Kevin's Watch

I'm working my way through Hearts in Atlantis as part of my journey to the Dark Tower. About 100 pages into HiA. Quite entertaining so far. Bobby is a good kid - King reminds me of Dickens - he has a wonderful ability to be able to describe being a kid growing up. King isnt angry and bitter like Dickens was, but King brings his own style of darkness and menace. The fantastic elements of the story seem quite plausible to me. I think King is trying for more than just a scary story here.

I know a reasonable amount about the Low Men from DT5, so I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes.

Technically, you only need to read one, maybe two, stories in HiA, duke. I'm pretty sure Av lists which ones. But, Hyperception felt HiA was the best written book he read in the cycle, so he read the whole thing.

I wanted to get on with the journey, so I only read the stories suggested...

Yup, only a few sections of "Hearts" have direct bearing on DT, but I agree with Hyperception. "Hearts" is quite a good read and has a unity in it's own right, separate from DT that make it very worthwile, IMO.

Yeah, really good read. It surprised me.

I finished HiA last night. I guess I'd call it King's "Vietnam" novel. This story was as close to straight (non-genre) fiction as I've read from him before.

I havent read much war fiction, and no Vietnam fiction, so I dont have anything to compare it to from a war story perspective. I certainly cared for Bobby, S-J, Carol and Pete. I was seduced by Hearts just as Pete was, and Bobby's first kiss with Carol was really sweet. King captured so many of those youthful and teenage moments, and he took them away from the characters just as quickly, just like in real life.

So many memorable scenes, Bobby's obsession with Lord of the Flies, Carol's dislocated shoulder, Bobby running with her in his arms back to the house to Ted, Bobby's revenge with the baseball bat, Bobby finding out about his father from Alanna in the pool hall, Pete and Malenfant playing Hearts, Pete and Carol and their "temporary" romance....

I'm left with a bitter-sweet feeling. This book deserves better than to just be read by people like me as a Dark Tower tie-in.

Also, King's subtle (blunt?) comment on war via his initial emphasis on Lord of the Flies and the savagery in humanity, then his change of focus to the savagery of Vietnam.

For me, Hearts in Atlantis is a very good novel. Not as good as Wizard and Glass, but very good.

duke wrote:For me, Hearts in Atlantis is a very good novel. Not as good as Wizard and Glass, but very good.

Absolutely.

The thing that kept running thru my mind while reading this and for months afterwards was hearing the drone like voice from The Prisoner tv show saying "We want.....information" Loved that sequence in the book!

i think HIA, Wizard and Glass and Insomnia are Kings best three books,

I read the established line of books for my journey to the tower last year - what a great achievement ! Enjoy.

Cord wrote:I read the established line of books for my journey to the tower last year - what a great achievement ! Enjoy.

*nodding*

I think Av's post where he suggests a reading order was in response to your inquiry, Cord. My sincere thanks for asking.

At 70 pages in, no complaints so far on this one. I like the kid. The old man is a mystery. He (Ted) just made a deal to pay the kid (Bobby) to watch for "low men." Reminds me a little of the bald doctors in Insomnia, but I haven't met them yet, so they could be totally different.

I got a great deal on the big trade paperback versions of most the DT books at a half price book store, with an additional 20% off that for the holidays. So I got about $80 worth of books for less than $20.* Great deal! They're really gorgeous books, with lots of cool illustrations. I'm itching to start reading, but still a few more left to read prior to that.


*["Half Price Books" is the name of the store ... some are already discounted more than half. ]

The order you're reading is so different than the order Av suggested, which is the one I followed. The supplemental books (except for 'Salem's Lot) probably made more sense reading them in the order I did.

Where does LIttle Sisters fit in to your read?

There's an order? I didn't realize. I thought I just had to read them all before DT. If the non-DT books don't connect with each other, what difference could it make? [Edit: after a quick look, it seems I should have read the Buick book before this one? Do they connect? Is Hearts the sequel to Buick?]

Mainly, I read whichever one I can find at my local used book store.

However, I realize now that Talisman/Black House have a necessary order, one being the sequel to the other. It's weird that this isn't stated on the book itself.

Meh. The order per se doesn't matter that much. In theory you can read several of them in between the DT books in terms of storyline.

For example, the DT tie-in with Insomnia doesn't manifest until book 7. Same with Hearts and Everything's Eventual.

Desperation and The Regulators should be read roughly concurrently, although it makes things weird. They're like mirror images of each other or something.

The tie-in with Salem's Lot happens in book 5, while The Stand ties in in book 4, but Eyes of the Dragon in book 1 or 2. (I can never remember.)

See, it took him so long to write them, and he wrote so many others in between, that the thread is haphazard in places.

(But I would only read Little Sisters after DT 4. Oh hell, and Wind Through The Keyhole also fits in after DT 4 I think...WF will remember.)

The rest of them don't really matter much in terms of order. Whether you read The Regulators and Everything's Eventual before or after Low Men doesn't really matter. In some cases the connection is...tenuous anyway, so... just read 'em.

--A

Wow, it's almost like the entire thing is haphazard!

Yeah, I can see from the chart that you could read some of these books in between the DT series, but once I got started on DT I didn't want to take any diversions from it. That's why I decided to read the tangential books all first. But now that the issue of chronology has come up, I was wondering if I'm spoiling myself to any of the DT stuff by reading the books that are tangential to the later DT books. For instance, in HiA today (about page 300), Ted revealed that the Gunslinger is now at the Borderlands. I'm not sure how important that is, but the Low Men seemed to have thought so. Will that (or anything else like it) ruin a later DT book?

Also, the Sisters seemed to be a prequel? Does that mean I should read it first, or last?

That's probably the most blatant reference you'll find, so I wouldn't worry about it. All it spoils is that you know Roland reaches some place called the borderlands. Almost meaningless. Most references are much more vague. (The only other one that mentions Roland by name as far as I recall is Insomnia.)

I suggest Sisters after DT 4 because a large chunk of Wizard And Glass is Roland's back-story (or a meaningful piece of it anyway), and Little Sisters happens after that does. (Wind Through the Keyhole is set chronologically between DT 4 and 5. I looked it up. )

So you can add Little Sisters to the back-story you're already reading in 4, and move on to WTtK and then to 5 in logical progression. IMO.

(Or, you could just read WTtK after everything for a last taste of Roland, like those of us who had to wait for the damn books did. )

--A

I've finished this one. That was an odd way to write a book. I suppose it's a technique which allows one to cover a large span of time, but it's not a very satisfying story, with the huge breaks between sections. It would be different if each story was equally compelling, or the overarching story connecting them was truly transcendent enough to emerge as greater than the sum of the parts. But that's not the case here. Blind Willy's story seems like a pointless addition. Sully's story is obviously added to bring out that Big Picture perspective where The Point is spelled out rather explicitly (war sucks, in case we didn't know). I would have preferred that it emerge more gradually and organically, and not be hit over the head like some falling trash from our consumerist/materialist world.

Peter's story was good (the hearts games, college, etc.). That was very familiar (for me it was Risk games in college). But really, I just wanted to know about Bobby's story. Everything in between was a distraction from this. The "magic" trick at the end which strings it all together might have seemed amazing if we forget that this is a fictional story where the author can simply pull rabbits out of his hat indefinitely. It takes no effort whatsoever to write in a "miracle" at the end (whether it's tech or magic, I don't care). What I want to know is how it affects the characters. I suppose the glove gave several characters a chance to reflect on their childhood and look at how far they have come. It was a bit of that "magic" still clinging to life after the disillusionment of adulthood. But that point is barely made in terms of the impact on the characters. It's hardly more than an explicit statement of that point.

This might be my least favorite King book so far. It had a lot of promise, then blew it.