JJ Abrams to Helm Dark Tower Adaptation???

[Lancemc]

Oh, I just posted all those times without actually telling you what i initially meant to.

Read The Talisman if you haven't already. It's similar to the Dark Tower, only in a short form sorta. But it's definitely it's own unique story. As its own book, it's probably better than any single installment of the Dark Tower, meaning if I had to pick my favorite DT installment, and pit it against The Talisman alone, The Talisman would definitely trump it.

Now I know that's a stupid thing to say, but the point is The Talisman is unbelievable amazing. Read that first. That's my recommendation. Actually. Read it after The Shining. Since it's a collaboration with Peter Straub, the language isn't entirely King's style, so it might not be the best place to really start. But it might not be a bad idea to read that before The Dark Tower. Then read the Dark Tower. And read Black House (The Talisman Sequel) between volumes V and VI of The Dark Tower.

Trust me.

 

[No spoken words]

You really need to read Dick's stuff, yes.

For King, I'd start with The Stand, but I'm biased towards that book. That, or It.

 

[LMP]

Thanks guys!

I'm being enamored by Randall Flagg on wiki right now.

That's a true character.

 

[Lancemc]

Yes, yes he is. So go read the Dark Tower.

 

[No spoken words]

Yes, yes he is. So go read the Dark Tower.

Or The Stand.

 

[Lancemc]

I'm currently 300-some pages into the Stand. It's been the hardest King novel yet for me to really get into. I definitely plan on finishing it soon though.

 

[No spoken words]

I'm currently 300-some pages into the Stand. It's been the hardest King novel yet for me to really get into. I definitely plan on finishing it soon though.

And for me, my favorite by King. I plowed right through it the first time I read it....then an unabridged version was released, and I read that.

Have not read any King in a while...still need to read the last Dark Tower book.

 

[Lancemc]

Oh my. The Dark Tower (meaing the last book) is quite the rollercoaster. I cried my eyes out 5 times through that novel.

 

[No spoken words]

Before I read it I'm gonna need a refresher/reminder on what went down before. I remember most of it, but not all. That's a lot of crying, by the way. The book that made me cry the most, ever, was Flowers for Algernon, but, this threatens to take us off topic.

 

[DreamOutLoud13]

Yeah, although the TV adaptation of The Shining was FAR more loyal to the book, as a stand-alone work, it wasn't nearly as good as Kubrick's severely flawed, yet classic film.

From what I understand, Stephen King's opinion of Kubrick's adaptation is that it's a great movie on its own, but it's really doesn't capture the book very well. I'd agree.

As for other King books, I really wish I'd read Insomnia before reading the Dark Tower series, or at least before book seven, because it basically gave away the ending of the book But I enjoyed Insomnia anyway

And The Talisman is gooood, so far anyway, I've still got like 260 pages left though before I finish it.

For those in this thread who've already read the entire Dark Tower series, would you like to hear my insane spoiler-laden theory about how U2 are connected to the Dark Tower? It's quite amusing

 

[Lancemc]

I sure would.

 

[DreamOutLoud13]

I'm gonna do this super-sekrit style:

Highlight to read.

AND YOU PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE SERIES YET, DON'T YOU DARE READ THIS IT IS CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS, OKAY. IF YOU READ IT, MAY STEPHEN KING FOREVER SMITE YOUR SOUL AND SEND PENNYWISE TO EAT YOUR FACE.

Spoilers for the entire Dark Tower series, including the ending, below. Also mild Insomnia spoilers (but just those related to Roland and the Ka-Tet):

Okay, this started the other day when I was listening to Wild Irish Rose, and I realized that the song reminded me of Roland and Susan. The first verse ("In a field by a river, my love and I did lay" etc.) is reminiscent of when Roland and Susan first slept together, right before she got into the water and tried to cut off all of her hair.
The entire second verse ("Well a gypsy she has made of me, a servant of the streets, from bed to bed I've travelled, to taste a love as sweet, well the heart it knows no reasons, and reason never knows, as I lie with them I am thinking of a Wild Irish Rose") reminds me of Roland sleeping with women he doesn't love (Allie in Tull, for example) but how his heart will always belong to Susan.
The third verse ("Well I saw the city of angels, it brought a devil out of me, in Hell's hotel on Sunset, showed a whore no mercy") reminds me of Roland in Tull, when he kills Allie, along with everyone else in the town, which is also reminiscent of the end of the song ("Like a hundred men before me, they lay lying here in rows, young men, bloody, as a Wild Irish Rose").
Now, I was telling all this to my brother, because he's the one that got me into the Dark Tower series, and I also mentioned that Bono was inspired to write the song after seeing a bum in the Million Dollar Hotel drinking a bottle of Wild Irish Rose, which as it turns out, is the same kind of liquor Callahan preferred to drink during his travels between the different versions of America. So my brother says "Maybe the bum Bono saw was Callahan." Maybe.
See, my brother likes to say he believes The Dark Tower is all real, that it all really happened and King was really inspired to write it because of the song of Maturin (the turtle). So then he started saying that Bono too was inspired by the song of Maturin to write Wild Irish Rose.
Of course, that leads us to a problem, nobody jumps off any roofs in The Dark Tower as they do in Wild Irish Rose ("As the orange sky was screaming, from the roof I let her go"), so how do we explain that?
Well we can all agree that Roland is supposed to keep going through the "loop" until he gets it right, and then maybe he can finally really get to the top of the Dark Tower without ending up back in the desert. And in Insomnia, the little bald doctors told Ralph that Patrick Danville was supposed to save the lives of two men, shortly before his own death. But that's not what happened. Our theory is that Eddie is supposed to be with Roland (and Patrick) at the end, not Susannah. Part of our basis for that is that Eddie had dreams about the Dark Tower as early as book three, but Susannah never did. So maybe for Roland to get the loop right, Eddie is supposed to be there with Roland. And according to what was said in Insomnia, Patrick is supposed to die (not just walk off like he did).
Personally, we think King might end up revisiting the series, on a new loop, with things different. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, I was meant to be working that line of Wild Irish Rose into the Dark Tower. The orange sky makes sense, as it was sunset when Roland gets to the Tower, but my brother was the one who cemented the theory in a rather strange way. He says, "Maybe Roland will get to the top of the Dark Tower, and jump off, and his body will crush Patrick Danville when it reaches the ground, and that's how Patrick dies."
We're insane. We know.

....

 

[CTU2fan]

I love how this has turned into a general King thread, because Steve rules

Some recommendations for the longer novels here (DT, Stand, It) which are all great...but I highly recommend getting Different Seasons, couple of great short novels in there (The Body, Apt Pupil, Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption). Also the Bachmann Books (Running Man - far better than the campy Arnold film, Rage, and especially The Long Walk). Pet Sematary & It scared the shit out of me though, I remember picking up It after dinner one night, I think I was in high school on summer break, and by midnight I was well in and too scared to sleep...finally finished around noon the next day, with burning eyes & a pounding headache.