Stephen King: How I Became a Constant Reader (Spoiler-Free)

monsters are real and ghosts are real - they live inside of us and sometimes they win it's probably wrong to believe there could be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience on the contrary it seems as some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls as little as one may like to admit it human experience tends in a good many ways to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough horror spawns horror one coincidental evil begets another often more deliberate evils until finally blackness seems to cover everything and the most terrifying question of all may be how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful staring unrelenting sanity [Music] what's up bookworms I am Mike and today we are gonna be doing a new let's discuss segment on the master of horror himself the one and only Steven keen not only is he one of the most recognizable authors in American history he just happens to be my personal favorite of all time and we're gonna discuss how that happened from when I first discovered him all the way to the concert reader that I am today now I'm just let you know upfront this probably gonna be the longest one of these videos I've ever done I don't know how to be brief when talking about what Stephen King has meant to my life so uh I guess I'll just start I'll usual I'll let you know in case it's the first time you found the channel but unlike my book reviews all of my less discussed segments are spoiler free there might be a couple in this particular episode that might be considered minor spoilers since I can't talk about moments in his bibliography that they really spoke to me but you know nothing I don't think that will ruin something if you plan to read it some of these books are over 40 years old so if they're spoiling for you at this point I feel like that's kind of on you but with that said let's dive into my journey into Kings Dominion let me set the scene for you here was the summer of 1984 I heard the that was the first time I heard the name Stephen King I was about six years old and I saw the movie poster at the local video store for Stanley Kubrick's The Shining you know the the one that here's Johnny of the one of Jack Nicholson but my brother he's about six years older than me he was at the video store of me he saw me staring at the poster and he asked if I was okay and I said you know what is this he said oh that said Stephen King stuff it's it's way too scary for you don't worry about it and I mean at the time he was right you know I remember exactly when this was because that was a summer I watched my first horror movie which is the Exorcist I was so mad at my brother when he told me that the shiney was you know too scary for me so one of his friends was sleeping over one weekend and they said you know they were gonna watch this really scary movie and you know after my folks went to bed and one of the I wanted to prove that I was a tough guy you know I'm years old I'm tough guy can watch this so yeah I proved I was a tough guy and I had nightmares arrests a weekend of little Reagan stabbing herself with a crucifix over and over you know but however you know this really made me interested in for going forward I know that sounds really weird but you know I think the kink in this plan was that my brother and I we had to hide our love for the genre we grew up with very overbearing Pentecostal parents that thought just about all entertainment that we liked was evil so we had to do everything kind of on the down-low we had to hide our our rock records we had to you know go to our friends houses to watch MTV this is back when him to be played music by the way I still remember my mom found my brothers copy of haunting of Hill House and and Stephen King's Christine in his bedroom and she threw a fit let's put it that way something happened to me later in life and I'll get to it here well I guess the first demon king movie that I saw was stand by me so you know regardless of how much I loved that movie it wasn't exactly what I was expecting from the guy everyone was calling you know the master of horror so after that I didn't really think about it again until it was the Thanksgiving US Thanksgiving vacation in 1990 I was a huge Tim Curry fan legend du-du-duh clue clue was one of my favorite movies I had ever seen so I would watch anything the head Tim Curry in it if you aren't connecting the dots here this is when it the miniseries debuted on network television and at this by this time my you know my folks had divorced yeah my mom had lightened up on the whole religious thing she says she wasn't going to you know her parents forced her to do it so she wasn't gonna force on though she's gonna let us do like her own things it was a lot more laid-back by it you know she lets listen to heavy metal music we got to watch MTV but against her better judgment she said that she would let us watch the it miniseries because it was on network TV was on ABC so it couldn't be that bad right little did she know this would open a door that has not closed until this day regardless of how folks feel about that it miniseries now in 1992 a 12 year old kid that was some sinister you know I think that really left an imprint a lot of people and a lot of people that you know weren't scared of clowns before they were after that trying to thank exactly right after that you know I I thought that her her apprehensions about me you know reading Stephen King or saw being anything about Stephen King or anything that she considered you know evil I guess that that she was over it but uh you know a friend of mine knew how much I liked it so that following summer he loaned me a copy of his book and I thought okay great I'm gonna do I just left it right out they open didn't even think about it think my mom was over the stuff and she flipped out and she told me she wasn't gonna let me read that satanic garbage you know while I was living in her house and yes she used the exact word satanic garbage so fast forward to the summer of 1993 we had just moved to Houston I didn't really know anybody obviously mom moved out here because you know her her sister was uh was undergoing cancer treatment probably don't have long and they were super close so if you want to be closer to family but you know I didn't know anyone but the apartment complex were in it had a little like clubhouse where you could rent video games and books and movies things like that and I saw a copy of Stephen King's it and I grabbed it and this time I hit it even though it was like three years later you know and I devoured that book you know everything every night over the summer you know after my mom went to sleep I be up till 2:00 3:00 in the mornings reading this book every night and and I already knew I wanted to read something else by this guy and when freshman year of school started I was really stunned to find out that you know the school library at my high school it had a ton of Stephen King books available so Pet Sematary was the one that I most recognized by name so I spent the first couple of weeks at a new school reading it and wondering why I wasn't having a super easy time making friends you know cuz I was that's that creepy Stephen King kid always had my nose in a Stephen King book you know after that I decided to you know go through his books that our library had and kind of do it and release order you know when I was reading it you could see the thing had like a little checklist of everything else he had read so I just kind of went down by that you know so before I could just pull up Google and see which which one was first you know but I mean that that freshman year I did I carry Salem's Lot shining deadzone firestarter Cujo Christine cycle the werewolf misery and I think Gerald's gamejolt scam was pretty new all of this during freshman year I just completely was all in on this and I was undeniably hooked I finally had the courage to tell my mother hey look I've been reading all these books for the last year and I've had no urge to worship the devil or kill small animals or suffocate my parents or anything like that you know and you know what she said to me I never forget this she said oh I don't care if you read those I'm just glad you're reading yeah yeah so I felt like an idiot you know this this cleared the way for me to start you know bringing his movies would get more of the books that weren't available or school and you know I was just laughs at how bad some of these adaptations were since I didn't that was the think it was sophomore year I went and I saw Shawshank Redemption in the theater which you know people love that movie now but they forget that movie did awful on the theater I was literally the only person in the theater opening night when I would say that kind of crazy to think about now you know but that's what I said holy hell you know they can actually can make a good adaptation of one of his books and I thought it was gonna be you know smooth sailing after that no I think we got more more trash right after that I don't really call prick hole what you know but by this point I was a in his constant reader fan club I was getting his new books all you know on release days and it wasn't until I think I graduated in 1997 that my phantom started to cool down a little bit I felt like his books weren't really scaring me anymore and I don't know if that was just because I was getting older or if I felt like he was starting to lose his mojo you know a lot of people felt like this was his kind of his uh his slog if you will you know this was this was this was also when I started getting really into fantasy novels like dune I've talked before about dune and I felt like that book to completely change my life so I wanted more stuff like that I got into lower the rings you know then it really it hit me hey wait a second King has written a fantasy series and it's a series I've never read and it's of course when I first decided to pick up the huge paperbacks of The Dark Tower the wizard and glass had just come out and I was part of that fan club so I got it and I was like I don't have the first three books I don't want to start on book 4 obviously and I probably should have because you know I think that's a great starting point but I burned through those four books in about a month you know I thought they were absolutely amazing and you know my status is a constant reader was absolutely restored I could not wait for the next one and then his big accident happened where he was hit by the car I remember there was no social media when that accident happened you know hey yeah I mean the internet was booming you know people were still using like AOL and stuff like that 99 you know but there was no access to instant news like it is today you had to wait for the news report that evening it's not like that but this was out I'm using some of you out there but I used to go to these horror message boards remember those how do you remember what website it was called now you know but the rumor on there was that he had died in the hospital and I mean I was just distraught I was devastated I thought not only is my favorite author gone you know I'm never getting another story from him and oh my god the Dark Tower is never gonna be finished you know now 20 years have gone by King is not only still with us he's had some rather big hits since then you know and yes there was some bumps along the way which I'll touch on on whether those but you know with the Institute coming out later this year I want to talk a little bit about why Kings works have meant so much to me obviously find them at an impressionable you know teenage in my teenage years but it was kind of a big deal but I think the great misconception about King is that he's just a ghost and Gore type of author and I mean yeah he has some of that but most of his books you know they really are human stories and and about the horror that other humans do to one another and in the books with his greatest supernatural villains there's usually a human character that is even more sinister more evil you know but he also writes about things like hope and perseverance and overcoming great odds and great accomplishments some of his best stories are simply coming-of-age tales that can instantly transport you back to a time in your life where you were going through something similar you know he can write about a town or a car or old hangout spot it just brings up some sort of nostalgic emotion out of you that you did not know was there and I mean he knows how to scare the hell out of us but he you know he's far more than just a horror author he's a storyteller and so while I'm not gonna say her tell you Stephen King is the greatest writer of all time what I will say is that he is my personal favorite storyteller and I think that is the greatest compliment someone like me can give to an author so what makes his stories so you know magnetic to me then the reasons I just talked about I'd have to say it's his talents with the universe building I know now after the whole success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that everyone is obsessed with doing the whole shared universe idea well you know Stephen King's been doing that since before I was born you know he started with a lot of his stories taking place in Castle Rock or somewhere else in Maine you know but he constantly referenced characters locations or events from previous books you know some of them even crossed over like sheriff Bannerman and Randall Flagg this is something that I just it just continued to grow so much that when he wrote The Dark Tower it kind of became the connective issue that I'm sorry the connective tissue that kind of combined this multi love I just really glued this multiverse together you know with a with a hand without I think only a couple releases like I know for a fact mr. Mercedes didn't take place in it because he actually referenced as a Stephen King book in it like it's something outside of that world but you know all of his books mostly they think they exist in the same shared universe and we're talking over 50 years here I mean even Tolkien didn't have this large of a world so I mean if you're really interested in this you should really just just check out just google Stephen King multiverse and you can not only you can find like flowcharts and spreadsheets with every single connection between the books I mean it's it's rather crazy and amazing it really is and as far as I know there's no huge continuity errors there unless you count that whole stand re-release thing but minor minor details not we're not talking like you know Fox's x-men level of continuity error here you know something you have to really look for it but that's amazing over 50 years and you've got hardly any continuity errors and your shared universe that's that's incredible and really cool thing is his son Joe Hill seems to have been given the keys to the multiverse because in Nosferatu which I read earlier a few of those connections are brought up so his books are taking place and within the within the multiverse it's just really really cool stuff so what I'm gonna do here and like I said I know this will probably get kind of long so only really big Stephen King fans are probably me interest in this I'm gonna let some of my favorite stories here and talk about what made them special to me but you know I also talked about some of the ones that disappointed me or maybe missed the mark for me and you know maybe what I'm looking forward to in the future so I'll try to stick the publication order on most of these okay Carrie I think what I love about Carrie was I had no idea what it was like being a girl in high school clearly I was the same age that Carrie is in the novel and when I first read it and I couldn't imagine you know being bullied like she was or more rather just just not just having a home life like she did you know I talked about how my mom was really religious and stuff and she was quite a softie compared to compared to a - Carrie's mother obviously so that that was that was really connected with me on that one with Salem's Lot you know a lot of people think this might be a scariest book I want to say he still declares it his personal favorite book on my on my upcoming fantasy series video I talked about that this was written in a time before vampires had been hijacked by the by the way with a why a John rrah because it's because they were so scary as hell vampires were still very very scary Barlow is a very scary one of his most terrifying villains and I really hope you know James Wan is going to be doing a idiot you know I did it that TV movie in the 70s and it has some scary stuff in it but I really hope James Wan he's gonna be doing the actual first feature film of it and I hope he can kind of capture that horror actually make vampires just scary again I really really love to see that because if I see one more thing where the vampires are sexy and it says it's a romance story I really think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the last thing for me where that worked after that everything has just been pure garbage The Shining has by far the most bone-chilling I can't blink chapter in any book I've ever read and you know the amount talking about room 217 holy that chapter spooked me just as much reading it as 40 as when I read it when I was 15 it's kind of one of those chapters it's so freaky you swear that you're hearing noises you know down the hall or outside your house it's aged incredibly well and I recommend it to everything who is interested in trying kink for the first time it's the rare occasion where the book and the movie are very different and they are both spectacular so people are interested in seeing doctor sleep no the doctor sleep is a sequel to The Shining and the movie is based off of that book not off Stanley Kubrick's The Shining but based off the trailer it looks like they're gonna kind of try to combine the two and I get that I mean obviously you're gonna want to get butts in the seats so they're gonna show some you know replicated footage of things that happen in Kubrick's trying to try to get things here but this if you're expecting a straight-up sequel to The Shining you're not getting it with that movie I haven't read dr. sleep yet but I intend to soon I'll get into that the stand now the stand is considered by many a constant reader to be his greatest works I read this one for the first time two years ago I know I know Here I am talking about how I've been a super fan since I was 15 and I hadn't read arguably his best book I hate it always just seems so daunting to me this tome was super small you know font you know but after I read it for a second time I think in 2015 ya felt like I was running out of excuses cuz I felt like it's almost the same length but long story short I will not argue with anyone that says the stand is his best it has about two dozen you know main characters honest and main characters I mean obviously Stu is supposed to be your main character but there are numerous main characters in it and you will love every single one of them everyone good guys and bad it is an absolutely amazing journey of Tolkien quality and in my opinion it is the best post-apocalyptic book that has ever been written and it's not close yes it's a commitment but it is so rewarding and so worth it having already known the man in black from The Dark Tower series that helped but you don't need to read dark towers to get this absolutely amazing book the dead zone that's what was one I thought was just okay when I was 15 because I was still in that you know what is this I want to be scared and this isn't scary I still had that attitude back then but when I revisited a couple years ago I really enjoyed it if you follow King on social media you know he's very very outspoken with his political opinions and that book really makes it easy to see with his fears of Greg Stillson and you know I think it has one of the more tragic endings in one of his books I read the Long Walk for the first time it's under Richard Bachman but most people know that story by now about why he released books under a pseudonym but uh I read this for the first out six months ago I had never really gotten into the böcklin books except for thinner which I'll talk about a second this is not recency bias or hyperbole when I say I think this is probably a top 10 Stephen King book and what's incredible about this is that he was a teenager when he wrote it it wasn't the first released in publication but it was a first book he ever wrote and every dystopian why a novel that people carry on about today have borrowed from this Hunger Games red rising all those King did it first and I know he doesn't have the creator credit for the dystopian future or genre I just I'm saying it as an undeniable fact that Suzanne Collins read this and read the Running Man before she wrote The Hunger Games the last chapter of this book will hit you in the fields like you are not ready for I was wrecked with what happens in the closing pages keying books don't usually make me cry but this one got me man I I rolled it tear it is incredibly powerful and I'm still badgering my wife daily to read it since she loves the dystopian genre incredible book I cannot recommend it enough very easy to read you'll read it in a couple days such a wonderful book I can't believe haven't made a movie yet firestarters just kind of okay to me read it twice I love the idea in the characters execution just kind of Falls a little flat to me feels like kind of a throwaway like he had a contract date he had to hit and you just kind of threw it out it felt it felt rushed the villain was just like okay I don't know I don't know I kind of I basically felt like stranger things took Charlie and they did her better with a lovin that makes sense Cujo I liked because we've all had those times we feel like nothing is more important than what's happening in your life right now you know and then you're thrust into this crazy unexpected situation and you realize how much of that you were stressing over really did not matter you know like you think you got all these family problems and then you go to the doctor hey you got six months to live you realize no that you were concerned about even mattered so yeah eighty percent of this book takes place inside of a car and some might not find it entertaining but I mean I feel like the tension is cranked to 11 the whole time you know and it's the first throw of the book talking about all these personal properties but his marriage struggles are having yeah he finds out his wife's having an affair and stuff and you feel like this is just and it just goes from that to none of that matters you know cuz we're being stalked by a killer dog and we have no way out of this and I don't know if any other author had the balls in the 80s to write an ending like he did for this one yikes man different seasons is his first collection of short stories and three of the four are absolutely incredible the body whom a lot of you probably know is stand by me Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption obviously Shawshank Redemption and apt pupil the body is by far the best coming up coming-of-age story I've read and the movie is every bit as good it captures the magic of that book perfectly Shawshank I think we all know how amazing that story is it's only like a hundred pages an incredible movie probably one of the greatest movies ever made if you ask a lot of people I a pupil that one is that's something else I feel like it's quite sickening and horrifying and I feel like it's a must read in today's political climate since everyone likes to throw out the term Nazi and concentration camp without really understanding how insulting that is to people who were there during World War two so yeah with with current events I think people should definitely read that and realize maybe we should start choosing different words we throw out because we disagree with somebody because nothing I'm seeing right now is fascism yeah go do some history and that people is a good way to get a ground level kind of look at that christine has some sentimental value to me because like I said it was the first book of his I ever held in my hand I didn't read it then it was my brothers my brother's paperback again but again he nails the coming-of-age story for you know a teenage boy and I don't know if it's still like this today because I don't talk to a lot of teenagers my kids were younger than that but I feel like with my generation every you know teenage boy becomes obsessed with cars at one point their life and now if you really nailed how that obsession can get out of control in that book Pet Sematary if you asked me to name one Stephen King book that I would call his scariest at least to me this is it by far and a big reason I hated that new adaptation of it they released this year's because he they totally missed the point when I read it when I was 15 yeah it was scary but for different reasons I read it about a year ago and I will say that if you are a parent of young children this will have you waking them up in the middle of the night crying just to hug them and know that they're okay the human emotion in this one is so deep and so meaningful and it's also scary as yeah I really feel like they drop the ball cuz a remake of this could have been done really really well but you know Hollywood screenwriters still think they're better writers than Stephen King I don't get it I don't get it I thought after I thought after it which is you know even though it's quite different for the book I felt like I still kind of captured the same essence it caught the essence of the story it caught the point of story this was like we can do this better and you can't thinners when I know that most people seem to shrug off but I love it I don't know if it's because of that movie I look it has body horror which is always a good time and it has a pseudo mafia of story in it but probably my favorite supporting character ever in the multiverse in Richie the hammer I love them you know people overlook the bond that Richie and Billy had talk about a dark ending to mine yeah okay it now it is without a doubt my favorite Stephen King book ever and I don't know if it's because it was the first one that I read of his it was really got me into him or what I thought that was just like some some nostalgia glasses on that I couldn't but when I reread it I still feel the same way you know I reread it in 2015 loved it so so much you know I'm not gonna get really tons into detail about what I loved about it here because I plan on doing an episode of Mike's book reviews for it before the duh it chapter 2 movie comes out so basically everything I said about the body you can copy over here except you can add probably his most iconic villain ever and Pennywise and Henry Bowers I love this book yes I know there's that one scene does not tarnish this book at all for me it's definitely a were you thinking Stephen doesn't matter book is incredible only gets better with age to misery is goddamn terrifying you know I hear the term toxic fandom just kind of thrown around nowadays hey you know let me tell you something guys just because someone did not like a new Star Wars movie that doesn't make them a toxic fan Annie Wilkes is what happens when toxic fandom goes unchecked you will be holding your breath more than once I'll reading this one tension tension tension she's definitely top-five King of villains the Tommyknockers oh boy this is where a lot of people start to think that he went downhill this is also when he has not been shy about talking about how coked up he was when he wrote this book and it shows me I was excited when I first picked it up because I was like Stephen King's gonna be doing like a superhero sci-fi or just story hell yeah man I'm all about that sounds good on paper I love the idea of it books just kind of odd I just put that way so I mean it's really really out there I don't think it's as bad as its reputation has given it but it definitely showed that okay maybe he's trying something different I don't know how how it's really gonna work here Gerald's game is another one where I was like oh man he's just not writing anything scary anymore then he throws in the you know what they call him space cowboy or mr. moonlight whatever you're just made outta move my guy that scared the out of me the first time I read it I remember I was home alone reading it in the dark you know by the lamp and I just got the chills when she looks over in the corner and realizes someone's in the room with her because I don't know about you guys I have had many nights where I couldn't sleep I'm in the dark and I just swear to God that there was someone in the room with me and just that thought of thinking that think of that and looking in the corner and seeing someone move I'm getting getting gooseflesh thinking about it now yeah for a book like that that was not supposed to be just terrifying that was freaking scary yeah and that's before she even remembers you know starts getting the memories back of what happened to her that she suppressed from her childhood really underrated book and very very good adaptation by Mike Flanagan on Netflix check it out one of my favorite adaptations of his um it's gonna be ahead a little bit here because the 90s I felt like we're kind of a rough patch for him nightmares dream cave dreamscape had some good good collections in there Dolores Claiborne very good book it was kind of a sister novel with Gerald's game I got it insomnia kind of forgettable to me maybe I'll enjoy it more in a reread Rose madder I'm not gonna lie to you I didn't finish it it wasn't for me then the Green Mile came out and it was absolutely phenomenal okay yeah he's got a bag he's got a bag great movie by the way obviously Green Mile is probably a top 5 movie adaptation and the book is phenomenal - and it was released - you know in pieces I remember getting like little thin little books in the mail each one and then and then afterwards I had to go and buy it again for the hardcover desperation I was okay on sand with regulators bag of bones okay and you know storm of the century well I didn't even watch it when it was on TV I got the the screenplay of it or whatever girl who loved Tom Gordon Hardison Atlantis I was whatever on these and then his accident happened and after he lived it didn't matter no matter what he could have wrote about a game control that came to life and learned how to play the violin and I would have read it because I was just thrilled to be getting anything from this guy again because we didn't think we'd ever get another book after that you know it was it could have been the end and he wrote dream catcher you know shorthand because he was a stupid it was too much in pain just hit a typewriter and you know I enjoy the book to a point that I don't then don't talk about the movie obviously it wasn't anything that you're gonna you're gonna see on anybody's top ten lists for sure but again like I said I I'll always remember it because with great anticipation was I counting down for this because we didn't think we're ever gonna see anything from the guy again black house I didn't read because I didn't read the talisman from Buick eight kind of a wannabe Christine whatever then we got the dark tower so I'd mentioned before that I was excited to get the dark tower and this is where my breakup with Stephen King happened what was the Calla came out different but I liked it for the most part it still felt welcome did he put out the last two books like back to back the next year and a red flag went off okay he's been putting these books out slowly since 1982 and now he's just gonna kind of out these last three books what's going on what's going on you know what apparently he was spooked about you know getting hit by the car obviously makes sense that he you know he was afraid he was gonna die he wasn't get to finish his what he's declared his magnum opus so I get it I get it but holy crap they were bad six is one of the most dull books I've ever read of his and something so meta happens in it that it just absolutely drive just strobing nuts and then seven the ending of seven was so painfully awful that's basically what I call it is I didn't speak to him for like five years uh I mean this was 2004 is longer than that it was about seven years I didn't read I didn't pick up I didn't even think about anything by Stephen King during all that time that's when I got really big into my fantasy stuff because I was disgusted I could not believe he took this book series it had been his life work and just completely shift the bed to get it out and to this day I'm still like I wish he would just rewrite books in seven I really I really really do I know there's a small contingent of fans who still say that they were satisfied with it I'm not one of them it's still not thrilled about it I really really wish that I really really hope rather that the TV series that they're making for Amazon I always say geez I hope whenever they make a Stephen King adaptation I hope they don't change anything no I hope they change something that they gets this far if they get to this point the story I hope they change book six and seven completely because I know so I didn't read the cell when it came out I didn't realize the story I didn't read blaze I didn't read do McKee I didn't read just after sunset under the dome I was tempted I did go back and read it later it's 11/22/63 is what made me say okay I'll give it a try because I'm a big JFK assassination guy I've been crazy about it since I was before the Oliver Stone movie came out everybody seemed to get really really into it I had been obsessed with this since I was a kid thinking it okay something foul play went on here it's very very clear but I won't get into that here because I don't want started sound like Alex Jones or something but I'm not conspiracy theorist but this is a conspiracy I believe in so 11/22/63 I was going to get it and I loved it I loved it I really felt like it was the best book he had written since the Green Mile and probably the best he had written since probably misery so I yeah I was full onboard I loved it I've read it twice it is an incredible incredible book not a horror story it's actually a love story and it's amazing it's amazing I had he had no business at that age in pointless career writing a book that long that was that phenomenal it is easily a top 10 book it is for him oh I'm sorry in his discography his but his bibliography is a top 10 book from me it's amazing so yeah I was all back in but then dr. sleep came out and I didn't read it and that's because he's never really written sequels outside of The Dark Tower for his books and I'm like do you really want to mess with the shiny I mean that's that's a classic I mean do you really want to go there and I just I didn't read it because I just felt like it would tarnish the original if it wasn't amazing I heard a kind of mixed things about it but uh you know now the movies coming out and I'm going to see the movie so I'm gonna read the book first so I plan on reading the Institute when it's released on release day here and then I'm going to read dr. slate before the move before I see the movie so I can't really say much about that mr. Mercedes is not the type of book I would have expected from him to do an actual hard crime detective kind of series and I actually really liked it I liked mr. Mercedes I loved finders keeper the sequel is my favorite that trilogy the end of watch came around he just couldn't help himself he just had to put his supernatural stuff back into it and it's just it didn't work for me it didn't it didn't really work I haven't read The Outsider yet I read elev it's kind of a West part so like I said I feel like since 11/22/63 hits and misses definitely hits and misses I still feel like you know 2 out of every 4 books he puts out 1 out of every 2 I guess rather would be the the easier you know summation there I feel like he still can write some really really good stuff a lot of the older authors now it just seems like they can't put out anything where they're like I've talked before about and rice how I feel like she hasn't put out a good Vampire Chronicles book since the 90s but she keeps putting them out I feel like he still hits on most of his he just has a couple where I don't think that maybe necessarily they're bad they're just kind of forgettable that's how I felt about elevation but uh I didn't read The Outsider but I heard kind of the same thing the Institut to me sounds like a return to form just based off the synopsis for it it sounds like what Fox was trying to do with New Mutants that's what it really sounds like to me if it turns out to not be anything like that at all okay that's just that's just how this Anastas sounds to me just seeing that cover I'm looking at it right now I just it feels like something from those glory days of King and I I just I hope he's guiding he's already announced another big novel for 2020 I feel like he's got one more huge huge hit in him before he leaves us and I really want the Institute to be it so what exactly can I say that I haven't said already kind of ran through most of his big hits there that you know the stuff that I've read yes I own every single thing he's ever written on hardcover no I probably read about 85% of it there are some I have not read mostly during that time where I told you I wasn't speaking to him I haven't went back in and done those yet but um you know you think about this the sheer volume that this guy is written and I'd say I like eight out of ten books that he writes I mean that's an incredible percentage for as much as he's written clearly so yeah I will always always be a huge huge fan until he leaves us which I hope is never but you know obviously the Father Time is undefeated he's had some scares there he seems like he's in a good place right now he's still writing well and he's trying to help his younger kid get off the ground and he's eaten Joe seems to clearly Joe really feels like Apple didn't fall far from the tree there and that's very exciting to me to feel like I'm gonna have someone you know kind of close to his quality to keep to keep going after he leaves us but um you know I think everyone has their favorite author and you'll always have someone when you have someone is popular with the in pop culture as Stephen King is you're always he goes people like yeah but he's a writer he's a hack writer or whatever I think even Stephen King himself has said he's like he's like the Big Mac and fries of authors and if that's how some people view at a that's cool I understand like I said I'm not gonna stay here and tell you he's the greatest author in American history probably not I mean he's just that for me this is me here I love everything this guy does just about so he what he did really helped form my life to the point to where I got to where I am reading today was through reading Stephen King stories and I compared just about everything that I see now there's probably something that either he or Tolkien has written before so I feel like Stephen King is the Stanley of horror if that makes sense if you got a movie where there's a superhero in it people are even if it's not one that Stan Lee did people expect to see Stan Lee because they just say Stan Lee they think comics I think Americans think horror they think scary they think Stephen King so that's probably the kind of comparison I can make there he still got a huge huge fandom I wish that I could you know go do one of those tours of Maine something like that go to a signing of something I there was a signing of his that I attended one time got there at like 4:00 in the morning and they flat-out told us the lines too long you're not gonna get to get anything signed because there had been people there camping off for like six days so yeah I'll never get that at first edition back there signed which which which breaks my heart but that's okay that's all right you know I'll just regret that until the day that I die no big deal so you guys have yeah you guys clearly if you're watching this long you were receiving King fan as well something he's done has either impressed you or left a lepton imprint on you somehow be it movies be it books be it who knows his political views maybe maybe his his Twitter account brought you here or something like that whatever it is I you just bring it you cannot deny the impact this guy has had on American pop culture that he is the most adapted author of all time you know and now they're starting to do all these remakes because it was such a big hit that they're trying to do trying to snatch up all those properties I think we've got numerous television series that are on the way I think they're doing the outsider an HBO they're doing The Dark Tower on on Amazon they're doing eyes the dragon on Hulu Castlerock is is not his but it's you know it's based off of his properties and then you got it chapter two coming we got the making the stand on CBS got dr. sleep so I mean this is kind of a second Renaissance for king right now and there are a lot of people who were discovering him for the first time so guys if you're wanting to get into kini and you don't know where to start I'd say if you want something easily approachable check out Carrie it's a good place to start for once something scary it's not really difficult to read The Shining The Shining will get you if you're willing to go all-in and you just want a really great story and you don't care about length the stand or it one of the other you want you want something like that but you won't be scared it for sure so guys there's something that he has written for everybody out there there's anything that you want to know about please drop me a comment let me know I will happily talk about this forever I mean look I'm here I'm coming up on 40 minutes and I could keep going that feels like me rushing it a little bit so I guess the last thing to say is what are some things I'd like to see adapted I've been asking for them to make remake the stand for a while now and actually put some effort into it and put it on a streaming site because it's going to have adult content it's going to have bad language so I'm really glad that it's gonna be on CBS all access that's the ones that do the new Twilight Zone they do Star Trek Discovery and regards have you feel about that I thought the production value is good enough the author is a very very big fan he he has a very very cool story about help similar to mine where his parents wouldn't let him read the books and so he wrote Stephen King a letter about it and Stephen King FedEx him like all of his books signed and their parents were like okay maybe he's not such a bad guy after all so obviously this guy knows how important this book is to some people and they're gonna they're hopefully they're gonna do it really really good I love some of the castings even now it's already it I feel like I hate that they moved they moved it to make it current because I feel like the problem with a lot of horror movies which I do a modern is just everybody's just gonna be hey hey I took this picture with my phone of this scary clown I feel like that's gonna be a problem with them I love to taking place in the 50s and in the 80s I truly feel like they modernize it just so they could capitalize off of stranger things success which sucks because there's so many people who don't know say oh yeah it just copied stranger things the Deaf Brothers talked about how they wanted to make it first the duffer brothers that make stranger things very big Stephen King fans guys know Steven Keeny did not ripoff stranger things uh they're so annoying sorry that's a little personal issue for me I don't know let me see what I would like to see them do The Dark Tower right I feel like they're trying to do it better this time than they did with that horrible movie that Sony made because last time it was just like yeah yeah the internet like citrus elbow let's put him out there and let's just whatever happens and it was god-awful I feel like if they're starting with wizard and glass that's a great idea you know that's that's younger rollin that's a great idea so hopefully that takes off they are doing lycée story on Apple TV I have not read it yet I wouldn't even King tweet about the sella day that he'd like to see Netflix retry to do under the dome and like his words actually adapt the book this time cuz the CBS series did not do that yeah that would be really really cool is that so that's an underrated book of his under the dome it really really is see I'm letting some of these older ones here dark half could probably use an update needful things could use an update that's actually somewhat somewhat uh faithful but I mean some of these classic ones just I don't think you they try to read you carry it didn't work but Nell said they tried Pet Sematary office that was terrible they really should try to do the long walk I wouldn't mind trying to see another attempt at firestarter even though I said I was lukewarm on that book I think that there's a good movie in there somewhere I don't know they could do Cujo any better cuz they'd want to use a CGI dog and it would just look silly or they try to modernize it and make it like a pit bull or something like that I don't know I don't know Christine yeah that movie leaves a lot to be desired has some iconic shots in it but again some of these I feel like I wouldn't mind seeing them try it again but I feel like they try to modernize them and it just doesn't work a lot of his stories won't work when you try to pull him into 2019 they just don't feel the same so they're not gonna do that I'm like hey just leave some of them alone but some of these feel like they'd be better for a long-form television they did 11/22/63 know a lot of people were upset about it me someone I loved the book look it had changes but it was better than most King adaptations out there and I do thought that that was really got the ball rolling that you could do King on long form streaming services really really really really well so yeah yeah they did a TV show the dead zone remember that Anthony Michael Hall I like parts of it I like parts of it I like I like him as John Smith it's pretty it's pretty good I don't know yeah I'm just rambling now obviously there is a giant giant just treasure trove of things that they could adapt here alright I'm gonna stop talking about it now basically guys if you want to talk any more about this please just hit me up in the comments I love to talk to you guys about this stuff I could go on and on and on a night and I will because I'm gonna do a book review for it before the the new movie comes out I'm gonna do one for dr. sleep after I finished reading it we gonna do one for the Institute and then I might start going back and doing some of these because I started doing a reread of King stuff in 2015 and I did a lot of them and I know this before I was doing these book reviews book for use or whatever and I'd love to talk about a lot of them individually because as you can see I can keep doing that for King stuff all day but I don't want to kind of like ramble like I'm drinking a beer and talk to you at a bar here because it's just gonna get overly overly long so do you like King obviously if you're watching this you have what's your favorite book what would you like to see happen would you like to see him write a sequel to any book that you never got to who's your favorite King villain anything like that hit me up in the comments and I'll talk to you guys soon keep reading

Channel: Mike's Book Reviews

Views: 30,358

Rating: 4.9689655 out of 5

Keywords: stephen king, constant reader, book reviews, horror, carrie, pennywise, the shining, the stand, salem's lot, cujo, dark tower, pet sematary, misery, tommyknockers, the long walk, the green mile, firestarter, christine, needful things, gerald's game, under the dome, review, reaction

Id: k8DYWLi5IAg

Length: 47min 10sec (2830 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Zepp1978]

Good morning, Constant Readers. I do book reviews on YouTube and today I did a segment on Stephen King and what his writings have meant to me over the last 25 years and I just wanted to share my King origin story. Mods, if this is not okay or against sub rules, please remove. Thanks!