Movie: The Shining (1997)

After 1979's Salem's Lot, Stephen King on television went on hiatus until 1990. Although production standards and television's prominence relative to the movie theater had grown considerably over the intervening decade, there was still considerable room for improvement. The 1990's television adaptations are primarily network TV miniseries, and the novels tackled are typically the big (and not necessarily best!) ones: The Stand, IT, and The Tommyknockers, typically shown during sweeps-time. Did this inflate their sense of importance? No idea, but ABC kept coming back for more, almost annually from 1990, and finally, by 1997 Stephen King was ready to put forth the "authoritative" version of The Shining. This version would take full advantage of the miniseries format, presenting the saga of the Torrance family at the Overlook in six hours, including commercial breaks. It would use the real Stanley Hotel, and restore the dynamics among the characters that were stripped from the Kubrick version.

That was the idea, anyway. Unfortunately, this undoubtedly more faithful version would end up being painfully dull, and, ultimately, it too would end up breaking ranks with the source material. Plot-wise, this version is around 75% faithful. Even at six hours, some things would need to be removed. For instance, Hallorann has little difficulty getting back to the Overlook, and the flashbacks to the Torrances in Vermont are short and few. Other things were probably scrapped for budget reasons, so you don't get the huge hedge animal battle at the end, just some minimal shots to establish there are "living" hedge animals that don't do much more than move a little bit. Another twist from the book is the frequent and prominent references to Alcoholics Anonymous. While mid-1970's Stephen King never gave AA much thought, mid-1990's King was all about his sobriety and made a big point of building this into the screenplay. Finally, the big plot change sweeps in right at the end. In the novel, Danny and Wendy are staying at Hallorann's new gig in Maine, still recuperating from their ordeal. In this version, it jumps ahead ten years to Danny's graduation from Stovington Prep in Vermont (Jack's old gig), where it is revealed (GASP) that Tony was actually future Danny, turning a slight a-ha! moment in the book into a heavy-handed faux-shock scene. Also, did Danny graduate at age 15???

Let's talk setting. Last year, my wife and I visited the Stanley and quickly learned that although it inspired the novel, it appears nowhere in the 1980 movie. Well, the 1997 movie works fast to remedy that little problem, using the "real" hotel as much as possible. We probably should have figured that out, given the 1997 version was the only movie they were selling there, except for Dumb & Dumber, which also used the Stanley for some scenes. For what's it's worth, the trip there was worthwhile, but don't expect anything from the Kubrick edition except for the hedge maze, which was recently planted because they were tired of people asking where it was. As for being a great shooting location for the movie, that is debatable, as the Stanley is way smaller than the Overlook as depicted in the Kubrick film. It seemed like they were moving around a very confined space, compared to the vastness of the 1980 Overlook.

Finally comes the inevitable comparison of the casts. Watching this only reaffirmed how powerful the cast of the original movie was. Okay, so they didn't play it by the book, which upset Stephen King, but if you accept the movie for what it was, you really got into the heads of Jack, Wendy, and Danny. Steven Weber play a reasonable Jack, much more by the book as a loving father consumed by the demonic hotel, and even pulls off both sides fairly well. All the AA stuff added to the movie generally supported a Jack that was committed to getting better before the Overlook made him its pawn. Wendy is much stronger character in this one, but Rebecca De Mornay also didn't have to compete with Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers. And then we get Danny. Courtland Mead was no novice to acting when he stepped into the role. He was ten when the miniseries aired, but perhaps due to some measure of development hell he looks a bit younger, but probably older than Danny Lloyd in 1980. Since this version tries to stick close to the book, Danny talks a lot more, and it comes off pretty wooden. And maybe I'm just a bad person, but his mouth seemed to be hanging open all the time like he was in awe of everything around him. As for the rest of the cast, it's about even with the competition, although we really don't see as much of the extra-pimpin' Melvin Van Peebles Hallorann as I thought we would. The decision, however, to "visualize" Tony was regrettable. He just looked silly and showed up at the weirdest times. They probably should have just stuck to having Danny do voices.

All in all, this was a pretty weak miniseries, and definitely should make one question how important King's involvement or approval actually is to the reputation of a production. For comparative value, however, it wasn't an entire waste of time. I'll save my vitriol for some of the upcoming movies, which have a notoriety so great even someone as oblivious as me is leery of them.

Movie: The Shining (1980)

The conventional wisdom has been that the book is always better than the movie. This makes sense, as Stephen King had 450 pages (or 659 if you read my copy) to tell his story, and Stanley Kubrick had a little over two hours to tell his. However, alongside Gone With the Wind, The Shining in its 1980 adaptation may enjoy the rare honor of standing above the book it was based upon. It is a well-known fact that King despised this film. His criticisms are not entirely without merit, and if your number-one criterion in rating an adaptation is faithfulness to the source material, you will probably agree with them. I'm not sure how much of the "blame" lies with the screenwriters and how much falls on Kubrick himself, but for simplicity, I will frame it as a King vs. Kubrick issue when making comparisons.

Obviously, given the constraints inherent in a feature film, plot elements were going to have to change or be thrown out altogether. Probably the most shocking plot change came at the expense of Dick Halloran. Scatman Crothers nailed the portrayal, but when he took an ax to the gut it was a truly jarring moment. Halloran wasn't supposed to die! This was just one of a number of needed plot changes to make the movie fit within the allotted time and make sense. For example, it isn't much of an ordeal for Halloran to get to the Overlook. Also, from the time the last of the summer staff leaves the hotel, it is pretty much full-on-trapped-in-the-snow wintertime for the Torrance family. And let us not forget the hedge animals are gone. Even if the lack of CGI as of 1980 wasn't a stumbling block, these critters just don't translate well to the screen, so enter the famous hedge maze, used to great effect by Kubrick. In fact, the movie adds a few iconic elements missing from the book, such as "all work and no play", "Here's Johnny!", and those creepy twin girls. And even the ending, in which Jack is physically absorbed into the Overlook's history, is completely different from the book, where the hotel explodes in a massive boiler blow-up (making it the third consecutive fire/explosion ending for King).

Characterizations also suffered in King's eyes. Jack a la Jack Nicholson is pretty much crazy from the get-go and is tepid toward Danny at best. He is not the doting father, or a regular guy who slips into insanity. This necessarily makes Jack, rather than Danny, the central character. Wendy meanwhile, not King's strongest female character to begin with, is even further reduced in this movie to a largely helpless role. Danny, however, is an interesting case. Danny Lloyd, the actor, was seven years old when this was released, which means allowing time for post-production and so forth, he was pretty darn close in age to the book Danny, who is five. As seen especially in the 'Salem's Lot adaptations, King is guilty of making child characters behave as little adults (usually under the pretense of being exceptionally bright), particularly those playing a central role to the plot. While it is probably doable to have an older actor play a younger character, it's not nearly as easy to get a younger actor to play either at their age or older, especially if the age in question is five. So it's quite the directorial feat for Kubrick to get an almost-five-year-old to play at that level and not come off completely fake or marginalized, and even more impressive that this was Lloyd's feature film debut.

Probably the most direct aspect of conflict King would have with Kubrick was over setting. Although the book never admits it, it's a well-known fact that the Overlook is based on the Stanley Hotel, located on the edge of Estes Park. Kubrick effectively nixed the Stanley from the moment he laid eyes on it. What few outside shots there are come from a hotel in Oregon and all the interiors are soundstages, albeit masterfully designed ones. Having been to the Stanley, I can sympathize with why Kubrick would jettison it from consideration. First off, Estes Park is really close by. It doesn't radiate the kind of remoteness the Overlook demanded, especially in a visual depiction. Second, the Stanley is kind of small. I think the giant ballroom in the movie equals around half the size of the entire actual Stanley building, and the kitchen would consume all of the rest. Finally (and most devastating), it was clear that Kubrick wanted to do things to the property that would have violated the Stanley's historical landmark status. In our visit to the Stanley, we learned Kubrick considered it as a location for less than five minutes.

The 1980 feature film adaptation of The Shining is probably the greatest piece of film based on a Stephen King novel. The other "great" adaptations benefit from coming from more concise source material (Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption). It also meant open season on moving much of King's writings to the big screen, so much so that every single novel under his own name alone until 1987's Eyes of the Dragon would get some kind of movie treatment, and that doesn't even take into account the Bachman books or short stories.

Shining (spoof)

Posts are forthcoming on the two rival movie versions of The Shining. In the meantime, here's an old chestnut from about ten years ago. Drop the "The" and you get a veritable rom-com!

The Shining (1977)

1976, it would turn out, was the last year to date not to feature some kind of Stephen King release. Sure, there have been some close calls (1985 was just Skeleton Crew, a story collection, and 1988 had only the photo-book Nightmares in the Sky), but in 1976, unless you count the Carrie movie, it was The Year Without a King. I'd like to think that this had something to do with making his third book his best one to date, something special and a giant leap forward from 'Salem's Lot. While The Shining, especially in light (no pun intended) of a critically acclaimed adaptation a few years later, enjoys a reputation of being one of King's finest books, it isn't completely perfect. However, I'll save the nitpicks for further down.

Can a place that has witnessed decades of horrors and atrocities absorb them all and become "infected" itself with ghosts? According to Stephen King, that would be a strong affirmative. It isn't really clear if the place had always been that way and was a magnet for trouble, or if the stain of a corrupt past made the Overlook an evil place. Either way, by the time Wendy and Jack Torrance and their son Danny show up, the place has developed a nasty reputation. Furthermore, as the plot unfolds, it appears the Overlook has a mind of its own and it feeds off psychic energy. Danny has "The Shine", an overpowering psychic energy. Not everyone has this or in the same amount. According to the narrative, Dick Halloran, the Overlook chef cook, has a decent amount, while Wendy has very little, and Jack has none at all. It is clear that Danny is who the hotel wants - for what exactly, I can't say. The different characters react differently to the Overlook's nightly assaults. Wendy, for example, doesn't seem to pick up an anything ethereal, but can see the "physical" manifestations of the Overlook's ghosts: the streamers and confetti, and the alcohol that Jack somehow managed to ingest. Jack, on the other hand, is more susceptible to the Overlook than any other character. Although Halloran can detect no shine in Jack, his tortured past, his guilt, and craving for recognition make him the perfect "host" that the hotel can pour all of its darkness into. Danny falls somewhere in the middle, attacked by the hotel (in room 217 and the playground), but not consumed by it. By the end of the novel, Jack is obliterated by the Overlook, and Danny's recognition of this ends up being what saves him. While he is unswerving loyal to his father, in spite of all his faults, when he is finally able to separate Overlook Monster Jack from his father, he is able to rebuff him.

Although there is an extensive chain of events that bring Jack and his family to the Overlook, King leaves the question open as to if it was all predestined. As the novel clearly indicates, someone with a good "shine" need not be in the same room, city, or state to communicate it to others. So it isn't completely implausible that the Overlook, as a center of darkness, could "detect" Danny and put a plan in motion to draw him in, using Jack as its primary vessel. Jack, of course, is the most vulnerable character of the three and easily exploited by the Overlook, to the point that by the end it has completely eclipsed his identity, as Danny rightly notes. If this is all the case, it lays out of a very deterministic model of life, where everything has been scripted out for us by more powerful entities, and we merely follow along the path laid out for us. Having studied some philosophy this fall, it is not an unfamiliar concern of great thinkers throughout history. How much free will do we think we have?

The Shining heralded numerous improvements in Stephen King's writing and marked the beginning of new territory. In the mid-1970's King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, providing him with a new backdrop for his writing. While the previous two novels were almost exclusively set in Maine, this book is entirely in Colorado except for the flashbacks. Colorado, of course, would also provide a home base for the good guys in the next novel, The Stand, which continued the trend of expansiveness in King's writing. Just as King "gets" Maine pretty well in his novels, based on my recent trip to Colorado, he really picks up the flavor of the remote Rockies quite well in his prose.

The novel also pulls a reverse on the tone of 'Salem's Lot in that the writer is no longer the hero, but instead the villain, albeit a sympathetic one (or perhaps even just pathetic at times). Ben is the writer as hero, the returning warrior who wisely investigates evil and acts upon it to the best of his ability. He's had a tough go of it previous to his return to Jerusalem's Lot, but appears to have put the past behind him and is capable of facing new challenges with a clear mind. Jack, on the other hand, is a broken man, vainly trying to put the pieces back together. In Danny's mind, it seems like getting to the Overlook is the first step in his father's restoration. Unfortunately, unlike Ben, all of Jack's demons are instead conjured out of him by the cursed hotel, and instead of rising up, he fatally falls apart. While it isn't all that unusual for writers to make their author-characters more potent and heroic than life, it is a bold move for King to pull an about-face and effectively reveal his own dark side in novel form. Whether or not he's trying to also explain that his own dark side was beyond his control, I will leave up to serious lit-crit people to decide.

Finally, some writing problems that are prominent in Stephen King's early works still persist in The Shining. Female characters remain problematic. Wendy is a doormat of a character, trapped between her possessed husband and psychic child. As previously noted, she seems the most oblivious to any haunting other than the most physical manifestations, as well as the impacts on the other two. At least this time the lead female character did not end up turning into vampire fodder or straight up dying. Almost the entire rest of the novel's (non-ghost) cast is male, so Wendy is pretty much all there is. Racial diversity isn't exactly in King's wheelhouse either at this time, but Halloran is a major development and a surprisingly major figure in the book that I didn't expect based on my Kubrick-level understanding of the novel prior to now. And let's be honest, this is the guy who gave us The Shawshank Redemption, so, as they tell the gay teens, it gets better, if this is your biggest concern about Stephen King.

There is a lot more that can be said, but much of it has to do with comparing the movie and the miniseries to the novel, so more will be examined soon!

In Progress: The Shining

Like what I did for Carrie and 'Salem's Lot, this is a continually updated post for my running thoughts as I read through the third book of the project!

October 14 (page 14): Unlike the previous two novels, I do know a few things about The Shining going into it, but it is almost entirely because of the Kubrick film. Last year my wife and I visited the Stanley Hotel, which inspired this novel, but Kubrick rejected it as a shooting location in favor of a soundstage in London and some outdoor shots of another hotel in Oregon. Nevertheless, I'm already superimposing visual memories of that visit over the film as I start reading.

October 17 (page 85): I've been juggling this with some reading for work, so my progress is a little slow. At the end of Part I ("Prefatory Matters"), I'm left impressed with the backstory of the Torrance family that I either didn't remember or was left out of the movie. It's still pretty hard not to see Jack as Jack Nicholson (and the first name's the same part isn't helping!). As with the previous two novels, since this is the 1970's there are some quaint outdated things, mostly pertaining to phones. And yes, we've already experienced REDRUM and not even at page 100.

October 21 (page 149): Well, we've made it through Closing Day. Outside of Game of Thrones, the phrase "Winter is Coming" has never felt so ominous. The descriptions of the Rocky Mountains are excellent and remind me of our time there last year, although the Overlook is way more remote than the Stanley. In other news, we now know what "The Shining" means and it's all about Danny. It is clear the real main character is Danny, not Jack. This is a bit of a reversal from the heroic pair of protagonists in 'Salem's Lot.

November 1 (page 299): I had planned to get all the way through "The Wasp's Nest", but life has been intervening and opportunities to read not so frequent. Jack is definitely the unsympathetic version of the author character Ben played in 'Salem's Lot. You have to wonder if King was turning against himself if he was writing with himself in mind. We haven't reached the point of isolation yet, but it is all but a certainty now, with the radio reports heralding the first major snowfall. Speaking of certainty, thanks to Danny's almost-flawless mind-reading skills, it's just a matter of time before Jack and the bottle reunite and mayhem begins!

November 9 (page 403): It's the busiest time of the year here at work, but I figured I needed to do an update just to prove I wasn't dead or giving up. Far from it! I'm deep into "Snowbound" (part four) and the road to Jack's inevitable psychotic break has taken many twists and turns. One moment he's plotting to kill Wendy, then he's sleeping with her...and then he's thinking of killing her again! Danny's been pretty quiet the past few pages after his experience in Room 217, and he seems to be able to the only thing keeping Jack's tether from completely snapping.

November 14 (page 469): Well, Danny's sent out the Bat Signal to Scatman Crothers Hallorann. Meanwhile it seems like Jack and Danny are profoundly impacted by the Overlook, while Wendy isn't picking up anything but the most obvious stuff and eating herself up over the crazy behaviors of the other two. I know, based on what little Stephen King I have read (or seen), that he is capable of writing strong female characters, but that really isn't apparent in either this or the first two books. Meanwhile his young male characters typically speak and act about twice their age, typically under the guise of being "smart". This is a nitpick though. So far this is the best book he had written to date, without a doubt.

Not really new Stephen King books

I'm very excited to take on The Shining, which will likely happen next month. In the interest of keeping things lukewarm here until then, I just wanted to note a couple books associated with Stephen King, but not actually new books.

First off is Six Scary Stories, in which King only wrote the forward. It must have been a huge score for the collection, as I don't recognize the publisher or any of the authors. As you can see by the cover, if you aren't paying attention it looks like Stephen King wrote the entire thing. Not true!

The other is called Hearts In Suspension, which doesn't even have a cover and the only description is: "Non-fiction collection of essays by Stephen and others about his time as a student at the University of Maine." I'm going out on a limb to say that his contribution is just a small fragment of an otherwise whimsical collection, so it does not apply to this project.

Movie: 'Salem's Lot (2004)

Three times around with Carrie was pretty exhausting, but two miniseries of 'Salem's Lot was especially taxing, and technically a longer time investment.

I'm not sure if the 1994 miniseries version of The Stand was to blame, but over the following ten years, a series of ill-advised and not-really-needed Stephen King miniseries aired. Perhaps the creators felt that 20 years of advances in special effects and a few big name actors and a modern setting would make for an improved adaptation. Here in the 2004 'Salem's Lot (bringing back the leading apostrophe!) we have a few big name actors, outweighing the 1979 version: Rob Lowe, Donald Sutherland, and James Cromwell, and maybe some other recognizable ones depending on how much TV you watch.

For the most part I felt this version tried to stick closer to the book. One big exception, of course, is the totally whacked-out ending. The opening scene, which was so different I nearly deleted it from my DVR thinking I had the wrong movie, teases this difference. In spite of creating this ultimately adversarial relationship between Father Callahan, Ben Mears, and Mark Petrie, there is a lot of things that click better. In spite of some tepid and dour acting, Rob Lowe looks more like Ben Mears's description in the book. Mark is way older than his book counterpart (and a "mean kid" to boot) but looks pretty much as described. Barlow has returned to being articulate and human-looking as he was in the book. Donald Sutherland, however, did not go chrome-dome as Straker. I guess even the best actors have to draw the line somewhere. Most different was Matt Burke, who regained his original name, but is now black and gay. The 1979 movie, probably in the interest of time, merged a bunch of characters together. There isn't so much of that going on here, but some of the book's more minor characters enjoy expanded roles, such as Dud the dump manager and Charlie the bus driver. For some inexplicable reason Eva has become French Canadian and marries Weasel, or at least tries to anyway. All in all, the parts of this movie that try to hew close to the book get derailed by the parts where things wildly diverge.

In the filming locations department, this has to be the craziest one yet. This time, maybe for tax reasons, Australia is now subbing in as Maine. Not only that, but the supporting cast is largely from either Australia or New Zealand, and it seems as if they've been dubbed over with American voices. Either that or they should have fired the sound guy because I've seen kung fu movies dubbed better. Plus, the ambient noise seems to drown out the dialogue in places. The chroniclers at IMDB have correctly noted that trees in full summer foliage are flocked for the winter setting, not to mention the not-found-in-Maine eucalyptus trees all over the place.

In closing, you can lead a perfectly happy life by not seeing either adaptation of 'Salem's Lot. This version is a missed opportunity to have fixed some of the shortfalls of the first one, and ultimately leaves you wondering what the whole point was in the first place.

Movie: Salem's Lot (1979)

I'm a big apologist for older movies that struggle with special effects. You have to work with what you've got! However, the original Salem's Lot TV miniseries served as a strong reminder that television production values seriously lagged behind feature films in 1979, and arguably for years to come. Let us not forget we live in the Golden Age of Television.

For some reason, adapting 'Salem's Lot for the screen has been a lifelong struggle for, well, just about everybody. After four years of being only a book, 'Salem's Lot received the honor of being the second Stephen King work brought to the screen, albeit the small one this time. Now I understand that 'Salem's Lot lacks the devastating precision of Carrie, with a bigger cast of characters and a slower plot development process, and no doubt this is why one became a 100-minute movie and the other a 5-hour (with commercial interruption), two-part miniseries. Tobe Hooper, best known for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, directs and between him and the screenplay-writers, they decided to undertake some drastic changes to the plot of the book.

Some things are cosmetic. David Soul (fresh off his career high as "Hutch" in Starsky & Hutch), who plays Ben, and the kid who plays Mark look nothing like their descriptions in the book. Apparently someone decided they should be blond. Also, probably due to actor issues, Mark is a good deal older than his book counterpart. For some reason Matt Burke is renamed Jason Burke. Filming locations are always going to be problematic, something I typically lament in these posts, and in this case Northern California has the honor of substituting for Maine in this version. It could have been worse, I suppose. Also, the Marsten house is sort of tossed off to the side, lacking the prominence of being on a hilltop, that made it so menacing in the book.

The main departure point of this movie from the book is the strategy of combing characters together to get all the necessary content of a 450+ page novel into the allotted running time and still be able to acknowledge their commercial sponsors. There are probably other websites that are devoted to being comprehensive about this, but I've got a few examples. Susan's dad and Dr. Cody are the same guy in this version. This sort of makes sense, as Susan's dad is really only in the first half of the book and the doctor only appears in the second half, so why not save time? Larry Crockett doubles in the role of adulterer (instead of the phone company guy) and Bonnie is now his secretary. Floyd (now named Ned) is more involved with the moving of the "sideboard" to the Marsten house. Most of these devices are more understandable as time-savers than simply bad changes to the book.

Finally, some things are pretty crazy different. Father Callahan is minimalized to the point where he is pretty much a non-factor in the fight against Barlow. Of course, nobody in 1979 realized this character would become a lot more crucial thanks to later books, but I'm getting ahead of myself. As for Barlow, the fully articulate and even charming master vampire has been turned into an inarticulate growling monster. While book-version Barlow could have theoretically run the night shift at the antique store, this stock-horror movie creature is hell-bent on destruction and no amount of makeup could hide his grotesque appearance. Finally, there is the matter of Susan. In the book, Susan's conversion to vampirehood is sudden, shocking, and sad, but Ben has to man up, stake her, and move on to bigger problems. The movie clearly is less reluctant to disregard their previous romance, and instead makes her the main objective, following Ben and Mark all the way to Guatemala for the final showdown.

The acting in this isn't anything special, aside from James Mason. Mason is a class act in anything he does and blows away the field. Even though he didn't shave his head for the role (I mean, this is James Mason), he still delivers an iconic performance as Straker. Everyone else is mostly from television and soap opera careers, though a young Fred Willard plays Crockett to a sleazebag T. Lew Ayres was probably the other enduring name in this production, but his character was fairly marginal.

Again, it is easy to be critical to this version given it's age. Believe it or not, this was closer to cutting-edge entertainment for its time and even won a handful of awards. Go figure!

Some odd things I noticed when watching:

• The picture was a little grainy, but it seems like Ben Mears's sporty little Jeep was rocking Colorado plates. Perhaps a nod either The Shining or The Stand, the next two books Stephen King wrote that have Colorado connections? Both had been released by the time this movie hit the small screen.
• This movie ditches the apostrophe in front of the title and apparently the town is officially called "Salem's Lot" in the movie, but they do acknowledge at some point it was, in fact, Jerusalem's Lot. I have also ditched the apostrophe for posts related to 'Salem's Lot (book, film, or otherwise), but this is for alphabetization purposes.

'Salem's Lot (1975)

Over the past two weeks I heartily enjoyed sinking my teeth into Stephen King's second novel, 'Salem's Lot. Unlike Carrie, the subject matter cuts much closer to King's interests as a developing writer. While the first book pivoted between publication and the circular file before finally leaning to the former, this book had been brewing for quite some time.

This book is about vampires. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a huge surprise for the first readers. On the other hand I have the advantage of forty years of hindsight, as the book (and most of King's early books) is firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist of American fiction, so it is hard to escape the easy labeling of the book as his "vampire novel". Also, this is the first book that feeds into the Stephen King Megaverse, anchored by the Dark Tower series, so it's a generally-known fact through this connection that there is going to be a supernatural angle.

That is something I've had to get used to with this project. Stephen King isn't (primarily) a mystery author, he does horror and suspense. This means there isn't a reason for the destruction of Jerusalem's Lot that is grounded in reality. It's the same kind of adjustment that needs to be made if watching a later episode of Scooby-Doo and learning that the monster is not just some crank wearing a mask, but a real monster. This makes the more obvious explanation ("Barlow is a vampire") the correct one, rather than something surprising ("Barlow really is just a kindly antiques vendor and somebody innocent-looking is actually infecting the town with flu because he's mad about something"). The fun, therefore is not in the discovery of the truth, but in what the protagonists plan to do about it, and if they will survive.

Given where I work, I found the religious aspects of the novel to be interesting. Although I mentioned a little bit of flawed theology in the "progress report" post, I was surprised by how much religion played into the battle against the vampires. Father Callahan is a tortured guy, living in the decade immediately following Vatican II and clearly struggling to accept the modernization of Catholicism. Yet he has more than enough personal demons to battle, all of which fall in line when confronted by the vampire threat. More than any classic vampire weapons, crosses and holy water were the most fundamental and effective tools against Barlow, so much so they even glowed with power (bestowed on them through prayer and absolution, no less). There is also considerable discussion about faith among the characters, as well as the differences of spiritual experience among the denominations present in the town (Catholic, Lutheran, Mormon, and maybe another I'm missing).

As I was reading I thought of some of the other famous works of vampire fiction and how much (or little) they owe to each other. In his 1999 introduction to 'Salem's Lot, included in my version, King credits Bram Stoker's Dracula as an early inspiration, it did not serve as the template. Rather, his vampires come from the comic book type, the ones that are a lot nastier and commonplace than the one-off Count Dracula. The weapons and weaknesses are fairly standard: wooden stakes, crosses and holy water (definitely), sunlight, silver (maybe), and garlic (not really, more of an allergic reaction). Vampire victims typically become vampires themselves, but more zombie-like with only limited cunning and confined to the town. Unlike Stoker's world, they are not charming, except if you are dumb enough to stare into their eyes. I had to remind myself that Anne Rice only jumped into the genre the following year, so if anything, she owes King, not the other way around, for any similarities. More likely, though, they were both drawing from the same inspiration and also trying to differentiate from Stoker. Although Barlow alludes to being far older than the Church, King doesn't delve into "vampires spanning time" the way that Rice does. Her vampires are also better looking, if you take the movie into account anyway. About 25 years later, Charlaine Harris would get in on the act with the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series, and when her novels were adapted by HBO as True Blood, it seemed like another wave of vampire mania was upon us. Harris plays far more off of Rice's innovations (sexy vampires spanning time), and both are guilty of cranking out endless books in their respective series, both of diminishing quality.

Stephen King, unlike Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris, never wrote a proper sequel to 'Salem's Lot, although some plot elements would be worked into his later novels. Though not actually novels, this book has a prequel ("Jerusalem's Lot") and a sequel ("One For the Road") which were both published in King's first story collection, Night Shift. More about those when I get there!

'Salem's Lot has never enjoyed a theatrical release, but it has had two two-part miniseries adaptations, from 1979 and 2004. This probably has something to do with the "slow boil" plot that, if rushed into a 100-minute format, would make the climax all the weaker. However, this didn't stop an ill-advised sequel, A Return to 'Salem's Lot, from reaching the big screen in limited release in 1987. Just like with The Rage: Carrie 2, I think I've got more important things to watch!

In Progress: 'Salem's Lot

Hey we're on book number two: 'Salem's Lot! This post is a slow-roll live blog, a place to dump some running thoughts on the book as I work through it. As I prefacing the same post about Carrie, this may be spoiler-intensive in places. I'll keep updating this one post as I go, since there is no need for 20+ "in progress" posts.

July 25 (page 65): I started in a couple days ago. This Roy Lichtenstein-esque cover seems to be part of a re-issue series that went as far as The Shining. I haven't seen any covers in this style after that one. If you have a particularly old (or even new?) edition, you may want to find this one for it's valuable "author's note" from 1999. I'm not sure if 1975 readers were supposed to be unaware of the vampire nature of the book, but that potential spoiler has been long-blown both by this introduction and the packaging of this version. So far, outside of the prologue, it seems quaint enough, almost Winesburg, Ohio, but in 1970's economically-challenged Maine. If I were to hazard a guess, the mysterious man and boy pair from the prologue are Ben Mears and a yet-to-be-introduced character, but I could be wrong. Also, the prologue is in the near future and the main part of the book smack-dab in the present (1975) day. I caught one sly reference to Carrie in the mention of the town of Chamberlain (four years before its destruction!). However, this book, King promises in his introduction, makes Carrie look "fey". On the other hand, in the same introduction, he notes this book shows its age: an honest-to-God milkman (and not one of those hipster-yuppie throwback businesses), and the ability to find newspapers from Maine throughout the country. Oh, Internet, how you changed everything! At this point, I've gotten a hearty introduction to Susan and Ben and right now I'm meeting about a hundred assorted characters that populate the town. A couple of "off" things have happened, but no blood or guts to report. It's high noon in the chapter "The Lot (I)" -- let's finish the rest of the day and see what happens.

July 27 (page 110): Other than a dead dog and a kidnapped (murdered?) child, nothing out of the ordinary to report! Actually, I'm still wondering how wise I'd be the what's going on if I didn't know this novel dealt in vampires. Barlow and Straker? Just a couple old gay men wanting to start an antiques business. Dead dog? Cruel twist of fate. Giant box of sideboard? Just sideboard. If I had no background on this book, I would probably just see all of this as the portrait of an odd, small town in Maine.

July 31 (page 256): It took around half the book, but the forces of evil are now on the march and there is no mistake that something seriously diabolical is happening to the town. My hunches that Barlow was out and about were finally confirmed, although he seems to be more about dazzling the town's down-and-out than outright killing them. I had forgotten how many characters were introduced in the chapter "The Lot (I)" and now they are all started to reappear, almost as if ready-made cannon fodder for the bad guys to exploit. They're like sheep.

August 2 (page 320): Gadzooks, half the town has turned, that is if you believe that good-for-nothing Straker. As I plow through the second half, I'm getting confirmations of things like Barlow being a vampire and Straker his "friend" for lack of a better word. On the other hand, I wasn't prepared to say goodbye to Susan so suddenly. However, it is clear now that Mark is joining Ben as co-protagonist, while Susan's character has been marginalized. This also almost entirely confirms that Ben and Mark were the unnamed characters of the prologue (that, and I accidentally read the final chapter heading - please don't do that).

August 5 (page 409): Well, the cliche librarian is dead. Or, rather, Undead. Susan, too. Stephen King's theology (via Father Callahan) is a little wacky. He incorrectly states St. Paul was crucified upside down to so that he would face the earth instead of heaven. (It was actually Peter, by his request; Paul was a Roman citizen and was beheaded.) It's just a tiny quibble in an otherwise intense vampire hunt, where Barlow manages to keep one step ahead of the hunters. Not bad for a guy who has to sleep all day.

Cell in (and out of!) theaters this month

I've taken more note of what Stephen King movie adaptations are coming out since starting this project. Unfortunately, as I am already well aware, they can't all be winners. Although there is already buzz for the upcoming Dark Tower movies starting next year, Cell (based on the 2006 novel) hit theaters in limited release this month, and I'm pretty sure is already gone. However, you can watch it on demand if so inclined. I hope that if you do end up watching it, you get to watch it for free, because, with a 0% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes, you'll get exactly what you pay for!

I can safely say it is a relief that this one is a long way off for this project. Perhaps critical consensus will have shifted by the time I get around to it...but I doubt it.

Movie: Carrie (2002)

Well, I think I'm just about done - for life - with Carrie movies, and in fine form, I saved the worst for last. Filmed 26 years after the first one (and eleven before the theatrical do-over), the overarching question throughout the movie is "Why???"

I honestly don't know what motivated this made-for-TV version, the longest and dullest of the three. I might throw out a guess that since The Shining was remade (and, unlike this one, endorsed by King himself), a producer out there somewhere felt it wasn't beyond the pale to give Carrie a TV makeover as well. The main failings of going on this theory is that (1) the "new" Shining was inferior to the Kubrick original, and (2) Stephen King actually loved the original De Palma film, so much so that this one and the 2013 version aren't even listed on his website.

There was the whole matter of making a TV show (I've read many places this was a "backdoor pilot") which never happened, because, well, what exactly comes after this? The Sue Snell Mysteries? A remake of The Rage: Carrie 2? Perhaps the producers saw the opportunity for a special effects upgrade. This was certainly a big motivation for the 2013 film, while this one seemed to lack the budget to offer a credible improvement to the first movie. Right from the opening credits, it feels more like we're going to be settling in for a three-hour version of Law & Order.

Or, perhaps because of the backdoor pilot design, they wanted to tell a new version of a story that, by this time, was well-burned into the popular imagination. For one thing, it sports a very different ending from either the book or the other movies. It also adds a few scenes that contradict the assertions of the book. Carrie is depicted as totally googly for Tommy Ross right from the get-go and fantasizes kissing him right before the bucket-o-blood scene hits. Carrie behaves more like a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character who turns on and off based on external triggers, and it is clear that the non-psychotic Carrie was not aware of what she did while "possessed". And to repeat, the ending is different (spoiler alert...) in that she lives past Prom Night, surviving an attempt by her mother to drown her, although she required some half-assed CPR from Sue Snell. No knives were involved, as in this version Carrie can use her telekinesis to stop her mom's heart. Sue, her brand-new partner in crime, agrees to fake her death and drive her off to Florida, presumably where the next episode of the never-made show would take place?

I do have some nice things to say about this most-maligned Carrie. First off, it's the only one of the three films in which Carrie asks a librarian for assistance rather than wantonly tearing through the stacks. That said, this librarian steered her to some primitive websites, found with some type of proto-Google search engine (which only returned 26 results, all trustworthy, on the keyword search "miracles"). It was also the only one that stayed true to the book in that Sue Snell stayed home during Prom Night, and in general Sue's character seems closest to the book of any of the three movies. Finally, in the true-to-the-book department, Carrie's path of destruction clearly ravaged the whole town of Chamberlain, not just her school and house.

In closing, I think it should be a law that anything filmed in or around Vancouver, typically a budget-saving move, should be stamped under the title card in all caps "FILMED IN VANCOUVER" unless it is actually supposed to take place in Vancouver. While unlike some other TV shows and movies I've seen, it doesn't look obviously Canadian, but these productions seem to attract the same actors over and over. For example Kandyse McClure (Sue Snell) would later appear in Vancouver-based Battlestar Galactica, and Emile de Ravin (Chris Hargensen) and Rena Sofer (Ms. Desjarden) in Once Upon a Time (yep, also Vancouver).

Movie: Carrie (2013)

I'm not holding myself to any rules about the order in which the adaptations are watched, so I jumped over the made-for-TV 2002 Carrie straight to the most recent movie. Generally I'm not a big fan a remakes. And, yes, I do know that many great movies are actually remakes that all-but-erased the legacy of their predecessors (don't take too much stock in the link; that's just an example). However, 1976 Carrie was iconic and particularly beloved by the author. In fact, Stephen King doesn't even list this movie on his official website's list of film adaptations. Since I clearly wasn't blown away by De Palma's version, I feel a little more magnanimous to the remake.

The new Carrie, directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry, Stop-Loss, and that's pretty much it), is somewhat more faithful to the book, but at the same time all but lifts scenes straight from the 1976 film. For example, although filmed in and around Toronto, this version keeps the setting as Maine. Old Carrie didn't bother to disguise the fact that they were filming in California and did not tip its hand as to where it was supposed to take place. Also, the casting was far more age-appropriate in the remake, although Mr. Skin aficionados will be disappointed by the therefore far more modest locker room scene. On the other hand, some things don't change. We picked up right away on the Sue Snell shut out of the dance scene, which allowed her to witness the massacre in both films without dying herself. Also, the Carrie-versus-Mrs. White relationship remains center stage instead of Chris and Billy as it was in the book. Finally, some things were just not as good. The actor who played Tommy Ross was just no William Katt, and in general the old cast was superior if you can get over the whole adults-playing-kids issue. Also, as is deeply problematic of so many movies today, especially the remakes, it is loading with a lot of extra flashy CGI effects. Although I liked how she turns fire hoses into whips at Prom Night, much of the special effects were more spectacle than necessary, resulting in Carrie flexing her powers way more throughout the movie (even before Prom Night).

All told, this wasn't an awful film. I completely understand those who found it unnecessary, but it does remedy a few glaring flaws from the original to bring it more in line with the book. But, as with many adaptations, it just isn't going to outdo its source material. Perhaps those who have never read the book or saw the original movie will find it the most intriguing.

Movie: Carrie (1976)

Not only does Carrie have the honor of being the first Stephen King book, but also the first movie, released just two years after the book, launching a huge line of adaptions of varying quality which I have the honor (?) of exploring during this mad project. Although the movie is generally well regarded even to this day, the original Carrie, in my opinion, is nothing special, but not awful, and gave me plenty to think about.

The movie's first half seems a bit fetish-driven, something director Brian De Palma has taken flack over through his career. The girl's locker room opening scene is like something out of a teenage boy's fantasy: topless towel-fights and everyone totally at ease in their unclad skin moving around one another comfortably. Since even King's narrative was a little skittish around the locker room scene, I was able to accept it for what it was, but it was followed by an awful lot of torso-shots of the girls' gym class in action. In spite of all the goofy camp in the first half of the movie, Carrie was without a doubt sold as a "scary" movie for the time. Bear in mind this is 1976, so the cinematography, fashion, and so forth is clearly dated, as well as audience expectations of what constitutes a scary movie. I recall reading that movies like The Exorcist and Jaws had to have barf bags on hand in the theaters, and it wasn't entirely unexpected if somebody ran out the doors screaming mid-movie. So, unfortunately, when it was time to wreak havoc on the school (and Mrs. White), my jaded modern-day inclination was more toward laughter than fear. I will admit, having read the book and knowing in general what was going to happen, I tensed up a bit during the happy part of Death Prom 1979, wondering how all these poor kids were going to experience their on-screen executions. I can only imagine what somebody who hadn't read the book (or seen the poster or didn't know a thing about the story) would have reacted to the violent turn of the events.

While I watched this for the fact it was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, one must also accept the film as a Brian De Palma creation. De Palma is an uneven director at best, and his worst movies seem to stick in my memory more than the "good" ones. Also, at this time, his name was probably carrying about the same weight as King's, seeing that 'Salem's Lot, novel #2, had only been released the prior year. Although Stephen King wasn't involved in the screenplay (or it would appear any aspect other than writing the novel it's based on), this isn't necessarily a bad thing. King has a history of throwing his support or involvement behind inferior adaptations and questionable projects and his own screenplays aren't particularly stellar. All of this considered, it is possible they could have gone off the rails and done something really different, but the changes from the book are more cosmetic than anything. For example, Sue, Tommy, and Ms. Desjardin (renamed Collins here) seem more genuinely nice to Carrie, and Mrs. White is played up as more of a heartless psychopath. The big change from the book, other than tossing out the unadaptable snippets from fake "sources", is putting the end object of Carrie's rage on her mother. In the book, scheming Chris and Billy are the ultimate baddies, and here Carrie blows them up en route back to her home without much of a second thought. Things that were off about the movie? A few choice bits include the fact that the high school kids, played by adult actors, seemed more like adults pretending they were in high school. I know that casting actual teens would have scuttled the star power of the movie, and probably put the production into questionable legal territory, but it could have been a little bit more believable. And if you really want to feel old, check out current pictures of the actors, who are all in their sixties now.

The ongoing fascination with Carrie lives on with the 2002 TV and 2013 feature film remakes, which I plan to watch. There is a 1999 sequel to this movie called The Rage: Carrie 2, which I have no intention of seeing, but feel free to tell me if I'm being close-minded. But how am I ever supposed to move on?

Finally, for any fans of the TV show The Middle, doesn't John Travolta's Billy look just a little like Charlie McDermott's Axl Heck? Maybe more than a little?

End of Watch - out today!

He's writing them as fast as I can read them! End of Watch, the third book of the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers) comes out today. Look for my review of this book around 2021 or so. I'm still stuck in the mid-1970's!

We've got a title

Since all blog titles should either (1) rhyme, (2) alliterate, or (3) pun, the name of this blog will henceforth be called Under the Tome. Thank you to my friend Randall for the thoughtful suggestion, which was approved unanimously by the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. Now we just need an awesome graphic for the banner. Randall also furnished us with the graphic now used on the banner!

I'm between books right now, but with no less than three film adaptations of Carrie, movie-watching is happening. Stay tuned for the reactions. Ooh, and I just noticed IFC is showing a whole bunch of Stephen King movies in a couple weeks....

Carrie (1974)

(Program note: I've been on vacation and finished this book a couple weeks ago and only now am I getting my thoughts together.)

Appropriately enough I finished the first book of this insane project just a few minutes before midnight.

The moral of Carrie is that should not be a bully because you can never be sure if the kid you're picking on has insane telekinetic powers capable of killing you, most of your friends, and burning your school to the ground. And effectively sucking the life from your hometown. In Maine. Although it's a relatively short book, it demonstrates Stephen King pouring on the fear factor right out the gates. Although King would explore other genres of popular fiction, his success with Carrie established horror as his wheelhouse, the genre he would quickly become the "master" of within a few years.

First books (and albums, too, but not so much movies) can be tricky. Often a lot of work to "get noticed", not to mention the inevitable rejects that came before, impact the delivery of a debut work. This results in the debut being substantially different than the rest of the author's oeuvre. Especially in music this can end up being a disastrous trap where no future album can ever live up to the debut, usually resulting in a very short lifespan for the band or artist's career. In other cases, usually more common with books, the debut is strong but uncharacteristic of anything else the author will write. The second book may be weaker, but it establishes the tone for most or all future works. In this particular case I think of popular mystery authors who usually write in series, like Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, and so forth.

To apply this to Stephen King is a little dicey in that this is not the first book in the adventures of Carrie White. I don't think anybody finished the book thinking "when's the sequel coming out?" On the other hand, from the little I know that lies ahead, I'm pretty sure King wasn't planning on using the structure or tone of Carrie in his future books. Carrie had a unique challenge in that King had no fan base or name recognition at this point in his career. If he had written a lame book, assuming it even made it past the publisher, this probably would have been it for his writing career. Thankfully, this was not the case, and the book opened the door for King to go more in-depth. Just for comparison, 'Salem's Lot is twice the length, and It is something like five times longer.

The book isn't perfect. In most lists attempting to rank all of Stephen King's books it usually lands in the upper part of the middle, and rarely/never makes a top 10 or 20 list. The length makes the book feel a bit lightweight, but again this goes back to "first book" issues. A lot of publishers aren't going to clear cut a forest to produce a book written by an unknown. Also, toward the end the suspension of disbelief gets harder to maintain. People somehow seem to just "know" about Carrie, even those that have never met her before. It feels like a punt, but who knows what the reasons were for some of the shortcuts. We'll explore this further with the screen adaptations yet to come, but the inclusion of fake book segments and articles may not be to everybody's taste. I thought it was particularly interesting that King would effectively insert spoilers into these bits. Anyone genuinely shocked by Carrie's rampage at the prom obviously did not read these.

Overall, I was pleased with the book and I can see why a movie would be released so quickly as well as understand how this essentially made the rest of Stephen King's career possible. I am looking forward to reading the novels ahead, many of which, unlike this one, rank very highly with the diehard fans.

In progress: Carrie

I'm trying something out here, which may not be worthwhile in the long run, but what the heck. As I read through the book, I'll post some thoughts here and update as I go. I imagine this will be fairly spoiler-intensive, so you may not want to read this if you have never read the book or seen any of the movies.

May 7 (page 10): So I started this last night, so let's call May 6 the "birthdate" of the project. So what is the first line of the first Stephen King novel ever? "News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966:" Humble! I've been fairly shielded from Carrie, so about all I knew going in was that a girl has her period in the shower and gets tampons thrown at her. And she has superpowers. That's already happened, so let's see what happens next. Other observations: the book's main scenes take place in 1979, which would be 5 years in the future from the publication of the book. Also, key in helping pinpoint the year, are interspersed excerpts from books and articles, giving the novel a semi-epistolary structure. I did not  know this going in, but so far it's fitting enough.

May 8 (page 37): Given the gravity of some of the "secondary sources" used in the narrative, I'm pretty sure the worst is yet to come. To King's credit, none of the characters, except perhaps Carrie's mother, come off as purely good or evil. The "hyper-religious family making someone deranged" trope is a bit too familiar, but I see this as the problem of the reader in 2016 and not the author dredging up a cliche. I have to keep in mind this was published in 1974 and Stephen King was twelve years younger than I am now!

May 9 (page 87): Wrapped up Part 1 (Blood Sport) last night, right to the gory conclusion with the pigs. Between the opaque scheming of the "regular" narrative and the increasingly grim accounts of the fabricated "secondary sources" I can only assume that "Prom Night" is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. While I have yet to identify anyone as overtly good (although Carrie herself is an increasingly sympathetic figure), the number of overtly evil characters is growing.

May 10 (page 107): Everyone is going to die...they even said so!!!

May 11 (page 165): Damn, I expected that something bad was going to happen, but oh lordy. At this point just about everyone is awful, so I don't feel too shattered. In fact, it's a little thrilling, like watching those punk kids in the Final Destination movies find their dates with destiny. Sue Snell (who we know from the "sources" survives), however, has been fairly sympathetic for most of the book and even Carrie's mom, as twisted as she is, might actually have a kind bone in her body, even if it may only be a tiny ear bone.

Starting Book: Carrie

Now it gets real. Reading has commenced on Carrie. This is the version I'm reading, obviously a hardcover reprint from around 1990, but the pagination all looks like a direct lift from the original. As this is a fairly short book, I imagine a completion report will be just around the corner, and then I'll get ready for three (three!!) adaptations for the screen. Whether it is your first time with the book, returning to an old favorite, or perhaps holding your nose until we get to better books, I invite you to jump in.

Getting Started

Last year I decided to exploit my inner completionista and not just read some Stephen King novels, but put all my friends to shame and read every damn one of them. It seems like everyone has their favorites as well as ones they love to hate on, or maybe a book or two they haven't even heard of, so I think it should be an interesting experience to see just how they stack up for the novice reader like myself.

So what am I reading?
More than 70 books, that's what. Since Stephen King is still an active writer as of the launch of this here blog, that number currently encompasses everything from Carrie (1974) through If It Bleeds (2020). Since I don't plan to commit my life wholly to this undertaking, this will likely take a good deal of time, so one can expect more volumes will be published and the goal posts will inevitably move. If I can read more of his books in a year than he can write, I will consider that forward progress!

What makes this blog different?
I am not the first person to announce to the Internet that they are reading all of Stephen King's books. However, these folks are committed fans that are doing their "grand review" of King's oeuvre, whereas I have read exactly three of his books - The Stand, On Writing, and The Long Walk - across my lifetime, which I'd like to point out is a shorter period of time than King has been writing professionally.

What are the ground rules?

• I will read each Stephen King book (novels, collections, and Bachman) in publication order starting with Carrie.
• When (not if...when) he writes more books, those will be included until I'm finished.
• Uncollected short stories, poems and novellas don't count. I've got enough problems keeping track of things as it is.
• Movie novelizations, comics and graphic novels don't count, so Creepshow is out. But I'll watch the movie just for the hell of it.
• After completing a book I will watch every available movie adaptation associated with it presuming they are readily available to rent or stream. If you made a home movie of Christine I'm really happy for you, but that's probably outside my scope.
• Nonfiction titles count, though King has to be sole or one of two authors.
• The Stand will be read twice in original and expanded form, assuming I can find a copy of the original version. I assume I get some kind of special recognition for reading the book three times in my life?
• The Gunslinger, however, will only be read once, but even if it's the "revised" version, I will read it in the order of it's original publication.
• No "illustrated editions" need be read unless I'm convinced there is a substantial benefit in doing so. Feel free to convince me.
• If the only way to read a particular book is to spend a ton of money, it will be skipped.
• The Green Mile will be read in its "complete" form, since it is not hot off the presses. I mean seriously, do people prefer to read Great Expectations in serialized form?

How you can play along
The rules for me are far more strict that for anyone else. If interested in joining this madness, you can follow this blog (bookmark, syndicate, whatever) and add your highly-charged, inflammatory opinions to the comments. Or don't. I don't care, since I'm selfishly doing this for myself. Or invite all your friends, that's fine too. Read what you like. Don't read what you don't like. Get on board, jump off, rejoin later...it's all up to you! In the interest of being organized, I will post a little something saying I'm starting a book. Keep in mind I'm not going to read the first page of 'Salem's Lot right after the last page of Carrie. When I'm done, I'll put down some thoughts about the book, and finally if I see a film adaptation I'll post something as well. From time to time I'll post some housekeeping stuff, especially if I'm bogged down with other things, just so you don't think I died.

I know the blog name is stupid
If you have a better name for this blog, please let me know. Preferably something that rhymes, something alliterative, or a clever play on a Stephen King book title. We have an awesome title now, thanks to my friend Randall.

And exactly what are the books to be read?
Since this intro is already pretty long, I'm sticking this on the end. If I remember, I'll try to hyperlink to the posts, or something Web 2.0 to blow your mind and update it when I can. Since I did this list pretty quickly, the order here may not be exact. Here's the intended reading list:
Carrie
'Salem's Lot
The Shining
Rage
Night Shift
The Stand
The Long Walk
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
Roadwork
Danse Macabre
Cujo
The Running Man
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
Different Seasons
Christine
Pet Sematary
Cycle of the Werewolf
The Talisman
Thinner
Skeleton Crew
IT
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three
The Eyes of the Dragon
Misery
The Tommyknockers
Nightmares in the Sky
The Dark Half
The Stand (Uncut!)
Four Past Midnight
Needful Things
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
Gerald's Game
Dolores Claiborne
Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Insomnia
Rose Madder
Desperation
The Regulators
The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass
Bag of Bones
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Hearts in Atlantis
On Writing
Secret Windows
The Green Mile
Dreamcatcher
Black House
From A Buick 8
Everything's Eventual
The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower
Faithful
The Colorado Kid
Cell
Lisey's Story
Blaze
Duma Key
Just After Sunset
Under the Dome
Full Dark, No Stars
11/22/63
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole
Doctor Sleep
Joyland
Mr. Mercedes
Revival
Finders Keepers
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
End of Watch
Sleeping Beauties
The Outsider
The Institute
If It Bleeds