Favorite Stephan King books

[dbt1949]

It's been years since I've read one and I'm ready for another.
I have a hard time sorting out his newer books of which is good.
A little help here!
And no the Dark Tower books do not appeal to me.

[Smoove_B]

I've read just about everything he's written (prior to the 2000s) and the only book that's ever scared me (to the point (I couldn't sleep) was Gerald's Game. I'd recommend it for that reason alone.

For a newer book, 11/22/63 was fantastic and if you're only looking for newer recommendations, that's the one I'd go with.

[YellowKing]

I, too, have read almost all of his works. For my money, you can't beat his classic stuff. But if you'd like to go newer I second the 11/22/63 recommendation as it was by far my favorite of his newer novels. The Bill Hodges trilogy (MR. MERCEDES, FINDERS KEEPERS, and END OF WATCH) is also very good.

And even though you're not asking for it, the Stephen King book I hate the most is LISEY'S STORY. The main character doesn't cuss and instead uses the word "smucking" instead of the F word. And it is really smucking annoying. So much so that I wanted to punch a wall I hated that main character so much. In general I dislike Stephen King's female characters, with some notable exceptions - Annie Wilkes from MISERY, Odetta from the Dark Tower series, and Holly Gibney from the Bill Hodges trilogy/THE OUTSIDER.

[hitbyambulance]

King's also written in other genres - I'd recommend _The Colorado Kid_ as an 'anti-mystery' (written specifically for the Hard Case Crime imprint of forgotten pulp and neo-noir novellas) in the mid-2000s. (and from Wikipedia: "A television series loosely inspired by The Colorado Kid, titled Haven, aired on Syfy from July 2010 to December 2015.") he wrote another one for the imprint later as well (_Joyland_, but i've not read that one yet).




i found the section in _On Writing_ about his writing process to have some interesting parts.

[hepcat]

If you want real horror, get some Clive Barker. Maybe some Richard Matheson while you’re at it.

Also, is Stephan King the German Stephen King? Do his characters all gather together as a group of friends at the end of every story and fight the monster with the power of Kraftwerk? Although to be fair, most of Stephen King’s novels end with his characters gathering together as a group of friends and fighting the monster with the power of love or something.

I keed, I keed...sort of. It just seemed like King could never end a story in any satisfying way. At least for me. Whereas the other authors I mentioned above maintain perfect control over their tales to the very end.

[YellowKing]

I think King gets a bad rap for his endings because he's such a big name. I read a lot of horror growing up, and there are a lot of horror novelists who struggle with endings. However, I'll agree he tends to sometimes lean on a lot of tropes he's already used.

I don't even put Clive Barker in the same sentence as other horror authors. He's in another league.

One of my favorite recent horror authors is Paul Tremblay. I didn't care too much for THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD (though the premise was cool). However A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS was sheer genius and DEVIL'S ROCK had some really chilling scenes. The thing I love the most about his stuff is that everything I've read of his has some utterly spine-chilling line or sentence or concept that sticks with me. I hardly ever feel the tingle of fear from reading, but Paul Tremblay has come the closest to invoking it by far.

[hepcat]

Cool, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll check him out.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I'll echo that 11/22/63 was one of King's better books. Other than that book, though, I haven't read much Stephen King recently. Of all his books, perhaps The Stand was my favorite, but that might be a bit too on-the-nose right now.

[Jeff V]

On Writing.

His stories are hit-or-miss, but i love his writing style and character development. That's what grabs my attention when I read his books; even annoying characters like Lisey I find myself analyzing the development to figure out why I have that reaction.

[JCC]

King is one of my favorites for sure. But yes, he has many clunkers for endings - particularly in his Magnum Opus The Dark Tower where the bad ending was comprised of 2 mostly awful final books.

He does have some good endings: Eyes of the Dragon and Salem's Lot immediately spring to mind. But there are some others, but when he misses he misses very very badly. (Hello "The Stand"!)

[coopasonic]

I guess The Gunslinger since it is the only Stephen King book I have ever read.

[gameoverman]

Of his newer works I recommend Full Dark, No Stars(2010) which is a collection of four short-ish stories. That's if you aren't ready to jump into a novel. I also recommend Revival(2014) which is a novel and my favorite of his newer novels. It's the most like his classic stuff, it would fit right in with his stories from the late '70s-early '80s. I liked 11/22/63 a lot but that's a long novel, you might want to work up to it.

edit: I think I read in an interview somewhere that the way he starts his stories is with a character, then he starts writing what that character does or what happens to them. The point being that he does not have a complete story in mind, there's no outline or anything like that. That's why his endings can suck so much, he didn't work out a good ending in advance. The Stand is the prime example. That's a long, elaborate story...right until the whole thing gets quickly wrapped up in the most unsatisfying way.

[Lassr]

the last one I read of his was Under the Dome. I liked it, really reminded me of some of his older novels. I have several others that I haven't started yet: Cell, Bag of Bones, The Regulators (Bachman).

[ImLawBoy]

I'll get to the whole "bad endings" thing in a bit, but to answer the original question about more recent King, I thought the Bill Hodges trilogy and the trilogy-adjacent The Outsider were all quite good. The first two Hodges book had minimal supernatural elements, so they're not what people typically think of as typical King books, but they're good. The third book had a bit, and The Outsider was full-blown King. You can also read The Outsider without having read the trilogy (I read that book first). All of them have solid endings, IMO. I also liked 11/22/63 and thought it ended well. Doctor Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, this time with Danny all grown up. I liked it for the most part and thought the ending was solid, but I'd go to The Shining first if you haven't read that - I think the sequel would leave you a bit lost. I'm currently reading The Institute, and I'm really liking it but I can't speak to the ending yet.

Regarding the ending issue, I think his penchant for bad endings is a bit overrated although not without some truth. While it's not a hard and fast rule, I think his books that are more epic in scope (The Stand, The Dark Tower, even something like Under the Dome) tend to have the endings that are weakest (or are most criticized, anyway). His tighter stories (The Shining, Salem's Lot, the Hodges books) tend to end better. One of the better elements of the movie It: Chapter 2 so far (I'm about halfway through it - I can't sit through a 3 hour movie) are the jokes about the writer character always having bad endings to his books. King himself makes a cameo to decry the bad endings. You can't say he doesn't at least have a sense of humor about himself.

[YellowKing]

The ending for 11/22/63 was good only because his son (Joe Hill) fixed it for him. Apparently while King wrote the ending, his son suggested some changes to fix the original planned ending.

[ImLawBoy]

And that was a more epic book, so it kind of fits my theory!

[Scuzz]

I've read just about everything he's written (prior to the 2000s) and the only book that's ever scared me (to the point (I couldn't sleep) was Gerald's Game. I'd recommend it for that reason alone.

For a newer book, 11/22/63 was fantastic and if you're only looking for newer recommendations, that's the one I'd go with.

11/22/63 is the only King book I have read, and I enjoyed it, but I assume the subject matter, the JFK assassination and time travel have always been huge for me.

[dbt1949]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! Keep em coming.

[gameoverman]

I've read just about everything he's written (prior to the 2000s) and the only book that's ever scared me (to the point (I couldn't sleep) was Gerald's Game. I'd recommend it for that reason alone.

For a newer book, 11/22/63 was fantastic and if you're only looking for newer recommendations, that's the one I'd go with.

11/22/63 is the only King book I have read, and I enjoyed it, but I assume the subject matter, the JFK assassination and time travel have always been huge for me.

I think King likes dabbling in the theme of time travel even if it's not always presented directly as time travel in his stories. For instance, The Dead Zone contains a central question "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler..." even though no one goes back in time in that story. However, manipulating events in the timeline is still a core part of that story. I think you might like that one.

[YellowKing]

If you want something a bit more highbrow, I'd also recommend Peter Straub. He and King collaborated on THE TALISMAN (which is a fabulous book, but a bit more fantasy than horror), and its sequel BLACK HOUSE.

However, Straub's standalone horror is really well done and also something I consider on another level from most mainstream horror authors. At some point I really need to go back and read some of his stuff I missed.

[Torfish]

Same as many of you. King is one of my favorite authors. I've read a little over half his books, but none of his recent. The newest ones I've read are:

Under the Dome - loved the first 75% of the book. Ending was good but not great. Recommended.
11/22/63 - one of his best! Loved it. This is the one you need to read if you haven't already.
Doctor Sleep - Not really a sequel to The Shining. A good read, just didn't hit my high expectations since it was a sequel to a great book.