I'm about 250 pages in. Pretty good so far.

What say you, Entertainment board?

I asked for it for Christmas. Good to hear its good so far.

So Cujo shot JFK while riding in Christine?

About 700 pages in. Pretty good book, better than I thought it would be. Probably read that Steve Jobs book next.

I bought it on my Kindle but haven't gotten to it yet. I'm looking forward to it.

About 500 pages in, not much of a King fan, but this one has kept me interested.

About 700 pages in. Starting to drag a little bit in the morning, but enjoying it.

Also kinda neat reading him reference streets in Fort Worth (from the 60's) that I'm not far from.

I'm hoping to get a Kindle soon, and that will be my first purchase. Reading UNDER THE DOME was a pain because the book itself was so big and bulky.

reading it right now. enjoyable. the kennedy worship in his books is a little tiresome.

right? The book isn't as enjoyable now that King has started to inject his politics into it. Breaks down that fourth wall.

Reading Under the Dome was also a pain bc it sucked

Agree completely with you, 1

Read it, enjoyed it, tried to ignore his politics. Not his best work, but not a waste of my time.

Finished it last night, good book, not great but pretty good.

**************minor spoiler-ish*******************




















I'm maybe 20% in, but must say I am really liking all the Derry/IT crossover.

[This message has been edited by SJEAg (edited 12/11/2011 11:56a).]

Finished it. I liked it a lot, I think King's best since the days of IT, Misery, and the reissued The Stand. It dragged a bit where I got to know more about Oswald than I really cared to, but I found the story around the main character engrossing. Unlike many King books, even his better ones, I thought the ending was pretty satisfying.

I didn't really find it political to point of being distracting, although I thought of TexAgs collectively rolling its eyes when a character mentioned he thought Obama was doing an OK job.

Gonna read it soon!!

I rolled my eyes a bit when at one point (not a spoiler) one of the characters talks about how "The Republicans blocked passage of the Civil Rights Act." Unless if by Republicans he meant Democrats, because in the 1960's the Dems were the ones supporting segregation. Annoying when a writer who's pretty smart makes a stupid mistake like that because they are so politically biased.

I liked the book overall - I love alternate histories - and it was really interesting. But the Kennedy worship was pretty tiresome, especially since Kennedy wasn't a particularly good president. And Dallas may have been a "seething cauldron of right-wing hatred yada yada tiresome revisionist bull" but the reality is that Kennedy was killed by a communist because he was anti-Castro. Dallas had nothing to do with it.

I really liked the Derry parts, probably the best writing in the book.

Just started reading it last night.

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I rolled my eyes a bit when at one point (not a spoiler) one of the characters talks about how "The Republicans blocked passage of the Civil Rights Act." Unless if by Republicans he meant Democrats, because in the 1960's the Dems were the ones supporting segregation.

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I love alternate histories

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Haven't read the book, but is it possible this was deliberate based on these two quotes?

I really liked it and it helped a little that a lot of it took place in Texas.






***spoiler alert****








I hated that he didn't consider going to the Kentucky Derby every year for legal wagering.

quote:

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Haven't read the book, but is it possible this was deliberate based on these two quotes?

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No, but I don't want to elaborate for spoilery reasons.

Overall I really enjoyed it.

He did that to keep things black and white so to speak - to simplify the plot.

so this book has somehing to do with IT ?

***minor spoiler****

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so this book has somehing to do with IT ?

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Sorta, the character travels back in time and has some business to do in Derry around the time IT takes place. Several characters from IT show up. Knowledge of that book isn't necessary, but it's pretty cool.




[This message has been edited by SJEAg (edited 12/28/2011 11:55a).]

I just finished this book and really liked it. I had basically zero expectations for it (randomly saw it on a "Customers also bought..." list on Amazon) - but thought it was great, a very original take on a traditional scifi time travel story.

As far as the politics - I didn't read too much into any of that. He picked a major event in history to focus on - I think this one fit the bill well. The book would've sucked if George/Jake was constantly clowning JFK and all his politics. Why try to save him if he wasn't worth saving (for the purposes of the story, at least?)

Anyways - great book, one of my favorites from the past year.

**MILD SPOILERS BUT NOT REALLY**











Finished the last 300 pages a few nights ago. I like King's writing style so I enjoy even some of his lesser works so take my opinion for what that's worth.

I enjoyed it, but it was far too derivative of both the classic Sound of Thunder (referenced in the novel) and his own work The Dead Zone. Maybe it was because while I had seen the movie I had only recently sat down and read The Dead Zone a few months ago, but not only has the whole "what if you could change history -- would you?" concept been done in the political realm -- King already did it himself.

While it had your small town fleshed out and your love story (King staples), at it's very core this was an expanded chapter of The Dead Zone.

And while I burned through the last 200 pages or so quickly, you kinda knew what was coming because its a basic sci-fi principle -- even slight changes in the past can drastically alter the future... So it was no real surprise that saving Kennedy ultimately resulted in a worse future... and the worst part is instead of fleshing out that "worse future", King consolidated all the bad causes and effects in about 2 pages... Probably partially because there's no way he could research the history well enough to make it believable, but also because the guy still sucks at closing.

I liked the concept of the "Card Man", but that ended up being such a minor part of the story.

Mind you I'm not much of a history buff so that probably impacted my enjoyment of the story quite a bit. Oswald's life before the assassination never really interested me.

As another poster mentioned, the connections to Derry and the IT kids was probably the highlight of the story for me.

All in all I guess I just feel like I could have read Sound of Thunder in about 20 minutes and gotten more enjoyment out of the 700+ pages of this one.















**MILD SPOILERS BUT NOT REALLY**



Still probably my favorite writer, but ignoring the finishing up of The Dark Tower series, the last two King novels I finished and actually felt very satisfied about were Black House (2001) and Desperation (1995)... Though the short story "Graduation Afternoon" from Just After Sunset I thought was haunting.

My wife is thanked in the credits of this book. That's all I know about it so far. So, if you liked it, just know that you have her to thank.

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and the worst part is instead of fleshing out that "worse future", King consolidated all the bad causes and effects in about 2 pages

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This was what pissed me off more than anything. I enjoyed the story, but was really looking forward to George's journey through the alternate future he created. Instead, King has a character basically give a brief lecture to the main character over the course of a few pages, and that is it. He spends the entire novel preparing you for the look into what might have been if Kennedy survived and won his 2nd term, and this is all we get. I have to agree with your assessment that King just does not know who to wrap up a story. He gets so bogged down in the details and then seems to arbitrarily pick a nicely wrapped up and quick conclusion. (Don't get me started on the Dark Tower ending)

And mhayden -

Thanks for the recommendation of "Graduation Afternoon." I just found it online and read the story. Short but sweet, and very haunting images and ending. Excellent work by King.

Here's what I wrote about it.


11/22/63 by Stephen King was pretty good for me as a read.

That fateful assassination day came during my junior year at Aggieland and I had grown up, through HS, living in Dallas.

I'd seen, visited and/or driven past all the sites in that city, which subsequently became infamous, hundreds of times:

Dallas and Oak Cliff, The Texas School Book Depository, Dealey Plaza, the grassy knoll, the Triple Underpass, Parkland Hospital, the corner of Tenth Street and Patton, the Texas Theater, Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, the basement parking garage under the Dallas City Hall.....

So I had some extra built-in interest and my own memories and feelings about that time and those places to compare to the author's words.

IMHO, Stephen King did OK.

And I would have enjoyed "11/22/63" just as much or even more, as an audiobook.

Listening to it on a trip would have been very enjoyable.

It reminded me of books written by Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, such as "Nickolas Nickelby" or "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," except "11/22/63" was more modern and more lurid than the older, more dated works from those authors.

It was even exciting.

I guess that's a compliment from me to Stephen King.

I thought his prose was as vivid and descriptive as what I appreciatively read in "Killing Lincoln" or "Lonesome Dove."



Your thoughts?

And now for a two year bump...

Just finished the audiobook this afternoon. I really enjoyed the story, and thought the ending was great.

But, there's one thing that happened near the end that I'm having trouble figuring out:

After Jake leaves the alternate 2011 and returns to 1958, he's decided he can't save Kennedy, Poulin or the Dunning family. But he's still debating about whether to go back to Sadie or return to 2011 permanently. During that time, he writes about everything he did on ten legal pads. Then, ultimately, when he decides to return to 2011, he puts the legal pads in a steel lockbox and then buries them in 1958. If he's decided that the risk of changing things and creating new time strings is so great that he can't even go back to Sadie, it seems really odd that he would write about everything and leave it in 1958 for someone to find. I can't understand why he would do that, but maybe I'm missing something obvious?

H6RBW said:

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And now for a two year bump...

Just finished the audiobook this afternoon. I really enjoyed the story, and thought the ending was great.

But, there's one thing that happened near the end that I'm having trouble figuring out:

After Jake leaves the alternate 2011 and returns to 1958, he's decided he can't save Kennedy, Poulin or the Dunning family. But he's still debating about whether to go back to Sadie or return to 2011 permanently. During that time, he writes about everything he did on ten legal pads. Then, ultimately, when he decides to return to 2011, he puts the legal pads in a steel lockbox and then buries them in 1958. If he's decided that the risk of changing things and creating new time strings is so great that he can't even go back to Sadie, it seems really odd that he would write about everything and leave it in 1958 for someone to find. I can't understand why he would do that, but maybe I'm missing something obvious?

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I just finished too. I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on spoilers for a 6 year old book but it might be appreciated. Without being spoilery, the book was a struggle. The Tampa entries and the ones you reference, even some of the recovery entries - all somewhat in consistent with a "diary". Meh. The story itself is good.

2.5 year bump


Second time reading this book. First in hard back and then on a Kindle.

Rewatching the Hulu series as well, but it's so drastically different then the book with major plot points.


Loved the book both times. Not sure why the earth would start convulsing into earthquakes if Kennedy stayed alive, but it can't kill a guy it knows is trying to rewrite history.