The Stand, needlessly bloated.
Under the Dome, pointless.
Hated The Tommyknockers.
I wonder what his career would have been like if he’d written humor. The essay he wrote about being interviewed had me laughing out loud. The guy has talents, a lot of it.
Yes, totally. Spectacularly good book.
You probably read the good parts. Quality declines at the end and leaves a bad taste in the reader’s mind.
I read a few of his novels early on. They felt very similar to each other. I was left with the impression that he could become a masterful writer who transcended his genre, but in those early works, it seemed to me that he would get right to the edge of something quite brilliant and then slide back into genre fiction in a way that disappointed me and felt cheap. He may have progressed beyond this, but I haven’t read any of his work since that early period.
God yes, over and over. The Stand. And IT. right up to the edge and then, uhh now where was I going with this? Oh I know, there’s this spider…
What I particularly like about The Shining is that it has all that promise but for once doesn’t leave you feeling cheated at the conclusion.
Exactly this.
But I disagree here. IT would be my favorite King except for that one scene, which I find distasteful (and unnecessary), but not entirely disqualifying. But in light of it I’d probably label The Shining as King’s best novel, particularly insomuch as he stuck the landing which was not normally his great strength.
I’d say The Dead Zone sticks the landing, and strikes me as more of a page-turner on the way there.
Wow, I really liked Dreamcatcher. No love here for Duddits and Henry, huh.
Man he’s written a massive amount of books. There’s a lot I haven’t read. There’s a lot I’ve loved, I lot that didn’t engage me, several I disliked, and then there’s Rose Madder and Duma Key. Each of them I picked up in an AirBnB to read during a vacation on separate occasions. Both were just awful.
I’ve never been a big Stephen King fan, but I borrowed one of his books from a friend once just to see what all the fuss was about. That book was The Tommyknockers. I think I got about 1/3 of the way through before giving it back.
(I have read a few others since then and they were much better…)
To be fair, Tommyknockers held my interest pretty well at the time. But I completely forget what the plot was, other than “some people in a small town turn weird because of aliens or something”.
I didn’t’ like Billy Summers, mostly because King chose to bash us over the head with his politics seemingly every chapter, despite the fact that I happen to agree with his politics. It seemed like in every chapter he took the opportunity to bash Donald Trump. Not some fictional version with a different name, but the actual Donald Trump. The main villain also turned out to be a fictional version of Rupert Murdoch, and one of the secondary villains a fictional version of Lachlan Murdoch, and the evil organization a fictional version of FOX News.
I’m also not a big fan of Dark Tower V, VI, and VII, though I did enjoy Wind Through the Keyhole. Before getting into specific plot points I didn’t like that those books felt rushed. They also felt like they had a completely different tone than the first four books in the series. The first four (plus Keyhole) weren’t just a nice combination of fantasy and adventure, but did a good job with growing the characters in the Ka-tet. The last 3 were more like a series of shootouts with a bunch of mooks, capped off with one of the mooks getting off a lucky shot and ruining things for our heroes. combined with various other elements pulled in from different places that didn’t make sense.
Horrible book. I’m pretty sure I read that King said he doesn’t even really remember writing it. He was pretty messed up with his addiction at that point. At the time that book came out I was reading everything that King wrote, and this one was such a disappointment that I quit reading his work for quite awhile.
Ya know? I’ve been reading SK since I was 12. I love all his books. My only criticism would be that effer can’t end a book. It’s always weak. I think he hates the ending as much as the reader.
It’s a parody for The Tommyknockers. But he did say he barely remembered writing Cujo, mostly due to his use of alcohol at that time.
Well, I’ll be dipped. I don’t remember where I read it, but I remember thinking “well, that makes sense” at the time, because the book was so awful.
I don’t mind Tommyknockers- it’s definitely not my favorite but it kept me reading. I am having a hard time finishing Fairy Tale right now, it started out good but just kind of fizzled out for me. I told myself I have to finish it before I start Holly but it’s been about 6 months now…
Least favorites are definitely Dreamcatcher (don’t they shove a border collie down a manhole or something? That’s literally all I remember about it), Gerald’s Game, Cell & Lisey’s Story. Just bad novels, all of them. Insomnia, Desperation (which at least has the Nevada setting), and Hearts of Atlantis were just snoozers but not the worst.
The Shining is his best novel and Doctor Sleep is a decent, though not perfect, follow-up. I preferred the movie sequel over the book but both were good enough. The Stand is my favorite, and yes, I mean the bloated edition- any more minute I can get with those characters is fine by me. Also feel that as novels go, Dolores Claiborne & Misery are up there close to the Shining in real quality.
I really enjoyed the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, definitely more crime/detective than classic King but I thought Bill Hodges and Holly are wonderful.
I just can’t seem to get into the Dark Tower series, and Tommyknockers was pretty weak, IMO. On the latter, I came to the conclusion he probably shouldn’t really do science fiction.