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Originally Posted by OccultHawk
Fair enough. He's pretty formulaic. What don't you like?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frownland
It's very plain and he puts so much time into boring and irrelevant details.
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On the nose. On. The. ****ing. Nose. Spot on. I started reading
Salem's Lot for Karen, the guy took like thirty pages or something to introduce one character, or concept. I don't remember which but damn it was boring.
Another author who does this, but who I like, is Stephen Donaldson. My brother has a phrase: "Donaldson has to describe every blade of grass on the journey." It's not far from the truth. I do a lot of exposition and setting up with my own work, but I try to check it when it looks like it might be getting boring (which is never, of course!)
I just don't get King. He's dined out on
Carrie, The Shining and
Salem's Lot, maybe
Pet Semetary and a few others for decades now, but most of the stuff he writes seems to be pretty standard grade, yet you'll meet many people who will tell you "Oh all I read is Stephen King."
In some ways, he's both cornered the market on, and simultaneously ruined, the horror novel genre. Give me Barker any day.