What are you currently reading?

[Merlin1958]

I like it so far, but now (around the middle) it somehow started to lose momentum

My youngest daughter (9) was looking over my shoulder as I read your post and she asked me about the bear, which she loves. She is reading a series of books by Erin Hunter called The Seekers, which follows the wilderness adventures of a group of bears. She loves it. Needless to say, I had to make something up! Funny how life is.

I hope the book picks back up for you - the cult with Arturo usually brings things back to life.

I remember Lisa's daughter (Lisa = darkthoughts, unfortunately she hasn't been around lately), about 6 at the time, always insisted that Lisa showed her my posts, because of the bear.

I hope you told your daughter that this bear is your Russian friend? She must like it that there are bears among your friends! Give her my bearhugs, as in

Gentlemen, back on topic, please!!!!

Spoiler:

This post authorized by the "Thread Police"!!! LOL LOL LOL

Back off copper! It's OK to be human once in a while. Nice to know we are not just a bunch of crazy fanatics! Yes Jean, she is very happy with my new bear friend. Dasvidaniya - a new word I taught her today.

Hey, Boston. I am a self-appointed "Officer of the Law"!!! LOL LOL LOL

[Ruthful]

[Dan]

Darkness, Tell Us - Richard Layman
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury (audiobook)

[Stebbins]

Sorry, Ricky! That will definitely be my next King novel; I know a lot of people here hold it in high regard.

[Ricky]

Aw, man.

Well Desperation is good, too (then are you going to read The Regulators?).

[Stebbins]

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

God willing, I'm going to read them all anyway. I have been lagging the past week or so, so I need to kick it into gear. I'm liking Desperation okay so far; not sure when it was written in relation to Cell but the layout and voice of the book seem similar to me, which is the part I enjoy.

[Jean]

[
Yes Jean, she is very happy with my new bear friend. Dasvidaniya - a new word I taught her today.

... and now, as the Thread Police vigilante suggested, back to topic...

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

No. It uses the same names, reshuffled. All those years I've been unable to discover any meaning to this.

[jhanic]

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

God willing, I'm going to read them all anyway. I have been lagging the past week or so, so I need to kick it into gear. I'm liking Desperation okay so far; not sure when it was written in relation to Cell but the layout and voice of the book seem similar to me, which is the part I enjoy.

They're not all really the same characters, but they have some similar characteristics along with the same names.

John

[Ricky]

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

Yeah. I liked Desperation better, personally, so I'll be interested to hear what you think.

[Jean]

I liked Desperation imcomparably better

[Stebbins]

I have been having a good run with Bachman, but I do like this one a lot already. I'll keep you guys posted. Jean, thanks for re-posting your list. I'm glad you enjoyed Joyland.

[Merlin1958]

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

No. It uses the same names, reshuffled. All those years I've been unable to discover any meaning to this.

Jean, surely you understood the concept of "The Mulyi-verse"?? Regulators and Desperation are alternate universe's. They are listed as "Dark Tower related" books.

[Dan]

Congo - Michael Crichton

[Merlin1958]

The Woman, by Jack Ketchum

[Jean]

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

No. It uses the same names, reshuffled. All those years I've been unable to discover any meaning to this.

Jean, surely you understood the concept of "The Mulyi-verse"?? Regulators and Desperation are alternate universe's. They are listed as "Dark Tower related" books.

Yes, maybe... I still fail to see any meaning of this particular implementation of multiverse

[fernandito]

Sorry, Ricky! That will definitely be my next King novel; I know a lot of people here hold it in high regard.

My favorite (non DT) Stephen King novel. Fucking love that book.

[Jean]

hear, hear

[OchrisO]

This is the one connected, using same characters different story, to Regulators? I guess I'll have to in that case

No. It uses the same names, reshuffled. All those years I've been unable to discover any meaning to this.

Jean, surely you understood the concept of "The Mulyi-verse"?? Regulators and Desperation are alternate universe's. They are listed as "Dark Tower related" books.

Yes, maybe... I still fail to see any meaning of this particular implementation of multiverse

In an infinite multiverse, because of it's very nature, not all of them can have meaning. In fact, by its nature, an infinite number of them will not have meaning.

[Jean]

Yes. I thought as much. I wish I had figured it out earlier: would have spared me the trouble of matching the characters, which I tried to do for about fifty pages of Regulators.

[pathoftheturtle]

In an infinite multiverse, because of it's very nature, not all of them can have meaning. In fact, by its nature, and infinite number of them will not have meaning.

Very poor metaphysics. How did you reach that conclusion? Just learn it from comic books?

[WeDealInLead]

William Gibson & Bruce Sterling - The Difference Engine
GRRM - The Armageddon Rag

[Merlin1958]

I have always wished that I had read "The Regulators" before reading "Desperation". "Desperation" is the better book IMHO and I think it would have been even better if set-up by "The Regulators". No tangible reason just my gut I suppose.

[OchrisO]

In an infinite multiverse, because of it's very nature, not all of them can have meaning. In fact, by its nature, and infinite number of them will not have meaning.

Very poor metaphysics. How did you reach that conclusion? Just learn it from comic books?

The Man in Black tells Roland that the multiverse extends infinitely in both directions, implying an infinite number of worlds in King's interpretation of what a multiverse is. If there are an infinite number of them, each of them is different in some way from all the others, eventually, in the concept of infinity, you have to get to worlds where meaning breaks down in an infinite number of ways and infinite levels of degree. Even if every world isn't different, even if the potential for difference exists, infinity eventually encompasses every possible level of meaning at the core of the worlds. There is a world where Poplar Street is paved in gold. There is one where it only has 2 feet paved in gold and no one ever finished it. There's a world where Cary is a pink anthropomorphic elephant. There's one where he's blue instead. There's one where he's still human but has one elephant ear. There is one where you are the major of the town. Infinity. The very nature of it means that every possible combination of the makeup of a universe exists with in a multiverse with an infinite number of universes. Every possible combination and each atom in each of those worlds has a universe in it that is also different in the smallest of ways or the largest of ways or both. I did not get that from comic books, but anything that did come from a comic book is equally as valid a story mechanic as anything King writes and it is a gigantic dick head of a statement to imply that if I had taken my idea of a multiverse from comics that it would be a somehow invalid concept in discussing King's multiverse just because it came form picture books. So, nice dick move, dick.

It's offense you maybe can't live with because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are evil things down there, and they have little yellow eyes that don't blink, and there's a stink down there in that dark and after a while you think maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything, he would have told them if he could. --Stephen King, It

“The universe (he said) offers a paradox too great for the finite mind to grasp. As the living brain cannot conceive of a nonliving brain — although it may think it can — the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite.”
― Stephen King, The Gunslinger

“If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?”
― Stephen King, The Gunslinger

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed. --Stephen King, The Gunslinger

[pathoftheturtle]

I have always wished that I had read "The Regulators" before reading "Desperation". "Desperation" is the better book IMHO and I think it would have been even better if set-up by "The Regulators". No tangible reason just my gut I suppose.

I did. And I'm glad I did. I think you're right. I felt, reading Desperation, great delight that it was so much better than the other.

I did not get that from comic books, but anything that did come from a comic book is equally as valid a story mechanic as anything King writes and it is a gigantic dick head of a statement to imply that if I had taken my idea of a multiverse from comics that it would be a somehow invalid concept in discussing King's multiverse just because it came form picture books. So, nice dick move, dick.

You're inferring too much from what I said, and even if I did imply some part of that, this would be an overreaction. I think it was a civil question, and none of my objections were so heated.

"The universe (he said) offers a paradox too great for the finite mind to grasp. As the living brain cannot conceive of a nonliving brain -- although it may think it can -- the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite."
-- Stephen King, The Gunslinger

"If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them"
-- Stephen King, The Gunslinger

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed."
--Stephen King, The Gunslinger

My first thought was, he lied in every word...

And besides...

"People who know me understand that I am not an intellectual ball of fire, and people who have read my work with some critical approval (there are a few; I bribe them) would probably agree that the best of my stuff has come more from the heart than from the head ..."
-- Stephen King, (writing as himself) The Gunslinger (Afterword)

Infinity. The very nature of it means that every possible combination of the makeup of a universe exists with in a multiverse with an infinite number of universes.

I used to believe that. Then I went on a trip once with some Native Americans who I had made friends with and I got talking about it somehow. I remember one of them said to me, "You're underestimating infinity."

Please check out this thread: There-are-others-worlds-than-these. I would like to hear your thoughts on it.

[Stockerlone]

Diabolos - German Horror Antho.