Meet the Guy Who Fact-Checks Stephen King On Stephen King

The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2013-09-11 16:34 · Score: -1

Every single new Stephen King book for the past 10 years has been worse than the previous ones. I'd say continuity is not maintained here.

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Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:51 · Score: 5, Funny

You should read his next book, it's about how Israeli plants high-up in the American government exercise the Sampson option by sending the United States into war with Syria in the Middle-East, only to be stopped by the leader of Russia. It's called Checkmate, available on newsstands today!
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:53 · Score: 4, Informative

I'm not sure you understand what continuity means.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:53 · Score: 1

Every single new Stephen King book for the past 10 years has been worse than the previous ones.
That's because his more recent work is largely intertextual. You have to read like 10 of his other books (and various literature and poetry by other authors) to understand The Dark Tower.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:58 · Score: 0

Coming soon to a USA near YOU!
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 17:30 · Score: 0

I'm still pissed about that ending. So many years I spent following the series, wasted. Fuck Stephen King.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by F.Ultra · 2013-09-11 17:58 · Score: 5, Informative

It's not like he didn't warn you, but you didn't care for the dire warning at the end did you.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by quadrox · 2013-09-11 18:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't mind the ending so much as I hate the new books in general. Wolves of the Callah was downright awful (I really hated all the Harry Potter and other stuff), the one after that was not much better, and the dark tower finally was actually ok again.
I don't know why, but the first four books are exciting and amazing with a lot of suspense and mystery, and the last three just plain suck compared to that. It's like he figured that he really needed to finish the series and just rushed it. Or after the long break and the car accident he forgot what it was all about - I think he even alluded to this in some interview, I'm very fuzzy on the details though.
No, the end really was ok. It was the only logical ending I guess. But I wish anything between book four and that ending was left unwritten instead.
And in addition to all of this, he decided to mangle the original books with all the jesus crap. Fuck that shit!
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:53 · Score: 0

I'm not sure you understand what a joke is.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:53 · Score: -1

You're such a sheep, you'll believe anything you hear on the news. It's so convenient isn't it? Obama wants war with Syria, the Juze are making him do it. NSA spys on it's citizens, while working with spy agencies all over he world, its the Juze fault. Blame blame blame the Jews. It's all their fault. Remember the Dinosaurs? THE Juden' caused their extinction. Oh remember Jesus? Darn those Juze of today.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by RogueyWon · 2013-09-11 19:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

I didn't mind Wolves. In fact, I more or less like The Dark Tower series as a whole. Yes, I've got some reservations (as I have about other long fantasy series - Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Song of Ice and Fire), but as a whole, I'd say that I found more to enjoy than to dislike.
If I had a complaint, it'd be around the way the last two books are cut up. Song of Susannah is a very, very short book (not much more than a pamphlet really) in which not much happens. Then the final books is a vast tome (not much shorter than all three books of LOTR combined) with god knows how many plot threads within it. Even the meta-narrative crap (my least favorite aspect of the series) from book 6 has all of its conclusions pushed into book 7.
It doesn't much matter, now that the whole series is available and if you want to read through it you can do so with no delays. But at the time SoS was released... my word, I was not a happy bunny.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 19:40 · Score: 0

I'm not sure.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 20:42 · Score: 0

I'm not.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 20:54 · Score: 0

I am!
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by ciderbrew · 2013-09-11 21:15 · Score: 2

Yes you are.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by isorox · 2013-09-11 23:36 · Score: 4, Funny

You should read his next book, it's about how Israeli plants high-up in the American government exercise the Sampson option by sending the United States into war with Syria in the Middle-East, only to be stopped by the leader of Russia. It's called Checkmate, available on newsstands today!
It's like the inverse of a Tom Clancy novel!
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by RabidReindeer · 2013-09-12 00:01 · Score: 3, Informative

The Dark Tower made me weep for him. Really. It's supposed to be his magnum opus and yet it's so flawed.
King has never been that appealing to me because so much of what I have read of his work (which isn't as much as I should have) has been stuff like recycled Lovecraft, recycled Hitchcock, recycled someone else.
But the Dark Tower has some genuinely brilliant concepts in it. Sadly, they glitter like gems in the mud. Some of the most fascinating and fantastic aspects were never really taken to their conclusions, while a lot of the book read like a bunch of unrelated stories bound together with wattle and daub.
Jake's death in volume 1 made me itch. Then Roland just sits on the beach while crustaceans munch his fingers off. Neither he nor the crustaceans were believable at that point.
By the end of the series, it had degenerated into a mish-mash of throwing in chunks of stuff from his other works, then added insult to injury by writing himself into it. That's a trick that only the most capable of writers can pull off, and sadly, he wasn't one of them.
Then, when it all wrapped up, there were loose ends galore, and it turned out to be just a recycled version of The Never-ending Story.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by drinkypoo · 2013-09-12 00:04 · Score: 2

I got about a quarter of the way through the first book and then got bored, just couldn't pick it up again.
Are any of the other books better? Or are they just as slow, contrived, and unimaginative? Holy everyone else has done it better, batman.
This is pretty much the experience I have with every Stephen King book except the Stand, the only book he's ever written with any characters I cared about. So maybe he's just not for me.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 00:51 · Score: -1

Fuck off.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by RogueyWon · 2013-09-12 01:17 · Score: 3, Informative

The first book (The Gunslinger) is terrible. By King's own admission, it's essentially an oversized student essay. When it was around a decade ago reprinted, it had some fairly major changes to make it fit better with the rest of the series. But by and large, it's awful.
Things improve markedly with the second book, which has actual... you know... characters and plot. The third and fourth are excellent, the fifth divides opinion but I like it, the sixth a very short and doesn't do much and the seventh is an epic in its own right.
The ending is infamous and many people hate it. Or rather, the second ending is infamous. There is a break point at which he cuts into the narrative and says "you can stop here". If you stop there, you get a perfectly fine open-ish ending. But nobody ever stops there.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Reapy · 2013-09-12 01:17 · Score: 3, Informative

I honestly thought wizards and glass , something like that, the 3rd book... was the best one. This one really set the tone for the gunslinger, and took place when he was younger and you basically had knights with guns mixed in with a western, I liked it a lot. The others were kinda sorta ok, page turners and some few good select scenes but felt a bit on the wondering side. Book 3 was the one that really stood out to me.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 01:39 · Score: 0

Perhaps.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by mcgrew · 2013-09-12 04:55 · Score: 1

I haven't read very many of his books, but I thought The Green Mile was excellent.

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Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 05:34 · Score: 0

I would argue quite the reverse. The first, second and third books where the best, then it went downhill from there. The last three books aren't even worth reading. Read the first three, maybe the fourth, and stop there.
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 08:09 · Score: 0

Levon Ycnalc Mot a fo esrevni eht ekil s'ti?
Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job by F.Ultra · 2013-09-12 18:15 · Score: 1

Then you should read the new 4.5 The Wind Through the Keyhole which takes place in the same old time western age as Wizards and Glass.

Best Seller, Book Stuffed with Bull Shit by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:37 · Score: 1

"Best sellers" are like collectible cards. People collect them because they want to have the complete set, not because the content is any good. The last time King wrote a book worth reading was a decade ago.

Re:Best Seller, Book Stuffed with Bull Shit by M.+Baranczak · 2013-09-11 16:47 · Score: 2

The last time King wrote a book worth reading was a decade ago.
The last time King wrote a book worth reading it wasn't a book, it was a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick, and it was more than ten years ago.
Re:Best Seller, Book Stuffed with Bull Shit by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 17:06 · Score: -1

The last time King wrote a book himself was 1980. Since then he's employed ghost writers.
Re:Best Seller, Book Stuffed with Bull Shit by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 23:59 · Score: 0

King sucks, I can't stand anything he writes and he's a jerk to boot. He's been overrated for years and stole some of his ideas from old radio show stories.
Re:Best Seller, Book Stuffed with Bull Shit by RabidReindeer · 2013-09-12 00:05 · Score: 2

The last time King wrote a book worth reading was a decade ago.
The last time King wrote a book worth reading it wasn't a book, it was a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick, and it was more than ten years ago.
Milk the blood flowing out of the elevators scene until it it makes you want to scream ("Not AGAIN!"). The ballroom shocker was straight out of 1950's Vincent Price shlock. and the "Red Rum" thing was just plain deja vu.
If you want a King movie worth watching, I'd vote for Shawshank any day.
Re:Best Seller, Book Stuffed with Bull Shit by Tolkienfanatic · 2013-09-12 01:38 · Score: 0

You realize that movie is garbage, right?

from the wired article: by circletimessquare · 2013-09-11 16:39 · Score: 1

If the task sounds daunting, the truth is even worse. Wood is working on another book about King, but in 2010 he learned he had Lou Gehrig’s disease, and 80 percent of patients die within five years of diagnosis.

dude's life is horror, all around

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Re:from the wired article: by Samantha+Wright · 2013-09-11 16:46 · Score: 2

Reminder to self: stick to day job, do not follow dreams of becoming writer. In event of success, death before 70th birthday due to disease is certain.

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Re:from the wired article: by phantomfive · 2013-09-11 16:51 · Score: 1

He also got hit by a car while out walking a few years back. Tough stuff.

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Re:from the wired article: by Paradise+Pete · 2013-09-11 17:07 · Score: 3, Informative

That's the wrong 'he". It's Rocky Wood who has the disease. (Unless of course you mean Wood was also hit by a car.)
Re:from the wired article: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 17:54 · Score: 0

Yet the © lasts until 70 years after death...
Re:from the wired article: by Samantha+Wright · 2013-09-11 19:24 · Score: 2

Perhaps it wouldn't be so extreme if writers were better at not dying prematurely.

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Re:from the wired article: by drkim · 2013-09-11 19:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Woods was actually the one who rescued King after the car crash, and even took King home to recover in his house; but he was already a huge fan.
King had to give him the 'continuity job' or Wood would have cut off his foot with an axe.
Re:from the wired article: by RabidReindeer · 2013-09-12 00:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Reminder to self: stick to day job, do not follow dreams of becoming writer. In event of success, death before 70th birthday due to disease is certain.
Write SF, then. Arthur C. Clarke. Isaac Asimov. Fred Pohl. Jack Vance. Andre Norton.
Re:from the wired article: by Samantha+Wright · 2013-09-12 04:19 · Score: 1

Iain Banks. Douglas Adams. Sooner or later, Terry Pratchett, though he's not exactly SF. The season of longevity seems to have ended some time before 1945.

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He should be replaced by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:42 · Score: -1

The quality of "fact checking" done on his anti-gun book was atrocious.

I sense an opportunity by djupedal · 2013-09-11 16:43 · Score: 5, Funny

I need to become the world-wide leading expert on Rocky Wood's body of work...

Re:I sense an opportunity by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:13 · Score: -1

still sucking cocks, i see.
Re:I sense an opportunity by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:18 · Score: 0

Mod parent up.
Re:I sense an opportunity by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 19:00 · Score: 1

As somebody who spends 3 seconds half-reading the summary, I Google searched Rocky Woods hoping that that was some kind lady's adult film stage name.
Nope.
Re:I sense an opportunity by zAPPzAPP · 2013-09-11 23:48 · Score: 2

'Hard as Rock Wood' makes you think of a lady?
Re:I sense an opportunity by Phrogman · 2013-09-12 02:25 · Score: 1

How about Rocky Wood as in "She likes to Rock The Wood" or something.

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Off topic, I'm sorry... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:51 · Score: 3, Informative

...but this is the first time I've read or heard the term "CD-ROM" this decade. Really? If it was published on CD-ROM, wouldn't it be horribly out of date by now?

Re: Off topic, I'm sorry... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:45 · Score: 2, Informative

Well it wouldn't be out of date because the single books would never change so the facts would still be right
Re:Off topic, I'm sorry... by wisnoskij · 2013-09-12 00:25 · Score: 1

CD-ROMs work in normal computer drives, and are what is often used if your content is of that size.

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Re:Off topic, I'm sorry... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 03:01 · Score: 0

CD-ROMs work in normal computer drives, and are what is often used if your content is of that size.
Your computer has drives? Like, little motors that spin media around and around?
Huh. How quaint.

Join the revolution.. See the FUTURE! by sjwt · 2013-09-11 16:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

And here was I thinking that this is what Wikis are for

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Re:Join the revolution.. See the FUTURE! by LostMonk · 2013-09-11 17:57 · Score: 2

You do know that Wikis do not update themselves... right?
Re:Join the revolution.. See the FUTURE! by sjwt · 2013-09-11 22:06 · Score: 1

No, but Fan kids do, and will often collectively put in much more effort than 10 paid full time fact checkers.

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Re:Join the revolution.. See the FUTURE! by DerekLyons · 2013-09-11 22:39 · Score: 2

Somebody has to write the content for the wiki and create all the links - it doesn't happen all on it's own. And few wiki's, even fannish ones, are down to the level of detail described in the article.
Re:Join the revolution.. See the FUTURE! by chrismcb · 2013-09-12 00:58 · Score: 1

I would guess you want your new book to be fact checked BEFORE you published it.
Re:Join the revolution.. See the FUTURE! by BitZtream · 2013-09-12 01:36 · Score: 1

Yes, 10 times the work from one guy, the other 10,000 will give you crap they don't even known about ... and a billion times the opinion and personal bias. Perhaps you've heard of wikipedia and its well known problems.
You people really need to get it through your head that you need to pay people for quality less-biased work.

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Fact by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 16:55 · Score: -1

I am the KING of comments. -Richard Bachman

Somebody had to say it... by John+Pfeiffer · 2013-09-11 17:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

High-functioning autism as a career path? Heh.

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If you can't beat them by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 17:02 · Score: 5, Funny

See, this is exactly what celebrities need to do. Don't antagonize and arrest your stalkers, employ them!

Re:If you can't beat them by LittleBigScript · 2013-09-11 20:16 · Score: 3, Funny

Misery loves company. And hammers.
Re:If you can't beat them by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 21:18 · Score: 0

And Stephen King, he really likes hammers. Sledghammers.
Re:If you can't beat them by _Shad0w_ · 2013-09-11 21:28 · Score: 2

Looking at Wood's own Wikipedia entry it would seem he's actually a horror writer in his own right, as well as an extremely active member of the HWA (he's been president of it for four years, and was a trustee for two years before that). Apparently he was also a member of the Australian Logistics Council...which seems a bit weird.

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Re:If you can't beat them by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 01:35 · Score: 0

That didn't exactly pan out for Spanish singer "Selena" very well... Google it
Re:If you can't beat them by BitZtream · 2013-09-12 01:37 · Score: 1

Heh, having had to develop code for some logistics systems ... Horror is very fitting.

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See by Anarchduke · 2013-09-11 17:04 · Score: 4, Funny

And they said being an obsessive stalker would never pay off!

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Re:See by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:52 · Score: 0

Stalker? Isn't this why there are PH.Ds with anything that is recorded? You focus on a specific topic, whether it is Heidegger, Thoreau or King...There are so many lit students that someone has taken the time to really stink into the work of Steven King. The summary doesn't say much about Rocky Woods, but I'm sure he's just a smart guy who loves books.

You know who else who would have needed such help? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 17:34 · Score: 0

George Costanza. His webs of lies were so twisted that even he must have had a hard time keeping track of them all.

On a totally unrelated note, I don't envy Larry David.

Not a "fact check" by mr100percent · 2013-09-11 17:46 · Score: 1

Continuity checking "Fact checking"

Re:Not a "fact check" by mr100percent · 2013-09-11 17:47 · Score: 2

I did write "" (the unequal sign), does slashdot not process symbols?
Fine, Continuity checking != "Fact checking"
Re:Not a "fact check" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 18:14 · Score: 0

Since the word "fact" comes from "facere"(which means "to do"), you can indeed call this a fact check:
he checks everything that has been done by King ;)
Re:Not a "fact check" by drinkypoo · 2013-09-12 00:01 · Score: 3, Informative

Slashdot does not and has never processed unicode.
Yes, this is inexcusable. No, it will probably never change.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Not a "fact check" by wiredlogic · 2013-09-12 03:58 · Score: 1

99% of the userbase's desire for more characters would be satisfied by supporting ISO-8859-15. I don't see how slashdot's branch of slashcode could be so crufty that using the 8th bit would be such a challenge to implement, especially since slashdot.jp seems to have figured it all out.

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Re:Not a "fact check" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 08:37 · Score: 0

I did write "" (the unequal sign), does slashdot not process symbols?
Not unicode, but HTML. When it sees < it assumes it's the start of an HTML command such as <a href="http://www.slashdot.org">. So to put "not equal" you can use the < operator followed by the > (which renders when there's no opening bracket). So you wind up with <>.
Or you can just use != like you did iin the end.

26k characters? by Radagast · 2013-09-11 17:48 · Score: 1

How are there 26 thousand characters in King's work? He's written 56 novels, which is a lot, and a bunch of short work, but still, if half those characters are from his novels, that's 232 characters per novel. He'd need to introduce a new one every few pages, constantly, throughout the novel. Unless this counts people who are just mentioned once in passing, crowds, and whatnot, I have a hard time believing that.

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--Joakim Ziegler

Re:26k characters? by kylemonger · 2013-09-11 18:24 · Score: 2

You forgot about the short fiction. And King, well, he writes and writes and writes and writes. He's been so successful for so long that I doubt any editor has had the stones to cut his work for at least a decade. Maybe two. As much as I enjoyed his early work I stopped reading King because there were better books out there written with many fewer pages.
Re:26k characters? by LMariachi · 2013-09-11 18:54 · Score: 3, Funny

Randall Flagg from The Stand and The Dark Tower series is suggested to be the demon(s) Legion that Jesus exorcised into a herd of pigs which subsequently ran off a cliff into the sea.
“My name is Legion, for we are many.” - Mark 5:9
So that could account for a whole shitload of characters in just that one guy.
Re:26k characters? by RogueyWon · 2013-09-11 19:10 · Score: 1

I don't find 26k characters hard to believe, expecially not if you take the short stories into account. Yes, it probably takes minor characters into account, but King's books do feature an insane number of those (cf. IT or the extended version of The Stand) and quite a number of them have small plot-threads of their own, or show up in multiple books (lots of minor-character cameos in the Dark Tower series).

Re:You know who else who would have needed such he by noh8rz10 · 2013-09-11 18:28 · Score: 1

George Costanza. His webs of lies were so twisted that even he must have had a hard time keeping track of them all.

And Walter White for sure!

Meet the Fact Checkers of the Chinese translations by mynamestolen · 2013-09-11 19:06 · Score: 2

https://kmccready.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/review-chinese-translation-of-stephen-king-%E6%96%AF%E8%92%82%E8%8A%AC%C2%B7%E9%87%91%EF%BC%89bag-of-bones-%E5%B0%B8%E9%AA%A8%E8%A2%8B/

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work in progress

Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 19:15 · Score: 0

Wow. Rocky Wood must be a veritable encyclopedia of disappointing book endings.

And his next book is about... uh... by wonkey_monkey · 2013-09-11 19:24 · Score: 3, Funny

...a lamp monster! Ooo-oooh!

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Re:And his next book is about... uh... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 19:52 · Score: 0

Considering you're likely too stupid to read a book, it doesn't surprise me that you have a moronic comment.
Re:And his next book is about... uh... by vanGrimoire · 2013-09-13 05:49 · Score: 1

woohoo, why yes reading Stephen King - the Height of intellectual achievement.

Noot interested by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 19:37 · Score: 0

not because he is awful or such but Stephen King is awful.

300 million books, each unique by JavaRob · 2013-09-11 20:03 · Score: 1

Why does this lead in with "Stephen King has sold more than 300 million books of horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy" -- sure, he's been a popular author, but the relevant info would be how many books he has *written*, no? How many *words* would be interesting to learn.

But if he wrote one book and sold 300 million copies, I doubt he'd need a continuity adviser.

Re:300 million books, each unique by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 20:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why does this lead in with "Stephen King has sold more than 300 million books of horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy" -- sure, he's been a popular author, but the relevant info would be how many books he has *written*, no? How many *words* would be interesting to learn.
But if he wrote one book and sold 300 million copies, I doubt he'd need a continuity adviser.
Well, the bible sold a lot of copies, and though it's just one book - its writers *definitely* needed a continuity advisor, and the lack of one is clearly evident in the bible.
Re:300 million books, each unique by BetterThanCaesar · 2013-09-11 23:04 · Score: 2

Well, the bible sold a lot of copies, and though it's just one book - its writers *definitely* needed a continuity advisor, and the lack of one is clearly evident in the bible.
The Bible is not one book. It's a compilation of several books.

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Re:300 million books, each unique by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 23:58 · Score: 0

Well, more like a collection of short stories and novellas - and some letters.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novella#Awards_word_counts Novellas go up to fourty thousand words and most of the Bibles "books" are a whole lot shorter. Genesis (not the band :-)) is among the longest with 38k words, while Jonah has 1320. The "book" 3John only has 294 words - fitting, because it's not a book but a letter. All of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are in the 15k to 25k words range.
(All values taken from http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.html and differ a bit depending on translation and language)
On the other hand every one of the six parts (plus addendum) of "The Lord of The Ring" is longer than the longest "book" of the bible, but no one thinks of these as "books" of the complete LOTR.
Re:300 million books, each unique by wisnoskij · 2013-09-12 00:28 · Score: 1

What? The six parts of the LOTR are books. You can even buy them separately, I believe.

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Re:300 million books, each unique by Politburo · 2013-09-12 01:10 · Score: 1

Even though Tolkien calls the 6 parts "books", he actually considered the work to be one volume of a whole, made up of LOTR + Silmarillion. That was rejected, and LOTR was published as 3 volumes to keep the cost down (e.g. the tendency of people to be willing to pay 3*$5 for three average-size books but not 1*$15 for one large one).
Re:300 million books, each unique by operagost · 2013-09-12 02:51 · Score: 2

Ooh, another internet atheist. [citation needed]

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Re:300 million books, each unique by gl4ss · 2013-09-12 03:08 · Score: 1

it is just one book, generally speaking.
compromising of several self contradicting separate stories of stories.
it is one book because it is bind into being a single book.

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Being a Stephen King fact checker is easy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-11 20:48 · Score: 0

99% of the time if Stephen King asks his fact checker where part of a story takes place, where a character has come from, or what profession the main protagonist was the answer will be "In Maine" and "an author".

Ghostwriters? by aaaaaaargh! · 2013-09-11 21:00 · Score: 1

I always thought that guys like Stephen King or Tom Clancy have their books written by a couple of ghostwriters and in the end only make a few corrections and put their approval stamp on it. Not that I have anything against that, publishing is a business... but I wonder whether I'm right or wrong?

Any professional ghostwriters among the /. crowd?

Re:Ghostwriters? by abigsmurf · 2013-09-11 21:53 · Score: 1

King's works are probably heavily trimmed and re-arranged by editors but normally ghostwritten books by established authors stick out like a sore thumb as differences in writing style are too obvious. It's not as easy as creating a book where the main character is a recovering alcoholic writer from Maine.

For example the last Discworld novel really stood out to me as being ghostwritten. For one thing, it was far too respectful of long established characters (if you're a ghostwriter you may not won't to do anything major with someone else's characters) but what really stood out was something tiny and simple: One of the characters casually used a swearword that you never see in Discworld novels (Pratchett has always been PG in his approach to language). It's more understandable with him though given his embuggerance.

Still, his daughter is officially taking the reigns of the series and she's shown herself to be a good writer in her own right.
Re:Ghostwriters? by stasike · 2013-09-12 00:47 · Score: 1

Are you sure you are not confusing King with Patterson? ;-)
Re:Ghostwriters? by chrismcb · 2013-09-12 01:01 · Score: 1

Why would you think that? King and Clancy don't "produce" their books.

The Dark Tower by abigsmurf · 2013-09-11 21:44 · Score: 1

Presumably he was on holiday when King finished the Dark Tower and crapped on a lot of the stuff from Insomnia...

Is that a good idea? by nospam007 · 2013-09-11 23:46 · Score: 2

I remember one of his books where an author got some problems with his 'Number One Fan'.

Re:Is that a good idea? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 01:31 · Score: 0

If you read his book "On Writing", you'll see how his being hit by a car was part of his inspiration for the book. By the way, "On Writing" is a really good book, the first 3/4 or so are about his persistence and backstory on his becoming a writer. The last 1/4 is effectively how he prepares to write, what he calls his toolbox. Fortunately, it's not quite as verbose as some of his work, it weighs in at ~150 pages. There's apparently a 10th anniversary edition of the book that doubles the pages.

Fact check fiction? by backslashdot · 2013-09-11 23:57 · Score: 1

What do you mean fact check? It's all fiction. None of it is fact.

Fail.

Re:Fact check fiction? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 03:01 · Score: 0

Hey everyone, I found the guy that still says "fail"!

Not unusual at all... by evilviper · 2013-09-12 00:04 · Score: 2

This kind of thing is quite common. George R. R. Martin of "Game of Thrones" / A Game of Fire and Ice infamy, recently talked about the obsessed fan he calls and asks to fact-check what he is writing, specifically to verify details about characters, rather than continuing to get things like "eye color" wrong, and accidentally changing the gender of a horse between books... etc.

http://teamcoco.com/celebs/george-r-r-martin

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Re:Not unusual at all... by evilviper · 2013-09-12 00:07 · Score: 1

http://teamcoco.com/video/george-r-r-martin-writing-fast
Transcript:
CONAN: Do you ever have trouble keeping it all straight as the guy who is writing this?
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: Occasionally, yes.
I have a guy in Sweden that I call, not one of Alexander's nude polar bear writers, but he is actually an American fan who lives in Sweden and they run the website.
They know the world better than I do.
Occasionally when I'm stuck on something, I call them up and say what color eyes did this guy have?
Was that his nephew or cousin?
He has it all.
CONAN: He can tell you right away?
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: That's right.
CONAN: You made mistakes that these fans have caught, is that right?
Over the books, there are inconsistencies?
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: I'm terrible with eye color.
Some had blue eyes and then green eyes.
Fans noticed this, I get tons of letters.
A horse changed sex between the first book and the second book.
I'm not good with horses.
CONAN: That happens.
It's legal.
[Laughter]
http://teamcoco.com/video/george-r-r-martin-writing-fast

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Re:Not unusual at all... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 01:19 · Score: 0

"His name is Susan and he expects you to respect his life choices." https://www.facebook.com/AHorseNamedSusan
Re:Not unusual at all... by Cytotoxic · 2013-09-12 04:41 · Score: 1

Not common enough. e.g. George Lucas should have hired one for Star Wars.
Re:Not unusual at all... by evilviper · 2013-09-12 09:10 · Score: 1

Not common enough. e.g. George Lucas should have hired one for Star Wars.
There's actually a *SIMPLE* explanation for all of that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BMgegut3UM
Well worth watching.

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Fact check Stephen King by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 01:00 · Score: 0

So when in fact did he die? I have seen it reported in this blog many times...

Truly an American Icon

Writes about writers by Russ1642 · 2013-09-12 01:44 · Score: 2

It's so annoying to always have the protagonist be a writer. It's self-aggrandizing that an author always puts himself as one of the main characters.

Re:Writes about writers by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 02:32 · Score: 0

You mean, it has something of this? Not following the Get-Over-Yourself rule?
http://learnfromwebcomics.tumblr.com/post/16967474159/lesson-thirteen
Re:Writes about writers by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 07:09 · Score: 0

The last time I enjoyed a Stephen King novel was some time in the 80's, and I was only 12 at the time. Writing millions of words does not make you an author. Writing any number of words worth reading "might' make you an author.
Re:Writes about writers by F.Ultra · 2013-09-12 18:47 · Score: 1

Always? Actually most of his protagonists are not writers.

Carrie: no, Salems Lot: yes, The Shining: no, Rage: no, The Stand: no, The Long Walk: no, The Dead Zone: no, Firestarter: no, Roadwork: no, Cujo: no, The Running man: no, Christine: no, Pet Sematary: no, The Talisman: no, Thinner: no, It: yes, in a way, Misery: yes, The Tommyknockers: yes, in a way, The Dark Half: yes, The Stand: no, Needful Things: no, Gerald's Game: no, Dolores Claiborne: no, Insomnia: yes, Rose Madder: no, The Green Mile: no, Desperation: no, The Regulators: no, Bag of Bones: yes, Storm of the Century: no, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: no, Hearts in Atlantis: no, Secret Windows: yes, Dreamcatcher: no, From a Buick 8: no, The Colorado Kid: no, Cell: no, the main protagonist has done a graphic novel however, Lisey's Story: yes, Blaze: no, Duma Key: yes, Under the Dome: no, 11/22/63: no, Joyland: no, Doctor Sleep: no,

Yes I have not included the short stories from the collections but I think you can see the trend above quite clearly?

Stephen King is Dead by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-12 02:05 · Score: 0

Hey all. I just heard some sad news on NPR talk radio. Bestselling horror/sci-fi author Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure many of us will miss him. Even if you don't enjoy his work, there's no denying his impact on popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Re:Stephen King is Dead by unitron · 2013-09-12 21:24 · Score: 1

But has Netcraft confirmed it?

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I find it hard to believe too, but then... by QilessQi · 2013-09-12 02:39 · Score: 1

I write solely in ASCII, so I'll never have more than 127 characters. :-(

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Re:I find it hard to believe too, but then... by QilessQi · 2013-09-12 02:53 · Score: 2

(I tried to have 128, but the DEL character disappears every time I hit it...)

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Re:I find it hard to believe too, but then... by mattack2 · 2013-09-12 13:09 · Score: 1

Type control-V before you hit delete, and it will appear (or at least a visual representation of it).
(This is mostly a joke.)

Not my taste by govett · 2013-09-12 07:04 · Score: 1

That particular job sounds especially hellish.

To bad that guy wasn't available... by unitron · 2013-09-12 21:25 · Score: 1

...to notice the lack of an ending to The Colorado Kid before they sent it off to the printers.

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