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Stephen King's "11/22/63"

I read it seven years ago or so. It was pretty engaging as a novel (if very long), but the AH stuff was constrained to a few pages at the end and was pretty shoddy by our standards. Still enjoyed it for what it was, King's a good writer.
 
Max Sinister said:
Well, I always like it if famous authors do AH. Makes our hobby more popular and might lead readers to the real deal in the long run.
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Agree with the first part, but the second part I'd take some issue with. AH is incredibly compartmentalized (because it combines many different types of stories that just share a characteristic), and the chance of someone who buys a Stephen King AH novel because its Stephen King going on to Rice and Salt or a timeline about British Rail's alternate development because of that isn't very high. If anything, I'd feel it'd just lead them to more popular AH (which isn't a bad thing!)

Besides, I think that something with an unambiguous AH/time travel premise is "The Real Deal".
 
Excellent time travel romance novel with a (typically King) disappointing ending that happens to be AH.

The general idea behind the ending wasn't even that bad, it just felt so sloppy and rushed (and weird - why the earthquakes? why not just write a more straightforward dystopia?) after hundreds of pages of beautiful atmospheric scene-setting. I'll admit that I'm biased as a fan of slow, moody, detailed writing but I think I'm probably on the money with this one.

It's a good lesson for AH writers in a) how to capture the texture of a different time period and b) how not to pace a novel.
 
Artaxerxes said:
Stephen King, bless him, has never been what I'd call good at endings. Its very odd for such a popular writer who packs so much into his writings but his endings have always veered wildly towards "and then it was all over and yeah thats your lot" side of things
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Something that King himself sent-up in the second It film where he has a scene with a writer character very much like himself to whom he makes that observation. That it’s been a recurring thing in his career (and even in his sole theatrical film) is kind of surprising, but somehow not at the same time.
 
BClick said:
Excellent time travel romance novel with a (typically King) disappointing ending that happens to be AH.

The general idea behind the ending wasn't even that bad, it just felt so sloppy and rushed (and weird - why the earthquakes? why not just write a more straightforward dystopia?)
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It's even lampshaded in the novel: He knows about the butterfly effect, but is surprised too that the earthquake happens so fast.

It's kinda justified - he got access to the past via supernatural means, so we can't exactly exclude supernatural outcomes. But yeah, still...

Stephen King knows he's dealing with big questions here, but his answers to them aren't good enough - yet. Although the metaphors he used weren't bad.
 
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