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Stephen King

Read "The Dead Zone" . It's not really horror but it's an emotional thriller. So far it's my favorite of his novels. I've read most of his stuff. I feel that King can be a bit long winded. My Least favorite of his was "Gerald's Game"...passive horror (and horror is anything but passive).

I also liked The Stand (or course) and Salems Lot. Bag of Bones was a good ghost story but it takes ALOT of chapters before you acutually get to the ghost story (again Kings over-embellishment style). "The Dark Half" was a good read because King just went straight to the action and none of the harping of on the life of the main character's wife's brother's friend's sister...etc that have nothing really to do with the story.

OH - but pay attention if you read King. Characters from his books happen to be mentioned in other books. Like in "Bag of Bones" he mentions the main character in "The Dark Half" and one of the characters from "It". He does it in passing but you find out what has happened to the character. It was only a few lines, but amusing. I found he does this in most of this books.
 
OH - but pay attention if you read King. Characters from his books happen to be mentioned in other books
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We've talked about this before. He's been doing that alot with the plot and characters of The Dark Tower Series. The books that come to mind most recently are Hearts of Atlantis and The Black House.
 
Stephen King- Not just a popular author, but a good one.

In a perfect world, Stephen King would be recognised as a good author, instead of just a popular one. His ability to tell a totally gripping story with deep and involving characterisation is rarely matched by authors on the market at the moment. I think "IT" is easily one of my favourite books ever. I've read it about four times and never get sick of it. I love how he seamlessly mixes a story of friendhsip and dealing with childhood issues with horror, creating a superb novel that i read in almost one sitting. Yes it's long, but it's worth the effort if you find trouble reading constantly. It may seem like i'm rambling a bit here, but it really is THAT good. Read it. Now. Is the child murdering clown just straightforward horror? Or is it a clever, dark, disturbing satire on the horrible issue of paedophilia? It doesn't matter. Everyone can recognise with this book, with the characters, with the situations, bullying, summer time with friends, even a small piece on racial discrimination. That's the best King i've read, i also liek Cujo, Hearts in Atlantis, dreamcatcher was great. I'm having trouble getting through The Stand. Is it really as good as everyone says it is? should i keep at it? Also- Bag Of Bones, any good? heard hardly anything about it, but it sounds pretty good, give it a go?

Kings to avoid. Well, not avoid, they're still good.-
The Tommyknockers- not great, but not bad. read if you've read all his others.

Fourpast midnight- tough one. it is good. but there are better. author introductions are worth the asking price alone.

Quite a few of his weirder ones- Desperation etc. good writing, harder to follow.
 
I'm a newbug to this group but will confess Stephen King is probably my all-time favourite author. It will also give away my incredible age if I state that my first book was Salem's Lot in 1977. My paperback cover of that was all black with an etched female face on it with just one drop of red blood at the corner of her mouth - gawsh.

Top favourites:

The Shining
The Stand
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
IT
The Talisman
Dolores Claiborne
Rose Madder
The Dark Tower - and any of the books that may be part of this story eg Isomnia, Hearts in Atlantis etc. I think playing "Dark Tower" spotting is great fun.

:cool:
 
I've read all of Stephen King's books and my favourites include (like most people): The Stand, It, The Shining and the Dark Tower series. I also like some others that most people seems to dislike, such as Firestarter, Rose Madder and Insomnia. Firestarter was actually the first King I read, after seeing the movie (martinj73 - I loved the movie too and thought Barrymore's performance was excellent! :) ) I then bought The Shining second.

I liked the storylines of The Talisman and Black House, but I wasn't so keen on the changed writing style that came from them being co-authored. As I was reading, I could actually tell which bits King had written and which Straub had, and I found the Straub bits quite boring compared to the King parts.

I haven't enjoyed KIng's latest stuff so much, I'm not really a big fan of short stories so found Everything's Eventual a bit mixed in standard. I've just bought From a Buick 8, and will be reading that next.
 
I have read about 1/2 of Stephen Kings work including Dreamcatcher, Pet Sematary, On Writing, Everythings Eventual, A Buick 8, etc. -- I have to say that my most favorite book that he has written is Pet Sematary -- It is also his scariest.
 
I actually liked 'Everything's Eventual', very much even! But that's probably because I'm a big fan of short stories (if you want to know if an author is any good or not, and he has a collection of short stories, get your hands on it, because if you like most of them, you'll like his other books as well. Trust me).

As for other King-books. I haven't read many, mainly because I've seen so many films based on his books, and can't be bothered to read the books, already knowing what's going to happen. I did like his novella 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption', from 'Different Seasons', though. But I'm biased, because I consider 'The Shawshank Redemption' the best film ever made.

Oh, and I'm very much contemplating starting in his 'Dark Tower' series. Should I?

Cheers, Martin :D
 
Dark Tower

Martin-

Yes, you should read this series. Absolutely. If you start now, you could finish by November, when Book 5 (Wolves of the Calla) is released.
 
Thank you, Violet Chalice,

They'll be the next books I'm gonna buy. Not saying I'm immediately going to start, though...

Ah, so many books, so little time.

Cheers, Martin :D
 
Yes, I've read Bachman. In fact, the first King book I ever read was "The Long Walk". I wasn't very old, probably about 12 or 13, and I thought it was excellent, though very upsetting. The really funny thing was that it was my uncle who lent it to me, and later I used to argue that it was as good as a Stephen King book, but my uncle said "No way, King is a rubbish writer, this is a proper book!" ;) Later on, as I read more and more King, I started to think that Bachman's writing style was exactly the same as King's, and started to wonder... When I told my uncle they were one and the same, he refused to believe me and then stormed off in a huff!! :)
 
Martin-

I think all of the Dark Tower books in print are now available in mass market, trade paperback, and hardcover formats. At least in the States and online.



murphyz-

I've read one Bachman, "Thinner." Possibly others I've forgotten, but that's unlikely.
 
I take it Richard Bachman is a pseudonym used by Stephen King (as said before, I'm not the biggest King-reader out there). I seriously don't know if i've read any by him (seen the film 'Thinner' though; kinda liked it).

Cheers, Martin :D
 
Azazello:

My favourites are almost the same as yours! :) This surprised me because included in the list are some that seem to be almost universally disliked, eg Firestarter and Rose Madder. I loved both of these.

Insomnia was quite strange, because it was the only King book I've ever read that I changed my mind about (and I've read them all). On the first reading, I really disliked it, but then I re-read it a few years later and loved it!

I've just finished reading From a Buick 8, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised, as I haven't been that overwhelmed with his most recent work, but this was very good. It's a tribute to King's skill as a writer that a book with a pretty sparse plot could be so involving and genuinely disconcerting. Recommended! :)
 
My favorites are The Dead Zone, The Stand and Misery. If you are a writer you will probably like Misery all the better.

As far as the Bachman books go, I love them too. Especially The Long Walk, The Running Man and Thinner.

The Dark Tower series is really good too :D

Hehe, looks like I like most of em LOL!
 
The Long Walk stuck with me for quite a while. Even now, whenever I'm taking a particularly long stroll, I think about those poor guys.
 
I would definately stress the dark tower series. I've read a few of his books and I believe that they're the best example of his writing. He's often subtle in that series, and King ususally has a tendency to be heavy handed. Dark Tower---check it out.
 
Now ive hardly read any Stephen King - what would be a good book to read to get a general feel for his writing?
 
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