Am I the only person who DOESN'T like Stephen King?

Cafe Society
1

(Mods–I don’t really mean this to be a Pit-oriented thread, but if I end up ranting too much, feel free to move it.)
Having read through the several recent threads on King, I’m just baffled at how popular he is. I’ve read a few things by him (the “short” version of The Stand, Tommyknockers, “The Mangler”, and one or two other short stories), and I Just. Don’t. Get. It. Sure, there are questions about whether he’s jumped the shark, but IMO if The Stand is some of his best material, then he’s firmly in the “third-rate hack” category–and that’s on a good day.

Now, I’ll readily admit that my taste in horror runs to the old atmospheric stuff, so I may just not be part of his intended audience…but here are some of my thoughts after having read his works:

[ul]
[li]He wouldn’t know “atmosphere” if he were locked in a hyperbaric chamber.[/li][li]He’s a first-rate example of the need for good editors. (I actually think that there are decent novellas lurking inside The Stand and Tommyknockers.)[/li][li]He seems to be the Michael Crichton of horror, with rhetoric designed to appeal to people who are raised on TV and the movies and who are willing not so much to suspend disbelief as to hang disbelief by its neck until dead.[/li][li]And has he ever had an original idea for a hook to hang a plot upon?[/li][li]Does he honestly think that throwing in a few product brand names will make his stuff seem modern and relevant?[/li][li]Have his fans read any horror other than the stuff he wrote?[/li][/ul]

Am I alone here? Have tastes changed that much?

And in case you were wondering, here (in no particular order) are some of the horror authors I prefer and whom I would heartily recommend:

Edgar Allan Poe
Manly Wade Wellman
H.P. Lovecraft
Fredric Brown
David H. Keller
E. Hoffman Price
Arthur Conan Doyle
Robert E. Howard
Algernon Blackwood
William Hope Hodgson
M.P. Shiel
Clark Ashton Smith
Henry S. Whitehead
Robert Bloch
Fritz Leiber
David Drake
Guy De Maupassant
Tim Powers
Arthur Machen
Frances Stevens
Robert W. Chambers
F. Marion Crawford
Lord Dunsany
John Collier
C.L. Moore

2

You’re not the only one. One of my Profs hates him with a passion, and unfortunately, he has influenced my tastes when it comes to the Horror genre after taking the Horror Novel with him. It’s frustrating because I want to read Wolves of Calla, and I want to enjoy it, but there’s just something…off I guess. I don’t know, I blame my prof.

3

King is a hack.

4

I used to be a big Stephen King fan, but my tastes have changed somewhat and I don’t read him that much any more. I’ve read pretty much everything he’s written up through The Dark Half and only a few that he wrote after that. I love The Dark Tower series, but I haven’t read Wolves yet.

If you’re judging him on The Tommyknockers, The Stand, and The Mangler, then I don’t think you’re judging him on his best work. The Tommyknockers is widely considered one of his worst efforts. The Stand is very popular, but probably more for its grand scale than for being well-written.

My personal favorites are:

The Dark Tower books
Pet Semetary
The Shining
It
The Long Walk (novella written as Richard Bachman)
many of his earlier short story collections

5

No, you are most certainly not the only one.
Me, I just can’t stand to read King for a couple reasons, the most important of which for me is his utter and complete Luddite philosophy. In every one of his books I’ve read, science/technology=evil, human action and intellect=futile and only blind faith can save the day, if indeed the day can be saved.

6

No, you’re not alone.

But I agree that his early short stories (and I can’t stress the word ‘short’ strongly enough) were spot on in creep and shock value. He is, indeed, a writer in need of a good and ruthless editor, and I quit reading any of his stuff around the same time he decided his work was above the editorial knife. Tommyknockers, I think.

7

Fair enough. The short stories I ran across in various anthologies, while The Tommyknockers was one of those it-was-the-only-thing-available-to-read situations. Having been exposed to that stuff, I decided to give King another chance and looked around for his “better” stuff. The Stand seemed to get the highest praise overall, so that’s what I chose. I wouldn’t categorically object to reading more of King’s work, but I’d want some level of assurance that it was waaaay better than what I’ve already read.

Oh, and I’ll see your “grand scale” and raise you Star Maker.

8

I think your first problem is that you categorize him as a horror novelist. I have read around 15 of his books and I would only classify a couple of the ones I have read as horror. If you are looking for a good horror novel of his read 'Salem’s Lot. That was a good story. Most people do not view The Tommyknockers as one of his better books. There was a thread about it recently.

Secondly, I do not read King’s book looking for a literary masterpiece. King has said he is the Big Mac and fries of the literary world. His strength is in story telling not in giving some moving insight into how the world works. It is purely entertainment. If you are looking for something other than that, well just keep on moving. In the intro of the revised The Gunslinger, he wrote that he views himself as more of a ‘popular’ novelist, rather than ‘serious’. He is looking for an audience rather than ‘answers and keys to the self’.

I know he probably gets a lot of his ideas from other sources. But I really don’t think that is all that uncommon. Paul McCartney said “Bad musicians steal, good musicians borrow.” I think it is that same kind of idea. It seems like he looks at other stories and says ‘what if…’ and answers whatever idea he comes up with. A lot of times it hasn’t worked, but I don’t really think he is plagiarizing.

And you are doing yourself a disservice by reading the abridged version of The Stand.

9

I always thought The Stand was one of his best books. Although, I have heard the original shortened version wasn’t very good. If you want a couple suggestions, might I recommend It and/or Salem’s Lot (which will be coming to ABC soon, staring Rob Lowe, Donald Sutherland, and James Cromwell).

10

I always feel pompous for saying stuff like this, but King is a great author if you’re a teenager. When you’re fifteen, the sex, gore, drugs, and related “adult” material is more than enough to make up for the repetetive prose, unoriginal ideas, lack of depth, and general absence of a strong plot structure. Once you get older, though, you start to find all the sources he borrowed from who did all the cool stuff just as well, and were able to join it to some sort of actual literary framework. I don’t hate King, because I spent many a happy childhood hour reading and enjoying his stuff. But I put most of it away around the same time I stopped reading novelizations of role-playing games and second-rate sci-fi movies.

In fairness, though, a lot of his earlier output is much, much stronger than his later stuff. Back when he was a struggling unknown and had to listen to editors. 'Salem’s Lot and The Shining were both reasonably effective little horror stories, and the first couple of Gunslinger books were alright, although they’re part of an epic fantasy series of Robert Jordan proportions, are taking far, far too long to write, and are generally decreaseing in quality along with the rest of his output. Kind of a shame, because when I started reading the series (when I was seven) it was the greatest thing I’d ever read in my life. Twenty-one years later, he’s still not done with the damn thing, and I’ve outgrown the King as an author, so now I’ll never know how it ends.

11

His early writing I sort of liked when I read it, when I was 16 or so. It was sort of a case of thinking I had to like it because other people did. But as my tastes in horror grew, I moved on. Once I discovered Lovecraft, there was no reason to ever read King again.

Ideally I think King is suited for a young crowd. The one thing about King, like Koontz for example, is how formulaic and easy to read the books are – you don’t have to do much thinking when you read their books.

The unfortunate thing about the horror genre is that most bookstores and publishers don’t put much effort into it, so that it’s far less likely someone is going to go looking for King and then discover really good horror writers because the books either aren’t kept in stock or aren’t kept in print. The publishing industry has put a lot of support behind his work, and it’s helped draw attention to the horror genre, but I think the outcome is that certain people look for King books and stay with King books, and don’t go looking too far out of the way.

I agree that I think for some people King is possibly the only horror writer they’ve read. Then I think, well, at least someone is reading instead of not reading! But then I think, well if someone is going to read, why bother with King when there are so many great horror writers out there?

12

That’s exactly it.

Get out of my head.

13

Erm, okay. His books seem to end up in the horror section of bookstores, so I figured that would be a decent general label.

The thing is, IMO he doesn’t even succeed at that. Hell, I’ll happily read even L. Ron Hubbard’s fiction–he’s an awful, awful writer, but a great storyteller. But this may just be an issue of personal tastes. (And did you see the number of pulp authors on my list in the first post? We’re not exactly in lit-snob territory here.)

FTR, I think the original quote (which was not by McCartney) was “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

14

Guess I’ll jump on the dogpile. King has written some really good short stories, but damn, does he need an editor for his novels. And he really should stay away from science fiction, because he just can’t do it.

There are a lot of fine writers in the list in the OP (my favorite of the list is probably Fritz Lieber). But King deserves props for almost single-handedly reviving horror as a popular genre. Every so often a literary genre becomes moribund and needs a new approach to wake it up; King supplied that.

15

Good point. Vonnegut is is the same for college freshmen, J.K. Rawlings for 'tweeners, etc. If I may proceed from oyr point, then maybe our complaint isn’t with the author, but rather with readers too lazy to move on (which “Harry Potter” boosters fallaciously tell us they will: "hey, she’s gotten kids to read!).

Somewhere someone is picking up a Roald Dahl book for the first time and saying “hey, this is just jumping on the “Harry Potter” bandwagon, with a bunch of other stuff thrown in,” but hopefully they’ll not say it out loud, so if they check the publication date on the Dahl book they won’t feel like too much of an ass and have to retrench their prejudice.

The only other complaint I’d have with this state of affairs is also not directly the fault of authors like King. As the ballplayer said “they’re crazy to pay me this much, but I’d be crazier to turn it down.” If publishers concentrate on the blockbusters, there aren’t any trees left to pulp up to print books by anyone else. Publishers like to say that they use the profits from blockbusters to print “prestige” books, similar to law firms performing bro-bono cases. But Bar Associations require a certain amount of pro bono cases be taken; no such regulations exist in the publishing world.

16

Hunter Hawk, as an increasingly taxed admirer of the man’s work, I can’t argue against a single one of your points. His books are steeped in all of the faults you mentioned and more. And yet. I think what it gets down to, as you say, is a matter of taste, but when he’s on his game (and that’s an important qualifier in these post-Tommyknockers days), the guy simply has one of the most readable styles in American letters. King can just charm the pants off you when he wants to. He creates extremely likable characters one would follow to the ends of the earth. In this regard, I’m hearing him compared more and more to Dickens, and I wouldn’t call it an outlandish assessment.

Stories I’d ask you to peruse before slamming the vault shut on him once and for all: :slight_smile:

“The Reach,” Skeleton Crew. Beautiful, beautiful story.
“The Sun Dog,” Four Past Midnight. Aside from a pretty cool idea, there’s a father/son dynamic that’s just pitch-perfect here.
“Jerusalem’s Lot,” Night Shift. If he ever managed effective atmosphere, it was with this baby. You listed Lovecraft as a favorite, so hopefully you’d be pleased. : )
“The Last Rung of the Ladder,” Night Shift. Non-horror, but so damn moving.

And what may be, to me, the single most impressive and flat-out disturbing story he’s written since maybe Children of the Corn- “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French,” from Everything is Eventual. This level of care and craft makes me actually hopeful that he’s still moving forward as a writer.

17

Something is flying over my head as we speak. Maupassant a horror writer?

Personally, King is too plain vanilla for me. His style, as others have pointed out, is very readable, however I find nothing in his books worth the effort. His only works that I’ve really enjoyed were the first two (maybe three) Dark Tower books. The first was, I think, wonderfully surreal and inventive, especially compared to his other books, but I won’t be reading any further in the series. Wizard & Glass was poor, even by the standards I ascribe to King, and the cover art of Wolves of Calla is by itself enough to turn me off picking it up (many of the reviews I’ve read indicate the quality inside is little better). I’m embarrassed just seeing it on the shelf.

18

A few of his stories, yeah. For example, “The Horla” is a classic. Of course, the bulk of his material isn’t horror.

I’ll see your likable characters and raise you most anything written by James P. Blaylock.

Thanks for the recommendations for other King material. It admittedly won’t be a priority of mine, but I’ll see if I can track down a couple of those stories.

19

Though I am also a King fan (who recognizes that King has faults as a writer and several books that were just flat-out bad), I’d have to say that you’re obviously not alone in disliking King’s work. In fact, disliking King was pretty fashionable for a while, though less so no than it used to be ten years ago or so. I am also something of a horror aficionado, and have read a great deal of other horror writers, including many that were on your list and many that were not. I was surprised to see that Shirley Jackson, Dan Simmons, and Neil Gaiman were missing from your list. Do you not like them either? They each excel at at least some of the weaknesses you point out regarding King.

I’m not going to try to change your mind, because many of the things you point out about King are true. However, “needs an editor” always seems like a weak criticism to me, about any author. King has an editor. All writers need editors, some have better editors than others. So what? Also, the brand-name products in his novels aren’t there to make them more “relevant,” they are there to make them more real. One of King’s strongest points is his ability to craft believable characters, and frankly, using products with names we recognize is something most of us can identify with on some level… it does help ground his characters in the “real world,” and makes the situations he puts them in that much more extraordinary by contrast.

It also bears noting that while King’s standard classification is that of “horror” novelist, that descriptor definitely does not classify all of his work. He’s written some great non-fiction, and some excellent “mainstream” fiction as well.

Your short list of King works you’ve read is some of his weakest work, with the exception of The Stand… and even that one isn’t one of my favorites. It’s a good book, in my estimation, but not a great one. In the interest of a fairer picture, I would like to add to the list Moody Bastard started of suggested reading:

“Head Down” - a short non-fiction piece, originally published in (I believe) The New Yorker, and re-printed in the collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes. One of King’s best short works ever.

On Writing - King offers some home-grown advice about writing which is sensible and concise. If nothing else, you’ll see here that King truly loves to write, and he’s got some good pointers on habits that could help anyone do it well. And the piece at the end about his car accident is absolutely brutal.

“Paranoid: A Chant” - A short poem that definitely sets a mood. Found in (I think) Skeleton Crew.

“All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” - A non-horror short story in Everything’s Eventual, in which King made use of an idea I had about graffiti about a year before I read it, but turned it into something much better than I ever would have done. Full of a subtlety King doesn’t usually display, but deeply emotional at the same time.

One final thing… you mention Lovecraft on your list of favorites, and he is also one of mine. Nobody sets an atmosphere like Lovecraft. However, it can also be said that nobody fills a page with unnecessary verbage like Lovecraft. If there’s any horror author who desperately needed a better editor, it is H.P. Lovecraft, and this is from someone who has read and enjoyed almost all of his work. The same is true, to a somewhat lesser extent, of Poe… who I also adore, mind you.

Just thought I’d point out that all horror writers have their faults, though in different areas. King excels at great characters and the idea of placing ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and keeping it believable. Well-established atmosphere is one of his weaknesses (though one he can overcome, with effort). That doesn’t mean he’s a bad writer.

Wow… that was much longer than intended. Perhaps, in the end, King’s work just isn’t your bag. Dean Koontz and Danielle Steel aren’t my bag, but I don’t feel the need to rail on about their popularity. shrugs

20

I’ve never read King.

I only know of his horror/suspense work through movie and TV adaptation.

That being said, Salem’s Lot is a B-.

And every other horror/suspense work of King has been one big stinking pile of crap.

Yeah, I know that a (TV) movie doesn’t always do justice to a written work, but for so many vomitous bombs to be so consistently splewed into film/video form tells me that the source can’t be any good. And the ones where King retained creative control were just as bad.

Which is everything wrong with The Stand. Don’t know how anyone liked that TV movie given that it epitomizes the simple fact that characterizes all of King’s work: It didn’t make sense. (Human induced biological plague leads to mystical apocalypse where the actions of those who Stand with the good are meaningless in the face of the power of evil which is simply wiped out by God who shows up too late in the end and invalidates everything everyone does, good or bad – if that’s King’s theology, no wonder he’s always writing horror.)

And don’t get me started with The Langoliers (“They destroy time in the most efficient way possible… they eat it!”).

If these TV/movie adaptations are only one tenth as good as the written work, crap times ten is still crap, only ten times as much.

Peace.