Café de Nuit

The thread about 1408 got me thinking about Stephen King, a novelist who's work can sometimes be extremely fantastic, and other times not so much. I thought it would be cool to discuss which novels/short stories etc. are King's best and worst in everybody's opinion . . .

I'll go first.

The first full Stephen King novel I ever read was "Cell". I don't normally go for zombies, but for some reason I really loved this book. I think cell phones are such an annoying, yet often necessary, part of our lives that it was nice to see a world where phones became obsolete. In a manner of speaking, w/o giving away the entire plot . . . This is still my favorite King novel.


Also excellent is "Storm of the Century" (technically its a screenplay, not a short story, but whatever . . . ).

Least favorite for me would be "Secret Window" (excellent film, OK story) and "Dreamcatcher", which I've tried to read twice and both times couldn't get into the story.

For me the best would be the 4 Past Midnight anthology (The Langolliers, The Sun Dog, Secret Window Secret Garden, etc), I just love those stories, plus The Sun Dog could work very well in Gothic earth.

The worst for me has to be The Tommyknockers or Thinner, they both just bored me. I think he has written far worse books since these, but I gave up after reading - what I thought to be - 4 bad books in a row.

"I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries. "
-Stephen King

My favorite King book is non-fiction, Danse Macabre. (I wish he'd update it to include his take on recent horror offerings.) My favorite of his fiction are his short story anthologies, especially Different Seasons. (King is best when he's forced to be succinct). I also have a fondness for On Writing.

I have only gotten one Stephen King novel, IT, and it was awful. His sentence structure was convoluted, his characterizations were poor and two-dimensional, and his entire sense of when to cut off a scene and when to restart was way out of whack.

I've tried reading that book several times and just couldn't get through it.

I have not read any other Stephen King novels, but I have enjoyed several movies made from his novels (Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile both were excellent) so I'm still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

LordGodefroi wrote:My favorite King book is non-fiction, Danse Macabre. (I wish he'd update it to include his take on recent horror offerings.)

You too, huh? I always wondered if that was a bit damning with faint praise...

For the best, I think it depends on what you are looking for.

I was surprised to find Bag of Bones a very interesting ghost story.

For vampires I always liked Salem's Lot, but I may be partial to it because it was the first King book I read.

For temptation by the devil, I enjoyed Needful Things, thought the strange magic is real thing was a little too much for me. I don't mean magic as in D&D magic, wizard spells and all that. I mean stage magic, real world magician type stuff.

Desperation has a good, ancient forgotten god theme going. When I read the book I did not find it as sanctimonious as the movie was.

For apocalyptic scenario, the Stand was great.



For worst, I don't know. There are a lot out there, but Tommyknockers has to be up near the top. Maybe Dreamcatcher too.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Misery. It was the first time I encountered a completely non-supernatural horror story, and it totally creeped me out.

I went through a King phase in High School/College, and read Thinner, Pet Sematary, Dead Zone, Christine, Cujo, and a few others but after that initial rush, I got kinda bored, and I haven't really felt the need to go back very often. I listened to the first Dark Tower on tape, but was unimpressed. I keep wanting to read The Stand, but haven't yet. But Misery still resonates with me.

For starters, let me say that I both love and hate Stephen King's books- and that he really IS hit or miss.


Best?


The Stand. Hands-down. Specifically, the "butchered" version that King purists hate so much. The cultural reference sound better (Lawrence Welk, Jimmy Carter, as opposed to Jerry Falwell and George Bush). True, it lacks the longer chapters of media suppression, but the attempt to "update it" to be set in 1988 was stupid and misguided. If it ain;t broke, don;t fix it. And the 1978 version of The Stand was anything but broken.

Honorable mention goes to the first four books of the Dark Tower series. Getting hit by that damn van really took over the last books of the series to an unhealthy degree. Also, honorable mention to 'Salem's Lot and most of the short-story collections.


Now.

The turkeys.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon- Ugh.

Rose Madder- Just went ON and ON.

Gerald's Game- I admit to picking this one up for prurient reasons in my teens. Boy, was I ever disappointed- and going back over it, it still isn;t worth the time it takes to read.

Desperation- Tries to be The Stand. And fails. Miserably.

Alright,

First of all, I am a huge King fan, but not with any misguided sense of loyalty. He is definately hit or miss, and unfortunately leaning more towards miss, but there is some good out there. Just as with any author, not everything is praise worthy. Heck, there is bad Poe, Hemingway, and even Shakespeare.
Now don't get upset and whiney because I mentioned Stephen King in the same paragraph as some of the greatest Authors, Poets, and Playwrights in history. Just understand my point. Every dog has it's day as well as every dog craps on the carpet.

Now on with the point of this thread
My favorites for shorts:
The Mist leading the way, followed by 1408

Writing as Richard Bachman:
The Long Walk, Thinner

Epic Stories:
The Stand, It, Dreamcatcher, The Dark Tower Series (with leanings towards the first four books), The Talisman (co-written by Peter Straub),Black House (Also co-written by Peter Straub)

Other Novels:
The Shining, Desperation, Needful Things, Geralds Game,

Okay, As far as the bad goes:
Most short stories, Eyes of the Dragon, The Dark Half (unfortunately the first King book I ever read), Tommyknockers (Alot of people like this one...don't know why)

I haven't read much Stephen King, though I'm starting to now because I'm running out of other things to check out from the library. I found On Writing to be extremely useful and insightful, which is what made me decide to take a look at his fiction.

So far all I've read is Carrie, which I've seen no mention of here, one way or the other. I didn't find it all that impressive, for a writer of King's reputation, even being his first book. I think this:

HuManBing wrote:His sentence structure was convoluted, his characterizations were poor and two-dimensional, and his entire sense of when to cut off a scene and when to restart was way out of whack.

sums up my opinion of his style pretty well. The story wasn't too bad, but I didn't feel that it was told very well. I suppose I ought to see how the movie turned out.

LordGodefroi wrote: My favorite King book is non-fiction, Danse Macabre. (I wish he'd update it to include his take on recent horror offerings.) My favorite of his fiction are his short story anthologies, especially Different Seasons. (King is best when he's forced to be succinct).

Huh. I pretty much completely agree with you there. (Night Shift had some fun short fiction in it as well.)

Worst? How about (the cure for) Insomnia? That book bored me to tears, to be honest.

My favorite would have to be Salem's Lot. It also happens to be one of my favorite vampire movies. Heck, even the remake from a few years back is pretty decent.

Feh, King, how do I loath thee?

That said, some of his earlier books weren't that bad ... but one can deffinately tell when he stopped writing because he loved it and began seeing it as his cash cow.

Christine was the first King book I read, in high school, and I really liked it - perhaps because it was different from anything else I'd been reading, I don't know, but it holds a special place for me. (I purposefully have not gone back and read it since)

The first 3 books of the Gunslinger series really sucked me in, again because they were different, but when I attempted to pick up the fourth book I got about a paragraph in and had to put it down ...

I read IT on a dare - someone told me if I read the book and could honestly say I didn't like it when I was done they'd buy me a book of my choice ... they never did buy me the book. Actually, I liked the first half, dealing with the children - the same half of the sci-fi movie version they made - but when the focus switched to the adults it became complete garbage ... not to mention the end of the children's scenario was inappropriate and unnecessary.

I used to love the movie Pet Sematary, until I read the book, which was far better ... again, I've not gone back for fear I'd hate it now.

Salem's lot was pretty decent - though I made the mistake of watching the old film version and now can't sepperate the two in my mind ... the old film was really bad.

Though The Stand was probably his best piece of work, ever. The miniseries couldn't hope to do it justice.

And that concludes anything good I can say about King's work ... there were a few shorts stories that didn't make me sick, but for the most part I've lost interest about 30 pages in ... when the last twenty have been nothing but pointless filler.

I think his best book ever was "On Writing".
It was a great read about his life as a writer, and included the tale of his recovery from a near-fatal car accident.
I think the best part of the whole book is when he recounts thinking "Oh, my god. I've been killed by one of my own characters."