Stephen King Horror - Not the Dark Tower series

Ho-Hum

I've read most of Kings books and my favourites would have to be..
IT: Most believable characters I have ever read any book ever, its just fantastic
The Stand: When it comes to a modern epic nothing can touch this book, I gotta love it just for it introducing me too Flagg (I'm a big DT fan too)

As for Kings books not translating well to film; I think as long as they are handled in the right manner they will be good. The ones that fall flat on their face are the ones that focus more on the action element of the story. eg IT: mini series, Dreamcatcher etc
The ones that focus more on the character driven end of the story tend to turn out alot better, eg Stand by me, The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption.

Fanny Cradock

Iago wrote:

LOL, if you are basing this on just The Dark Tower series, then you might just want to pick up some of his earlier books and see whether you re-consider. The Dark Tower was a big jump from his comfort zone, and from his traditional form of writing. The change between the earlier books and later books also happened during and after his accident, and as has been stated earlier his later work wasn't half as good as his earlier stuff.

Read The Stand , IT, The Shining and then come back and tell me you think he's overrated and I might consider entering a debate into your reasoning then.

it's ok, i don't really want to debate with you anyway

in one of the latter books of the series he mentions that this was to be his opus, his lord of the rings as i seem to remember he said. i can only go on what he claimed himself. since posting this i have dusted down IT and remained unimpressed. i guess that is just me, and has more to do with my literary snobbery than i care to mention. however, i do admit that it was better by a country mile than the last few books of the dark tower series.

JaneHudson

I really loved Misery and the Shining but now I wonder do I remember them more fondly because the films were so good?

justfortherecor

Just finished reading The Green Mile and absolutely loved it. King is truly one of the finest storytellers ever.

The Stand was also a delight to read but I sadly followed that up by reading the entirely disappointing Dreamcatcher.

You'll find most of the people who bash his work are a) people who've never even read his books but just go along with the popular belief that his work is silly fantasy and simple ghoul stories and
b) the literary 'elitists' who are simply jealous of King's untouchable position as the king of storytelling that appeals to most everyday readers.

He will only truly be regarded as a genius when he passes away.

theCzar

justfortherecor wrote:

King is truly one of the finest storytellers ever.

A touch of hyperbole? He has some great works, he has a lot of trash too. I've actually never read the stand, I must.

justfortherecor wrote:

He will only truly be regarded as a genius when he passes away.

:eek:

What an odd thing to say! Are you that psycho from Misery?

eljono

The Stand is without a doubt, my favourite of his books. Absolutely brilliant.　I've never read the abridged version and I can't see why anyone would want to cut it short. It is a long read but it's riveting the whole way through.

I also count The Shining, Pet Semetary and Insomnia amongst the most enjoyable books I've ever read. I like some of the Richard Bachman stuff too but I prefer good old fashioned King fare.

Bigeamo

Loved The Stand. Just finished Christine. Very very good. I have to say, I find all of his books very readable. The only probably I have is that on occassion (say Insomnia) I feel that he write about 600 pages and then decides that he has to finish it as quickly as possible, so he tries to wrap it up in another 50.

That's probably why I like The Stand so much, I felt that he worked it right through to the end.

_blank_

Bigeamo wrote:

I feel that he write about 600 pages and then decides that he has to finish it as quickly as possible, so he tries to wrap it up in another 50.

Exactly, I have found this with a number of SK books. Needful Things being the worst offender.

Odaise Gaelach

I haven't read a lot of Stephen King's books, but I really, really enjoyed Insomnia. Chilling and amazingly creative.

r3nu4l

Bigeamo wrote:

I feel that he write about 600 pages and then decides that he has to finish it as quickly as possible, so he tries to wrap it up in another 50.

That's probably why I like The Stand so much, I felt that he worked it right through to the end.

This may have more to do with the editors and publishers than King himself. The versions of The Stand on sale now are not the same as the original release which was much shorter. King was never happy with the originally published version and later convinved the publishers (when he had a bit more muscle to do so) that a complete and unabridged version would be better, which as it turns out, it was!

tbh

I've read all his books, and for me, the scariest was Bag Of Bones. Cell is a good return to form as well, but I find with SK books, either the main body of the book is briliant, but the end is weak, or the body is bad and the end is good. I loved The Stand and IT, but, yeah, Bag of Bones really scared me

Shaybo

I would say It and The Tommyknockers are two of his scariest novels.

But two other pieces of his writing are more terrifying IMO - The Langoliers from 4 Past Midnight and The Mist from one of his short story collections (can't remember which right now) are brilliant.

Also very frightening (no supernatural involvement at all) is The Long Walk from the Richard Bacman Books.

Susannahmia

havent read them all yet but my favourites so far are:

1.The stand (by far my most favourite)
2.salems lot
3.firestarter
4 Cell

Huggles

In no particular order

Christine
Desperation
Misery
Thinner
It
The Shining

niallon

Thanks to it being the first King I ever read, I love Dreamcatcher but my favourites are Four Past Midnight, Different Seasons and The Shining. Guess I like the short stories cause I'm lazy!

Faerie

Although I thought Misery was creepier, my favourite is definately Salem's Lot.

Merrick

I'm going to have to go for a top 3, in no order:

Gerald's Game
Talisman, with Peter Straub
The Shining

Mikill

Black House is a classic

Tingo

Misery was the first one of his books that I read. It was good, but it didn't live up to the hype I expected. I always heard about how great and scary the books were, so I gave them a shot...and not so much. :rolleyes:

They are entertaining. I really liked Four Past Midnight, for some reason was jsut drawn towards the plots and characters. I find that his books can be really long (I think that says more about me than him ) and just hard to get into, so I'm probably biased in the sense that the stories were short.

Despite saying that, I loved Insomina. :cool:

While I didn't really like the movies very much, I found a few of them good. I think the problem is if you already know the story. I saw It, and then when I went to pick up the book I just felt bored. Although if I read the book first I'm sure I would have daydreamed through the movie.

I never read the Dark Tower series. I bought one of the books second hand, realised it was mid-way through the series and just couldn't be bothered buying the earlier ones and reading them. Kinda of glad now from what people are saying. Although the book is excellent for killing spiders might I add, the book was worth its money.

Macker

Tingo wrote:

While I didn't really like the movies very much, I found a few of them good. I think the problem is if you already know the story. I saw It, and then when I went to pick up the book I just felt bored. Although if I read the book first I'm sure I would have daydreamed through the movie.

I put off reading It for a long time because I really thought I would have John boy Walton going through my head throughtout the whole book but I eventually got around to reading it on holidays this year and throughly enjoyed it ,one of his best

Gillie

My Top 5:
Salems Lot
Desperation
The Regulators
Graveyard Shift
Thinner

TerrorFirmer

Does anyone know actually why the characters in the Regulators and Desperation are the same. I know both stories revolve generally around the same ideas but just wondering if there was any particular reason he re-used all the characters again?

Dave3x

I've just finished reading needful things, whih is my first Stephen King novel. It was great for some parts, but as it got closer to the end it seemed it was using its setting as a crutch to get there (I'm thinkin of the catholic-baptitst thing here). So, I wasn't that impressed.

But, the reason I picked it up in the first place was that I read his book "On Writing". Part memoir, part 'how-to', it was well written and honest. I have a feeling even if I read everything else, "On Writing" will remain my favourite SK book. Who cares if it's non-fiction?

Chainfire

The Stand is excellent,must have read it 3 or 4 times.Firestarter,Salems Lot,It and Four Past Midnight,all classics.Didnt think much of Rose madder or most of his later stuff.

elqu

Not a horror fan at all but loved The Stand. Still reread it now and then. Brilliant! Anyone ever notice the unabridged TS Eliot quote in the middle? "the evening was spread out against the sky, like a patient etherised upon a table"? Happened to be studying the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock at the same time I was reading the Stand and it jumped out at me! (Leaving Cert a long time behind me now alas!) Always thought it strange - does he do that elswhere? Was it deliberate or an extraordinary coincidence?

shockwave

The Stand and It are his two best books by far.All his early books are much better than his more recent stuff.

Umaro

Lust4Life wrote:

Of course, I love them all - except - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I just could not force myself to finish that one because it didn't capture me right away like his others do.

I remember I was working as a car park attendant back when I was about 14 and I read that over 2 or 3 days. I thought it was a brilliant story, kind of different to other horror works of his - well worth finishing.

The first book I ever read by Stephen King would be The Tommyknockers back when I was around 12 or so. It was the first time I'd ever read a book that long and it was so epic in its scope. Shame the TV movie was a waste of time.

And I loved Salems Lot too, I still think about *SPOILERS* :

the way the stairs had been cut away and they'd put a load of knives at the bottom and the dude fell and got impaled - I still think of that whenever I have to go down the stairs in the dark!

My favourite story of all time has to be The Stand - just epic from start to finish. Even better is the uncut edition with The Kid meeting TrashcanMan. My favourite bit in the book is

when the virus has killed off pretty much everyone and he tells several short instances of people dying from "natural" causes: the woman who hated her husband and child is putting their bodies down in the freezer when the door slams behind her, only then that she notices there is no handle on her side.

The short stories are great fun as well, especially the one where the guy gets bitten by an African boomslang (??) and ends up on the autopsy table.

Ever since The Green Mile a lot of his stuff has been hit and miss though, Dreamcatcher was an exercise in boredom cliches, Hearts in Atlantis was more a Stand By Me copycat with some Dark Tower undertones, Black House was tedious, and so were the last 3 books of the Dark Tower series. The last one was so much pompous asshattery* that I havent read any of his work since.



*asshattery - the doings of someone who is an asshat

Nea

My favs would be
Desperation,
The Regulators,
Insomnia.

I actually thought the only book of his worth reading since his accident was The girl who loved Tom Gordon, saying that I haven't read The Cell yet.

My all time favourite is the short story The Long Walk from the Bachman Books.Brilliant story, I hope Richard Bachman arises again

Ho-Hum

Umaro wrote:

The short stories are great fun as well, especially the one where the guy gets bitten by an African boomslang (??) and ends up on the autopsy table.

I remember that one but I cant remember its name, I think it was in Everythings Eventual though, good story