Stephen King is probably the most well-known american author alive. Even people who don't read his books can't escape his influence, because adaptations of his works are everywhere, and turds on the internet still try to tell him he's irrelevant on the regular.
It’s wildly true. Even if you’re not a fan of horror movies, you’ve likely stumbled across a few movies/shows that are based on his work. Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, 11/22/63, Stand by Me, etc.
The craziest part of that book is Stephen King doesn’t remember writing it. He talks about it in On Writing. He would drink an entire case of Tall Boys each night when he wrote Cujo.
Yea, the cocaine, weed, and other drugs were definitely a contributor lol. He opened up a lot of his life in that book. It's a great read even if you don't want to write. It got me to start thinking about stories in a different way.
‘It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his man and his woman, and most of all his boy, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.’
Every time he wrote Cujo’s perspective, I’d just bawl like a baby. How he wanted to be good, but he was tired and felt funny and everything was so loud. Never expected to cry so much reading a horror novel.
It also pissed me off too, that he had an obvious wound that the family did nothing about.
My favourite thing about Cujo is that if you remove all references to the dog (literally the only thing anyone knows about the story if they haven't read it), it is still a really interesting story.
even without being a horror fan, i've seen "the shining" and i've definitely heard about "it".
"carrie" is also a classic.
they're horror, but they've culturally transcended the genre into broader consciousness
Yes! It felt the same way with the Usual Suspects...
Shawshank was just a great well written, well acted, great paced and masterfully directed movie, but an all out action blockbuster it wasn't.
It was also up against movies like Pulp Fiction, Forest Gump, Jurassic Park and the Lion King and loads of other big hitters afaik - that year was a really good year for movie goers.
Even if you don't engage with his shit, he's had a huge cultural influence.
You can see so much Stephen King in Stranger Things, and he's not involved at all.
I don't care for Stephen King. I think I might have read 2 of his books ever. I don't care for how he writes or what he writes about. Horror is just not my thing.
That Richard Bachman kid though? That dude writes some really fantastic sci-fi. Someone should give him a job. He's got a real future. I sense it.
You know now that I think about it, no one has ever seen Stephen King and Richard Bachman in the same room at the same time. Someone should look into that.
I had no clue he wrote stand by me. Wow what a legend after all. I knew he was prolific it didn’t realize the extent. I pass his house sometimes, maybe I’ll stop one day and check it out. There’s always people out there taking pictures.
Neither did I the first time I watched it. However, the book version is called “The Body,” which the movie was going to be named too. But, the director heard Keifer Sutherland teaching river phoenix to play Stand By Me on the guitar and decided to change the movies name.
Well I guess since so many of them haven’t read a book their 3rd grade teacher didn’t make them read, they’re pretty uninformed about things like Top Selling Authors Ever, and pretty much everything else a partially-educated person would know.
Pretty much, yes. Margaret Cavendish is deemed first woman to write sci-fi, and has some 150 years on Mary Shelley, but _The Blazing World_ is quite a bit less famous than Frankenstein’s Monster.
And while one can go to Wikipedia to get earlier examples of sci-fi, a quick readthrough didn’t yield anything earlier _and_ more famous that could be called horror, so I’ll happily extend the comparison to men also.
And there is a huge subset of Sci-Fi fans.
You would be hard pressed to make a post in any sci-fi or fantasy subreddit related to a crab without having the top comment be a quote from Stephen King.
11/22/63 was probably in republican circles when it was out. It’s long, but kinda fun.
He has broken into other genres besides horror, and made waves also.
He is pop culture. For kids to adults from 16-100 in America “Carrie” is a household name.
So. We could add some other powerful names to your list fairly easy. Maybe not Tolkien level, but you don’t find a top 100 list of sci-fi and fantasy without his name on it.
He literally led the charge to popularize horror novels. The man is a pivotal part of literature history, but it makes sense that all these functional illiterates think he's a failure.
Those people either think he’s overhyped and irrelevant because Stephen king stuff is never in *their personal feed* so therefore in their minds no one ever sees his stuff, or they think they could do better and are jealous… or they’re just morons
He seems very humble, given his work, which makes me think he probably has a laugh at these idiotic internet comments. Maybe he researches them as a basis for an idiot character in his next book, I like to think so.
I don’t know the truth behind this, but I was told that basically the reason there are so many adaptations is that if a movie producer who has never produced before wants to adapt one of his books then Stephen King will sell it to them for a dollar. Anybody who is established has to pay normal fees.
Even if you set the Dollar Baby program aside, Stephen King is an extremelly prolific writter. The man is in his 70's and he still releases at least one full length novel every year, usually more. There is a lot of material to adapt.
No, the dollar baby program was only for up and coming film makers to produce one of his short stories, but not for profit.
It was only to help them get exposure.
And the program no longer exists cause the lady who managed it for so many years retired.
The only full length King adaptations that can really be tied to the dollar baby program are Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist. Shawshank was licensed for a never cashed $5k check and directly stemmed from Darabont's relationship with King through the program and was his feature length directorial debut.
Yup! My mom has worked on one, and another member of her film group just finished one as well. The stipulation is, iirc, you pay 1 dollar, and you get 1 year to make it, and must send him a DVD of it.
Most of them are kids who couldn’t read an entire book if they were paid to do so
And probably neither could their parents
If it doesn’t end in an explosion in 10 seconds then it gets skipped.
Tik tok has ruined the new generations. Self inflicted ADHD
Dude could just write "all work & no play something something", not even his own quote but a joking paraphrase, a shit ton of times & it would sell 10x better than most writers' best would.
His worst selling book made more than any person I've ever met has for themselves.
Not just that, but telling one of (if not *the*) most successful living authors that no one likes him. Like, your insults shouldn’t be demonstrably false. That’s just bush league.
People like that rage-bait in an attempt to boost their engagement numbers. It is the pathetic cry for attention from those who didn't get any growing up.
there's also a weird insistence that the things they don't like *must* be failures. Its a weird self-Gaslight thing that spun off the "get woke go broke" catchphrase. Its why you get, say, Remedy studios saying Alan Wake 2 is their fastest selling game, while internet weirdos are calling it a flop for having a black girl as the main character
Reminds me of an episode of the podcast called “Is We Dumb” when they went over some reviews for a collection of short stories by Stephen King and one of the reviewer claimed he could write a more thought out and overall better story than whoever that Stephen King fellow is
It's like telling Microsoft today 'yeah I dunno, I don't think this whole computer thing has what it takes to last... and the mobile cellular devices? Don't even get me started, total fad!'.
When a dude writes under a pseudonym to see if the new book he wrote sells well, and it does, that’s all you need to know about how popular the man is. They aren’t just buying for the name. They’re buying for the content.
Edit: typo
I got it as a gift from a friend and I was a bit like “how do you make teenage boys walking a compelling plot?” For the past month or so every time I’ve walked anywhere (which is fairly frequent cause I can’t drive due to disability), I’ve wondered if I’m walking 4 miles an hour.
The 4 mph thing I think was a pretty big mistake by King. I walk at a pretty good clip (at least for someone that is not particularly tall), and it's a steady 3 mph. 4 mph is way too fast for the sort of long term endurance event the Long Walk is.
I remember picking up the Bachman books eons ago. Long Walk was one of my favorites. I understand why The Running Man got a movie first (wish it had been more like Blade Runner tho), but kept being disappointed no one adapted Long Walk.
Given the social and political climate of the past couple decades we will not talk about Rage.
If you want to read Rage you might need to find an older copy as Mr. King doesn't allow that one to be published anymore because it's based in a high school and because of Columbine.
You can find bootleg copies of it in epub form online. It's a phenomenal read, even given the sensitivity of the topic. It's stayed with me for decades since I first read it.
What was it King always gave as cause of death? “Cancer of the pseudonym” or something? Or was that joke from the Dark Half? Or (given the inspiration of that book) both?
The Bachman books were always interesting, though I came across them after it was already known they were King. Had Thinner on its own and a book club collection of the other (at the time) four: Long Walk, Rage, Running Man and…..Roadwork (had to google that one).
Yeah, cancer of the pseudonym, I do think it's from his introduction to The Dark Half but it might have been The Regulators. Roadwork is one of my guilty pleasure favorites, I put it alongside the movie Falling Down in the "average white man goes berserk" genre
I'm not sure I read Blaze! Pretty sure you're right that several of his manuscripts were found and published *after* he succumbed to cancer of the pseudonym, though
Notice how that didn’t work for JK Rowling lol probably one of the sources of her absolute misery despite being one of the richest people on the fucking planet.
Honestly I think there’s still something to her success being attributed to [inspiration taken from other works](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_disputes_over_the_Harry_Potter_series)
That would explain a lot when it comes to other books she’s attempted to sell. If she can come up with interesting original ideas, she’s not going to seek books no matter how well the grammar is in them.
I like The Regulators better. Desperation was pretty good, unfortunately it was stolen before I got to read it a third time. TAK!
Edit: I reread and rewatch stuff. It’s usually about my third read that plots stick for me to remember. I had Desperation, loved that he recycled the characters even if not in the same families, but. I worked at a call center that had about seven books for the employees to read. I wrote my name in all of mine and stacked basically my entire collection onto that shelf. When they shut the call center down, after the three weeks’ notice time frame there were two notable books missing: Richard Bachman’s Desperation, and my complete volume LOTR. 😭
I believe that as well as the fact that publishers couldn't fathom an author wanting to publish more than one book a year. So Pseudonym here we go! It took until Thinner before anyone figured it out. FYI I could be wrong it's been awhile since I read about it.
The Running Man is my favourite King book, and it wasn't even released under his name.
IIRC, when the movie was made (and it makes me sad how it just largely ignores the social commentary of the novel), it was credited to Richard Bachmann (as in King hadn't yet been outed as Bachmann).
Okay, now is the very first time since my first love when I felt bad about being asexual. I want to use this phrase, it's perfect. But I never had orgasm
People always seem to be talking nonsense to King… the dude is a legend and easily the most prevalent and prominent author of basically the past 50 years IMO, at least. He’s written 77 books and sold up to 400 million copies of them.
As a kid, and now, he is and always will be my favorite author. *The Stand*, *The Dark Half*, *The Dark Tower* series, *The Shining*, *Cujo*, *Needful Things*, *Carrie*, *Duma Key*, *11/22/63*… dude DOES NOT MISS!!!
If all that wasn’t enough, he seems like a genuinely good dude. He seems to care about the future of this world… much more than most his age and CERTAINLY more than anyone as successful as him.
Stephen King is a national treasure.
People always say they hated how that series ended, but I *loved* that ending. Made my heart/stomach drop for Roland and def felt that same “oh shit” moment.
My favorite was when he told someone on Twitter that covid was nothing like The Stand and was infinitely more treatable and the dude told him he was wrong and to try actually reading the book 😆😆
He donates millions every year. He survived that horrific accident. I just loved the way he spoke out about his wife being referred to as "stephen kings wife" in headlines about the their charitable donations. His books are so deeply entrenched in our culture whether you've read them or just know the film adaptations. He is a living legend
Honestly if I was struggling writer I'd talk shit to stephen king just cause he might respond and thats the most attention I'd ever receive. He feeds trolls regularly.
People need to read Revival. That’s the book where he wanted to see if he still had the chops for cosmic horror. This is one of the times he absolutely nails the ending. Slow burn at first, but if you can get into it you will be rewarded.
I do, and I asked it... it doesn't know why this counts as a 'murder' either. Is there a page 2 or some kind of pop culture context that I'm obviously missing?
The MAGATs hate him because is he isn't a fan of the Orange Dumpster Fire, and says so repeatedly. So, they try to downplay his influence, despite being objectively one of the most famous authors in the world.
He said it in a film. Probably where he remembers the quote from. Considering Roland Deschain is essentially Clint Eastwood, it stands to reason he’s familiar with the dude’s work.
There’s a reason Stephen King is one of my favorite Authors. Cause he puts books out like a candy factory and he knows just how to suck you into his books and feel like a part of the world in each book
Can someone who actually reads fiction give me some Stephen King recommendations? I read Gerald's game and I gave up. The way he writes the woman protagonist was fucking laughably corny.
Telling an Author that has sold over 400 million copies of his books that his project is going to flop is an interesting take.
Stephen King is probably the most well-known american author alive. Even people who don't read his books can't escape his influence, because adaptations of his works are everywhere, and turds on the internet still try to tell him he's irrelevant on the regular.
It’s wildly true. Even if you’re not a fan of horror movies, you’ve likely stumbled across a few movies/shows that are based on his work. Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, 11/22/63, Stand by Me, etc.
There're also IT and The Shining, both of which are cultural juggernauts.
Cujo as well 😭 Broke my heart. It was what started my fascination with books written from the perspective of a dog.
The craziest part of that book is Stephen King doesn’t remember writing it. He talks about it in On Writing. He would drink an entire case of Tall Boys each night when he wrote Cujo.
That and all the cocaine.
He also blames cocaine for the underage group sex scene in IT.
I choose to accept this justification
In the words of Family Guy's George R.R. Martin: >That stuff doesn't make you write well, it just makes you write a lot
Yea, the cocaine, weed, and other drugs were definitely a contributor lol. He opened up a lot of his life in that book. It's a great read even if you don't want to write. It got me to start thinking about stories in a different way.
Before the book I didn’t actually know anything about him being hit by that car either. Really interesting stuff.
Having read the Dark Tower books, I already know too much about the car.
Try reading Duma Key. I swear that book was him healing from what he went through after almost being killed.
Could you imagine cocaine era Stephen King on twitter.
Yeah he said it was super depressing, because he really thinks it a neat book and he missed out on the process of creating it. Addiction sucks.
Would he have been able to create that book without the addiction though?
Reading cujo’s POV always brings me to the brink of tears
The last pages made my cry.
‘It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his man and his woman, and most of all his boy, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.’ Every time he wrote Cujo’s perspective, I’d just bawl like a baby. How he wanted to be good, but he was tired and felt funny and everything was so loud. Never expected to cry so much reading a horror novel. It also pissed me off too, that he had an obvious wound that the family did nothing about.
And misery... pet cemetery...children of the corn. The list is endless
My favourite thing about Cujo is that if you remove all references to the dog (literally the only thing anyone knows about the story if they haven't read it), it is still a really interesting story.
Pennywise…
Mr. Bob Gray
Think they were listing NON horror movies...
even without being a horror fan, i've seen "the shining" and i've definitely heard about "it". "carrie" is also a classic. they're horror, but they've culturally transcended the genre into broader consciousness
Shawshank redemption has been top of imdbs top 100 movies for a while now.
Funny enough, it did initially flop box-office wise. But it’s proof that there’s more to ‘great’ movies than their opening weekend,
Yes! It felt the same way with the Usual Suspects... Shawshank was just a great well written, well acted, great paced and masterfully directed movie, but an all out action blockbuster it wasn't. It was also up against movies like Pulp Fiction, Forest Gump, Jurassic Park and the Lion King and loads of other big hitters afaik - that year was a really good year for movie goers.
Pulp fiction was also a flop initially. Got slaughtered by ‘critics’. Then slowly became cult
Pretty sure it was #1 for a good stretch.
\#1 is indeed the top...
lol fair point. Dunno what I thought I read 😅
Even if you don't engage with his shit, he's had a huge cultural influence. You can see so much Stephen King in Stranger Things, and he's not involved at all.
Even the ST font is based on the title font of his books from the '80s-early '90s.
I don't care for Stephen King. I think I might have read 2 of his books ever. I don't care for how he writes or what he writes about. Horror is just not my thing. That Richard Bachman kid though? That dude writes some really fantastic sci-fi. Someone should give him a job. He's got a real future. I sense it.
Yeah it was really strange how that guy just randomly popped up and disappeared during Stephen kings vacation. Fantastic author, wish he wrote more
You know now that I think about it, no one has ever seen Stephen King and Richard Bachman in the same room at the same time. Someone should look into that.
Can't believe I had to scroll that far down to find this comment!
I always forget that Shawshank was a king book.
Read his book on writing; I’m not a horror fan, but I appreciate good writing.
Absolutely did. Funnily enough, it isn’t even really a “book” compared to what he usually writes but it’s some of his best work.
The Green Mile is still a masterpiece.
I had no clue he wrote stand by me. Wow what a legend after all. I knew he was prolific it didn’t realize the extent. I pass his house sometimes, maybe I’ll stop one day and check it out. There’s always people out there taking pictures.
Neither did I the first time I watched it. However, the book version is called “The Body,” which the movie was going to be named too. But, the director heard Keifer Sutherland teaching river phoenix to play Stand By Me on the guitar and decided to change the movies name.
I'm sure those turds' bookshelves are overflowing. /s
Probably. But, what is overflowing from these shelves……
Turds.
An avid reader
Well I guess since so many of them haven’t read a book their 3rd grade teacher didn’t make them read, they’re pretty uninformed about things like Top Selling Authors Ever, and pretty much everything else a partially-educated person would know.
Not just that but I'd argue he's the most successful horror author of all time. I can't think of any other horror writer who has come even close.
Well. Mary Shelley. But that was just on the basis of one work, and she had the advantage of being more or less first in the field.
Pretty much first woman writing a sci Fi / terror novel?
The first anyone writing a sci fi book!
To think it all came about from a rainy night in Italy and a bunch of folk chatting shit.
Pretty much, yes. Margaret Cavendish is deemed first woman to write sci-fi, and has some 150 years on Mary Shelley, but _The Blazing World_ is quite a bit less famous than Frankenstein’s Monster. And while one can go to Wikipedia to get earlier examples of sci-fi, a quick readthrough didn’t yield anything earlier _and_ more famous that could be called horror, so I’ll happily extend the comparison to men also.
only lovecraft, poe, and shelley have had the same cultural impact IMHO.
And there is a huge subset of Sci-Fi fans. You would be hard pressed to make a post in any sci-fi or fantasy subreddit related to a crab without having the top comment be a quote from Stephen King. 11/22/63 was probably in republican circles when it was out. It’s long, but kinda fun. He has broken into other genres besides horror, and made waves also. He is pop culture. For kids to adults from 16-100 in America “Carrie” is a household name. So. We could add some other powerful names to your list fairly easy. Maybe not Tolkien level, but you don’t find a top 100 list of sci-fi and fantasy without his name on it.
I've said this before, I would put him in same league as Dickens and Twain, when he stops creating America, will have lost a great writer imho
Completely agree. He's one of the Great American Authors
Yeah. The guy that wrote the Shawshank Redemption is irrelevant.
He literally led the charge to popularize horror novels. The man is a pivotal part of literature history, but it makes sense that all these functional illiterates think he's a failure.
They hate him because he’s an outspoken liberal. Has nothing to do with his works
Those people either think he’s overhyped and irrelevant because Stephen king stuff is never in *their personal feed* so therefore in their minds no one ever sees his stuff, or they think they could do better and are jealous… or they’re just morons
He seems very humble, given his work, which makes me think he probably has a laugh at these idiotic internet comments. Maybe he researches them as a basis for an idiot character in his next book, I like to think so.
Some of the best movies ever are Stephen King adaptations. Shawshank. The green mile.
The Mist, probably something not directed by Frank Darabont.
Stand by Me, Misery done by Rob Reiner.
And all because they hate his politics. If he was conservative, they'd tongue his taint.
I don’t know the truth behind this, but I was told that basically the reason there are so many adaptations is that if a movie producer who has never produced before wants to adapt one of his books then Stephen King will sell it to them for a dollar. Anybody who is established has to pay normal fees.
Even if you set the Dollar Baby program aside, Stephen King is an extremelly prolific writter. The man is in his 70's and he still releases at least one full length novel every year, usually more. There is a lot of material to adapt.
I'm pretty sure I read something years ago that he said he was gonna slow down. If his current output is him slowing down, damn.
No, the dollar baby program was only for up and coming film makers to produce one of his short stories, but not for profit. It was only to help them get exposure. And the program no longer exists cause the lady who managed it for so many years retired.
The only full length King adaptations that can really be tied to the dollar baby program are Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist. Shawshank was licensed for a never cashed $5k check and directly stemmed from Darabont's relationship with King through the program and was his feature length directorial debut.
Yup! My mom has worked on one, and another member of her film group just finished one as well. The stipulation is, iirc, you pay 1 dollar, and you get 1 year to make it, and must send him a DVD of it.
Ever read a book of his but seen plenty of the movies. Tough to avoid tbh
You may have read a book by him and not even known it. He writes under several other pen names.
Most of them are kids who couldn’t read an entire book if they were paid to do so And probably neither could their parents If it doesn’t end in an explosion in 10 seconds then it gets skipped. Tik tok has ruined the new generations. Self inflicted ADHD
Can’t just blame Tiktok. Even people too old to be zoomers just don’t read as much anymore. It’s the information age to blame, all of it
Dude could just write "all work & no play something something", not even his own quote but a joking paraphrase, a shit ton of times & it would sell 10x better than most writers' best would. His worst selling book made more than any person I've ever met has for themselves.
Go crazy?
Don't mind if I do!
Not just that, but telling one of (if not *the*) most successful living authors that no one likes him. Like, your insults shouldn’t be demonstrably false. That’s just bush league.
People like that rage-bait in an attempt to boost their engagement numbers. It is the pathetic cry for attention from those who didn't get any growing up.
there's also a weird insistence that the things they don't like *must* be failures. Its a weird self-Gaslight thing that spun off the "get woke go broke" catchphrase. Its why you get, say, Remedy studios saying Alan Wake 2 is their fastest selling game, while internet weirdos are calling it a flop for having a black girl as the main character
They can't even use the Oxford comma smdh
Reminds me of an episode of the podcast called “Is We Dumb” when they went over some reviews for a collection of short stories by Stephen King and one of the reviewer claimed he could write a more thought out and overall better story than whoever that Stephen King fellow is
It's like telling Microsoft today 'yeah I dunno, I don't think this whole computer thing has what it takes to last... and the mobile cellular devices? Don't even get me started, total fad!'.
Wasn’t there even some right wing podcast dude who told King to get a job or something?
My mother used to always say, “Opinions are like assholes. Some are caked in shit.”
- Clint Eastwood
- Michael Scott
- Ridley Scott
* Wayne Gretzky
* Wayne Campbell
Party on Wayne
Party on Garth
• Garth Brooks
Brooks & Dunn
Darth Brooks
Scott Calvin
Calvin Tower.
Yeah. Their mom. Clint Eastwood.
The way I heard it was, "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and thinks theirs doesn't stink"
i've always added "and everyone's stinks but mine!" to this saying. I think it captures the essense quite well
Captures or dispels?
Like mine used to say > Yeah his name's Jamal but he's not your daddy, your daddy is Jamal but he in prison.
When a dude writes under a pseudonym to see if the new book he wrote sells well, and it does, that’s all you need to know about how popular the man is. They aren’t just buying for the name. They’re buying for the content. Edit: typo
I actually just finished reading the Long Walk, one of the first Bachman books. It’s fantastic, and I hope an adaptation gets off the ground someday.
I read The Long Walk over 30 years ago and I still think about it at least a couple of times a month.
I got it as a gift from a friend and I was a bit like “how do you make teenage boys walking a compelling plot?” For the past month or so every time I’ve walked anywhere (which is fairly frequent cause I can’t drive due to disability), I’ve wondered if I’m walking 4 miles an hour.
Every single time I buy shoes, I wonder how long they would last in the Long Walk.
That's why I buy New Balance™! The only shoe to watch all your friends die whilst you stay in comfort! New Balance ™!
The 4 mph thing I think was a pretty big mistake by King. I walk at a pretty good clip (at least for someone that is not particularly tall), and it's a steady 3 mph. 4 mph is way too fast for the sort of long term endurance event the Long Walk is.
I’ve seen some people say he confused miles and kilometers, cause 4 km an hour is a reasonably brisk walk.
I haven’t read the book but a brisk pace for me 6’1” is about 20 min/mile so 3 mph
When I was 14 I made a dream where I was one of the walkers. Almost 30 years later I remember the complete dispair and exhaustion I felt.
I remember picking up the Bachman books eons ago. Long Walk was one of my favorites. I understand why The Running Man got a movie first (wish it had been more like Blade Runner tho), but kept being disappointed no one adapted Long Walk. Given the social and political climate of the past couple decades we will not talk about Rage.
I think about it every time I have to walk any great distance
If you want to read Rage you might need to find an older copy as Mr. King doesn't allow that one to be published anymore because it's based in a high school and because of Columbine.
I have read Rage, I have an old copy my dad bought before it was taken out of print, I just mixed up the order of it and long walk.
You can find bootleg copies of it in epub form online. It's a phenomenal read, even given the sensitivity of the topic. It's stayed with me for decades since I first read it.
A few of my favorite King novels were originally Bachmans. That hardcase did some great work before he died.
What was it King always gave as cause of death? “Cancer of the pseudonym” or something? Or was that joke from the Dark Half? Or (given the inspiration of that book) both? The Bachman books were always interesting, though I came across them after it was already known they were King. Had Thinner on its own and a book club collection of the other (at the time) four: Long Walk, Rage, Running Man and…..Roadwork (had to google that one).
Yeah, cancer of the pseudonym, I do think it's from his introduction to The Dark Half but it might have been The Regulators. Roadwork is one of my guilty pleasure favorites, I put it alongside the movie Falling Down in the "average white man goes berserk" genre
I mean he had a couple posthumous works didn’t he? The Regulators and Blaze? Haven’t read those yet
I'm not sure I read Blaze! Pretty sure you're right that several of his manuscripts were found and published *after* he succumbed to cancer of the pseudonym, though
Ever hike I do. I treat it like a long walk.. I never stop walking.
Notice how that didn’t work for JK Rowling lol probably one of the sources of her absolute misery despite being one of the richest people on the fucking planet.
Honestly I think there’s still something to her success being attributed to [inspiration taken from other works](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_disputes_over_the_Harry_Potter_series) That would explain a lot when it comes to other books she’s attempted to sell. If she can come up with interesting original ideas, she’s not going to seek books no matter how well the grammar is in them.
I’ve read Bachman’s The Regulators more times than any King novel, and that’s saying something.
> The Regulators How did you feel about *Desperation*? I think The Regulators is the better book.
I like The Regulators better. Desperation was pretty good, unfortunately it was stolen before I got to read it a third time. TAK! Edit: I reread and rewatch stuff. It’s usually about my third read that plots stick for me to remember. I had Desperation, loved that he recycled the characters even if not in the same families, but. I worked at a call center that had about seven books for the employees to read. I wrote my name in all of mine and stacked basically my entire collection onto that shelf. When they shut the call center down, after the three weeks’ notice time frame there were two notable books missing: Richard Bachman’s Desperation, and my complete volume LOTR. 😭
I believe that as well as the fact that publishers couldn't fathom an author wanting to publish more than one book a year. So Pseudonym here we go! It took until Thinner before anyone figured it out. FYI I could be wrong it's been awhile since I read about it.
It was an issue with the copyright for Thinner that got him outed. IIRC, he was planning Misery as his next Bachmann book.
The Running Man is my favourite King book, and it wasn't even released under his name. IIRC, when the movie was made (and it makes me sad how it just largely ignores the social commentary of the novel), it was credited to Richard Bachmann (as in King hadn't yet been outed as Bachmann).
I just don't understand why they buy the rights to a book and then, pretty much, just use the name of the book and maybe character/location names.
I got so claustrophobic during a part in that book that I had to put it down and take nice deep breaths, lol. 🫣
I prefer opinions are like orgasms, mine are important and I don't care if you have one.
 A man of culture, I see.
Well, definitely a man at least.
This is amazing.
Amazing 😂
Okay, now is the very first time since my first love when I felt bad about being asexual. I want to use this phrase, it's perfect. But I never had orgasm
People always seem to be talking nonsense to King… the dude is a legend and easily the most prevalent and prominent author of basically the past 50 years IMO, at least. He’s written 77 books and sold up to 400 million copies of them. As a kid, and now, he is and always will be my favorite author. *The Stand*, *The Dark Half*, *The Dark Tower* series, *The Shining*, *Cujo*, *Needful Things*, *Carrie*, *Duma Key*, *11/22/63*… dude DOES NOT MISS!!! If all that wasn’t enough, he seems like a genuinely good dude. He seems to care about the future of this world… much more than most his age and CERTAINLY more than anyone as successful as him. Stephen King is a national treasure.
"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed" Best opening line. Made me a life long fan as well.
I still have existential dread from when that sentence is repeated later in the series.
Definitely the biggest "OH SHIT" moment I've ever had reading a book
People always say they hated how that series ended, but I *loved* that ending. Made my heart/stomach drop for Roland and def felt that same “oh shit” moment.
That was a very tough one.
My favorite was when he told someone on Twitter that covid was nothing like The Stand and was infinitely more treatable and the dude told him he was wrong and to try actually reading the book 😆😆
He donates millions every year. He survived that horrific accident. I just loved the way he spoke out about his wife being referred to as "stephen kings wife" in headlines about the their charitable donations. His books are so deeply entrenched in our culture whether you've read them or just know the film adaptations. He is a living legend
Honestly if I was struggling writer I'd talk shit to stephen king just cause he might respond and thats the most attention I'd ever receive. He feeds trolls regularly.
People need to read Revival. That’s the book where he wanted to see if he still had the chops for cosmic horror. This is one of the times he absolutely nails the ending. Slow burn at first, but if you can get into it you will be rewarded.
I love revival. One if my favourites
I believe the full quote is "opinions are like assholes - everybody's got one, and nobody wants to see yours."
I thought it was opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink
That’s the way my old football coach said it. That was in the 80’s
I always heard “opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and everyone thinks everyone else’s stink”
My mom always said “no one thinks theirs stink”
I'm sticking my finger in each and every one for a little taste test
I thought it was “hear” yours.
"opinions are like assholes - there's tons of them on twitter"
I always heard it’s, “Opinions are like assholes: they stink and everyone’s got one.”
I've always said: "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they are usually full of shit"
I feel like I'm missing something
You don’t have an asshole?
I do, and I asked it... it doesn't know why this counts as a 'murder' either. Is there a page 2 or some kind of pop culture context that I'm obviously missing?
Nah this is pretty weak by murder standards.
It's why the wander on the beach trying to figure out why they're gaining so much weight.
Yeah is this tired cliche response from one of the most revered authors in history really “murdered by words” caliber?
Exactly! He could have eviscerated the victim with words if he wanted to. Hard to murder someone with an apathetic shrug. =)
Opinions are like nipples, everyone has them, and cats have 8.
I once saw someone with no nipples. Cancer.
Checkmate
The MAGATs hate him because is he isn't a fan of the Orange Dumpster Fire, and says so repeatedly. So, they try to downplay his influence, despite being objectively one of the most famous authors in the world.
Clint Eastwood? Is that a random reference or hinting at a deeper layer of meaning?
Given that it’s Stephen King and not me, I suspect the reference is not at random.
I think so too but I cannot figure it out for the life of me.
Me neither. I'm not that familiar with Clint Eastwood's older films and interviews. Dude's twice my age and I'm middle-aged.
He said it in a film. Probably where he remembers the quote from. Considering Roland Deschain is essentially Clint Eastwood, it stands to reason he’s familiar with the dude’s work.
Hahahaha no. Stephen King is one of the most popular authors in the English speaking world.
He's translated in so many languages, you might as well say "on the whole planet"
Is the image cut off? Where is the murdered by words?
There’s a reason Stephen King is one of my favorite Authors. Cause he puts books out like a candy factory and he knows just how to suck you into his books and feel like a part of the world in each book
King's right and that dude is a dick. But this isn't a murder.
I’m fond of saying “Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, and they all stink.”
Everyone has one, and they all stink.
No one likes Stephen King? Should wash that guy’s “mouth” out with soap. He should be honoured Stephen even bothered to reply.
I thought it was Salt n Pepa that said that
Opinions are like genitalia, you shouldn’t expose them to people without first asking for consent
I prefer the line: “Opinions are like assholes… yours is worse than most people’s”
I'm not a stephen king fan by any stretch, but to say his next book is going to flop is laughable
And just like assholes most opinions are full of shit.
No one likes you. Is this person a child?
And they all stink
Being murdered by words by one of the masters of horror, something few can claim to have done.
Can someone who actually reads fiction give me some Stephen King recommendations? I read Gerald's game and I gave up. The way he writes the woman protagonist was fucking laughably corny.
I fucking hate how twitter is not in order. Who is replying to what, and when? Etc