John Dies at the End - David Wong/Jason Pargin

[Dosed]

¡Hola! 

 

Has anyone else read John Dies at the End? What did you guys think of it? Has anyone read any other of Wong's/Pargin's books? 

 

The book is written by an editor of Cracked.com (please keep reading), and while I grew out of visiting those kinds of websites when I was younger I found the book to be genuinely quite funny. It's essentially a buddy comedy about 2 losers that accidentally discover a drug which allows them to see hell creatures which secretly inhabit the world. 

 

I found the book to be quite unique in the way that it managed to genuinely creep me out with horrifying hell demons, and then a couple of pages later had me laughing at an exploding dog. The humour is very crass and crude but there's actually an interesting story going on with plenty of twists and turns. There were some moments that managed to seem out of place even in such an absurd book, and could often be a bit cringe inducing. 

 

I read up about the book afterwards (as I usually do) and found that it was originally released episodically online, and this probably helps to explain the last third or so of the novel coming out left field.

I don't feel like the other world was contextualised enough before David and John actually went there; they seemed to be in the other world and then out of it just as quick.

Also 

the title seemed like a bit of a cop out, it would have been way better if he'd actually stuck to his guns and killed John off even if he somehow managed to bring him back to life.

 

Anyway! Discuss! 

[lumberbaron]

I saw the movie for the first book and loved it.  Went out of my way to find the second book and managed to finish that in pretty short order.  There are very cracked type gags that they do throughout, but there is just something that kind of sticks about the experience.  I don't know if I can really pinpoint any of it, but there are moments that just kind to seem wonderful and funny even though there is a constant stream of dick jokes throughout the chapters.  Don't get me wrong, there isn't anything wrong with a well played dick joke, I just think that there were times that it seemed like, "oops, this chapter is too serious. PENIS!"

[malkav11]

Both books are among my favorites of all time. John Dies at the End is kinda scattered, yeah, and is really three novellas and maybe one or two short stories with a bit of interstitial stuff to make it seem like a cohesive whole, probably an artifact of its web origins. But it strikes such a perfect balance between the sort of absurdist comedy that most precisely targets my sense of humor and genuinely creepy horror elements that it winds up being a magical experience anyway. This Book is Full of Spiders (besides having one of the best book titles ever conceived) is a much tighter narrative but does lose a little of the more crazed anything goes gonzo feel of the previous book.

 

I've never actually read any of his Cracked stuff, but I possibly should. Mostly when I've visited it Cracked seems to be a lot of lists of stuff, some of which are actually kind of interesting, but none of which have made me laugh very much.

[NotDorner]

The cracked editor is a crafty mofo, ive heard many good things about this book, I really need to check it out.

[tomobedlam]

 I really liked it, i have to read the second one soon, the story is all over the place but is an enjoyable reading non the less

[Brannigan]

The first one is a funnier book, the second gets much more serious.  Though the second one has the longest burning joke I've ever seen.

[pbrand]

Has anyone seen both the film and read the book? I've only seen the film so far, but if the book is as good as the film I might go back and read the book.

[Cyborg771]

The book is written by an editor of Cracked.com (please keep reading), and while I grew out of visiting those kinds of websites when I was younger I found the book to be genuinely quite funny.

 

Just as a counter point to this sentiment, I find Cracked to be better than most comedy sites on the web. For one thing they're pretty aggressive about fact checking and sourcing where appropriate. Buzzfeed and it's ilk have no problem spewing hearsay into the void so it's refreshing to see articles based on, and vouching for, science and research. That's not to say it doesn't have lazy and bad content, there's obviously a range, but it's articles are usually pretty entertaining and informative. The list format is obvious clickbait but it doesn't actually hurt the content itself. Some of the content (like videos and the podcast) don't adhere to the list format at all but they're still titled as such. Just my two cents.

[brkl]

Has anyone seen both the film and read the book? I've only seen the film so far, but the book is as good as the film I might go back and read the book.

 

The book is definitely better. Plenty of the jokes in the film fail to land as well as they do in the book.

[Dean]

John Dies at the End is probably my favorite book (though I haven't read a lot), and I personally feel as if it was sort of made to appeal to me. It's fairly unstructured and imprecise, yeah, but it's still wickedly paced, and full of weird imagination and humour. Just unstoppably entertaining from start to finish, in my opinion.

[osmosisch]

I picked the first book up on the thread's recommendation and enjoyed it enough moment to moment but found it to be too disjointed to be long-term great. Some good ideas and jokes, just fell flat on execution I think.

[DrewMarlowe]

Has anyone seen both the film and read the book? I've only seen the film so far, but if the book is as good as the film I might go back and read the book.

 

I really didn't like the movie after reading the book, I think you probably did it the right way around. I really loved the first book - the combination of comedy and horror let you read about these awful things while always remembering that this is a comedy, that nothing is really at stake.

 

The pacing of the first book is really interesting because it started as an online serial before being adapted into a full novel. I'm not sure at what point in the story he stopped serializing it but it does seem to transition from several one off plots into the main plot somewhere around halfway through. I think this was a failing of the second book, which just had one solid plot the whole way through. When concentrated into a single area/plot/mythology, the zaniness of the first book is lost. I hope he writes more short stories about the characters and world, he seems to write much better with that kind of constraint. It's still worth reading though.

[Brannigan]

The movie is more or less a Best of, I still enjoyed it.  Agree on the second book though, it both got way too serious and focused on one thing.  Still good moments, but not as fun.

 

I did enjoy the

ultra long burn joke about the super cool detective with sports car being a total fabrication in the end for the story

[Undeadpool]

They're both really great, really solid books with some AMAZING concepts and some of the most seamless blending of horror and comedy this side of Edgar Wright. The first book's questioning of reality and Lovecraftian elements coupled with the body horror and cosmic terror of the second one...color me IMPRESSED (also: check out the Cracked podcast. Some incredible, insightful stuff).

 

THAT said: the second one ditches a LARGE amount of the humor and substitutes it with soapboxing to a level that ALMOST made me quit reading it at times. The first one's biggest flaw is the reporter's huge, out-of-nowhere anti-Video game rant (a favorite of Wong's articles, where he's been doomsaying the industry for the last seven years), but it became a running, recurring theme in the second book. I mean some of it was close to Jack Thompson levels of disconnect. It speaks REALLY well to the strength of the rest of both books that I STILL enjoyed them in spite of that.