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John_and_Yoko
01-27-2008, 09:04 PM
This is just a little project I did before I read any of the titles herein listed, so they may be somewhat inaccurate (as it is, all I've read from here is The Dark Tower I & II, The Eyes of the Dragon, and I'm still reading The Stand. If anyone thinks there's a different way it should go, I welcome your comments, just bear in mind that I haven't read any of the other titles on this list, and I'm not even halfway through The Stand yet.

Anyway, here it is, "Stephen King's Universe":

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s227/JohnandYoko/DSCN7405.jpg
This is the Stephen King "solar system" in its entirety--or rather, as much of it as I wanted to show. Realistically there should be an "Oort cloud" to the right of the display board, containing the rest of his works, but I elected not to do that, as it would have dominated the picture and made it too hard to see anything else. However, the "Oort cloud" would be the "miscellaneous" category in the five categories of his works. Below are close-ups, mostly of the remaining four categories:

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s227/JohnandYoko/DSCN7406.jpg
Obviously not a category, just a close-up of the title.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s227/JohnandYoko/DSCN7407.jpg
Here's the "sun," which is actually sort of a "binary" system, with that dwarf star orbiting the sun more closely than any of the "planets." The sun is of course The Dark Tower series, with the dwarf star being "The Little Sisters of Eluria."

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s227/JohnandYoko/DSCN7408.jpg
Here's the "inner solar system," consisting of, in order from left to right, Black House, Hearts in Atlantis, and Insomnia. I divided the book Hearts in Atlantis into its component stories, thus they are a planet ("Low Men in Yellow Coats") and its moons.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s227/JohnandYoko/DSCN7409.jpg
Here's the "outer solar system," beginning with The Stand, which I made my "Jupiter," hence its larger size. Beyond this are 'Salem's Lot, The Eyes of the Dragon, and "Everything's Eventual".

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s227/JohnandYoko/DSCN7410.jpg
And here's the "Kuiper belt," which consists of, in order from left to right, Rose Madder, Desperation and The Regulators, The Talisman, From a Buick 8, It, Bag of Bones, and The Mist.

I guess this is what comes of being obsessed with an author whose works I haven't even read yet, for the most part. Still, I hope people will like it, especially if they're more familiar with Stephen King's universe than I am. I had a reason for placing everything where I did, but that was without having read a single title on there--my information primarily came from online.

Anyway, so what do you think?

ATG
01-27-2008, 09:48 PM
In teresting.

Especially
I guess this is what comes of being obsessed with an author whose works I haven't even read yet

John_and_Yoko
01-27-2008, 09:49 PM
In teresting.

Especially
I guess this is what comes of being obsessed with an author whose works I haven't even read yet

Heh....

Yeah, I tend to get obsessed with things....

But is it okay? Do you have any comments that might help?

ATG
01-28-2008, 08:07 AM
A little cleaner on the glue?

Storyslinger
01-28-2008, 10:23 AM
Cool.

John_and_Yoko
01-28-2008, 10:44 AM
A little cleaner on the glue?

Heh....

Thanks, but I kind of meant in terms of positioning....



@Storyslinger: Thanks! :)

Storyslinger
01-28-2008, 10:46 AM
No prob.
:thumbsup:

John_and_Yoko
01-28-2008, 11:58 AM
So...can I take the lack of specific comments to mean that the order in which I placed the tales is more or less accurate, then?

Not criticizing, but I was kind of hoping for some specific comments--what I did right, what I could have done better. I don't think you'd need to spoil the stories for me to give me an idea of that.

Storyslinger
01-28-2008, 11:59 AM
Works for me.

Matt
01-28-2008, 12:37 PM
So...can I take the lack of specific comments to mean that the order in which I placed the tales is more or less accurate, then?

Not criticizing, but I was kind of hoping for some specific comments--what I did right, what I could have done better. I don't think you'd need to spoil the stories for me to give me an idea of that.

I think it looks pretty darn good JaY--the positioning of stuff seems fine to me since the last few months on the site has proven that each interpretation of the events could be vastly different.

Great work

I would also give stuff a few days before worrying about responses, sometimes it takes folks a bit to get around this great site. :rock:

Letti
01-28-2008, 01:27 PM
I can't give you any advice but I must say it's very creative.

John_and_Yoko
01-28-2008, 02:01 PM
I think it looks pretty darn good JaY--the positioning of stuff seems fine to me since the last few months on the site has proven that each interpretation of the events could be vastly different.

Great work

I would also give stuff a few days before worrying about responses, sometimes it takes folks a bit to get around this great site. :rock:

Thank you very much! :) Glad to hear it!

And yeah, I'm not trying to be impatient, I'm sorry. I just have a neurotic need to have specific feedback on my work (whether praise or criticism), because I don't feel like my work is finished until then.

Anyway, I am glad that most of what I'm reading seems to be positive. :)

And thank you, Letti--the idea kind of came from Stephen King himself, but I felt The Dark Tower should be the sun instead of Jupiter. But yeah, I did kind of go on a jazz riff from there.

Thanks, everyone, for all your kind words! :)

boq
04-30-2008, 05:25 PM
I love it JaY! Very original, and the positioning of the "other worlds" relative to the "sun" makes perfect sense. How you put this together without having read most of the books yet is beyond me.

Did you notice the "strange" geography on the beach in "Drawing of the Three"?:orely:

mia/susannah
04-30-2008, 05:36 PM
I think you did a really good job. I think the positioning of the books are pretty good!

Wuducynn
04-30-2008, 05:39 PM
I really like it. :harrier:

John_and_Yoko
04-30-2008, 07:16 PM
Wow--it's been so long since anyone's posted here, and now I get THREE comments! :D Thank you all for your kind words!


I love it JaY! Very original, and the positioning of the "other worlds" relative to the "sun" makes perfect sense. How you put this together without having read most of the books yet is beyond me.

Did you notice the "strange" geography on the beach in "Drawing of the Three"?:orely:

I kind of cheated.... I had the help of thedarktower.net's "roadmap" (good thing I printed it, since I can't remember when that site was actually UP), and I'd looked at synopses for the stories. I'm the sort who has to have those before starting a project like reading a novel. It doesn't do me any harm, anyway, since it takes actually reading the books to make it "real" in my mind (meaning I care about what happens to the characters rather than just reading a summary of it). But based on that, I made educated guesses as to where the books belonged. I'm starting to think of it slightly differently now, but I think I'll leave the project alone. :)

I'm not sure I know what you mean by the "strange" geography, though, and I've been looking....

pathoftheturtle
04-30-2008, 08:06 PM
Good, good. I really think of it rather differently, myself.
... each interpretation of the events could be vastly different.For sure. They're all such complex novels.

Just on the face of things, though, I'd recommend bringing It inward... maybe make that Jupiter, and The Stand, Saturn. Or have 2 Jupiters. Point is that It belongs there as top quality, and in high relation to the Tower.

In its place, I'd put The Mist, close to From a Buick 8. Those, and The Talisman (and Rose Madder on the other side) might be placed more toward The Regulators than Desperation. (Only Bag of Bones would orbit at that level.)

I'm not sure exactly what boq was getting at, either, but it might've just been the idea of other worlds.

I'm glad that you shared this, and don't mean to be critical. Mostly what I'm trying to say is, "Read It." :) Always good advice.

John_and_Yoko
04-30-2008, 08:24 PM
No need to apologize, just don't expect the poster to change. ;) Honestly I doubt if I'll change it even if (once I've read all the books) I change my mind about where to place them (though I will probably want to write it down). And bear in mind that this was done before I'd read ANY of the titles on it.

That being said, the ones the furthest out were the hardest to put in any kind of order because of that. I've seen the MOVIE "The Mist," (and now I've read The Talisman), but that's all.

Anyway, thank you for your post--I was wondering when I'd get some constructive criticism. Not that I don't love praise for my work (who doesn't?) but sometimes constructive criticism shows that someone has really looked at it thoroughly and cared enough to voice their opinion. Not saying the above post is better than any others I got--don't feel badly, those of you who posted nothing but praise :D--but it's nice for a change of pace.

And I will definitely read IT--that's early on my list of things to read from that outermost section of my poster. But I still have a few things left to read before that.

In sum, thanks for posting, and for your helpful hints (and I love your avatar!). :)

pathoftheturtle
05-01-2008, 03:13 AM
Sure. I guess I did mean to be critical, when you put it that way. :P

If I offer apology, it's for maybe trying to nitpick, like a know-it-all. But then, of course, no one could ever accuse me of that. :eyeshifts:

*cough*Virgo*/cough* Again, pretty nice design. :)

(and I love your avatar!). :)
Thengs. See me a' the manshoon soomtime, en ah'll shew ye soom c'ouds. lol Love your name, JaY. :)

John_and_Yoko
05-01-2008, 08:46 AM
I don't know you that well, but what you were doing didn't seem like nitpicking to me. Nitpicking would be like complaining that The Talisman and Black House aren't together, for example (since they're part of the same series), or at least that The Talisman is out in the farthest regions of the board--or that the Hearts in Atlantis tales are all out of order, or that the first three "planets" are in reverse chronological order (oh man, now I'M nitpicking.... :P).

At any rate, you didn't do anything you need to apologize for--I'm grateful for the attention you showed my project, and I'm glad you like the design. :)

(And my username.... :D)

EDIT: By the way, I'm a little unclear on what you meant by more toward The Regulators than Desperation.... I mean, they're both in the same basic "slot" away from the "sun"--did you mean like having The Regulators be the larger body of the two instead of Desperation, or something like that...?

EDIT (again): And now I'm unclear on what you mean by only Bag of Bones orbiting at that level....

pathoftheturtle
05-03-2008, 09:26 PM
I figured that you did mean for that to represent a pretty simple trojan orbit... "basic slot" :orely: ... but I was stretching the metaphor, to make more than one plane. You see, you've arranged King's works there with basically one dimension. That just can't hold up, sorry. That's what I've been worrying over here, mate; if I got much into this, I'd probably end up tearing your work down totally. Nothing wrong with it, really, but, you know... Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

When King called DT his Jupiter, he probably wasn't thinking of his own work as center of any universe. It's nice to imagine Roland Deschain might be really visible in one of the great dramatic constellations, somewhere around King Lear, perhaps, towards the Eliot nebula, but I'm not absolutely sure that the Stephen King system ever really escaped from the gravity of Lovecraft.

No bother, though. Got your PM, :) and apologies for not responding sooner. (Life. :arg: I fear I may never get to shake my mood.)


...--did you mean like having The Regulators be the larger body of the two instead of Desperation, or something like that...?
Not at all. No, if anything, the reverse; I'd call Desperation the higher.
I said that because it's qualities are rarer. It's connections to TDT are numerous in type, including much thematically. The others are tied in just by device, and more tenuously. Still, parts of The Regulators are essential to grasping its twin, and to relating everything to the series.

You'll understand far better when you've read them, and then had time to gain perspective. However, I do hope that this post gives a little enlightment, of some sort.

Cheers. :)

John_and_Yoko
05-03-2008, 09:38 PM
Okay, yeah, I know that a solar system isn't really one-dimensional or even two-dimensional. I wasn't going for realism here (otherwise how do the Hearts in Atlantis moons orbit "Low Men in Yellow Coats"?), just for clarity as far as what "group" each work belongs to and effectively how "close" to The Dark Tower I thought they were, based on what little I knew of them at the time.

I'm not sure what you mean by Stephen King not having his work being the center of any real universe--I was just taking his metaphor a step further. I haven't read Lovecraft myself, so I can't do anything with that. I was just focusing on King's own works.

Regarding Desperation and The Regulators, I'm still confused. I wasn't really going by "higher" or "lower" with them--just larger and smaller. In my mind, it makes sense because it's a "double planet" (which is why neither is as high/low as the other "planets" surrounding them), not a planet and moons like with the Hearts in Atlantis stories. Maybe it only makes sense to me, I don't know, but that's how it plays out in my mind....

Anyway, Desperation IS larger than The Regulators, so I hope that's not confusing.... I'm sure I'll understand better once I've read these "outer" books (even if I don't completely understand now), but I hope you understand what I was going for, at least.

Anyway, thanks for posting again, and if I sound upset, I hope you know that it's not because of what you say (meaning not because I'm taking it personally as insulting or something)--it's because I don't always understand what people are saying, and not being able to get it is frustrating to me.

crimsonKing
05-25-2008, 07:05 AM
great!

John_and_Yoko
05-25-2008, 11:48 AM
great!

Thanks! :)