I recently learned an author by the name of Greg Bear was writing a set of books set in the time of the forerunners in the halo universe. Planning on reading them when I'm caught up on SK.

Finished The Long Walk. Nearly my favorite Stephen King book. Seriously excellent.

Going to start up on Roadwork next. And then The Running Man.

I'm about 200 pages into Infinite Jest, it's pretty rad. so far the whole story has been told in a sort of narrating, expository form... David Foster Wallace likes to describe everyones habits and details and anxieties, and then gives you the backstory on the place they're brooding in, and it's unique and captivating, and written in this kind of colloquial, stream-of-conscience-yet-readable format... although he throws a lot of archaic/obscure references/words I keep having to look up  (like one every page... possibly just me not knowing the refs, as dave eggers says in the forward that you won't have to look up much), and the foot notes are all at the back (of which there are like 100s), but thats kinda part of the fun.
I highly recommend it so far!!

Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Awakening?
By Geoff Stray


We're gonna find out soon enough if it's even 1/2 way right!


Check it out on Amazon.

Finally finished Roadwork. It wasn't great but it was OK.

Moving on to Cujo. Also, literally when I began reading it last night (around midnight), I heard a fuck ton of coyotes/wolves/coywolves howling outside. First time I've ever heard such a thing, holy fuck it was creepy sounding.

EDIT: I am not bullshitting.

Finished a couple of books since my last post. Cujo was pretty good, but it was a little slow oddly enough.

I also read The Running Man and it was pretty awesome. Definitely one of his best books.

I also read Different Seasons, which had 2 of his more well known stories (because they got well known movie adaptations) "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption", and "The Body" (its movie was called "Stand By Me" which I've yet to see but I want to now.

Then I read Cycle of the Werewolf, which was ok.

I'm now reading "Thinner", which, last time I tried to read I got bored and put it down in the middle. This time I'm warming up to it a bit. Still one of his weaker stories though.

And then I'm going to read "It" which I also didn't think was that great last time I read it and I did the same as "thinner", I dropped it in the middle. Hopefully I warm up to it like I am warming to "Thinner".


I went wondered what a top 10 SK list for me would look like now that I've basically read half of his books, so I went through and picked them out: (out of roughly 48% of all his books) Note that this isn't my Top 10 favorite books of all authors. IDK if I could even make one at this point as I'd argue I've not read enough authors.
1) Cell
2) The Stand
3) The Dark Tower Series (all but the 4th book)
4) The Long Walk
5) Skeleton Crew (For The Mist)
6) Firestarter
7) The Running Man
8) Different Seasons (for Shawshank and apt pupil)
9) Desperation
10) The Talisman

So anybody interested in reading his stuff should probably start at or near the bottom or so of this list. Yes, I made a top 10 list, shut up.

His worst IMO books are probably:
Thinner
It
And the 4th book in the Dark Tower Series

In no particular order.

Finished Thinner. It had a fucked up ending, I can say that much with out feeling I've spoiled it.

Starting the outright TOME that is "It" and the book oddly enough has also warmed up to me a bit like thinner did. Hopefully it's ending doesn't disappoint me like Thinner's did however.

Is no one else reading anything?

I FINALLY FUCKING FINISHED "IT"

The pacing of that book was pretty bad. But the ending was OK. and there were a few decently interesting spots through out. But really he should have made the book a hell of a lot shorter.

Which is funny because a lot of people feel the same about The Stand (or its uncut version, which is just slightly longer than It) but that book was great pretty much through out, with, oddly enough, its ending sections being the weakest but they then I was like, "I got this far" so it was easy to read the rest.

"It", is Stephen Kings longest book (ignoring the uncut The Stand release), I can't help but feel like its probably his weakest.

I'm still content that I read it and finished it though. Now I'll probably eventually watch the movie. Based on what I read though I know they probably cut huge swaths of the story out (and some... uh scenes probably 'push the envelope' a bit too much for Hollywood. Anyone who has read it will know what I'm talking about)

Moving on to his only 'classic fantasy' style novel. "The Eyes of The Dragon"

Read the first 15% of it last night before I hit the hay. I'm already like it a hell of a lot more than It lol. I'm also a little bit more intrigued because it takes place in the same world most of the dark tower series takes place in.

Finished The Dark Half. It was just OK.

Reading 4 Past Midnight. Currently just finishing up The Langoliers novella in it (its the first story). And It pretty much kicks ass.

Stephen King seems to be at his best when he does either post-apocalyptic, Twilight-zone-esque, or adventure books.