Personally I'd much rather grow old in Derry or Ogunquit. (I actually live in a British seaside tourist town and have on occasion been a pretentious bespectacled snob with body image issues. I haven't tried to blow up any politicians yet though. :))

For me it's less a case of can't sleep clown will eat me and more a case of can't sleep formless monster that preys on my unrealised emotional solitude will eat me.

End of Watch is scary if you're a hypochondriac or have a history of depression. Otherwise it's a bit too piscine, if that's the right word. I preferred FK, partly because I'm more into the literary-treasure-trove angle. The worst aspect of the trilogy is that FK has no bearing on MM or EOW.

I do like how he smiles when he's 70k miles out in space and bleeding.

If Lyra Silvertongue and Will Parry's reason is applied, I don't mind. I think it's approximated here.

I'm a girl and I identified heavily with his writing, especially in this book (albeit one of the boy characters most - guess which).

The governor says he hopes you're a twitcher. That way he can lure you into the Standpipe and eat you.

Agree. Also 14 at first reading. One of the scenes that stays with me the most is when Ben sees it from a distance on the frozen water, realises it's breaking the laws of physics, is creeped out, but is still too spellbound by the claustrophobic winter environment to run until it's almost too late. Stand is a summer…

Do teenage boys ever think of nature-related images when they have sex/masturbate?

Only people who first read that at a sexual age describe that scene as a 'gangbang'. Or so I'd like to think. I first read it at 14 (a 14 which disdained all sex as weird and gross for transgender denial reasons) and I saw it as sweet and fitting. Only when I reached 19 and self-acceptance did I start to realise it…

Crotch. But yes.

You mean the bit where he goes NEEEEEGAAAAH? That just made me have even more mocking contempt for racism than I already did as a 14-year-old.

It's an issue for him and for his family and for his detractors, especially the insane racist (plus his racist Sunday school teacher). Not for those who become his friends, because they see beyond that. There's a scene where not long after they first work together to defeat the bullies, the leader asks Mike if he can…

As with It, I read the book as a young teenager and saw the film as an old teenager, resulting in the firm conviction that the Hand of God, like the Spider, is a thing which cannot properly be conceived of except by direct witnesses. I imagined the HoG as a hybrid of T2-style nuclear fire and T1-style electricity.

That thing cannot be filmed. Like the rocks in King's short story 'N', it would fry the camera.

I find it difficult to take his moustache seriously. His character I identify heavily with. Just look at my username. (I am also a bespectacled broadcaster with a childhood fear of toilet-dwelling wolves.)

I was born in 88, read the book in 03, and didn't see the film until around 06. As a result, I have a fear of clowns but contempt for the film and Curry's performance. The book is every bit as gloriously terrifying and awe-inducing as Zach describes it as, flaws and all indeed.

Pennywise (in the book) is so scary because he is at once both all fictional monsters (werewolves, vampires, ghosts, zombies) and all real monsters (primal fears, dying young, dying violently, negligent adults, tragedies, the indifference of reality, entropy).

My accent is very similar to Thor's, so I don't know it.

Being a physicist, unknown, and running a company.