The Works of Stephen King

[sugarhigh]

Bag of Bones was his first book to really scare the ever-loving crap out of me. And this was after I'd already read about 15 novels and numerous short stories. I've only read it twice for that reason.

The climax of The Dark Tower series was literally the most disappointing ending I have ever read. Way to ruin everything Stephen!

[Deleted]

I really liked the fantasy novel he wrote - The Eyes of the Dragon. I wish he'd write more of that sort of thing.

I love The Stand, right up until the big showdown, which always makes me go WTF? And the last time I read it, I found the anti-technology stuff a bit offputting (all the technical people going West). There are large chunks of it I tend to skim - particularly in the first part of the book. I always skip the Frannie chapters until she meets up with Stu, because they're tedious (plus my copy is the unabridged one, where there's even MORE Frannie stuff at the beginning), and I tend to skip a lot of the Larry chapters as well. I even own a copy of The Stand miniseries on DVD. It's not bad, although the inevitable Steven King cameo is even more cringe-worthy than you might anticipate.

[hobocamp]

I love The Shining and all but, "he squeezed the brake like the breast of a much-loved woman" had me rolling on the floor in hysterics. Come on, King, is that the best you can do? Mr. Hobocamp and I still laugh about it to this day.

[india7]

ernestine said:

My favorite short story by him though, was called something like Swan dive. It was about a girl who kills herself and her brothers regret about their life. It's not scary, it's VERY well-written, and just a lovely tale. Probably my favorite short story ever.

The Last Rung On the Ladder - you're right, a fantastic story! The sister's suicide note is heartbreaking - "You know, Larry. I've been thinking alot over the years. And what I've decided is - it would have been alot better for me if you hadn't had time to move the hay." I just cried the first time I read that.

I've been a huge King fan since I was 15 in 1979, and I have a lengthy love-hate relationship with his books and movies.

I just think he was so much better back when he first started, and he was only releasing one book, two at the most, a year. When he started cranking out several books a year, the quality just dropped. In recent years, the only books of his I've really LOVED were Bag of Bones and Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

His old stuff will always be the best as far as I'm concerned. The Stand and Salem's Lot - he just topped himself with those two. Those are his masterpieces for me. Not only did he scare the shit out of me, but the writing was so beautiful and eloquent. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about how drastically his books have changed and really gone downhill in recent years. To illustrate my point, I typed out and sent to my friend, in an email, the scene in Salem's Lot when Ben and Jimmy confront Marjorie Glick in the morturary when she rises. Then I sent him the part from Desperation of all the thoughts running through Ellen Carver's mind while she's trapped in the back of Collie Entragian's cruiser. Read them yourselves if you have either book - it's like night and day. It's not even like the same guy writing them.

One of the things that really disturbed me was how, for a while there, he was really bringing in alot of child molestation and child rape into some of his books. The little boy being raped in The Library Police (I think it was that story) in Four Past Midnight, the little boy in Needful Things, the little boy in The Tommyknockers, the boys all having sex with Beverly in IT, etc. It made me wonder whether, sometime in the late '80s to early '90s whether he may have come to terms with some abuse in his own past, perhaps? I don't know, and I haven't heard anything, but it was a very uncomfortable pattern for me to read.

There's one of SK's books that I have a rather funny tradition with, and I'm not sure how it started. But whenever I travel, I have to have Rose Madder with me. It's not even my favorite King book. It's one of my favorites, but Salem's Lot would be my absolute favorite. I think Rose Madder became my go-to travel book for because I didn't read it till 1997, and I wound up doing alot of traveling around 1999 and 2000. And I'm pretty certain that in those bunch of trips, I was packing a carry on for the plane and just grabbed that book in case the movie stunk or there was nothing else to read on the plane. I normally re-read his books quite a bit, and I think I just simply hadn't re-read RM at that time, in between those two years. And now, for whatever reason, it's gotten to be tradition - it's like I can't imagine boarding a plane with out RM being in my "stuff to do on the plane" bag!

[Deleted]

I just started Cell and it hasn't grabbed me like most of King's books have in the past. I'll finish it through, because it's King, but something tells me I'm not going to devour it like I did the last 3 Dark Tower books.

[petals]

I like The Stand and the Shining. I think IT is great, especially the parts when they are young.

But by far, my favorite story of his is The Long Walk. I read it when I was pretty young--I think I may have been in 7th grade. It blew my away. But now, as an adult, I like it even more because I love the comment on society. To me, it's one of his scariest because you could see it happening easier than vampires or a demon car.

Or not. What do I know? My mother let me read Stephen King books at a young age! My mind is warped!

[Deleted]

Oh, The Long Walk! I really like that one, and The Running Man, too. I think they go together in my mind because I bought them at the same time.

Although King really pissed me off - there's a forward in my edition of The Running Man that's about writing as Bachman, and he gives away the damn ending in the foreward. I was so pissed I tossed the book on the shelf and didn't actually read it for a month or so afterwards. It was still pretty good, but would have been better if I hadn't known what was going to happen.

[india7]

sarcasticcheese said:

I just started Cell and it hasn't grabbed me like most of King's books have in the past. I'll finish it through, because it's King, but something tells me I'm not going to devour it like I did the last 3 Dark Tower books.

You just reminded me - it's out in paperback now, so I'll have to pick it up. No matter how much he's been hit or miss with me in recent years, I normally have to give him a chance.

I used to have a great copy of Creepshow in it's comic book form - I loved that book! Good to see that I can still find a copy over at Amazon, but I have no idea what happened to my original. "JUST TELL IT TO CALL YOU 'BILLIE', BITCH!" Good times, good times...

[Deleted]

india7 said:

sarcasticcheese said:

I just started Cell and it hasn't grabbed me like most of King's books have in the past. I'll finish it through, because it's King, but something tells me I'm not going to devour it like I did the last 3 Dark Tower books.

You just reminded me - it's out in paperback now, so I'll have to pick it up. No matter how much he's been hit or miss with me in recent years, I normally have to give him a chance.

I used to have a great copy of Creepshow in it's comic book form - I loved that book! Good to see that I can still find a copy over at Amazon, but I have no idea what happened to my original. "JUST TELL IT TO CALL YOU 'BILLIE', BITCH!" Good times, good times...

Cell is already out in paperback? That book just came out! Although, I did see it in a closeout book store for $10 on hardcover this weekend.

Oh, The Long Walk - I reread the Bachman books a few years ago after I grabbed a used copy of it at a bookstore. I didn't think I had read it, but when I started TLW, I remembered I had. That story gave me chills.

The Stand will always be my favorite of his, followed closely by The Dark Tower series, although I was initially pissed at the ending, and cried when Oy died, I came to realize that the ending really was genius.

I have a special place in my heart for Black House because it takes place in WI, where I'm from. Until that book, I didn't know that King lived for a short time in West De Pere, WI (just south of Green Bay). Go WI!

[india7]

sarcasticcheese said:

Cell is already out in paperback? That book just came out! Although, I did see it in a closeout book store for $10 on hardcover this weekend.

Yup. I checked over at Amazon, and it's available. They don't have the image up for it yet, so I'd guess the paperback version is JUST brand newly released. I hate hardbound - they take up too much space and I can't lug them easily on the subway, so I'm always sniffing around Amazon to see when stuff I want to read comes out in paperback.