Stephen King - Best Book??

[HoopyFrood]

Ah, Desperation is a good'un.

Yes, The Girl Who Loved etc is about the only Stephen King book I wouldn't recommend to anyone...

Oh, and I got halfway through Thinner and gave up on that as well...It wasn't that the book wasn't mildly interesting but...well, I don't know! Perhaps another one that I'll go back to one day!

 

[McMurphy]

Not to distress the King fans out there, but my personal favorite novel by this author is still Carrie. To me, it seemed the tightest and most interested in relating a sociological theme to the readers.

The book really captured the unique and sometimes awful experience people have in High School. Considering the heinous crimes that have taken place on school campuses in the last decade, I would venture that this book is even more significant and telling than when it was first penned.

 

[Angeline]

• The Shining
  
• The Stand
  
• It
  

 

[dustinzgirl]

Anything except Geralds Game, Delores Claiborne and Rose Madder which were rubbish.

Personl Favs are The Stand or IT.

Amen to that...

You can also add Song of Susanna (although if you don't read it you have no idea what happens in the DT series so you are forced to read it but it bit the big one)


Although the stand took for freaking ever to get to any kind of point, I had to put it down and restart it like a million times.....

My favs are

The Gunslinger
Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower
Pet Semetary
The Eyes of the Dragon
The Dark Half
Needful Things (I have no idea why, but that movie creeped me out. Now I can't buy second hand)

The Regulators (as Bachman)

And the one that really freaked me out:
The Tommyknockers.

 

[Nesacat]

Could not get into Delores Claireborne at all and had to force myself to finish it simply because I have this thing about leaving books unfinished. I had the same problem with The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Hearts In Atlantis. Gerald's Game was probably the worst. I skipped and skimmed through that one.

Pet Cemetary, Carrie and Christine I didn't think much of when I first read them way back when I was in school but I re-read them much later and have come to like them very much indeed. The same with Cujo. They have all grown creepier with re-reading.

Misery started of alright but for me at least it dragged on for too long. The suspense sort of wore away and you could see where it was going and as I got closer to the end of the book I just wanted it to hurry up and get done.

The Cell is good. Loved that. The ones I re-read the most are his short tales, Salem's Lot and IT (aside from the huge spider of course )

One more. I keep forgetting this and it's one of my favourites to boot. Cycle Of The Werewolf. I love this one and the fact that as you go along it's not always easy to hate the werewolf. And I really like the way the personality of the person changes as the story progresses. The sort-of cliche solution aside, it's very well done and beautifully illustrated.

 

[sci-fi girl]

The "Dark Tower" serie!!!!!!

 

[murphy]

The Stand
Salem's Lot
The Shining

 

[roddglenn]

IT was the first SK book I read, so I'm still hugely fond of that one. I do also love Needful Things, The Stand and all the Dark Tower books too.

 

[G.D.]

Ah, the works I've enjoyed reading most were The Stand (unabridged), and The Dark Tower IV: Wizard & Glass. I can't really relate to some of the statements made commenting on the length of The Stand, I wouldn't have thought 1.000+ page novels all that much to tackle, but I do have a good deal of time on my hands. Wonderful book, I enjoyed all it had to offer and never found myself bored with it, though towards the end it did leave me a bit frustrated. Wizard & Glass is probably the best book in the DT series, aside perhaps The Gunslinger, but I really enjoyed book four. Definitely read a few of his novels before starting The Dark Tower.

Insomnia was my first King book, I enjoyed it immensely and it got me to reading all that I have of his, presently The Dark Half. All Hail The Crimson King, Ralph should have put him in his place book seven.

You really can't go wrong with any of his novels, just make sure to stay away from all the movies adaptations! Rob Lowe had no business playing Nick, and that movie had no business being made.

 

[that old guy]

Pet Cemetary, Carrie and Christine I didn't think much of when I first read them way back when I was in school but I re-read them much later and have come to like them very much indeed. The same with Cujo. They have all grown creepier with re-reading.

King claims he has no memory at all of writing Cujo. He wrote it when his drinking/pill problem was at its worst. Bit of useless trivia.

 

[Marvolo]

Cell - I know that not everyone enjoyed this as much as I did, but I think this recent release by Stephen King is brilliant. The 'bad guys' as it were, are zombies with attitude! Brilliant.

I vote for Cell also. Cell would have been a good book had someone else written it; but since Sai King chose to write it, and so late in his career when his story telling ability has been honed to a razor edge, it was fantastic. Honestly, its my second favorite book behind Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.

A very close second, as far as King goes, is Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. MAN that book rocked! The Seven Samurai/Magnifiscent Seven meets the Ka-Tet! Rock on brotherman!

 

[Blackhand]

King's four best books, in my severely anti-horror oppinion, were The Gunslinger, The Eyes of the Dragon (mostly for it's view point), Wizard & Glass, and The Dark Tower.
Honestly, I started off on The Gunslinger for King and the brutal insanity of it astonished me to the point where I couldn't stop (revolvers up your vagina will normally bring in readers ^_^). The Eyes of the Dragon's view point is one of the best reasons to read it. It's written as a story teller telling a tale and it's prominent throughout the entire book. He never got lost from that which was one of the most amazing parts. And no matter what anyone says, the ending of DT7 was amazing. It was almost completely unforseeable (everyone has 20/20 hindsight so don't even try that[you know what I'm talking about]).
As for his horror, I'm a terrible judge, but I won't discredit it.

 

[tangaloomababe]

If I had to pick one novel: The Stand.

Im with That old guy here. I really enjoyed The Stand. I have read it over and over. I also think The Long Walk is great, please correct me if I am wrong but didn't he write this under another name like Richard Bachman or something similar?

 

[HoopyFrood]

Yes, he did indeed. Apparently he created the pseudonym because, at the start of his career, authors were limited to publishing one book a year, so he used Bachman to be able to publish more books.

 

[Marvolo]

Yes, he did indeed. Apparently he created the pseudonym because, at the start of his career, authors were limited to publishing one book a year, so he used Bachman to be able to publish more books.

He also quoted later that he was plagued with self doubt due to his phenomenal success. King wondered if he could recreate it, under a pseudonym. The Bachman books sold well, but people figured him out too. I wonder which had more to do with the sales, people recognizing a very King-esque style of writing, or the fact that the books were just good.

I can't actually remember whether I read any of the Bachman books. I know I liked Desperation, but I heard the companion, The Regulators, wasn't as good.

As for the Stand, I am trying to get through the uncut version. It is a little slow for me. I love character development but at this point (about page 200) I wonder whether it is going to pay off in the end. I never read the original version, but would like to. I think a shorter version would be better.

 

[HoopyFrood]

I have tried to read The Stand, the uncut version, about three times now, but I always stop halfway through...in fact, around the same point. One day I'm just going to have to push myself past it and actually finish the damn thing!

 

[tangaloomababe]

Thanks HoopyFrood & Marvolo for the info on publishing, I was unaware if that. I brought a copy of The Richard Bachman books ages ago, I think it had four stories in it, but the one i remember is The Long Walk. Sadly the book had an accident with a rain storm, so it didn't fair to well.

 

[kcs_hiker]

a little late to the party here... but I'll still throw my two cents in...

1. The Stand (bought it as a science fiction book club main selection in what.. 1977? Read that copy till the cover fell off. Have hb and pb copies of the 90's version which I don't like as much.)

2. Salem's Lot (still, for my money, the best and scariest vampire story I've ever read, although I liked Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian an awful lot)

3. Misery (jeez louise, what a scary plot! I've not reread it... scared/disturbed meso much. Wasn't that the book he wrote after his accident?)

anyway those are my top 3. The Shining and Thinner (written as Richard Bachman) are also quite good IMO. Oh yeah I really liked Hearts of Atlantis too.

 

[Annie]

I've only read several of his books, and out of those I love 'The Green Mile', the most.

 

[HoopyFrood]

3. Misery (jeez louise, what a scary plot! I've not reread it... scared/disturbed meso much. Wasn't that the book he wrote after his accident?)

I take it you mean when he was knocked down by a car? That was in 1999, whereas Misery was published in 1987.
Misery is a fantastic book. It was one of the first Stephen King books I read and it's easily one of my favourites that I can read again and again.