says that horror is a feeling, not a genre. And although Crapton could easily have used the near-apocolyptic idea, the supernatural themes in the book (good/evil, the power of dreams, etc) are all from the horror side of things (ditto McCammon's Swan Song).

[coffeeinhell.livejournal.com]

The King piece was excellent. I found it interesting that King felt The Stand was hurt by editing -- frankly, I always thought, even when I first read it, that it was overly long and needed stricter editing. His best work, I've always thought, has been his tightest work -- The Shining and Misery being good examples, with Rose Madder, The Tommyknockers and the gawdawful Dreamcatcher at the other end of the spectrum.

I wonder, at times, if King hasn't had some sort of emotional and/or creative breakdown. In Bag of Bones his obviously semi-biographical main character is completely blocked and, each year for several years, retrieves manuscripts that he'd written years earlier when he was cranking out a couple of books a year from a safety deposit box, then turns them is as current work. It has the feeling of something King's actually done. Like, maybe, with the Dark Tower books?

Bag of Bones itself in interesting because it starts out so character-intensive and detailed, and very, very good. Then he turns it into a ghost story and the second half of the novel is an unwieldy mess.

King had a new short story in a recent issue of Esquire and it suffered from all of what have become his worst writing problems -- most notably, it was an anecdotal tale of little interest that he stretched by overwriting into a stort far longer than the minimal plot required. I genuinely enjoyed his work once upin a time ... but the only things of his that I've liked in years have been, ironically, his book on writing and that first half of Bag of Bones.

[yendi]

I actually enjoyed both halves of Bag of Bones, as the ghost story seemed to flow naturally from (and with) the story of the broken writer. But it's hard not to see some self-indulgence, even in that one, given the nature of the writer. That said, if he had books lying around during the '90s, he pretty clearly wrote them post-misery.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

Loved it. It's about time someone tackled that subject.

So heres a question, if Steven King has earned the right to publish dreck, has George Lucas earned the right to create dreck?

[yendi]

Thanks!

As to the question, part of the problem is that A) Lucas didn't do nearly as much as King to begin with, and B) Lucas's crap directly impacts his older works (to the extent of him releasing a weaker version). Technically, he's got the "right," but he runs a greater risk of losing the "genuis" tag (hell, imho, he lost it long ago).

[dindin.livejournal.com]

*nod* Good points.

[demetria23.livejournal.com]

You get props for opening with a quote from High Fidelity :).

[yendi]

It just popped into my head, and pretty much set the tone for the column. :-)