THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 12:51:38 PM

Title: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 12:51:38 PM: Soooo I am at QFC a week back and see they have TEH NEW STEPHEN KING BOOK -- titled "Lisey's Story" -- on the shelf for a discount price of $11.99. WTF, I say. Now, I have not enjoyed any Stephen King books since The Shining, although the Dark Tower fans say that series gets better as it progresses, but I read the jacket and the plot's about a writer and it seems metaphorical and I think "awwwww, he's actually TRYING to write all smarty man for a change I gotta see this."

And I buy the book, and read it in between games of AoE3 or those brief moments when my daughter isn't trying to violate the cat with a plastic orca.

It SUCKS. S U C K S. The plot is about this writer's wife (yes, another fuckin' King book about being a magical writer -- oh the HUBRIS) whose husband has died and while she sifts through his belongings she realizes that all of his creativity (and every other writers') came from a secret and magical land. She also learns that he had an amazingly fucked up childhood, and that some monster from the magical writer jungle land wanted to eat his ass for reasons unknown. If King had been a GOOD writer, the magical land woulda stayed in metaphor and not become a distinguished mentally-challenged version of Weaveworld.

But King is NOT a good writer and thus we are treated to another failed attempt by King to out-Straub Peter Straub and out-Mathieson Richard Mathieson. As usual, it ends in almost comical disaster. The only scary bits come from a crazed fan (oh the HUBRIS again) who takes a can opener to Lisey's tata and uh well that's it, actually. The scary monster is a giant worm from Dune -- only in a JUNGLE, gettit -- and the discerning horror reader is left unimpressed. There's a subplot with a crazy sister that gets dovetailed in at the end, and that was alright, I guess.

Fuck, I wasn't even reading this as horror, anyhow. I don't need every King book to be about evil dead shit, and in fact I was hoping from the jacket that the stupid magical monster kingdom would remain a sustained and unrealized metaphor for the writer's fucked up childhood. Even worse, the whole book is drenched in this treacly "secret language of marriage" that King cakes every paragraph in, like a bad take on James Joyce by way of Virginia Woolf minus any literary merit. Lisey is always yammering about "strapping it on" (which was her and her husband's way of "getting hardcore" as opposed to the more obvious -- and interesting --interpretation) or substituting "smucking" for "fucking" because tee hee WTF. Look, I've been married nine fucking years, and I don't have a "secret language" with my wife that doesn't involve her cussing like a sailor at me when I play AoE3 instead of taking the trash out. This is AGAIN the typical unpleasant hubris of King -- a gooey translation of the life he shares with Tabby King into unpleasantly pompous prose. Quit fuckin' sneaking this sappy shit in, and DOUBLY quit writing entire books based on it. Read your fucking book on writing again, you google-eyed hack.

The book is a giant salespitch for the magical specialness of being a fiction writer. Fuck that. I'm a writer, and I don't have a magical land that isn't filled with porno and booze and videogames, and I'm sure as fuck not SPECIAL; at least not in the positive, self-aggrandizing way.

I give this book an EGM-styled 4/10. It' fuckin sucks. I want my 8 or so hours back.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: MrAngryFace on November 22, 2006, 12:52:40 PM: Wait for King's next book: ERAGON II
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Disposable White Guy on November 22, 2006, 12:55:00 PM: I wish you were my dad... :(
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Fake Shemp on November 22, 2006, 12:58:09 PM: Stephen King died a long, long time ago. Now he and Dean Koontz are locked in a battle of wits (or lack thereof).
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 01:01:51 PM: I was screaming about this book to my wife last night -- and not in the "secret language of marriage" unless that language has a lexicon that is 90% some variation of "fuck" -- and she pointed out that Michael Chabon had written some great marketing blurb pated prominently the back cover.

At any rate, I'm hosting a public bonfire for "Kavalier and Klay" because I now no longer trust or respect that book's author.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Fake Shemp on November 22, 2006, 01:02:58 PM: Michael Chabon also worked on the screenplay for Spider-Man 2.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 01:03:27 PM: now he's REALLY on my bad list.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Miles Trahan Burger Experiment on November 22, 2006, 01:08:02 PM: :lol
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: cubicle47b on November 22, 2006, 01:10:16 PM: Did Michael Chabon get paid for that blurb? Was he being sarcastic?

I liked Kavalier and Klay and Wonder Boys is such a damn good book/movie.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Fake Shemp on November 22, 2006, 01:12:03 PM: I think the only blurb I thought was credible and well placed was King's on THE HOT ZONE when he called it the scariest thing he ever read or something like that.

Also, Preston needs to learn that nobody cares about his shitty made-for-TV quality fiction books about viral outbreaks and that I will only buy his non-fiction books.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 01:36:15 PM: yeah, it's doubly ironic given that Wonder Boys was such a well-crafted examination of what it means to be a famous person of modern liter-a-tyoor and that Lisey's Story is, well, so very much not.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Fake Shemp on November 22, 2006, 01:37:34 PM: Michael Chabon and Stephen King are going to write a novel called Drinky's Game. I am working on the tagline: "In this game everybody loses!"

Penguin is giving me $5,000 for that.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 01:39:44 PM: in this planned opus do i get to rape you
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Miles Trahan Burger Experiment on November 22, 2006, 01:41:01 PM: Quote from: Drinky Crow on November 22, 2006, 01:39:44 PM
in this planned opus do i get to rape you

You get to rape ZomBz, and he tapes it and tries to blackmail you. :-*
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 01:42:48 PM: this book sounds better and better :hyper
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Miles Trahan Burger Experiment on November 22, 2006, 01:46:36 PM: I'm fapping right now. :hyper
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Fake Shemp on November 22, 2006, 01:47:41 PM: I have not approved my settlement with Viacom over usage of my likeness and residiuals from the Andy Milokanais impostor. Until then, there will be no Will Federman rapeage in any book until I get my buyout.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Miles Trahan Burger Experiment on November 22, 2006, 01:50:36 PM: (http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/mastershake05/drinkygame.jpg)
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Disposable White Guy on November 22, 2006, 02:01:46 PM: I'm confused, yet strangely aroused.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Fake Shemp on November 22, 2006, 02:03:08 PM: :lol
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Miles Trahan Burger Experiment on November 22, 2006, 02:09:14 PM: lolz, I'm having waaaaay too much fun with Microsoft Paint... :-*

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/mastershake05/ouchdrinky.jpg)
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on November 22, 2006, 02:39:56 PM: I read the jacket at the bookstore--didn't the magical land have some HORRIBLY pretentious name that only King could have come up with in its combination of "ah shucks"iness and inanity masquerading as literary depth? I can't remember it but I remember gagging.

EDIT: Dark Shake, please remove that picture. :P
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 02:51:50 PM: yeah, please don't let Bz infect my BOOK REVIEW THREAD.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 02:52:21 PM: Patel: the world was named THE BOO'YA MOON.

:( :( :( :(
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: The Miles Trahan Burger Experiment on November 22, 2006, 02:56:26 PM: BZ IS EVILBORE. EVILBORE IS BZ.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on November 22, 2006, 03:08:41 PM: Shake, you are not funny or clever (or good at MS Paint).

I read From a Buick 8 if you want to compare notes on modern listless Kinginess.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Hearts from Atlantis was actually really good.
[close]
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 22, 2006, 05:57:09 PM: I'll try Hearts in Atlantis next time I'm in an airport. From a Buick 8 looked like more LOL I'M A REAL WRITER NOW HONEST King bullshit.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 23, 2006, 03:31:19 PM: the more I think about this book, the more I realize that King just wants Joyce Carol Oates to suck his peepee.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Mupepe on November 23, 2006, 05:07:45 PM: Hearts in Atlantis was good up until the last 50 pages or so. It will literally make you scream "WHAT THE FUCK, KING?!"

From a Buick 8 is drivel. It's so mediocre it's not funny. It's not bad, but it's definitely not good.

Lisey's Story sounds sooooo fucking gay. I've given up on King.
Title: Re: Evilbore Book Review: "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on November 23, 2006, 06:04:15 PM: Quote from: Mupepe on November 23, 2006, 05:07:45 PM
Hearts in Atlantis was good up until the last 50 pages or so. It will literally make you scream "WHAT THE FUCK, KING?!"

Yeah, but since the book is really sort of a collection of different short stories, you can sort of keep your fond memories of the first four good ones and forget the fifth. As it were.