I loved, loved, loved Stephen King novels and bought everyone I could get my hands on until about 15 years ago.
The last few novels I read by him were just too formulaic and just plain boring.
The older books that have been mentioned are all pretty good.
My favourites would have to be It, Carrie and the books he published under the Bachman pseudonym.
From King’s website:
Hunter Hawk, before we can say ETF doesn’t like Stephen King, he should probably read something actually written by Stephen King.
I wouldn’t necessarily pick one book and use that as the bell weather for liking or disliking King, grab up a few that have been suggested and give it a go. I would strongly suggest including The Gunslinger from the Dark Tower series, it’s a short lead in to his biggest work, if you like that you’ll have a bunch more books to get, if you don’t, you wouldn’t have wasted much time on it.
I love Stephen King’s works “that could actually happen.” He started out good with the supernatural element, but that’s gotten very old and lame–tease me with it, don’t hit me over the hit with it.
Misery and the first three stories of The Four Seasons are the best of his “it could happen” works. Rose Madder would have been wonderful as a simple story of revenge–in the end, Rose beats the shit out of Norman. But he had to bring that stupid painting into it.
The Bachman books work as “it could happen” except for “Thinner.” Which is a great one.
I have only read 1 or 2 of King’s books that I enjoyed. The rest I find to be quite arduous to read and I have given up trying. So, to answer your question, I think it is King.
Read his short story collections… At novel length he tends to go on and on, but at short story length he packs an unbelievable wallop.
The Graveyard Shift collection contains some real goodies.
Cripe’s sake. The book in the OP wasn’t written by King, so at this point we can’t say EddyTeddyFreddy doesn’t like books written by King.
It’s not a difficult question, folks. YOU may not like King, but we don’t have the data necessary to say whether ETF likes King.
I second this. His novels range from engaging (The Stand, The Shining) to dismal (most of the rest, especially Cujo). But his shorter stuff is consistently terrific.
Yep, at this point it’s up to me to go data-gathering. It sounds as if I might be best served to get one of his short story collections first, rather than plunging into a monster-length novel – although I like immersing myself in monster-length novels if they’re good.
I like monster-length trilogies and so forth too, things like Robin Hobb’s three trilogies that are really one mega-serial novel. So it sounds as if I’ll have a lot to enjoy if King takes my fancy.
I will probably get burned for saying this, but don’t start with the Dark Tower-series.
They are not very typical King-fare.
My suggestion, for what it’s worth, is to read The Shining. That book, to me, is one of the best examples of King’s predominant style. The characterization is good, and he sets up the scenarios quite well, I think. He was “on” when he wrote that one.
I would second vinryk’s suggestion to stay away from the Dark Tower series … that’s like somebody asking you for a snack and you buy them a grocery store.
While I’d recommend THE STAND to people starting on Stephen King, it would be the original edition- and THEN the expanded version. Now, is the original edition still available?
I’d really recommedn CARRIE as the real intro, however.
Both editions are easy to find, if you don’t mind buying secondhand.
I’d recommend starting with Carrie too, and then read the books in publication order.
If I had read Insomnia or Gerald’s Game or Rose Madder first, I would never have bothered with the others. Insomnia’s great for characterization, but my gosh does that story ever drag.
I disagree that From A Buick 8 and Christine are the same book. The only thing they have in common is a car as the center of attention.
I’m looking forward to The Colorado Kid. It’ll be interesting to see how King does as hard-boiled. 
I still think its King. 
I have been a hard-core King fan for decades but gave up for a few years because the writing had lost some of it’s warmth and resonance. I thought ‘Tommyknockers’ was awful and I hated the main characters so I slowed down on buying his books. Then I read ‘Bag of Bones’ and was wowed by the amazing love story it told. It gave me the incentive to try a few more of the recent works but I have been very slow to follow up.
I did, however, get to read the finale of the Dark Tower series. Amazing, really. I can’t believe he wrapped it up so well. I love his stuff (mostly) but I always buy his books as used paperbacks these days.
Stephen King was good, back in the day, It and everything before it was good.
After that, he got too fond of his own voice, IMHO.
Nothing wrong with writing just to scare or entertain, but when you are writing just to write because you have run out of good ideas, that’s when it’s time to throw in the towel.
But, people still buy his stuff, so I can’t fault him for knowing how to make the big bucks. :rolleyes:
I did read this. It was called “Roland and Susannah spend 30 pages killing deer and making leather” in “The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.” It was completely gripping and compelling, if a little slow.
I keep flashing on the scene in Family Guy where SK is giving his latest plot outline to his agent. It’s obvious that he’s coming up with it off the top of his head. He looks around on the agent’s desk, then picks up a lamp and waves it spookily in the agent’s face: “They’re attacked by a . . . LAMP MONSTER!!! WOOOO!”
The agent stares him down and says, “You’re not even trying anymore, are you?”
And if I may - add in Tommyknockers , Dead Zone , IT and Firestarter .
If I had to give someone one King book, a “make-it-or-break it, read this one if you only read one King book,” I’d suggest Pet Sematary every. single. time. If you’d rather hit short stories, I thought Skeleton Crew was better than what I had read of Everything’s Eventual, but you know how it is with books: YMMV. Not that all the other recommendations aren’t great, they are, I really like most of King’s non-recent work plus the DT series, but Pet Sematary has always been, for me, the pinnacle of horror writing. I’ve never been as engrossed in a story in my life, never been as scared, etc. Gods, I love this book.