Is Christine Stephen King's best book?

Cafe Society
41

But you aren’t alone. My list is about identical. I’d replace Different Seasons with IT, though. I stopped reading after Pet Sematary. I tried reading The Green Mile series, and liked them well enough but never made it past the 3rd book. I also tried reading the first book in the Dark Tower series a couple of years ago and couldn’t even make through half of it.

My son, on the other hand, has read all of his works, so I asked him what his favorite was.

His answer was Night Shift overall, with The Stand being his favorite novel and one of his favorite novels by any author. And he said the Dark Tower series and The Shining were high on his list as well. He thought Christine was one of his absolute worst.

42

Yep. Great description.

43

I thought “The Dead Zone” was his best.

“The Shining” and “The Stand” were just a bit underedited.

44

I waited for it to be available in one volume, and bought that. I don’t know if I would have liked it differently had I read all the individual volumes, but I’m not good at waiting for the next chapter. And by the time all seven were out that I could have bought them all at once, the single volume was out, and cheaper than buying all the mini books.

45

On Writing is the best fiction writer’s autobio/writing primer ever written. I like Danse Macabre but it needs a good update. King is good with nonfiction.

My favorite fiction of his is The Stand. That is an epic. I love it. I also love Misery and Dolan’s Cadillac, two works of King that feature no supernatural elements whatsoever. King is not known for his nonfiction or non-supernatural stuff, yet he is superb at it.

For the supernatural stuff, I like The Green Mile the best. I loved Rose Madder, but think it would have worked better on a non-supernatural level. I can image a movie of it starring Demi Moore, Bruce Willis and Ashton Kirscher.

I also love Tabitha King’s works. She deserves to be better known.

46

My favorite King work is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. I guess that is a novella. Among his novels, I like Carrie and Firestarter best.

47

I forgot about Rita Hayworth and the Shankshaw Redemption. Here again is King writing a story that could happen. The Body is another one.

I guess one of my favorite King’s book is “Different Seasons.”

48

I would like to mention that in On Writing Stephen King admits he doesn’t even remember writing The Tommyknockers (he was so doped up and drunk, The Shining was in many ways a picture if his struggles with booze and drugs).

I also have to vote for -
[ul]
[li]The Talisman (my fave)[/li]and
[li]It[/li][/ul]

I also have to put in a good word for Everything’s Eventual another short story book, but my favorite short story may be The Long Walk It’s in the Bachman Books and is really good in a “could happen” kind of way

49

Here (considered very quickly) is every non-Dark Tower, non-Short Story book I read of his, up and including when I completely gave up on him after Insomnia:

The Shining
The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman)
The Dead Zone
Misery
Carrie
Thinner (RB)
Salem’s Lot

The Stand (IMO, The Stand reads like four intertwined books, somehow. Two of them are excellent, two of them kind of suck. However, while reading it, you will feel like you are living it. Not recommended for a first-time King reader, as it requires some measure of indulgence.)

The Running Man (RB)

Dolores Claiborne (Love the way it’s written as though it’s a transcript of Dolores’ interrogation recording, and everyone else is poorly miked.)

It
Cujo
Christine
Gerlad’s Game

Below here is where he starts to get mediocre for me.

The Eyes of the Dragon
The Dark Half
Rage (RB)
Firestarter
Roadwork (RB)
The Talisman (Actually not too bad once I got past page 20 on about the 7th try.)
Needful Things
The Tommyknockers

And, for the single worst novel I have ever read:
Insomnia

Stopped reading him at all after that. Stopped buying novels, too, IIRC. Thanks Stephen!

I enjoyed the first three Dark Tower Books well enough, although I thought the second was rather weak. Since they are very definitely meant to be an epic, you can’t really consider them separately. The Wizard and the Glass (Dark Tower IV) took so long to come out, however, and so much dreck was released in the meantime, that I gave up on the series.

Agree with the above posters who say his short stories are the way to go. Dolan’s Cadillac is excellent, and The Boogeyman still creeps me out.

50

Whoops, forgot Pet Sematary, which i would place just above Cujo.

51

Wow, am I the only one who liked The Tommyknockers?

It sure wasn’t his greatest book, but I enjoyed it.

52

I didn’t care for the book, but I liked Gardner. Or at least, found him interesting.

53

Ditto, except I took out the Dead Zone, which was sort of blah for me. . Pet Semetary has always been my favorite. Or maybe the Shining. And I liked Cujo a lot, although it wasn’t scary. The end of The Stand sucked.

I also liked:

The Eyes of the Dragon
Firestarter
Roadwork
Needful Things
I’ve read a ton of his stuff, too. No Dark Tower, though.

54

For some reason, I liked Insomnia alright. Hated Dreamcatcher and Rose Madder. Didn’t even finish Rage.

My favorites (in no particular order):

The Stand

Eyes of the Dragon (I like the fairy tale feel of the story, even though you must suspend all of your disbelief to enjoy it)

It

Dolores Claiborne (like the allusion to Gerald’s Game, plus it was an awesome movie)
I like Four Past Midnight (particularly “The Langoliers” and “Sun Dog”). Loved “The Jaunt”, despite the fact that the rest of Skeleton Crew was dull.

There are several stories that were ok–even great–but I think they were trumped by the movies based on them. Like Misery, Carrie, Stand By Me, and The Shawshank Redemption.

55

Yes. Yes, you are.

56

Nope it’s one of my favorites, but like another poster said, he blew the ending. To me Tommyknockers was most similar to Needful Things and illustrates what I like about King. The Ship/shopowner is merely a vehicle for the evil thats already present in the characters of both stories. In both stories King finds the ultimate monster and it is us. The failure of Tommyknockers is that halfway through it becomes more of a Alien Invasion type story. The better half of the story is the the people getting smarter but using it for evil deeds.

My other favorites:
It
The Stand
The Talisman
Misery

Shorts
Rage
Dolan’s Cadillac
The Green Mile