I love KIng and I’ve read a lot of his books, but the only one that kept me up night after night was The Stand. It is his masterpiece in my opinion.
Agreed on all counts.
I never liked clowns, even before I was aware of Stephen King’s existence. The always kinda creeped me out. But then after I read It. . .:eek:
Then, in the movie version, getting Tim freakin’ Curry to play Pennywise. That voice. :eek::eek:
Other: the Talisman.
oh crap! you said no collaborations…
Then it’s a tie between Rose Madder and The Eyes of the Dragon.
I think it was in the extended (original?) version of “The Stand” that they put the people who were immune to the superflu but just damned unlucky back in, and that really stuck in my head. Beat the odds and survived the wiping out of the human race, then get killed by some tainted food or whatever. Really, really sucks to be you.
I voted for The Stand- I don’t mind the ending, it worked for me mostly because of Trashman bringing the nuke to town, it just tied in well enough for me to buy it.
But really- there is too much great reading experiences for me to pick one King favorite- so the following have honorable mentions:
- Misery*- for being the first.
It for Mike the librarian and especially Ben as a kid.
The Drawing of The Three for bringing me back into the Dark Tower series after not getting the first book.
Dolores Claiborne for the main character and being a bitch is all you have to hold onto :).
The Shining for scaring me the most.
The Gunslinger does it for me. I can take or leave the entire DT series as a whole, but I love The Gunslinger.
I voted Salem’s Lot. That and The Shining are the best of his books for me. I read Carrie when it was first published, didn’t much care for it. Then came Salem’s Lot and I was hooked, followed by the equally brilliant Shining.
I was a little disappointed by The Stand, I found it bloated and formulaic in parts. It was downhill all the way for me with King after that: possessed cars, rabid dogs, incendiary kids, etc. Oh, they were well-written, I just found the plotting predictable and boring. And worst of all, I didn’t find them scary, as I had with the two I loved.
Peter Straub meanwhile was writing Ghost Story, Floating Dragon, The Throat, etc, books that scared the shit out of me and were even more masterfully written than King’s.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like King, but I think it’s in his short stories that he shines now.
The Stand has to be (?) considered his masterwork, doesn’t it? Even so, I liked Cell better. Too bad “The Mist” was a short story…
I voted for Cujo. I read it when I was 11. My babysitter gave it to me. When I got divorced when I was 28, I read it again. All alone in the house. It still creeped me out. The best part? Cujo doesn’t turn into a spider and there’s no big explosions or trips into another world. It *could *happen.
I still remember my babysitter’s name. Nena. If you’re out there, thank you for scaring the shit out of a little boy.
And for being my first older girl crush. 
**The Stand **in a landslide. I am not surprised. One of the great epic novels of all time.
I voted The Stand but The Green Mile is a very very close second. My all out favorite King story is The Long Walk.
I’m curious about what would come in second. Is The Stand perhaps the second choice of a sufficient number of the folks who picked something else as their first that it would make a solid showing?
Hmm, would be a hard choice for me, the second slot… probably Misery or Carrie, wtih Pet Sematary and The Stand also close contenders. I like Carrie better than most folks, it seems. I read it in Junior High back in '74 or so when it was his only published book, and liked it a lot and hoped that he would write some more books (!).
I chose The Tommyknockers, just cuz everyone bags it. The Stand is ruled out due to unaccepatble levels of Religious Crap
Misery would be my second.
I haven’t voted because I’ve never read a Stephen King Novel. A friend at work recommended IT. I pretty much decided I’ll start reading Stephen King.
Where should I start? The Stand? IT?
Seriously, I would read them in published order for the most part. Carrie is the first. I think his early stuff is widely regarded as his best.
Or, if you’re going to read just one…see the poll results. Apparently people love The Stand!
I would definitely not recommend starting with It. It’s huge, silly in some parts, and it has one scene near the end which might possibly cause you to hurl it across the room.
Well - yes and no. When you look at King’s bibliography, everything’s a departure from everything else, because it’s so broad. When you pick up *The Gunslinger *and read it over a weekend, you might think it’s a fair departure. But then on Wednesday, you’ll pick up The Drawing of the Three, and tear through it, finding familiar faces, parallel storylines, and a very familiar Stephen King writing the story you’ve been wanting him to for years and years. Then it’s off you go on your quest…
Oh man, this thread couldn’t have come with better timing. I’ve been sick in bed the last couple days, and what better time to re-read a bunch of the old scaries?
I’m going to have to revise my first post. I remembered loving *The Eyes of the Dragon *primarily because it’s the first modern fantasy-esque book I ever read (I’d read King Arthur, Gilgamesh, etc, but probably would never have touched contemporary fantasy books with a ten-foot pole otherwise), and also because though the writing wasn’t very good, exactly, it was the first book I read of King’s that made me connect the dots that there was some kind of connecting, underlying universe running throughout the books. I’d noticed that certain elements cropped up here and there, but it was really The Eyes of the Dragon that dragged me in to the whole “King-iverse”, and especially the Dark Tower series.
Re-reading it now though, it’s much harder to excuse the sloppy writing and some of the mysteries that I kept waiting to have answered through the DT series were never resolved, and so what seemed grand and magical then now seems like cheesy plot holes.
The old scaries hold up really well. Pet Cemetery scared the pants off me then and does now, and hoo-boy,* Misery*. Now I can’t decide whether to tackle* Needful Things* next or* It*. I read both as a teenager probably fifteen times. Needful Things for no good reason whatsoever than prurient titillation, and It because… well, like I said, I’m going to have to revise my first post, because really I think* It* and The Shining were the two biggies for me back then.
The Stand, well, I surely don’t disagree with any of the assessments. I love it as a post-apocalyptic epic and I guess I love the first two-thirds enough to forgive the atrocious ending. I was thoroughly disgusted with the ending the first time I read it–I was in fifth grade at a Catholic school and used it for a book report. My mom got a phone call from the teacher about whether or not I was allowed to read such things :D.
Really though, the man’s skill with a novella is what does it for me. The Bachman Books and Different Seasons, that is. I kinda like to pretend that Four Past Midnight never happened.
ETA: are there any of his books that anyone is purposely avoiding? There are a few of the newer ones I haven’t gotten around to and am not in a particular hurry to do so, but there are two that I have tried repeatedly to read and never been able to get through: Firestarter and *The Tommyknockers. * I started both several times as a kid and never could get into either one. I ended up ditching them not-very-far in every time, which is pretty rare for me.
I voted for The Stand, because it was the first full length novel of his that I read. The first was the collection with The Mist. Can you imagine? The very first King story I ever read was the Mist! 
I was hooked for life.
I am currently re-reading It, but I think it’s third to Dolores Claiborne. Misery is 4th maybe. Or The Drawing of The Three.
NajaNivea - I’ve read them all at least once, but Tommyknockers is my least favorite. I’ve only read it the one time.
I put up with the bad stuff to get the good stuff! There is a lot of good stuff. *Duma Key *was pretty good, for “current” works. I’m still trying to get through his latest collection of short stories.
Same here. I grew up on Skeleton Key and Night Shift, and didn’t pick up one of his novels until my teens.