So, King fans, what is your favorite book of his, and what is your least favorite?
My least favorite is Gerald’s Game. I just disliked that woman so much, I didn’t care what happened to her. Tied with Cujo.
My favorite book is the Dark Tower set, although I thought Wizard and Glass was a bit weak compared to the others.
– Beware the Walkin’ Dude.
My favorite? It’s a toss-up between Rose Madder and The Eyes of the Dragon.
Ditto on Gerald’s Game as the least fave.
The Eyes of the Dragon and The Stand. The latter is too long but it’s still the definitive King epic, with his most recognizable (and, as it turns out, much-recurring) villian.
A lot of his recent books eat it, but I have to admit I can’t think of one worse than Gerald’s Game.
My vote for Most Disappointing goes to Rose Madder, which I thought was terrific except for everything supernatural in it. Take out the damned picture and the fantasy world behind it and the book would have been much better.
My favourite is probably The Dead zone, my least favourite is Desperation although that one’s pretty good too. I’ve yet to find a King book I truly disliked.
The Stand and Christine are my favourites - The Stand for it’s shear apocalyptic imagery, and Christine because I love cars with fins! [Homer voice : 'Mmmm, Plymouth ‘54’]
Worst… his later work has lost a lot of punch. Didn’t like Rose Madder, hated Insomnia. And I’ve heard rumour that Mrs King has had no small role in these recent turkey’s…
Bollocks to that, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was enjoyable. However I would plead that Frank Darabont consider strongly a spell of King abstenance. Shawshank was better than the book, but The Green Mile was truly soulless.
Contrary to my user name, my absolute favorite is The Stand. Close second would be IT, followed by The Talisman and The Dark Tower series. I liked Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne and the way SK tied them together with the eclipse. I recently re-read Rose Madder, and enjoyed it a lot, but the end was kind of weak. I guess my least favorite would be The Dark Half. It just wasn’t believable to me. But I’ve still read it 2 or 3 times! I love the way SK writes. Of his more recent stuff, I liked Bag of Bones and Insomnia very much. Hearts in Atlantis was just OK, except for “The Low Men in Yellow Coats”. That rocked! I need another Dark Tower fix pretty soon. I hear he is currently working with Peter Straub on a sequel to The Talisman. Wolf! God pound it, hurry up, Steve!
(I’m his number one fan…)
I can’t think of a definite favourite (maybe I’ll check the bookshelf later to come up with one), but I do want to throw in my $0.02 worth about The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – it sucked. It left me feeling that I could have used that time a lot more productively. Maybe that time wasn’t entirely wasted, since it did expose to me a new facet of suck.
I very much disliked the Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. And after reading Hearts in Atlantis I was very disappointed. There are few of his books I dislike, but these two definitely make me wonder why I bothered to finish them. Pet Cemetary made me have bad dreams.
Favorite would probably have to be IT. Ugh, scary scary.
Least favorite at present is Gerald’s Game, which was just tedious. A whole book about one character in one room handcuffed to one bed; that means hundreds of pages of pure filler, folks.
I haven’t read Bag of Bones or anything after, so I can’t say how awful his recent stuff is.
I also thought Gerald’s Game was awful, and, like the OP, would put Cujo close behind it.
His best, by several quantum factors, was The Shining, one of the best books in the genre. One of the best fiction books period. One of the best BOOKS, period.
Can’t pick just one, but…
The Stand is my absolute favorite King book, followed closely by
The Talisman (this one’s close behind The Stand, and I agree he and Straub should try to write more)
The Dark Tower series
and, of all things, The Tommyknockers (fear the icky Jimmy Smits tv movie, but the book was genuinely chilling–plus, I guess it’s the only alien book he’s written)
Maybe it’s my escapist nature, but I don’t like any of the sad ones: The Dead Zone, Cujo, Firestarter, Dolores Claiborne. I’ve read them all, more than twice, but I don’t like crying at the end of a book.
A lot of his recent stuff has been so-so, but I really liked Insomnia and Desperation.
And, of course, I’m leaving out the good early stuff–Skeleton Crew, Night Shift, Carrie, 'Salems Lot, The Shining.
Geez, it’s scary that one man has written so much kick-ass horror.
Favorites:
[ul]
[li]The Stand[/li][li]'Salem’s Lot[/li][li]The Shining[/li][li]Christine[/li][li](actually, as you can tell, I liked just about all the early stuff)[/li][li]Dark Tower Series, especially IV[/li][li]Misery[/li][li]most of his novellas are excellent; I’ll go with Apt Pupil and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption for this list[/li][/ul]
Pretty much hated:
[ul]
[li]The Tommyknockers (THE WORST–the beginning of the end for me; after this pile of crap, King has been hit and miss)[/li][li]The Regulators (interestingly, I thought Desperation was really good)[/li][li]Gerald’s Game[/li][li]Insomnia[/li][li]The Talisman[/li][/ul]
Liked, but disappointed at the ending/resolution
[ul]
[li]The Dark Half[/li][li]Needful Things[/li][/ul]
Favorite: “Salem’s Lot”: A great vampire tale, economically told. I also really liked “Insomnia” and “Desperation.”
Least favorite: The Stand: I thought the *deus ex machina * ending blew. It’s like he wrote himself into a corner and then had the bright idea of having all the principals get blown up in an explosion. I’m surprised he didn’t write, “and then Alice woke up, and realized it was all a dream.”
It’s really a great book, but I hate the ending.
Best would have to be either IT or The Stand.
Worst is definitely The Tommyknockers. Big pile of alien crap.
Stephen King has only written one truly bad book. That, my friends, is The Regulators. Like someone above said, funnily enough, I enjoyed Desperation. But the Regulators? Blah!!
Of course, I read it twice. And when I’m bored I’ll probably read it again. What a dope!
I didn’t think much of The girl Who Loved tom gordon, either. But The green mile movie had TONS of soul! i would love for King to write one more story about that nameless club where they tell stories, and then someone could film the stories as a trilogy-type movie ala Creepshow. Imagine; The Breathing method and The man Who Would Not shake hands, plus a new story of the club…
Should Storm of the century be classified as a book or a movie? I enjoyed it in both forms…
Whoever said they disliked Insomnia, how come?
The regulators was kind of weak, but I think he was trying to say something about the dangers of the glass teat.
As for Hearts in… the best part is the Low Men in yellow coats.
Whoever said something about tabitha having to do with recent sucky books, please elaborate?
–Death was when the monsters got you.
**Favorites: **
Non-Favorites:
Well, I’ll agree with everyone who liked “The Stand”; the only two King books I re-read frequently are that one and “Firestarter”. I also just finished “Wizard and Glass”, and liked that quite a bit. (But why oh why does Stephen King feel the need to pull a Robert Heinlein and tie all of his universes into one? Is this an occupational hazard of successful writers?)
And “Cujo” holds the distinction of being the only Stephen King book which scared me in real life. When I was reading that one I was sleeping in a basement room, and at one point the de-humidifier turned on, and somehow it sounded exactly like a growling dog. Took at least a year off my life, that did…
But I hated “IT”. Specifically, I hated the last half of “IT”. The first half was a good horror story, but somehow the last half turned into a steaming pile of pseudo-mystical compost. (Oh, it’s not really an evil clown, it’s really a supernatural SPIDER-THING which lives in a poorly-defined higher plane of existence with a turtle who spit up the universe like a giant hairball.) I suppose the same complaint could be levelled against “The Stand” to an extent, but the mysticism in “The Stand” seemed more restrained somehow. Oh yeah, and “The Stand” had fewer unneccessary scenes involving sex between minors.
The Talisman is not only my favorite King book, but it is my favorite book of all time. That is the only book I have laughed at, cried at, and felt so damn sad when I finished it because it was over. I have read it about 5 times, and I think I’ll read it again (it’s been a while). 
My second fave is The Stand. When I was a miserable teenager, I wished that everyone would die, except me.
My least favorite (is that possible??) has to be Gerald’s Game too. I don’t know why I disliked that book. I thought the Space Cowboy character was kinda creepy, but I dunno…
I also never made it all the way through The Dead Zone…couldn’t get into it. I don’t count that one as my least favorite because I never finished it.
Rosie Real
Best: Carrie
Worst: Eyes of the Dragon is the worst of his that I’ve read, but it’s still not too bad by the standards of any other author.