What's your favorite Stephen King novel?

I'm going to recommend Peter Straub's "Ghost Story," which is a personal favorite. I re-read it recently, and it still holds up.

I was a big Stephen King fan from the late 1970's until the mid 80's. The only one I feel fondness for at this point (this might change if I went back and read any of them, who knows - I was SHOCKED at how incredibly bad Under the Dome was when I read it on a lark a few years ago), is The Talisman. Which he wrote with Peter Straub.

Misery was my favorite.

A book of short stories. Dont recall the name. Had "Quitters Incorporated" in it.

I also liked "The Stand".

When interviewed about "It," Stephen King once said, "I should have called it Shit."

The Stand- the uncut version, hands down. But I love so much of his stuff that I couldn't pick a runner up, it would be a list. The Talisman (written with the above mentioned Peter Straub), lots of his short stories, Insomnia, Christine, It.

Actually, I could more quickly list the ones that I don't like.

Really r4? I thought IT was fantastic, the wistful child characters and returning to your hometown and seeing old friends was so sad and sweet. The monster was totally secondary. Same thing with "Christine", it was the friendship of Dennis and Arnie that made it so great, the car part was kind of dumb.

R4 is a liar.

The Shining. But I love just about everything he's ever done. Except the prevent the JFK assassination one. It was pretty horrible. The beginning was great when he just talked about the time travel. He should have found a way to go with that a little more. I don't know what he could have done but a great start devolved into a piece of shit.

The first King novel I read was The Shining and I finished in one sitting. The Stand was amazing.

I couldn't get through IT at all. His short story collections have some real gems.

The first two chapter of 11.22.63 were a masterpiece in writing. Quite beautiful writing actually. Then it quickly became garbage.

r10 Yes, that's his m.o, he starts strong and beautifully and then devolves into nonsensical shit. I remember thinking that if "Desperation" had just been a story about a rogue, killer cop it would have been awesome...then it went to shit.

In 11.22.63 he spends about five pages comparing the food of the late 1950s to modern day food. It was like fucking poetry. He almost brought tears to your eyes. Then suddenly there were earthquakes in Maine...blah...

The movie based on his novella, The Good Wife, was fucking brilliant.

ugh, I blocked out my love for The Green Mile.

It traumatized me.

The Talisman

I think I read all his stuff from the 70s and 80s up to when "IT" was published.

I tried to get into it, but I just couldn't. About 1/4 way in, with 1000's of pages left to go (apparently, the publisher was paying by the pound)... I started speed skimming. 5 second glance and off to the next page. Would go 30 to 60 pages like this. Read maybe 5 or 10 pages complete and rinse and repeat. Once I FINALLY finished it, I wondered what I missed by aggressively speed skimming most of it... and realized I didn't miss a thing.

I broke up with Stephen after that. I never read another thing of his since.

"The Shining" is his best work. The Kubrick film didn't come close to what King depicted in that book.

I remember when I found out that King has a team of ghost writers at this point writing with him it made me very sad.

The movies from King books are a mixed lot. Some are great (Misery, The Green Mile, Stand By Me), some good (Dolores Claiborne, Cujo), some are awful (Maximum Overdrive, The Shining). The Shining is the second most ponderous ordeal I've ever sat through. The first is the interminable A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

r18, I have read everything King has ever written and I absolutely do not believe he has ghost writers. I think every author has that rumor eventually just like every male actor has gay rumors and female actors have fuck for parts rumors.

Dolores Claiborne is more than good. It is just about my favorite movie. THAT is the move Bates should have gotten the Oscar for.

The Stand

I hope you're right r20. A friend of mine who is in the literary world told me that but he also may be a jealous cunt since his novel has never been published.

He hasn't been right in the head since he got hit by that car. He does have the best celebrity house ever. Plus it's in Maine. Always a plus. I'm from Maine and King writes like only a Mainer could write.. Some people are unable to deal with fame and fortune. No matter how hard he tried to separate his writing from the fame and money he just wasn't able to.

r23, read his 'on writing' post haste. He treats writing like a job. he writes something like 6000 words a day, 6 days a week, all year. Plus, his tone is unmatchable- he still has the magic whatever that made him popular and profitable and beloved to begin with. If her uses a ghost writer I will eat my hard copy copy of The Stand.

Boys from Brazil- Ira Levin. He also wrote Rosemary's Baby and the Stepford Wives. Excellent writer.

I liked Pet Cemetery.

I read Ghost Story a million years ago but I remember I really liked it.

and "sliver" r26. If King does have ghost writers I wouldn't even care, they clearly know how to write like him and are still entertaining. I mean VC Andrews has been dead for 20 fucking years and still has a new book every other week.

I love Dolores Claiborne. I read it once a year. It is quite bloated but it has some of the most terrifying and well written passages that King ever wrote.

The Stand

Yeah Dolores Claiborne was great. I loved how haunted Vera was about killing her kid.

Also the Stand. I read it in college, when it was just absorbing fiction.

I did not then know it would become an instruction manual.

1) On Writing

2) The Shining

3) Salem's Lot

Another vote for "The Stand." I probably stopped reading King 10 years ago or so, but this book was his most ambitious effort.

I prefer Dean Koontz.

r35 = Dean Koontz

The Stand

One I need to re-read now is The Dead Zone. I liked it okay when I read it as a teen but was a bit bored with the evil politician/assassination plot final third. I suddenly find myself interested in revisiting that part for some reason...

r3 the book of short stories was 'Night Shift'

Christine. I actually believe my car has a mind of it's own!

'Different Seasons' a book of his short stories. I loved Apt Pupil, so much better than the movie. Also it has the stories from the movies Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption

r36 Totally! No one likes Dean Koontz better though "The Door to December" was pretty good. Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware books are great too, they are fast reads but always good and one of the main characters is openly gay, Milo the homicide detective. OP, read some of his, "When the Bough Breaks" is a good start.

The Stand and The Talisman are my all time favourites.

Salem's Lot.

The weirdest was 'Gerald's Game'.

Hearts in Atlantis

r42, I've read a few Koontz books that were okay but for the most part I'm always disappointed in his books. He'll start off with a cool idea and then it will veer off into a ridiculous direction - though I'm sure some will accuse King of the same thing. I'm curious how he portrays a gay lead character since Koontz is openly rightwing conservative. (Though King's gay characters haven't exactly been realistic.)

#1 - The Stand

#2 - The Shining

#3 - Salem's Lot

Are my personal faves by rank. The Talisman and Needful Things are also high on my list. King is truly the king of horror fiction. He's a masterful storyteller. The movie versions of King's novels are usually disappointing.

Night Shift is a book of SK's short stories (including Quitters Incorporated that someone else referred to) and one of my favorites. It includes a short story called One for the Road that presumably pre-dates Salem's Lot. I think horror tends to work better as a short story rather than trying to drag it out to an entire book.

I remember reading SK talking about how in the early days he used to be an alcoholic/drug abuser - I wonder if getting sober ruined his writing (that, and publishing books that apparently had no editor). I recently read Mr. Mercedes, which was not bad, but it's hard to believe it was even written by the same guy.

BTW, I used to work with someone who lived in SK's hometown and said that all the kids love to go to house for trick or treat and he's a very nice guy - for whatever that's worth

R13, it's called A Good Marriage. Rotten Tomatoes does not agree with your review! There are plenty of movies out there that I like and get bad reviews, so I'm going to check it out regardless of it's poor showing on RT as I am a SK fan.

One book of his I've read many times is Bag of Bones. Like most of his books, it needs serious editing and wanders off in ridiculous tangents at times, SK can write about nostalgia, melancholy, relationships, and one's inner world like none other.

R19, among the terrible adaptations I would count "The Dreamcatcher", absolutely one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I wanted to read the book, but lost all interest after watching that movie. I' m sure that the two things are really different, but I think I I would just preferred for it to be a coming of age story/friendship novel without supernatural/sci-fi elements, kind of llike "Stand By Me".

R41, me too. It' s the first book I have read by King, and I found everything else after it incredibly disappoint in comparison. I have read quite a bit of his work, but "Different Seasons" is really the one I enjoy the most. And I agree that "Apt Pupil" was so much better than the movie: it wasn' t a bad movie, but it had absolutely none of the creepiness and the tension the written version had.

You admit to reading Stephen King? I suppose you've read all of John Grisham's novels as well.

Try Edgar Allen Poe, Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft. I love Kafka -- you will too.

Salem's Lot was my favorite vampire book. ButI recently read Fever Dream by George R.R. Martin, and it blows Salem's Lot out of the water. Way better than Anne Rice, too. I heard Justin Cronin's The Passage series is pretty much the best out there in the genre at the moment.

The Elementals is quite good. It was written by the guy who wrote the screenplay for Beetlejuice. Sadly, he passed away due to AIDS.

"...among the terrible adaptations I would count "The Dreamcatcher", absolutely one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I wanted to read the book, but lost all interest after watching that movie."

The book was shite, too.

The Shining is his masterpiece. Needful Things and Thinner also excellent.

My favorite books of his were The Shining, It, and Pet Sematary. I also liked Carrie and Firestarter quite a bit, but I read them so long ago I'm not sure how well they hold up. Of his later output, I enjoyed Joyland which takes place in an amusement park, but thought Dr. Sleep (the sequel to The Shining) was a bit silly.

I'm curious about how the new movie version of It coming out later this year will turn out. The trailer looks promising.

I had forgotten how many of SK books I have read! Another vote for The Stand and The Talisman.

What is a book ?

Like the poster up-thread I've not read anything since It, which I liked. Up till then I'd read them all and the favorites were The Shining, The Stand and Salem's Lot though I enjoyed all his books. Actually I lie - I recently read the short story about the haunted hotel room (forget the title but it is the number of the room) and that was excellent. Very scary. With Anne Rice, I enjoyed Interview with the Vampire and The Witching Hour but was never able to get into anything else. And despite the slow parts and the Victorian style, the best bits of Dracula (mainly all the early parts at the castle) have never been bettered IMO. Dracula giving his vampire brides a baby to feed on is shocking today, let alone 150 or whatever years ago.

The Shining still the best, Cujo, Gerald's Game- Could barely get halfway through It-

R52 is so above it all

Gerald's Game was SO. GOOD.

Pet Cemetary is up there also.

I agree that Salem's Lot is some of his best writing.

His short stories are pretty amazing, too.

I've read quite a few but I think I liked Christine and Insomnia the best .

The movie of Pet Semetary freaks me out to this day. Zelda is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen .

Skeleton Crew. Excellent anthology of his short stories.

Sorry for the misspelling of Sematary above at R63!!!! It's been a looong time since I've read it.

The Stand, unabridged.

Yes! Thinner and Insomia!

I quite liked Dolores Claiborne also.

Forgot to mention that I too believe Peter Straub is superior to King.

I also like his short stories and forgot to mention the long short story Apt Pupil. It's another of his best IMO. It probably doesn't bother him but it annoys me when he is snootily dismissed. I can see why his books would not appeal to everyone but that doesn't mean he is not a very good, sometimes excellent writer.

He's not an excellent writer, he is however one of the best storytellers ever. That's his appeal.

I think my favorite would be Hearts in Atlantis.

My second favorite would be The Tommyknockers

I would have a number of third place favorites: The Dead Zone, Cujo, Roadwork, The Running Man, Christine, Danse Macabre, Pet Semetary, The Mist, Eyes of the Dragon, Needful Things and the Full Dark, No Stars collection.

Two books bored me and I lost interest before I got halfway through: insomnia and Cell. Maybe I'll give them another shot some day.

There were quite a number that I thought stunk: Firestarter, Thinner, Dreamcatcher, The Talisman, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Joyland, The Colorado Kid, Lisey's Story, Blaze and From a Buick 8.

And there were a couple that chugged along just fine but then eventually went off the rails: Under the Dome and Duma Key.

My second favorite is The Dark Half.

Oh God I forgot Firestarter. That was also a very good movie.

I stopped reading King years ago but recently took it up again. These days I prefer writing that is simple and straightforward. I can't name my favourite because I forget most of them, I remember that Salem's Lot scared me. I am one of the few who never found The Shining scary (book or movie). I loved both though.

Pet Semetary still scares me. What a powerful and dark book.

Carrie is, of course, a true classic, but in many ways, I think the '76 De Palma film improved upon it. It's strange that the other two adaptations have very little of the power of the De Palma film.

I loved IT and Needful Things. They were both scary.

I think the last book of his I read was Thinner, and that was pretty bad.

I read Pet Cemetery as a young lad and I was so terrified I swore I would never read another S. King novel again, and I haven't. Not a favorite, but too scary.

Oh shit, I totally forgot about the "Bachman Books". "The Long Walk" and "Rage" were fucking great! "Rage" was the first and only story of a school shooting and it seems prophetic now. People liked "The Running Man" a lot too. I thought it was just okay.

I laugh at the people who think you can't enjoy authors like King and Grisham(who I also LOVE) and the classics. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.

Barely a mention of Dead Zone which I loved. Also The Stand, Salem's Lot (I read the last section in a bath tub in a locked bathroom while my brother kept asking me to "invite" him in) Delores Claiborne and the Green Mile.

Pet Sematary scared me and I read it as an adult. Hearts in Atlantis... worst movie adaptation. Movie wasn't bad if I would not have known what it was based on.

You always love your first .......

'Carrie' ..........it was a perfect read for a young gayling who was picked on at school. I wanted those powers SO BAD.

Also recently re-read 'Salem's Lot' and I thought it held up really well. I wish King had done a sequel to that one instead of using Danny Torrance in semi-sequels to 'The Shining'

R81 ........... loved Dead Zone too. Especially the part where Johnny was a live in tutor to the rich jock. His psychic abilities saved the kid from a tragic fire.

God I love this thread. I love The Stand. It did just what it was supposed to do for an 8th grader. It terrified the shit out of me but I couldn't put it down. Even after bedtime. I was sneaking the light on to read it. I think I finished it in three days. I was satisfied with the mini-series. I'm dying to read it again but I don't think I want to risk ruining my childhood memories if I don't like it as an adult.

r85 are you me? I was actually in 5th or 6th grade but I had the same kimd of reaction. I have read it multiple times since then as an adult (especially the unabridged version) and found i appreciated it more as I understood it more.

I mostly read King in my teens. His novels usually have this nasty vibe which I've never been too fond of. Still, I remember really liking Firestarter, 'Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary and The Shining. I admit I'm instantly thinking of the movies and tv shows based on those as well. King is certainly a capable writer but I can't say I truly enjoy his books. I noticed it recently when I listened to 'Salem's Lot and The Shining as audiobooks years after I read them in a physical book form.

My favorite horror-ish novel is from Dean Koontz, called Watchers. Probably because we had a golden retriever when growing up me and my brother and sister all love the novel.

Plot summary from Wikipedia:

"Travis Cornell, a former Delta Force operative, feels that his life has become pointless, and is exploring a canyon near his home [to blow his brains out] when he encounters two genetically engineered creatures that have escaped from a top-secret government lab. One, a golden retriever with enhanced intelligence, befriends Travis; the other, a creature known as the Outsider, appears to be trying to kill the dog. After eluding the Outsider, Travis takes the dog home. On discovering the dog's exceptional intelligence, he names him Einstein.

"Later, he and Einstein find and rescue Nora Devon in a park, who was being pestered by a sexually offensive man, Arthur Streck. Together they form a trio.

"Travis, Nora, and Einstein are soon on the run not only from the Outsider, but from federal agents, determined to track down the lab escapees, and Vince Nasco, a ruthless professional assassin, hired by Soviets to kill several human targets to cover the conspiracy of the two genetically engineered creatures. He wants the dog to trade for a great sum of cash, alone, without any knowledge from the Soviets or others."

Koontz and Patterson - don't they definitely have teams of writers?

Ahhhh… the (seemingly) semi-annual Stephen King thread. I’ve always found him to be hit and miss.

[quote] To me King seems to get the job done efficiently where Anne Rice can go on and on an on.

I disagree. King can be verbose in a manner which is off-putting. He’s been referred to as "the king of characterization”, and at times it’s simply too much. I prefer it when he gets in and gets out. There are times when he’s been able to be more succinct than usual with no damage to character development.

My absolute favorites are books he wrote as Richard Bachman: THE RUNNING MAN and THE REGULATORS. Tight narratives, suspenseful, and he didn’t skimp on character-building. Others I liked: GERALD’S GAME, PET CEMETERY, THE DARK HALF, THE DEAD ZONE, DESPERATION, MISERY, CARRIE (although, I agree with another poster that the De Palma film improved upon it). I always thought THE STAND was overrated. I haven't read any of his collections or short stories. I gave up on him after reading CELL, which was absolute crap.

Years later, my BIL gave me THE LONG WALK as a gift, which I’m still struggling to finish after starting it more than a year ago.

r89 oh "The Long Walk" is great! And did you read "Rage"? I loved that one.

[quote]Two books bored me and I lost interest before I got halfway through: insomnia and Cell. Maybe I'll give them another shot some day.

I'd say skip Cell. It's not terrible but felt like The Stand redux to me. And even though one of the main protagonists is gay, he was very cliche-ridden. Kudos to King for trying but he needs to meet some actual gay people and not rely on stereotypes from TV and movies.

I grew up with the King novels and was along for the ride up until Gerald's Game (I think) ............... at whatever point he stopped being so 'horror' and went more mainstream.

Cell is the book that actually brought me back. But it didn't stick. I stopped reading him again after that.

Danse Macabre was also an excellent (non fiction) book.

R87, I thought 'Watchers' was fantastic too, one of my favorite books. I really liked Koontz until I read 'The Taking'. That was a real "What the fuck did I just read?" for me. It turns out he's a Libertarian, and that shines through in some of his work and really dims his appeal for me nowadays.

Also avoid the bastardized Watchers movie, and check out Watchers II instead. It still isn't great but hews closer to the book.

This is my thread, not Dean Koontz's ..........fuckers

The Shining the book is so much better than The Shining the movie.

I read pretty much all of King's stuff as a teenager (up to Misery). My favorites were probably Pet Sematary (much better than the movie) and The Stand. I loved It until the ending - it's way too long and the last couple hundred pages get so self-indulgent that I had to start skimming. The films of both Carrie and The Shining are classics and improved on the books.

The film of Carrie was great and did improve on the book. The film of The Shining was interminable shit.

Not a King novel, but short story "The Gingerbread Girl." First appeared in Esquire, then a collection. It was a tense, tight thriller and perfect in short story form, but I wish he had expanded it to book length.

[quote]This is my thread, not Dean Koontz's ..........fuckers

OP asked what other horror writers and novels to check out, Stevie.

R93, Watchers is the only Koontz novel I've liked, although to be fair I haven't read much from him. I've started something a couple of times but gave up quickly after I realized it was that special combo of characters in Watchers that made me it. His style is not something I really care about, although obviously I'm not an expert. I'm not a horror fan by nature and really King was usually more than enough for me from that genre.

I've entertained an idea of having a great Watchers movie and had no idea there was a movie made, and a quick trip to IMDb tells it's a bloody Corey Haim movie. He was apparently around16 when they filmed the movie so they obviously changed the novel quite a bit. In the novel Travis is a retired special forces soldier so not a teen boy at all.

Before there was Stephen King, there was Thomas Tryon's The Other and Harvest Home.

Still trying to picture Tom "The Cardinal" Tryon and Casey "Boys In The Sand" Donovan together. ":

R99, like I said, avoid the first movie like the plague. The second one is much better, or at least truer to the book.

And surprise ... there's a Watchers 3 from 1994. I had no idea. Signs are not positive:

[quote] What started out as a good Dean Koontz novel has turned into one of the most horribly embarrassing horror movie franchises, ever.

Of King, I've only read the first three Dark Tower books and enjoyed them. Gave up about a third of the way through Wizard and Glass.

R103, ouch. I have a feeling I might skip Watchers 2 as well. Sometimes it's better not to let a shitty movie destroy the beauty of the book. That's why I've refused to watch the movie adaption of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising fantasy novel.

Yeah, I went back and looked at a couple clips of Watchers 2, and it was a lot worse than I remember. Still better than the first one.

There is a movie coming out this years based on the Dark Tower starring Matthew McConaughey as someone and Idris Elba as The Gunslinger.

I haven't read the Dark Tower yet, is it good?

OP, besides all those books by King, you should check out "Ghost Story" by Peter Straub, as someone else mentioned upthread. It's a pretty great modern horror classic. Quite different from the movie, which was just ok in spite of all the talent in front (Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and a young Alice Krige) and behind the camera (cinematography by the great Jack Cardiff and cool practical effects by the legendary Dick Smith).

Wise decision, r105. I tried to watch the godawful Dark is Rising twice and couldn't finish it either time. I adored the books.

I love watching Stephen King interviews on YouTube. He's quite droll.

Salem's Lot, The Shining, IT

I don't like scary horror so I prefer his books like The Green Mile and The Stand. I am now reading Hearts in Atlantis and I like it. I started reading his books when I was a teen and then stopped for awhile but have been doing a lot more reading during quarantine.

I have been on an SK kick lately. Just finished Revival, that ending is sticking with me. Going to read IT next, I have seen the movies (old tv movies and recent theatrical releases) but never read the book.

My favorite is The Stand, my first SK book and still my favorite. Recently read the unedited version and enjoyed the extra details.

The Shining

'salem's Lot

Pet Sematary

The DePalma Carrie is so much better than the book. the Shining film is a brilliant Kubrick film but a lousy adaptation whereas the TV miniseries is very close to the book but not a great film.

Loved Under the Dome but the stupid ending almost ruined it.

"Salem's Lot" here, too. I still have my very worn, paperback originally purchased version. Every so often say at Halloween time, I revisit it. And it still scares the crap out of me. ;o

Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand, Christine (the book was SO much better than the movie) and most of all, IT. It would be great even without the horror elements because the kids are all so likeable and their friendship is heartwarming.

The Stand was my favorite- the beginning of the book, where the main character is trying to leave epidemic stricken NYC, was impossible to put down. The story started to come apart towards the end with the supernatural elements. But he wrote a really interesting story about what life would be like after millions died from a flu.

God, I hated The Stand so much. Stupid and predictable and a horrible ending,

My favorite is 11/22/63 followed closely by The Talisman. Every time I read a King book, I cannot believe how bad his endings are save these two.

The Eyes of the Dragon. I like it because it's atypical and it has a nice foreboding element to it. Another favourite is Needful Things. Misery was very compelling, a true character study. I didn't like The GIrl much., but it fit into the world created by the Dark Tower novels (which I still haven't read all). I liked the Tommyknockers too.

I am reading Needful Things and this villian is one of the best. I laughed when the fat lady was having an orgasm over an Elvis picture while he sat there unemotionally fixing the crease in his pants.

The Shining

I just picked up 11.22.63 and am thoroughly enjoying it.

My favorite is The Shining, closely followed by It.

The Shining for me as well.

Honestly, I may be the OP of this thread. I don’t remember writing that but those are books I have.