I dont get it.

[monsterchic]

I haven't read much, but I've read On Writing, and that was fabulous. More recently, I read Under the Dome, which is a haul (1,200 pages or so), but was amazed that the events of a week or two could keep me interested that long.

 

[BigBadBob141]

You either like King or you don't, it's all down to personal taste.
The Dark Tower series does get better I would not start with that as it's not typical King.
The first one of his I read was "The Shining", still one of his best, recently I have greatly enjoyed "Duma Key", "Insomnia" & "Under The Dome".
However don't forget that he is a great short story writer, tales such as "The Word Processor Of The Gods", "The Monkey", "Chattery Teeth" are all excellent, and there are lots, lots more just as good in his collections.
Good reading, Good hunting & Good luck.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Start with Carrie. It sort of sums up the type of story he's prone to writing.

 

[BigBadBob141]

For anyone interested out there in the darkness ( cue sinister laughter ), there is a channel on You Tube called S K Audio, it is a lot of his stories plus some novels very professionally read, someone even says that his story "Room 1408" is actually read by the great man himself!

 

[k_leh]

You got started on the wrong foot. The Dark Tower is a very intricate story and it encompasses damn near every book he has ever written. Start on something easy like The Shining, IT, or Salem's Lot or an even better idea is to start with his short stories, the Night Shift collection is my favorite.

Absolutely agree with that. Dark Tower is something you should read as one of the last books by King

 

[Rodders]

Growing up in the 80's,you couldn't move for Stephen King books and movie adaptations. I never really cared much for it. Besides, my dad raised me to believe that James Herbert was the better writer, which i believed, until i read my first King book. I started, i think, with Christine because i enjoyed the movie. I then read the other books that were big at the time (Salem's Lot, The Shining etc, etc). It and the Stand rate as two of my all time favourite books, (bar the somewhat of a letdown ending).

I like his focus on the details of the character which is noticeable in his bigger books. I like the way he paints the period of the book with the music references, too.

A very prolific author, he produced a lot of rubbish and i haven't read any of his books for about 30 years.

 

[nixie]

Growing up in the 80's,you couldn't move for Stephen King books and movie adaptations. I never really cared much for it. Besides, my dad raised me to believe that James Herbert was the better writer, which i believed, until i read my first King book. I started, i think, with Christine because i enjoyed the movie. I then read the other books that were big at the time (Salem's Lot, The Shining etc, etc). It and the Stand rate as two of my all time favourite books, (bar the somewhat of a letdown ending).

I like his focus on the details of the character which is noticeable in his bigger books. I like the way he paints the period of the book with the music references, too.

A very prolific author, he produced a lot of rubbish and i haven't read any of his books for about 30 years.

King is the better writer but I do prefer James Herbert.

 

[Guttersnipe]

The Dark Tower series is dark fantasy rather than horror. King also wrote The Eyes of the Dragon, which has more typical fantasy tropes, so you might like that. I would agree reading his oldest stuff first, which I think is him at his purest. Carrie is the first book of his I read. I thought The Gunslinger was okay; I couldn't relate to him either, because Roland is more of an anti-hero. The only other novel of his I read is It, which I liked despite its being so long.

 

[KGeo777]

I couldn't get into King either although I did like Danse Macabre and when he gives interviews on stuff-he's often interesting to listen to. He wrote an eye-opening article on short stories and the state of modern magazine publishing.
I listened to an audio book of one of his later novels-I think he narrates his books well.

He was kind of the JK Rowling of his day in the sense that she had immediate and massive media support. King, for his time, also had a lot of media help. Movies made of his stuff very quickly. And nowadays he could transcribe a phone book and get it published with lots of fanfare.
I think I know what a certain gangly-limbed scribe from Providence would say. King's writing is "insidious exoticism," lacks the "impulses and aspirations" that move people the most. I know he has tendency to depict characters along a limited range--how many teachers do we need in fiction?

As a side note-he disliked the Shining. Ramsey Campbell wrote a critique of the Shining movie for The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. One of the earliest to the analyze the movie in great detail. These days you can't think of the moon or baking powder without the Shining being involved somewhere.

 

[CTRandall]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Needful Things. It's been ages since I've read any King but this and Salem's Lot are the two that stick in my memory.

 

[Rodders]

I still have Needful Things on my book shelves. I didn't rate it too highly, although it was a fair comment on our materialism.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I agree about reading The Dark Tower last of all. If you don't , many of the references will pass you by.

King is so diverse in his themes and storylines that there should be something out there to interest most people. Compare The Green Mile or Thinner with The Tommyknockers or Cujo. Some of his books are better than others, but they are usually easily accessible to read.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Needful Things. It's been ages since I've read any King but this and Salem's Lot are the two that stick in my memory.

Salem's Lot is so good. I'm a fan of early King, but have found anything since Under the Dome hard to get into, and I actively detested the time travel one with the date as its title. I think I'm a fan of very-well-edited King, and feel that he lacks a bit of rigour these days. Certainly, of the two versions of The Stand, whilst I'm glad I read the uncut version to tell me some extra details, it's the original, more tightly edited version, that I return to anytime I want to read the world getting destroyed by the flu. Which, strangely, hasn't been the case over the last year.

 

[BAYLOR]

I agree about reading The Dark Tower last of all. If you don't , many of the references will pass you by.

King is so diverse in his themes and storylines that there should be something out there to interest most people. Compare The Green Mile or Thinner with The Tommyknockers or Cujo. Some of his books are better than others, but they are usually easily accessible to read.

I read the Tommyknockers not too long ago . The book is good but , could have been a whole lot better . The ending was not very good.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I read the Tommyknockers not too long ago . the book is good but , could have been a whole lot better . The ending was not very good.

I read it when it first came out. Not one of his best, but it keeps you interested til the end. Yes, I agree a poor ending, the main criticism I would level at a number of his novels.

I think one of my favourite Steven King stories is The Running Man. Not read it for quite a long time, but I remember it being very good.

 

[BAYLOR]

I read it when it first came out. Not one of his best, but it keeps you interested til the end. Yes, I agree a poor ending, the main criticism I would level at a number of his novels.

I think one of my favourite Steven King stories is The Running Man. Not read it for quite a long time, but I remember it being very good.

There was miniseries made of the Tommyknockers with Jimmy Smits . It was not great , but it did have slightly better ending then the book.

Ive read The Running Man, its a bit dated not but It was pretty book . The 1987 film With Arnold other then the name has almost nothing in common with book . But in this case I love the film more than the book because is silly and over top fun. I loved Richard Dawson in the film.

 

[Danny McG]

The Regulators and Desperation.
A Bachman and King pair of books that are parallel universes of each other, characters with the same names but different roles/personalities in either book.

Both books have a malovelent spirit called Tak

 

[BigBadBob141]

Sorry folks but the You Tube channel I mentioned earlier, S K Audio, has been killed off.
This is a damned shame as there was a lot of stuff not found else where, including "N" which I can no longer find.
This really is a crying shame, most of the things on there were his short stories which no one else seem to bother with much, it's just mainly his novels on You Tube.