Anyway, you’re spot-on about not only the GOOD King movies, but the GOOD ending to the Mist. It’s just that sometimes I’m off-again with King anyway. I was already closing in on it, and the horrible, worthless, stupid, stupid ending (to what was otherwise a really good movie) had a rub-off effect and put me off on King. I should have explained that better, maybe.

I have to say, I have a special place in my heart for Stephen King’s “Rose Red.” Not because it was especially brilliant, just because my wife and I had a lot of fun watching it. (were we married yet? I can’t remember. Hmm.)

2) I like Damien better too, but you’ll always be a Tzinski to me.

3) Those *&^%’s changed the ending in The Mist to make it much, much, more horrible. If you ever read the short story it ends totally differently. Let’s not forget The King has had some incredible movies based on his stories as well:

The Green Mile

The Shawshank Redemtion

Stand By Me

Cujo

(OK. The hot tub might be frying my brain.)

I’m waiting until the spring for Under the Dome. That one I’m going to read while skydiving.

2) You would not believe how often people misspell “Tzinski” on contracts, and not “Damien.” (which is just my middle name, so may not count as a pseudonym.) Plus, I like the sound of it. 

3) The BIGGEST thing that always makes me think of King as mediocre, now and then, are the movies. The last time I went off Stephen King books, it was because I saw “The Mist,” which was a fine movie, up until it had the single stupidest ending possible, short of “it was all a dream!”, and it made me so cranky that it colored the books and left me not reading ‘em.

The interesting thing is, some Stephen King books I read only once, and some I revisit with increasing pleasure. I’ve read “Bag of Bones” two or three times now, and I can imagine doing likewise with “Duma Key”

And if you’d tried reading “Under the Dome” in a hot tub, you would have drowned. 

Nice review (as usual).

I read this in a hot tub in Arizona in the middle of a brutal Boston Feburary, which I managed to avoid a few weeks of. I don’t remember loving it as much then as I do now, in retrospect. Your review actually reminded me of many thing I likeed (loved) about this book.

King does this to me quite often in fact, which is why I think he might be a much better writer than people think.

I can’t wait to see what you working on now though, Pete. You are one of the hottest young writers that no one knows about.

Forget The King! Hail to the Tzinski!

(or the Pete Damian, or whatever you are calling yourself now.)

(Don’t forget the face of your father.)

Ironically, when people are looking for stuff like early King, I begin strongly suggesting Joe Hill’s HEART SHAPED BOX, which is (in my opinion) a far stronger, sharper first novel than King’s “Carrie” was. Amazing book. And his next one, Horns is coming out pretty soon. 

Personally, I think most of King’s best work is in the realm of short stories. I think he’s just razor sharp when he goes into short fiction. 

Harlan Ellison, talking about Stephen King, was explaining that “he’s a very good writer, but what he essentially does is take a short story idea, maybe a novella idea, and then pump it up to these huge novels, and what he fills it up with are these character studies.” that’s always stuck with me, ’cause I think that’s pretty spot on. When I’m in the mood for it, I like that aspect of the books. 

I probably still count as a Bad Stephen King fan, though. I’ve never gotten through “The Stand.” And I puttered out after book three of the Dark Tower series.