Love Stephen King. LOVE him. Although The Green Mile is one of the few I haven't read, I did see the movie and agree that using the magical negro trope with the initials J.C., no less was rephrehensible. "The Body", "Apt Pupil" and It are some of my favorite King, along with Eyes of the Dragon and the Gunslinger/Dark Tower books.

Yeah, right, John Varley. (I get his name confused with Jack Vance, whom I couldn't get through, either.) My bad. I like Greg Bear and David Brin a lot too - The Postman kicked ass. Also Tim Powers, whom my BF introduced me to. Last Call and The Stress of Her Regard in particular.

also ETA the one Anderson I tried to read was The Boat of a Million Years.

Maybe I'm just not socially conscious enough, but the Magical Negro aspect of "The Green Mile" didn't bother me. I can see where it's a very racially insensitive trope, but for some reason I just can't make myself care. Probably something wrong with me. At any rate, I enjoyed the serial novel immensely, twice. And if you lay the MN business aside, you have to admit it's well-crafted storytelling, start to finish.

It are some of my favorite King

Also The Shining, which I don't think Kubrick really did justice to. I actually think the ABC miniseries did a better job of it.

I think I've read one of his short story collections, maybe Skeleton Crew? It was the one with "The Lawnmower Man" in it (was the movie really based on it? Cause it didn't resemble it in the least) and "Sometimes They Come Back." Wait, is "Graveyard Shift" in that, or is that in a titular collection? The one about rats?

And now that I think about it, I don't love Crichton because of his prose or characters, but because I really enjoy reading his books. They're great adventure novels revolving around science (not always though, I also like Disclosure, though Airframe ended up being kind of lame).

Yeah, totally. The Shining was awesome. Skeleton Crew is the one with "The Mist" (which I think was made into a movie too) and the story about the scary-ass toy monkey that was pictured on the cover. The one about the rats I thought was in SK.

Really bummed about the fact that our stupid cable won't get TNT for some reason (at least not clearly) and so we missed the new Salem's Lot that just ran. That book initiated me into the wonderful world of all-nighters when I was 13.

ETA I was thinking of "The Lake" - that's the one that got turned into Evil Cabin or whatever it was called. I just wish someone would make a good movie out of the "The Mist".

Also The Shining, which I don't think Kubrick really did justice to. I actually think the ABC miniseries did a better job of it.

Thanks to the ABC miniseries, to this day I cannot bear to have the shower curtain closed unless someone is actually showering in it. If it's not in use, the curtain has to be all scrunched up at one end so that there's no possibility of anything lurking in the tub.

Also while I think King's use of the MN was lazy in terms of plotting, his most half-assed writing in terms of language (Bag of Bones for example struck me as lame, also Madder Rose) still runs rings around Crichton and his ilk. Dean Koontz, for example. I couldn't get through the first paragraph of The Bad Place without throwing the book against the wall in rage at the unbelievably poor grammar and fifth-grade writing level. Of course, I didn't expect any better from such an unimaginatively named tome.

[English major]

I liked Airframe because he did well on the aviation tech and corporate atmosphere, and the portrayal of the news media fit my prejudices, but all the characters were pretty flat.

Oh, no, the one I read was Night Shift.

Really bummed about the fact that our stupid cable won't get TNT for some reason (at least not clearly) and so we missed the new Salem's Lot that just ran.

I read the book for my Gothic class at Rice, but I didn't check out the miniseries cause Dalton Ross didn't think much of it, and Rob Lowe's hair was too laughable.

That book initiated me into the wonderful world of all-nighters when I was 13.

I don't remember whether a book initiated me into all-nighters, but my story is in junior high or high school, and it involved Dean Koontz's Cold Fire, and my hitting the turning point of the book and staying up till at least four or something until I finished the section.

I couldn't get through the first paragraph of The Bad Place without throwing the book against the wall in rage at the unbelievably poor grammar and fifth-grade writing level.

I also love The Bad Place. I'm a big Koontz fan. My favorite might be Dragon Tears.

Thanks to the ABC miniseries, to this day I cannot bear to have the shower curtain closed unless someone is actually showering in it.

Letter to Hitchcock: "Sir, After seeing Diabolique, my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your Psycho and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?"
Hitchcock: "Send her to the dry cleaners."

Liked Eon by Greg Bear a lot. Read The Heart of the Comet by David Brin ... I liked it; it was kinda trippy, and I think it had a lot of originality to it. Gregory Benford's Timescape was one of my faves. Haven't read it in a while, though. I, too, liked The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, but that's about it for Crichton and me. I'm really rather random and sporadic in my reading. And I have a bad memory for authors. Well, and titles, too, sometimes.

Whatshisname in the ABC The Shining was really quite scary. I hadn't planned to watch, but I got sucked in.

(Edited for spelling. Twice now.)

Whathisname

Steven Weber, of Wings fame.