Stephen King vs Stephen Hawking

No contest... Stephen Hawking wins every time.

eNtRopY

Especially since thier both cripples now!


How bout Cristhoper Reeves Vs. Stephen Hawking?


Macbadkarma

yo I saw this guy in a wheelchair going over a hill really fast and he was like "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

stephen king would never make a cool guest star on the simpsons.....

"i knew i shoulda read that book by that wheelchair guy!"

...you might end up... make you bleed... you aint movin... CHRISTOPHER REEVES!

You know they reserve special pits in hell for people like y'all.

I think Hawking has rockets on his chair, so yeah, Hawking all the way.

i could say something about stephen king here but,

i could never say it better than the onion

Stephen King gets ripped on by SOOOOOO many people. I don't care if you think Stephen King is the champion of illiterate teenagers and best-selling hacks. I like him (okay, I don't like the Dark Tower stuff). I guess that's why I'm calling Stephen King in this duel.

How can anyone be against Stephen King?

Read 'The Dead Zone' and then get back to me.

The smart money's on Hawking. I mean, have you seen this? King doesn't stand a chance against that kind of firepower.

And you people are evil for bringing Gonads and Strife into this. Evil, I say. WEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I was gonna' vote for kind until I read the Onion. But with his exoskeleton Hawking is unstopable.

That reminds me of the time one of my friends went as Superman in a wheelchair for Halloween.

eNtRopY

Stephen King is the greatest American writer of all time. I don't really think they're in the same league. Every time I tried to read Hawking I fell asleep. Every time I read King I'm on the edge of my seat with my imagination working overtime. Then again, I started reading King when I was 7 so I'm kinda biased.

Entropy, put the passage that always sticks in your mind when you think about Hawking in this thread. I'll post mine when I get home.

You were kidding, right?

Nope. Did I stutter?

I suppose, it all comes down to what your critteria for 'greatest' is but what about Herman Melville, Flannery O'connor, and Ernest Hemmingway? Or for that matter, what about Harry Crews, Jim Thompson, Chester Himes, Raymond Chandler, Dashil Hammet, David Goodis, James Cain?

Anyway, to each his (or her) own.

or Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, or Charles Bukowski, wait on second thought Chuck may not have been a great writer, but his works are funny as hell.

The mighty Stephen Hawking.

My vote's for Hawking. I actually almost understand black holes 'cause of him.

(I also prefer Hunter S. Thompson as my American Author of Choice.)

Okay now look at each and every one of those writers. Have any of them written as many wonderful books as King has? Have any of them stepped across genres as many times (AND successfully) as King has? Many writers were hailed after death to be 'great.' King is a legend in life. He's done so many things that has never been done in literature. For example, he released TWO books on the SAME day. One by him and the other by his pen name, Richard Bachman. They contained the SAME characters, but were two different stories. The books debuted at #1 simultaneously.

I don't care what era a writer is from. If I like it, I like it. If I don't, I don't. I believe JD Salinger is a wonderful writer. However, he only wrote like ONE really good book. I think Faulkner is a wonderful writer, but he's only written a few really good books, too. Same goes with Hemmingway or any other writer. None have the staggering list that King has. Furthermore, all of King's books are good. There are only a few that fan's have called, "disappointing" at the end. Most writers only have one or two epic novels or novels that are pure genius. I can name TEN off the top of my head:

The Stand
Carrie
Firestarter
The Shining
Different Seasons (Where the Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, and Apt Pupil came from)
Christine
The Green Mile
The Girl that Loved Tom Gordon
Stephen King: On Writing

Popularity does not equal greatness. In fact there often seems to be some sort of inverse relationship there. Milli Vanilli was very popular. So was MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Rod Stewart's redition of 'Down Town Train' was far more popular that Tom Wait's original version.

Similarly, high output does not equal high quality. That same inverse ratio might apply. The guy (I can't remember his name) who writes all the songs for Backstreet Boys and several other really crappy musical acts once bragged that he could write ten or twenty songs on one airplane flight.

Like I said before, I guess it all comes down to how you define greatness. By my criteria, Stephan King doesn't make the cut but you know what they say... opinions are like asshole and so is floppy.

When Einstein was asked to comment on the apparent randomness of quantum mechanics he said, "God does not play dice."

In a public lecture concerning the dual nature of matter, Hawking refuted Einstein's claim and said, "Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen."

I guess that would be the most prominent passage of Hawking that sticks out in my mind.

eNtRopY

King and Hawking are on completely different wavelengths and it isn't fair to either to compare them.

With that said, I feel some of King's better points are being ignored. Most of the moral content in his work is blatant, but it's still there. His earlier works are especially fruitful. Read through 'Skeleton Crew' or even 'The Stand' and you'll find writing of literary worth, I feel.