I love reading Stephen King and think he is one of our generation’s best storytellers (and not a bad writer either). However, although I love the story behind most horror novels (and films), I really don’t have the stomach for the scary bits. Yeah, I am a bit of a horror wimp.
To the day, the scariest thing I have ever read was The Shining, and although it was an excellent story, I think it scarred me for life (I still find myself counting grandfather clock chimes with growing unease). At the same time, I am now 5/7 of the way through the Dark Tower series, and I really love it. There are a few horrific moments, but nothing at all too scary for me.
Anyway, getting to my question, which of the 40+ books Mr King has written would you recommend as the least scary?
Different Seasons has four medium-length stories, none of which are really horror (though The Breathing Method gets a bit gruesome). Of the other three, Apt Pupil gets a bit freaky, while Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body are wonder stories that aren’t scary at all.
Eyes of the Dragon, which is not horror at all, butfantasy. Not the greatest fantasy ever written but still quite good.
And there’s supposedly this rumor out that he’s written all these books about a Dark Tower or something, about some gun-slinging idiot running around the countryside. Haven’t tried them.
Scary is relative. As a parent of young kids this one terrified me. It’s like what Annie-Xmas said about Misery, in that it’s something that could actually.
It all depends on what scares you. I found Bag of Bones to have some very scary moments (there is a rape scene and some nicely creepy supernatural stuff), and Tom Gordon was so compelling I couldn’t put it down, and isn’t scary except in the little girl lost in the woods way. I also listened to Bag of Bones on tape after reading it, and it’s much more intense that way.
I didn’t find Salem’s Lot to be scary at all (vampires don’t really frighten me), but my atheist brother bought a crucifix and kept it by his bed (just in case) after reading it.
The Dark Tower books are wonderful. Try The Stand.
Not scary?! Well, different strokes. That bit where
she’d been under a bush or something, or picking berries there, I forget, and then walks away from it, and realizes the Thing was right there?! Well. Not scary to you, then.
Except for Thinner, none of the first five books King wrote as Richard Bachman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bachman) are horror, and they’re not scary (but still emotionally gripping in other ways). (The Regulators is horror, and pretty scary IMO, but it didn’t come out until long after Bachman’s cover had been blown.)
