# So what's your opinion of Stephen King? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915 "2010-09-07T13:52:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/101 "2010-09-08T13:59:45Z")
I have never thought _all_ of an author’s works were good. Ever. Even my two most adored writers, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, have written books I don’t enjoy. King is no different. The Stand was marvelous until the end, and now I don’t even like to read it because I hate Harold with a passion. But the best chapter in terms of writing was the chapter in which he details many of the other deaths that took place in the background, silently. Also the one where Larry has to go through the tunnel. The Shining is amazing. I read a quote which summed up the difference between the movie and the book. Paraphrased: King wrote a book in which a sane man becomes crazy. Kubrick made a movie in which a crazy man becomes psychotic. Cujo was good, but not terrifying. The more interesting story to me has always been the dynamic between Todd’s parents, and I lay a good heaping of the blame for the affair on Todd’s dad. His mom, too, but it wasn’t her idea to move to the ass end of nowhere - though she could have protested a bit more. Also, Cujo’s owner - Brad, is it? was also interesting to me. In a way Cujo did him a blessing. Sure, he loved his dad, but his dad was not good for him. Duma Key was all right. I hated Lisey’s Storey and did not get past the first 25 pages. I forget what it was, but the woman uses a specific swear word which I hated to the point of throwing the book. It’s like “frakking” in BSG - fucking annoying. His short stories are his best, definitely. The one with the astronaut and the eyes in the hands still creeps me out. It was great with a few flaws. The biggest one being the ending, but I didn’t particularly like Bill cheating on his supposedly much-loved wife, either. I never like condoned adultery much in books. Hated Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher, and the Talisman. Dreamcatcher especially was low-class and disgusting. Pet Sematary has always been one of my favorites. “DADDY!” Oh, I liked Bag of Bones a lot. Depressing ending, though. What King has for me is the visual. There are some things that stay by me forever. For example, in the Stand, when Danny goes into the room 203 (I think?) and sees the woman laying in the tub, when she opens her eyes, they are silver. Sometimes I still dream of a dead woman with silver eyes. The pom-pom puffs on It as the werewolf when it was going after Richie and Bill. And of course, the golden eyes on the astronaut. Creepy little things like that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/102 "2010-09-08T14:02:17Z")
Well, I liked _Tommyknockers_. I think the first 1/4 of it is one of the best examples of a drunk spiralling out of control that I’ve read. The rest of the story is m-kay, but I can understand people not liking it. It’s _Cujo_ he doesn’t remember writing - I know 'cause I just read the passage in _On Writing_ last night where he describes not remembering it. Which is bizarre, because in _Danse Macarbe_ he talks about writing _Cujo_ and how he was surprised when, at the end, the little boy dies. King says (paraphrased) “I didn’t plan on him dying, but as I was writing it, he died. And I was as surprised as any of you.” > [@Anaamika](#): > > I hated Lisey’s Storey and did not get past the first 25 pages. I forget what it was, but the woman uses a specific swear word which I hated to the point of throwing the book. It’s like “frakking” in BSG - fucking annoying. Smucking! Gah, I hated that word too! ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/103 "2010-09-08T14:07:07Z")
Nobosy has mentioned [Faithful](http://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Diehard-Boston-Chronicle-Historic/dp/0743267524), diehard Boston Red Sox fans Stewart O’Nan & King’s book about the 2004 season, where the Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1916. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/104 "2010-09-08T15:21:16Z")
I voted “very good read.” There was a time in the Eighties when I would read just about any SK I could get my hands on; I’ll admit I’ve fallen 'way behind on his more recent writing. My reading time is limited enough that I just won’t even bother picking up books of his when I hear from trusted fellow readers that they’re crap. But _The Stand, 'Salem’s Lot, Misery_ and _The Dead Zone_ are terrific books in virtually every way, with characters, scenes and images which are still memorable. I remember liking _Firestarter_ at the time, but don’t know how well it would hold up to a rereading now. ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/105 "2010-09-08T15:29:56Z")
Just recalled that I read _From a Buick 8_ this year and love love loved it… ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/106 "2010-09-08T15:45:08Z")
> [@LVBoPeep](#): > > Although I see the complaints about _It_, I didn’t care so much about the insect-inspired ending. Minor nitpick: arachnid-inspired ending. Insects have six legs. Giant child-eating spiders have eight. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/107 "2010-09-08T15:46:45Z")
> [@phungi](#): > > Just recalled that I read _From a Buick 8_ this year and love love loved it… This! I totally forgot about this one. I like this one because you never really find out what happened, and to be honest, it seems _very_ real to me. If an interdimensional portal really opened, this is about how much we would understand it - not at all. It, and everything out of it, would be incomprehensible to us. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/108 "2010-09-08T17:33:20Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > King is no different. The Stand was marvelous until the end, and now I don’t even like to read it because I hate Harold with a passion. But the best chapter in terms of writing was the chapter in which he details many of the other deaths that took place in the background, silently. Also the one where Larry has to go through the tunnel. Disagree, The chapter where he introduces The Dark Man, walking south on US highway X in his dusty cowboy boots that are comfortably sprung in all the right places is the best chapter in The Stand. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/109 "2010-09-08T17:43:58Z")
> [@Ruby Sees](#): > > And it made me crazy that he kept calling the Golden Snitches something like Sneetches. I don’t begrudge him making an honest mistake or a typo, but come on editors! Change it! I always understood that as being a bit lost in translation between universes. That’ll happen when you have all these similar worlds on different levels of the tower, do ye ken it? ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/110 "2010-09-08T18:43:36Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > > [@Ruby Sees](#): > > > > And it made me crazy that he kept calling the Golden Snitches something like Sneetches. I don’t begrudge him making an honest mistake or a typo, but come on editors! Change it! > > I always understood that as being a bit lost in translation between universes. That’ll happen when you have all these similar worlds on different levels of the tower, do ye ken it? Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/111 "2010-09-08T18:57:29Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I > > What King has for me is the visual. There are some things that stay by me forever. For example, in the Stand, when Danny goes into the room 203 (I think?) and sees the woman laying in the tub, when she opens her eyes, they are silver. Sometimes I still dream of a dead woman with silver eyes. The pom-pom puffs on It as the werewolf when it was going after Richie and Bill. And of course, the golden eyes on the astronaut. > > Creepy little things like that. I totally understand that. In Desperation he created a complete visual world for me. In thinking back on reading that book I feel almost like I saw a movie instead. I have specific visual memories caused only by words on the page. That happens for me when I read other authors too but usually it is just a flash of this or that, like a sweater or a puppy or something that I’ve conjured up in my brain but the rest of the story continues to be words to me. Stephen King consistently creates text movies in my brain in a way most authors simply can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/112 "2010-09-08T19:01:26Z")
> [@LVBoPeep](#): > > \. The fact that I still have a crush on Stu Redman over 25 years after I read about him is enough proof that if he does lack good endings, he makes up for it by great characters that you care about. So when semi-lame things happen to them, you are still pretty invested in their welfare ;)!\ I guess Ima have to arm-wrestle you for Stu. Gary Sinise was dead-on perfect casting for him; Molly Ringwald as Fran, however, was not. The giant spider from space at the end of _It_ showed up in another book - was it _Under the Dome_? They’re apparently a race of extremely nasty beasts. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/113 "2010-09-08T19:07:04Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I guess Ima have to arm-wrestle you for Stu. Gary Sinise was dead-on perfect casting for him; Molly Ringwald as Fran, however, was not. > > The giant spider from space at the end of _It_ showed up in another book - was it _Under the Dome_? They’re apparently a race of extremely nasty beasts. The casting for _The Stand_ was atrocious! The only good thing was the casting of the hot rich guy from\* Mystic Pizz\*a as Larry Underwood. He was terrible for the role, mind you, but I’ve loved that guy for 20 years 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/114 "2010-09-08T19:15:22Z")
I must respectfully disagree - beyond Molly Ringwald and Laura San Giacomo as Nadine, I thought the rest of the casting was great. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/115 "2010-09-08T19:48:49Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > > [@CalMeacham](#): > > > > Well, there you have it. > > Stephen King writes so well, and his work flows so easily, that at least two Dopers thought a several hundred page novel of his was a Short Story. > > To be fair, it was included in a book containing a collection of short stories…damned if I can come up with the title, right now. Compared to the Stand, Insomia, The Dome, et al…it was a DAMNED short story! 😉 [The Bachman Books](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/88/26/dae4e893e7a05fc6f3326110.L.jpg). I read the copy pictured in the link when I was younger and I also thought it was four short stories. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/116 "2010-09-08T19:59:25Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I must respectfully disagree - beyond Molly Ringwald and Laura San Giacomo as Nadine, I thought the rest of the casting was great. Agreed. LSG apparently didn’t bother reading the source material as there wasn’t a damned thing virginal about her character. When I think of “Actors who totally missed the point of the source material”, her job in _The Stand_ is number 1 with a bullet. Fran was just whiny, but I think that was more bad writing than bad acting on Ringwald’s part. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/117 "2010-09-08T20:28:49Z")
> [@](#): > > To be fair, it was included in a book containing a collection of short stories…damned if I can come up with the title, right now. Compared to the Stand, Insomia, The Dome, et al…it was a DAMNED short story! The story was included in **The Bachman Books** , as two others have already noted. AFAIK, it has never been collected in any other anthology. Wow – that Stephen King is even better than I thought. His prose flows so smoothly that you thought a collection of FOUR _novels_ was a collection of short stories! ---
**Author:** ![Fir\_na\_tine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fir\_na\_tine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fir_na_tine)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/118 "2010-09-08T21:16:03Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I believe the last book in that series was the last King book I read. The ending pissed me off so badly (actually, inserting himself into the story as a character pissed me off to no end), that I actually threw the goddamned book across the room when I finished it and have not picked up another SK book since. Fucker. > > 😃 _ **Dogzilla,** _ you really need to read _Duma Key_. It will restore your faith in SK. His dialogue (real or in character imagination) is the best part of any SK book. For me, the best scene in _The Stand_ is where Fran gradually comes to realize she needs to bury her Dad before he rots in the summer heat! ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/119 "2010-09-08T21:25:19Z")
I never thought the Bachman Books were short stories, but if you’d asked I would totally have told you they were novellas, and estimated them at about a hundred pages or so apiece. The page counts listed for them really rather shocked me, though upon measured reflection it really is too thick a book to only be 400 pages or so. Wild. As others have said, King is sublime. And shitty. And every point in between. Sometimes all within the same work. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915/120 "2010-09-08T22:13:45Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > To be fair, it was included in a book containing a collection of short stories…damned if I can come up with the title, right now. Compared to the Stand, Insomia, The Dome, et al…it was a DAMNED short story! > > The story was included in **The Bachman Books** , as two others have already noted. AFAIK, it has never been collected in any other anthology. > Wow – that Stephen King is even better than I thought. His prose flows so smoothly that you thought a collection of FOUR _novels_ was a collection of short stories! Actually, the book was _Different Seasons_, which was a collection of four novellas; they were (iirc) _Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption_, _Apt Pupil_, _Breathing Lessons_ and _The Body_ (later turned into the delightful Rob Reiner film _Stand By Me_). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-your-opinion-of-stephen-king/552915.md?page=7)