Stephen King books- fav. and least fav.

In My Humble Opinion
21

Favorite: IT
I love the way SK writes from the child’s point of view. You also see it in Dark Tower, and in the Talisman, and a bunch of other stuff, but there’s something about IT that just makes me feel like I’m 11 and part of the Losers’ Club. Also, I think his writing is extremely well-crafted in this book, there are some phrases that just stick with me after I read it. I think the chapter about The Black Spot could stand on its own as a great short story.

My only complaint with IT is what Math Geek said – is It a clown, a giant spider, an alien, what’s going on? I wish SK had been a little more concrete about wrapping that up. But overall, I think the book is more about the world of kids and their friends than anything else.

Least Favorite: Cujo, probably
I have too much sympathy for that darn dog to enjoy this one.

I wasn’t too fond of Hearts in Atlantis either, but I liked the parts about the men in the yellow coats. I love tracking Dark Tower references through his other novels.

22

IT, was, I believe, pure evil, and that’s what it was against. I think the Turtle was supposed to be the universe, or God, whoever the creator was. I ADORED IT, and I agree, SK kicks ass when writing from a child’s point of view. IT is my all time King favorite. (I even liked the movie, though it was pathetic-I liked seeing the characters, as the actors they got were perfect!)
I also loved Rose Madder, Carrie, Bag of Bones and Christine, as well as the novella The Body.

A middle ground: Apt Pupil-very good, well written, interesting…but this one was probably the scariest…because there ARE monsters like that out there.
I liked this story and hated it at the same time.

Hated:
The Green Mile, (I couldn’t get into The Stand, no matter how hard I tried…), Cujo-too sad, Pet Sematary (a little TOO scary and disturbing…the movie and the book scared the bejeezus out of me), and probably the Langoliers…icky!

23

Favorites:
[ul][li]IT[/li][li]The Stand[/li][li]Eye of the Dragon[/li][li]The Dark Tower series (the last one was kinda weak, though)[/ul][/li]
Least Favorites:
[ul][li]Gerald’s Game[/li]Hearts in Atlantis[/ul]

24

I hated The Regulators especially because it was the book I read right after Desperation, which I loved. I wasn’t too fond of Bag of Bones, either.

My favorites include all from the Dark Tower series, The Talisman, and IT.
Notables include The Shining and 'Salem’s Lot. “The Plant” seems pretty cool so far.

25

Several times he has tried to write something HUGE, some kind of massively meaningful megastory. What usually happens is that he sets a truly wonderful stage with great details and ever-building suspense, then instead of building to a climax it paints itself into a corner; King rarely reconciles these grand masterpieces in a way that feels adequate or finished.

The Stand–and so we go about rebuilding the world from whence we came? All in all, his best megastory, though. But still significantly short of the build-up. He lacks a compelling image of good versus evil once the showdown is in order.

IT–Wow! Is it a horror in the plumbing or an unnatural presence beneath the city or is it really OUR CREEPY PARENTS and all the evil that lurks waiting for us as we approach adulthood? Nope, it’s just a fucking spider. Ya-aaawn. Best potential, worst realization thereof.

The one place he managed to pull off a novel that intermixed the commonplace everyday evil and the supernatural creepy evil in such a way that you never knew which novel you were really reading, never knew for sure if the supernatural stuff was metaphorical or real, was The Shining. You can read that thing six times and still not know if the hotel was haunted by any other than Jack Torrance, the 5 year old narrator’s kid.

Tellingly, he implies often (Shining; Misery; Dark Half) that there is an internal war between being happy writing entertainment fiction that doesn’t try to be more than that versus writing deeply meaningful stuff that works on several levels and constitues LITERATURE. He more or less confesses to having a chip on his shoulder about the whole subject. I think mainly we all agree it is ok for him to continue to write entertainment fiction without deeper meaning, and it is also very much OK for him to fool with our heads and end up writing stuff that is more than that, but it is NOT OK for him to fool with our heads and end up writing only entertainment fiction that never meant as much as it thought it was gonna mean during its development.

26

Obviously impaired, I wrote:

Uh, make that the 5 year old narrator’s Dad.

27

Gerald’s Game: Sucked. He must have been sick when he wrote it.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was well written, but boring and the ending anticlimatic.

Delore Claybourn was interesting but generally boring.

Best ones:

It.
The Stand.
Christine.
The Shining.

28

Re: The Green Mile having a lot of soul. Yes, I think the book[s] did, but the movie didn’t move me. Whereas Shawshank took the best of the short story and crafted a beautiful movie from it - for me, the book now feels flat in comparison to the film - The Green Mile was never ending rubbish. Movie-by-numbers. I’m just glad David Morse is still getting work - fine actor.
I have to add Tommyknockers to my favourites. But King does have a problem with his endings. He plays show and tell and seems to have a need of showing all at the climax. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a prime example, but I love the way he gets you to recall your forgotten childhood as he does with It. Its like Calvin and Hobbes but the monsters don’t stay under the bed!
As a side-line - best and worst movie adaptions?
Best - The Shawshank Redemption
Worst - Tommyknockers (who was the porn star again?)

29

My favorites were The Shining, The Stand, and IT. The ones I enjoyed least were Rose Madder and Gerald’s Game.

Has anyone listened to his short story CD set? It’s called Blood and Smoke and has 3 stories, all centered somehow on smoking. If you haven’t seen it, the package the CDs come in looks like a box of cigarettes.

Michi

30

I didn’t expand on my selections when posted above, but now that others have joined in, I see a general trend that confirms much of what I feel. Two facets, actually. First, the buildup sometimes is much more satisfying than the payoff. That was my problem with Needful Things and The Dark Half, and why I listed them as “disappointments.” They are not bad works, but I expected much more satisfaction at the climax/resolution. Although not on my original list, It belongs in this category. What saves It is the characterizations, although having the kids turn to sex as a talismanic power was pretty detrimental to my acceptance of the resolution.

My problem with Insomnia is that the interesting stuff only lasted for about the first 100 pages. After that I had to force myself to finish. And it was a long book.

The second facet, mentioned briefly above, is that King really knows how to make characters come alive. Even in the awful Tommyknockers, the relationship between Bobbie and Gar is involving. It’s interesting that King is more well known for the creepy stuff, but his real gift is in creating characters and personalities that grab you. Who can forget Nick Andros, Stu Redman, and the others from The Stand? Even poor deluded Harold is a very complex and interesting character. We see the social outcast and sympathize with him even as we see how his weakness causes him to be seduced into evil. We can also see this to some extent with the character of Arnie in Christine. King remembers very well what it was like to be a kid or teenager.

Another example of this seduction is the father in Pet Semetary. Even though the story was such a downer, I could put myself in the mind of the father who had lost his son (and later, his wife). Remember the scene where he arranged for his wife to be out of town, was going to the hardware store, and driving by the Cemetery where his son was buried? We could see what he was going to do, even while the character was in a state of self-denial. How many of us do the same thing? That is, convince ourselves that we are just testing a course of action in theory, while some deep part of us knows very well that we will eventually act on what we are contemplating. King is an excellent psychologist.

King has used this to his advantage in several of his later works, including Dolores Claiborne and Rose Madder (and to some extent in Bag of Bones and Hearts in Atlantis). Although the story plots themselves are not the best work he has done, the well-written characters make the books enjoyable. This is why I thought the Dark Tower IV was so good. Sure, the parallel world motif is very interesting, but I was completely drawn in by the relationship between Roland and Susan. I have to admit I was overcome with emotion at the whole story–from their meeting, their love, and the final betrayal and climax.

31

Interesting thread. I, like a lot of people, love The Stand and The Shining, and re-read them often. I also greatly enjoy The Talisman, Misery, Night Shift and Different Seasons.

I think Rose Madder was his absolute worst. From Gerald’s Game through Insomnia, he was in this pro-feminist stage, which is not bad in and of itself, but his execution was off. I thought, of that bunch, Dolores Claiborne was the best, followed by Insomnia, then Gerald’s Game and finally Rose Madder. He just had no real ideas in that one. And having the crazed husband kill the woman at the shelter was an act of pure, plotless cruelty that is below him.

I differ from most people in that I thought The Regulators was the better book, kind of a cool “Twilight Zone” idea. Not original, but imaginatively written. Desperation really, really sucked ass. Especially the religious claptrap around the ending.

I really enjoy the dark stuff: Dead Zone, Pet Sematary, Firestarter, The Dark Half. Pet Sematary especially stands alone as a middle-aged man, raising children, comes to terms with and presents his thoughts on the concept of death. That book is so dark, it blows me away. The movie could have been really good, but the subject matter is so macabre it needed a much better director to handle it effectively.

32

Blue Twylight - I too LOVED the Talisman, remains my favorite book, I just enjoyed it for so many reasons, once you fight through the first few pages (starts reeeaaaaallllly slow). I also thought IT and The Shining were very, very scary.
I did not like Bag of Bones, I never got through it, Needful Things had potential but kind of died off at the end.

33

Top 10 (in order)
THE STAND, THE COMPLETE AND UNCUT EDITION
IT
THE SHINING
PET SEMATARY
SALEM’S LOT
HEARTS IN ATLANTIS
INSOMNIA
BAG OF BONES
MISERY
TOMMYKNOCKERS

Worst (in order of how bad!)
THE EYES OF THE DRAGON
THE DARK TOWER (only read the first one, and it was crap)
THE TALISMAN (couldn’t get past the first 2 chapters with this)
THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON
CUJO
CARRIE
CHRISTINE

Average
THE DARK HALF
NEEDFUL THINGS
GERALD’S GAME
DESPERATION

Not read
THE WASTE LANDS
DOLORES CLAIBORNE
ROSE MADDER
WIZARD & GLASS

34

Oh yeah!

Tommyknockers! That was a great book! The movie was pretty good also. Add that to my list of his that I really liked.

35

I remember ‘Pet Semetary’ the movie being quite good. I think the important thing for me was that I already had the pictures in my head of course, and the film was remarkably close to what I’d imagined. I await with trepidation the arrival of ‘Lord of the Rings’.
Re my earlier question, has anyone else heard anything on the rumour that his wife (is it Tabitha?) has had a hand in writing some of his later works?

36

I don’t read much fiction and have never being in the proximity of a Stephen King book. I have, however, watched several of the movie adaptations. Many stand out like Apt Pupil, The Shawshank Redemption, and one of my favorite movies of all time, The Langoliers–sp?–, which I am surprised no one has mentioned yet.

I absolutely loved that one. They filmed it as a miniseries, the first part being shown on Sunday, the conclusion on Monday. That was one Monday I could not focus on anything except for speculating what would happen in the movie’s finale, to be televised that night.

If I ever read a SK book it will definitely be that one. Btw, does any of you know how well is he recovering from his accident? Will he suffer any permanent disability as a result of it or is he expected to fully recover eventually?

Yoda or Yogurt? A dilemma for the ages.

37

Favs
The Stand
'Salem’s Lot
It

Hated
Needful Things It read like Stephan King on autopilot.

I love everything else he wrote.

38

I loved King’s early work. Carrie, Salem’s Lot, Night Shift, The Stand, and Firestarter were great novels. I’ve re-read each one at least once.

I’ve noticed a trend in his books regarding sexuality. If the sexual expression between a couple isn’t heterosexual, almost missionary position intercourse, the characters engaging in it die or have something bad happen to them.

Examples: the lesbian characters in the Stand, all of Gerald’s Game, the gay men in It who are killed hate crime style in Derry, the insane sexual killer in the Dead Zone,
the transvestite doctor forced to put himself in the garbage disposal in Firestarter. It would look like King has some MAJOR hangups about sex. Other thoughts?

39

quasar, The Langoliers can be found in King’s book, Four Past Midnight. The other three stories in it are pretty good, too!

Did the remake of The Shining ever come out on video? it was way better than the Kubrick one.

Funny, I adore Needful Things (the book) and have no prob. with the ending.

No one has mentioned Danse Macabre as a favorite, so I will.

–Give me what I want and i’ll go away.

40

Not only are King’s characters good, but his descriptions of things, and use of language, that’s another thing I love.
In IT, for example, he describes late winter afternoon sunlight as “sleepy yellow, like a cat that has curled up and gone to sleep,” or something like that.
His use of profanity too-it’s very graphic, but it doesn’t bother me, because it just seems to fit in.

But people…I don’t think that IT was a spider. A spider was merely the form IT took, so it was recognizable. IT was evil, in my opinion, some evil force that was there since the beginning of time. Or something like that.

Hastur-I don’t think King has any hang ups, just a vivid imagination. I mean, look at the crap he writes about.
And remember, the Loser’s Club-Bill and Beverly were fooling around behind Audra’s back at one point, and they came out okay. And only one of the gay men, Adrian Mellon is killed His boyfriend, Don Hagerty, simply leaves town, after saying that Derry is evil.

As far as some of the characters you mentioned, remember, the guy from the Dead Zone was abused by his mother as a child, and so of course he committed suicide.

I think it’s just that King has one HELL of an imagination…so it goes into overtime.
The thing that I do like about King is that, his books are ambiguous…you don’t KNOW everything. And they’re also very what if? What if this happens, or what if that happens.

Although, I like backstories, like about WHY a house is haunted (a woman was murdered there). I felt unresolved on some issues, like the Marsten House (was that it) in Salem’s Lot, or the thing about Carrie’s mother-WHY was she like she was? Prequels would fucking rock!