(no subject)

[sab]

I just discovered this new author. His name is Stephen King, and apparently he's written a whole bunch of books; imagine that.

So I read this one called "The Stand" and thought it was terrific, and now I'm reading this one called "It," and I'm also quite enjoying it.

So. If you've heard of this Stephen King guy and if you've read any of his works -- what do you recommend I tackle next?

(And to think I thought I'd read everything worth reading...)

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Love _Bag of Bones_. It was a little underedited toward the end, but there's some beautiful, beautiful stuff there. Pretty atypical, though, in some ways.

-J

[slodwick.livejournal.com]

I'm going to agree here. Bag of Bones is my favorite, I think, unless you count The Talisman which was co-authored by Stephen King and Peter Straub.

The Talisman is perhaps my favorite novel, period. It's definitely worth a look, IMO, especially if you enjoyed The Stand.

I read It when I was nine years old, and it scared the living day(dead)lights out of me, but I couldn't put it down. Needless to say, I have a rather unrational fear of all things related to sewers, spiders, junkyards and clowns.

[corianderstem.livejournal.com]

Agreed. It lost me a bit at the end, but overall, fabulous book. I devoured his stuff in junior high, then burned out on it. I've started liking him again, now that he's somewhat away from the horror/fantasy stuff.

Hearts in Atlantis was wonderful too, I thought.

we all float down here

[tangleofthorns.livejournal.com]

I read my way through the majority of what King had written by the time I was thirteen (since then I haven't really bothered keeping up). He's always under-edited and his endings tend to be on the uninspired side, but there are lovely bits in a lot of his writing. Of the ones I've read, Carrie is remarkably sad; Pet Sematary is perhaps the scariest, and there are some amazingly good bits in Dolores Claiborne. His more atypical stuff actually tends to be his strongest; the books where he ventures away from the supernatural (Dolores Claiborne, for instance) and where the emotional horror is the strongest.

But It was always my favorite, hands down.

[barkley.livejournal.com]

You too? I just finished The Dead Zone yesterday and I quite enjoyed it. To think that I stayed away from King all these years because I was convinced that I didn't like horror stories. I'm still not convinced that I do like horror stories because this one wasn't what I'd consider horror, but I am convinced that Stephen King writes engaging books about topics that make me think and characters that make me care.

[destina.livejournal.com]

Stephen King is and always has been my favorite author, and I think the uncut version of The Stand is his best book. Possibly the best horror novel ever, because the horror is largely man-made. I adore that book. SK has two ends of the scale with his writing - cracking good plotty and character-driven storytelling, and mature, thoughtful storytelling. On the mature, lovely end, I recommend Bag of Bones and The Green Mile. Also, I recommend his collection of short novels, Different Seasons, which contains the novellas on which the movie versions of Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me and Apt Pupil were based.

On the cracking good story end, I recommend Salem's Lot, the Dark Tower series (if you like fantasy), The Shining, and The Dead Zone. I still think the movie versions of Carrie, Cujo and Christine were as good or better than the books.

I'd recommend you avoid Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, Needful Things (tho it did have an inventive premise), The Tommyknockers, and Desperation.

[christhetoken.livejournal.com]

Needful Things is great, but it's King writing fanfiction for his own fans. It's more than worth a read, just not until you have a good dose of the Castle Rock books read.

[chr0me-kitten.livejournal.com]

I greatly enjoyed his book on writing (called, interestingly enough, On Writing). After you've checked out some more of his novels, you may want to read it. It's more of a writing autobiography than a "this is how you write" book, and it's really interesting.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I've always liked Stephen King, because, darnit, he knows how to tell a story, and no one else can scare me the way he can.

Of his more traditionally supernatural books, I love The Shining. It terrified me (advice: do not it at three in the morning when everyone else is asleep. It does not work). The Shawshank Redemption was very good as well, albeit in a different way.

Enjoy! Everybody ought to read a little Stephen King, I think, because a lot of people don't know what they're missing.

[christhetoken.livejournal.com]

SK rules.

I liked Dreamcatcher a lot. ANd you WILL read the Dark Tower series if we have to sit on you. The Dark Tower stuff is his best work ever, and the books get better and better. Really. The 4th one is brilliant.

[lenadances.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, lemme see.

It is almost my hands-down favorite, not because of any plot parts but because I *know* these people like mad now, and I go re-visit them, a lot. Love them all. Want to marry Ben.

His best scary book is Pet Sematary because it is just that purely fucked-up. I have it, but it takes me about five or six years between reads. Seriously, I've only read it about twice because it scares me THAT DAMN MUCH that I can't go near it without feeling sick to my stomach again. And it's just human emotion and human characters driving it, is the fucked thing. Scares me pissless.

I like Firestarter because it's all about a man and his daughter, at the heart of it, but Stephen King doing government conspiracy is like a man trying to juggle Jell-O. Still, worth a read.

Different Seasons is three kick-ass novellas and one odd story.

Cujo is almost as scary as Pet Sematary, but... not really. But it's fucked. Nobody does sympathy for the devil like Steven King.

And I don't care what anyone says, I love Needful Things like crazy because it is the funniest apocolypse ever. The first time I read it I didn't know it was supposed to be funny. Now it just cracks me up. You can set people to kill each other but they *do* bumble around doing it.

Those are the ones on my bookshelf. (Not counting The Stand, which you have already discovered the glory of, and the other books that Token has that I have yet to read.) I'll have to look at a list to remember the others I've read, because I forget. But yeah. Love the King. Nobody makes you like such fuckers like he does.

[qowf.livejournal.com]

Pet Semetary has the best ending line of just about any book ever. Don't read ahead, Em. It will ruin it.

[noelleleithe.livejournal.com]

I did that, read the ending first. Or, okay, JUST the ending. *g* Only I wasn't planning to read the rest of the book (and still haven't read anything by SK). If you're going to actually read it, I say wait for the ending, but then I say that about every book. Harry Burns I'm not.

[qowf.livejournal.com]

The Shining.

Firestarter. 1 of the two books that have made me cry while I read them.

The entire Dark Tower series.

He's good, that Stephen King fella.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

Don't listen to the person who said not to read "Insomnia" and "Needful Things". I have read both and really liked both, particularly "Insomnia". But I don't read Stephen King books for the plot or the scary bits, many of which are disappointing. King is like Dickens or Irving for me, it's all about characters and interesting descriptions of places and times and the journey of the book.

I agree that The Stand is one of the best books ever, though.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's see if I distilled this right.

The paperback Dreamcatcher comes out on the 30th, so I'll probably read that next, and not just because the movie has my boy Damien Lewis in.

Everyone seems to agree that Salem's Lot is worth reading -- does it matter that I don't care one whit about vampires?

I'll read The Talisman because I can't turn down an endorsement like the one above.

Aside from that-

I'm not confident I care about King's prose enough to want to endure Bag of Bones. Should I? I'll tell ya. I liked The Stand and It because they're both about groups of sympathetic characters banding together to fight Evil. I suspect Dreamcatcher will be more of the same, and I also suspect that's what I like about this King dude.

That being said -- do I read Salem's Lot? Bag of Bones? If I don't need lots of Horror and Scary do I bother with Pet Sematary? And what about those C- ones with girls and dogs?

You are all fine, good, helpful people. Please carry on. *g*

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Which is to say: can someone break them down by Theme and separate out the ones where Good Troops Band Together To Fight Evil and then arrange those by favorite color and height?

[nightgarden.livejournal.com]

No one here's mentioned Eyes of the Dragon yet, so I'm going to give a shout out for that. It's fantasy, not horror (though the Bad Guy is fucking scary), and it's brilliantly plotted around a false accusation of murder and an escape from prison. (I first read it at age twelve, but I enjoy it as much now, in my late twenties, as I did then.)

I also recommend Different Seasons and On Writing.3

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

you read the stand. now? i've gotta say, i'm afraid to. that whole day, all i could think was, at least i don't have to walk through the lincoln tunnel. bridge, not tunnel.

BUT. it was written in my dad's bar -- when you get back to boulder, when they're sitting around and the main guy is talking about how much he wishes he could just plug in an amp and play somewhere or at Shannon's -- that's the shout-out.

also, i was gonna rec eye of the dragon. it was my first, too, and i loved it. and any of the bachman books. and misery.

and call me, won't you? we can sing "white christmas" songs.

[jenavira.livejournal.com]

I never liked Stephen King much; I'm not a fan of the kind of horror he usually does, and I think he's generally vastly overrated (though unlike some authors, his later works do tend to be better than his earlier). That said, I adore Eyes of the Dragon and I always thought that Misery was a pretty fascinating look at King's own psychology.