A Tango with the Tutor of Terror

A grown-up discussion of horror and fantasy, that is guaranteed to awaken the child within, and have you creeping back into the haunted house of horror fiction.

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Fantastic book, great performance!

I loved this book when first I read it, and have re-read it multiple times. I loved this performance as well, it does the book justice.

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mostly for fans

It's dated and uneven - some places would have required more work, a lot of it seems to be just thrown together from King's work as a newspaper columnist, but the book contains some goodies for Stephen King fans.

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The important af believe

Narrater was amazing, subject matter enlightening, but biggest take away enjoy believing and let your inner child out

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Essentisl Reading for all horror fans

Excellent round up of the horror genre. Also provides a great reading list of the best horror books.

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2 people found this helpful

Dated, but still hits the notes.

Great choice of narrator.
Although you can tell in was written over forty years ago, thus referencing book and film leading up to that time, and references that often will be ones that most readers won't be aware of, it's still a good book. I was born in '78 and so, even for me, there's quite of few cultural references that are before my time, and quite a few movies and TV shows (in particular) that I'm not familiar with, although I will be making a point of trying to source them. As for the books, I will definitely be sourcing the ones King references in a positive way.

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Stephen king should have narrated this

I love Stephen King and if he had narrated this himself I probably would have loved this book. but he didn’t. I just couldn’t get past the awful, hammy narration. Truly dreadful. It’s the first Stephen King book I’ve ever given up on. Don’t waste your money.

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Just another great Stephen King Book!

Another enjoyable work from Mr King, definitely worth a listen if you’ve already enjoyed some of his fiction, would recommend to any horror enthusiast!

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Great insight!

I found it really good as I now have a list of books to read that I didn’t realise I wanted to read. Without the insight into the plots/storylines I probably never would’ve bothered with some of them but now? I’ll be busy for a while!! Thank you!!

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So bad it eroded my respect for Stephen King

Would you try another book written by Stephen King or narrated by William Dufris?

I'm a big fan of Stephen King's voice as a fiction writer, both gruesome and otherwise. So I'll continue to buy his fiction writing. But if this is what a few hours in the company of King The Educator is like? I'm glad I never have to repeat the experience.

What was most disappointing about Stephen King’s story?

I'd love to hear Stephen King's view on the horror phenomenon - just not one that's 37 years out of date. This book was first released in 1981 and unless you're fully prepared for and happy with that you WILL be disappointed.

Simply put, this has aged INCREDIBLY badly. Here and now in 2017 King's recommendations are so outdated, misjudged and downright awful as to be almost comedic and his opinions on other people's work are just tragic faff he's clearly grown out of by the tone of his subsequent writing.

Allow me to provide just a taste of the phenomenally outdated choices and shocking poor taste on offer here.

King rhapsodises for a full hour and a half about Rosemary's Baby (which in 1981 was a pretty amazingly fresh piece of satire and horror but in the era of the 7th SAW movie is about as scary as an episode of any prime time Tv soap opera) while suggesting it's a GOOD thing William Peter Blatty never wrote a followup to The Exorcist (he did, it's called Legion and it's excellent).

He goes on for some time about how Harlan Ellison was so clearly right about the inability to deliver satisfying horror fiction on television, an opinion so completely blown out of the water in the last decade that one almost winces with physical discomfort at his naive certainty.

And that's just the tip of the giant reeking fetid pile of dead ideas on offer here. Here's another more specific example.

As a fan of werewolf fiction who is all too painfully aware that the genre has descended into a medium for soft core airbrushed eroticism for pre teens, I was truly excited to read a book described by King as perhaps the single finest werewolf novel ever written: "The Night Walker". Off I trot to find an audiobook version and enjoy King's recommendation.

Imagine my dismay when I found out just how unimaginably poor it was! It's a horribly campy late 70s pulp piece of nonsense filled with trite sexism, casual racism, nonexistent narrative and (most unforgivable of all from a Stephen King Horror Novel Recommendation) HORRIBLY poor writing!

Some of this wouldn't be such a problem if King weren't writing in his very best college professor voice, abundantly certain that he's speaking from a place of genuine authority. But hearing him ramble on aimlessly in such a smug close minded tone when the weight of subsequent years and works of fiction has proven him so embarrassingly wrong has actually ended up reflecting on my own personal enjoyment of his fiction.

The experience of listening to this book has been much akin to loving the work of a famous musician so much that you invite them over for dinner - only to find they are a horrible pretentious bore. You'll never quite enjoy their albums in the same way.

Sadly this entire book is so dated as to be rendered utterly useless as a critique of the horror phenomenon as it currently stands. If King wrote a second part here and now I'm sure I'd enjoy it, but as it stands the whole affair is a bit of a bad joke.

But his worst crime, the absolutely unforgivable error he commits again and again - is his continued bashing of various types of critics in a book created solely to offer NOTHING BUT CRITIQUE.

It's like walking into a kitchen wearing an apron with "ALL CHEFS ARE IDIOTS!" written across it. You're not really standing in the right spot to make that observation, and even less so when doing the job badly yourself.

It helps to understand why King has become a little less noisy about his own critics in later life to imagine that perhaps he listened back to this absolutely ghastly piece of undigestible stodge and realised what a poor critic he was during his one and only attempt at being one.

Quite genuinely ghastly. Avoid at all costs. I got a refund.

Which character – as performed by William Dufris – was your favourite?

William Dufris does his best with King's insufferably smug waffling, but ultimately he's only as good as the material he's given to read.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The only redeeming factor this book has is that Stephen King only wrote one of them.

Any additional comments?

Genuinely poor, upsettingly misjudged and lacking in every last scrap of the emotional intelligence, insight and fun present in his fiction.

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5 people found this helpful