Ov3rKiLL

hey guys i was wondering if anyone who read Hearts in atlantis care to tell me a little baout it cause theres like 4 stories int he book that link to eachother or sometihng right? and by the way can you guys suggest books to read just in case i forget about this stephen king book.

Plan9Senior

I'm assuming that you are asking for suggestions from that author so I would have to recommend:

It - One of the best horror books I have read

The Stand - Very cool post apocalyptic story

Cujo - About a rabid dog

Carrie - A story of a girl with supernatural powers and her violent rampage of revenge

Skeleton Crew - IMO, his best book of short stories

He has a ton of great books, but those were the ones that I thought of off the top of my head. You can't really go wrong with Steven King.

FoolThemAll

I second the recommendations for It and The Stand, and make some of my own:

The Dark Tower Series: Spellbinding fantasy epic that will span 7 books (the 6th and 7th are coming out this year).

The Talisman: Possibly my favorite of his. The story of a boy who travels across America in this world and in an alternate world called the Territories in order to save his mother's life.

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mattevil

i like cycle of the werewolf.cool story and illustrations from bernie wrightsten.

the_marq

"Eyes of the Dragon"

Hands down Mr. King's best book ever, I'd even recommend it for kids as young as 12yrs old. It's a spellbinding story and easily the book I had the hardest time putting down.

To be honest I have loved almost all of his books, the exceptions being: Gerald's Game, Bag of Bones, and Rose Madder. I have not read Hearts in Atlantis yet.

Also the Dark Tower series is awesome, I just finished re-reading the first 4 and am now on page 201 of "The Wolves of Calla."

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Shokan

Dark Tower series. That series ties in most of his other novels. Its like a lynchpin for his career. I guess you would need to read it to understand.

It his "masterpiece".

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CinnamonGirl

I haven't read Hearts in Atlantis yet...a few of my favorites:

The Talisman
The Eyes of the Dragon
Needful Things
Insomnia
And all of the short story collections--Skeleton Crew, Everything's Eventual, Night Shift, Four Past Midnight....and a few others that I'm sure I left out. Some of my favorite short stories are the ones that aren't scary at all (The Last Rung on the Ladder comes to mind...)

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Ov3rKiLL

ok now, what other books from other great authors like stephen king would you recommend.

God of Thunder

To answer you original question, yes the stories in Hearts link to others. His books are notorious for it.

Most of the stories are linked to each other via the Dark Tower Series that others have mentioned. He has hinted that the Dark Tower is the center of all his worlds.

Read the Dark Tower, but also read Hearts (which you are), Insomnia, The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon, Despartaion and Salem's Lot. Those are the ones that seem to mingle the most.

I'm halfway through The Dark Tower V: The Wolves of Calla, now. I had to go back and re-read 1-4 before starting it and I'm glad I did. But it looks like I need to re-read The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon again too.

Once you get hooked into King's world, there is no turning back.

But, I would recommend either Dean Koontz or Peter Straub.

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Plan9Senior

As I skimmed some of your replies, I can't help but wonder why some of you liked the Dark Tower series. I couldn't even finish the first book because it was so boring and poorly written. I am assuming they get better?

I second for the Dean Koontz recommendation. When I am looking for a new book to read and cannot decide what I want to get, I always just end up picking up a Koontz book. They are very entertaining . A great book to start out reading from Koontz is 'Intensity' or 'Watchers'.

Bossnass

I couldn't put down the first book. The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. I spent pretty much all of boxing day and the 27th reading Wolves of the Calla.

Koontz was a great author. Then I turned 14.

Kaos

Wow, I couldn't put The Gunslinger down. But with no backstory right away it may be hard to start that book. But yes, they do get better and more involved.

And if you have read most of SK's books, you are rewarded by the way The Dark Tower is somewhat related to little parts in many of his other books (of which have been mentioned). It's like all the little pieces completes the Big Picture.

But, can someone explain the link between Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower...I may have missed that, although it has been a long time since I read Eyes (even though I have read it 3 times!)

Wish I could tell you how the stories in Hearts intertwine, but I can't remember how. In fact, I felt like Hearts was one of King's weaker books.

guthmund

I could be completely wrong, but I don't think there is a definitive tie between the two. It's sort of like playing that game "six degrees of separation" to get them together.

In Hearts in Atlantis, Ted talks about all things serving The Beam and about how the as long as The Beam is unbroken so is the Dark Tower. The Dark Tower brings us to Marten (who is? Flagg?) or you could use the "Captain Tripps" reference to tie it to The Stand and Flagg. And finally Flagg leads us to Flagg in Eyes of the Dragon. Although I don't think King ever comes right out and says it.

A lot of King's books seem to tie in together. Either using the Castle Rock connection or the Dark Tower.

I get a kick out of re-reading some of his books and noticing them.

I am such a geek....

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CinnamonGirl

At the end of The Eyes of the Dragon, there's a line about how Dennis and Thomas meet Flagg again...I always assumed that happened in the Dark Tower series, but I'm still reading the Gunslinger.

There's also a bit about how Flagg is pretty much immortal, so I think it's not a huge jump to say Flagg the Wizard, Randall Flagg, and the "dark man" are all the same person (or creature, which might be more appropriate.)

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"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

losthellhound

Im surprised no one mentioned my favorite book of King's.. The Dead Zone..

great book

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losthellhound

You have to remember that Gun Slinger was one of King's first works, and it shows.. Try to pick up a copy of the new Gunslinger (he redid alot of the dialog most importantly.. )

The man in black rode across the desert, and the gunslinger followed..

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nate_dawg

the black house with king and straub is awesome too, but not as good as the talisman.

read them both

pixelbend

A friend of mine who has read all of the Dark Tower books tols me the other day that he thinks that the 7th DT book may tie in that all of SK's stories have been tied to the Gunslinger's dimension in one way or another.

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the_marq

In my edition of "Wolves of Calla " there is a listing of all of King's previous books before the title page, about half of them are highlighted as being "Dark Tower related."

As a couple of previous people have mentioned, there are a lot of references in the DT books to previous King works. Such as; Randall Flagg, the "flu-like" disease that killed people in the Stand, there's even an entire character in the Wolves of Calla from one of Kings very early books "Salem's Lot."

I doubt that ALL of his books will be tied in when the DT series is done, I just think that would turn into more of a mess than anything else, especially the books I didn't like such as Gerald's Game.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, King is not only referencing his own works, but alot of others work too. Such as the Wizard of Oz by Baum or even references to ZZTop. I guess the point is that all these alternate realities are converging as the world moves on. Hell he even references his "real self" in the early pages of Wolves.

It's also probably not by accident that Roland's father's name is Steven.

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floonine

I like Shawshank Redemption myself. I don't know a lot about his other books besides the ones I read when I was younger, but as a stand alone novel I think it fairs well against the classics, imho.

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balderdash111

FYI, Shawshank wasn't a stand-alone novel, it was a novella included with three others in a set called Different Seasons.

I sense you knew that but were speaking about as its own novel for comparison purposes, but wanted to clear up any confusion.

Ov3rKiLL

i have the black house but enver finsihed it because i stoed reading and then when i was gonna continue forgot all about the book.

pocon1

Most of his stories he has been tying into the DT. As far as Randall Flagg, the Walking Dude, The Man with the Broken Down heels, he has made several appearances. The Stnd, Eyes of the Dragon, and DT series. Both as Marten or Walter or whoever, and also he saved the Tick-Tock man in the City of Lud. Plus, he was in the emerald castle in The Stand world in DT.
I think that King has done a beautiful job of linking such a diverse group of his books together into his Magnum Opus. Remember, all things serve the beam.

Kaos

Thanks everyone...I forgot about Flagg's little part in Eyes of the Dragon.

wordssmith22

i don't know if anyone answered the original question yet, but i read hearts in atlantis and i vaguely remember it. it starts out with these childhood friends in elementary school or something. the next story is the actually hearts in atlantis and it's about college during the vietnam war, where those on scholarships have to maintain a passing gpa. the connection to the firststory is that the protagonist (i think) begins to go out with the girl from the first story. third story i've completely forgot, 4th has some kind of resolution. even though i can't remember it, i remember it being pretty good. the whole dark tower connection in the first story was kinda weak, especially cuz i never liked dark tower. but the second story is really really good. there's no horrrr stuff or whatever, but it's really very good.

the weird thing is that they released the movie, hearts in atlantis. and it was only connected to the first story, which wasn't even hearts in atlantis, it was tall men in dark suits or something like that.

Ov3rKiLL

thanx dude, im gonna start reading it today. are there any other authors like stephen besides dean and peter.

the_marq

So long as we are still on the topic of Stephen King books and more specifically the Dark Tower series, there is something that I have been itching to discuss with someone.

Did anyone else think it was sorta weird that when the travellers were in the abandoned city at the end of their train ride, they never thought to hijack a car? This would be in the early part of "Wizard and Glass."

I mean they were just sitting there, many of them would have had keys in the ignition. Even though the world had moved on, why not at least give it a shot?

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