Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 08:43:08 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Doctor Sleep Stephen King

Started by Registering to lurk, September 11, 2014, 04:27:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Quote from: Johnny Textface on September 10, 2014, 12:28:52 PM
Slightly OT but did anyone check out the sequel 'Doctor Sleep' ? Any good?

Rather than drag the Kubrick thread off topic I thought I'd reply here.

It's not one of Stephen King's best. After I read your question I realised I was struggling to recall anything much about the book. It takes forever to get going. The story starts quite soon after the events of The Shining and Danny gets older and older, and then a little girl is born and she gets older and older, and there's a creepy group of psychic vampires who travel round the country, and the three stories take ages to intersect.

I remember being impressed by the book's brief use of the events of September 11th when the psychic vampires end up near New York. Using those events to ground the book in the real world seemed brave for a writer like Stephen King who still has a mainstream following.

BritishHobo

A few stray thoughts of mine:

Quote from: BritishHobo on September 26, 2013, 04:29:07 PM
I picked up Doctor Sleep (eh? eh?) the other day. Along with being a sequel to The Shining, it seems to go right back to King's alcoholism, which I think was the backbone of The Shining and the reason that he despised Kubrick's adaptation (turning Jack from a good man trying to escape alcoholism/ghosts into a man who seemed crazy from the start).

I'm not quite as taken with it as I was at the start of 11.22.63, the opening is quite sudden and jumps around a lot - he's also launched straight into his old trope of constantly repeating key words or phrases (
Spoiler alert
"Mama." He said. "Canny." He said.
[close]
). But it's alright, it's enjoyable. So far the only thing to stand out for me has been
Spoiler alert
the death of the elderly resident, written in quite a simple but very effective way,
[close]
although I am enjoying the
Spoiler alert
narrative of Abra growing up, along with the 9/11-predicting immortal baddies.
[close]
The writing itself may be a little on-the-nose, but King is always fantastic at spinning a story, and crafting characters.

Quote from: BritishHobo on October 09, 2013, 01:58:23 AM
I read Doctor Sleep last week, and it's not great. Sort of going through the motions of a Stephen King book, only in quite a punctual, surface way. The bad guys are
Spoiler alert
pathetic, spending the entire novel dying of the measles, being humiliated by the leads every time they come into contact, and at absolutely no point having the upper hand.
[close]
The alcoholism was done better in The Shining, too.

BlodwynPig

This is now a film and it looks appalling - I've seen the trailer on mute and the poster with FUCKING EWAN MCGREGOR - The most beige poster out there...not going to be iconic.

I've not seen The Shining apart from the ice maze at the end, but this is going to be rectified on Saturday, but I will refuse to watch Doctor Sleep despite the appealing title.

NJ Uncut

Guardian gave it both 2 and 4 stars (4 star one is Observer)

Ookkkkk

Jittlebags

I could look this up, but I gather that psychic vampires were wot the fellahs in the van in Dirk Gently I (the non rubbish one) were.