All Stephen King Books

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Wuyley_sl

shitlord
1,443
13
Single handedly the best writer out there today that has no fucking clue how to end his books lately. I am looking at you Dark Tower 7 and Under the Dome. With that said The Stand, The Talsman (yes with PS),Cell, and The Dead Zone are among my favorite books of all time with The Stand(Complete and Uncut) as my favorite book ever.

I have read every one of his books and I usually enjoy them all with the exception of Gerald's Game and I couldn't even finish Lisey's Story(blows brains out).

Thoughts?
 
2,122
3
He never has written a really strong ending and he'll flat out admit that. Of his recent efforts I enjoyed Duma Key immensely and the short stories in After Sunset were A+ material.
 

Faiona_sl

shitlord
113
1
11/22/63 is one of his recent ones and I thought it was a great book overall, thought the ending was pretty solid. I have to agree though that Under the Dome ending was pretty awful, really liked the rest of the book...but the ending was just so thoughtless?
 
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From what King has said he never wants to end his stories because that isn't the way they work out in his head. But in order to actually have a publishable book from a conclusion perspective and a pure length perspective he has to figure something out. Usually with poor results because the endings are usually just put together in order to ship the story off to his editors. So you get someone who is a great character builder and really can evoke imagery with his writing but has little passion for closing everything out.

It is kind of odd though, his short stories usually have pretty strong endings so I don't know why he can't translate it to his novel length works for the most part.
 

Wuyley_sl

shitlord
1,443
13
I find is weird how he just comes up with a very simple idea like "An book writer gets hurt and is taken care of a crazed fan of his" and then just sits down and starts to write the book. No planning it out, no research, he just goes from a simple one or two sentence "idea" and starts knocking it out on his typewriter. I could never write a book like that I think.
 

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
26,802
70,694
I think that Salem's Lot ends pretty strong. It loops back to the beginning of the story and the two survivors go back and burn everything to the motherfucking ground.

I picked up Full Dark No Stars and thought it was some of the worst shit of his I had ever spent money on. It's sitting on my shelf right now mocking me with its terribleness. I normally like his novellas but I got 1.5 stories in before I shelved it.
 

Pops

Avatar of War Slayer
8,136
21,317
He seems like he has revitalized his creative juices, I have enjoyed his last few books.

Dean Koontz has become unreadable to me.
 

Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
I love Koontz but the guy is such a publishing machine I have no idea which books of his I've read and which I haven't. That, and every one of them (at least of the two dozen or so that I've read) follow the exact same recipe. Separate plots, converge at the end, protagonist saves the day. The exception being the Odd Thomas novels, which were pretty damn great.

As far as King, I've read all of his other than 11/12/68 and Duma Key. I got about halfway through DK on a flight and it was just so damn depressing I couldn't finish it. Love the rest of his stuff though - I even liked the end of Dark Tower (the ending before "his" ending). Agree about Under the Dome though - if you scrap the last 10 pages of it with the stupid ass way that he revealed the nature of the dome, the rest was awesome.
 

OU Ariakas

Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
<Silver Donator>
6,874
18,848
Single handedly the best writer out there today that has no fucking clue how to end his books lately. I am looking at you Dark Tower 7 and Under the Dome. With that said The Stand, The Talsman (yes with PS),Cell, and The Dead Zone are among my favorite books of all time with The Stand(Complete and Uncut) as my favorite book ever.

I have read every one of his books and I usually enjoy them all with the exception of Gerald's Game and I couldn't even finish Lisey's Story(blows brains out).

Thoughts?
Dammit! I have about 8 books left before I've read everything he's ever written and those two are part of what I haven't read.

Vim, I agree with you about Duma Key; I picked it up because it was on the list and it ended up being one of my top 10 favorite King books.

On Koontz: I cannot even remember the name of the first Koontz book I read; but it was thoroughly disappointing and the afterwards by him started out "I wanted to mix horror, sci-fi, and comedy together and this was the result!" The only other one I read was "Door to December" and when the big reveal in the book was that the little girl was causing everything I decided that he was a fucking hack. Fuck Dean Koontz.
 

Fazana_sl

shitlord
1,071
0
I re-read his The Long Walk and Running Man short stories under the Richard Bachman name recently, he was definitely the fucking man back then.

The Mist is also another classic but he was big enough to say he thought the end of the movie version was better than his own. Personally I like both of them in their own ways.

The book about the haunted car (no, not Christine!) From A Buick 8 was pretty terrible but I went from that to Duma Key and it was night and day. Although it was indeed as depressing as fuck it had the best ending he had written in years. I thought The Cell had a shitty ending to go along with Under The Dome, which I hear is being made into a miniseries?

Apparently he said recently that he doesn't even remember writing some of his earlier books because he was so heavily into drink and drugs at the time.

Final thought - if I had to absolutely say his best work, the uncut version of The Stand narrowly squeaks ahead of The Long Walk.
 

chaos

Buzzfeed Editor
17,324
4,839
11/22/63 is one of his recent ones and I thought it was a great book overall, thought the ending was pretty solid.
See I thought the book fell apart at the ending. It felt like he avoided going into the whole alternative history thing and instead went with whatever that crazy shit was. I saw someone say that there was a tie in to the Dark Tower series with that ending, which might explain my confusion, never read that.

Needful Things is still my favorite King book, so awesome. I started reading The Gunslinger but didn't get far before I got involved in something and forgot about it.
 
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Pops

Avatar of War Slayer
8,136
21,317
The hook of JFK living was to get us to buy the book. Under the Dome had a far worse ending, but the journey was fun.
 

Chukzombi

Millie's Staff Member
71,527
212,733
oh my god i cant pass up this thread. ive been a fan of SK's books for 30 years. yeah little 11 yr old chuk was reading SK books and loving them. the popular thought on his stories are they turned to crap when he stopped being an alcoholic/drug addict. which makes a lot of sense. because he was doing some crazy shit while he was on the stuff. his endings were "better" too. chaos there is a minor tie in with the dark tower and 11/22/63. the alternate future has reference to a takuro spirit automobile which is also in the dark tower book wizard and glass. its also supposed to be a tie in with the superflu world of The Stand. 11/22/63 ends so fucking shitty, i wish i had just shut the book before he walked in the door back to 2012. if anyone has questions about stephen king, im your Kang
 

Lemmiwinks_sl

shitlord
533
6
Ive read:

The Shining
Pet Sematary
The Long Walk

I have IT and the uncut version of The Stand, Misery, and Desperation on my bookshelf, not sure which to go to first.
 

Zaara

I'm With HER ♀
1,601
7,481
Ive read:

The Shining
Pet Sematary
The Long Walk

I have IT and the uncut version of The Stand, Misery, and Desperation on my bookshelf, not sure which to go to first.
Desperation is a really...'unpleasant' read. So is the Stand.

His short stories don't get much credit, but I think the shorter format serves his writing style pretty well.
 

chaos

Buzzfeed Editor
17,324
4,839
I would read The Stand out of those, easier to get through. But read It next. Excellent book. I've never read Desperation.
 

Pilforgod

Silver Knight of the Realm
211
33
The only book of his I've read was The Stand and I loved it. Well that's not true, I read Dark Tower I too, but that's it I swear. My wife on the other hand has read everything I think and shares a lot of the same viewpoints in this thread.
 

Faiona_sl

shitlord
113
1
See I thought the book fell apart at the ending. It felt like he avoided going into the whole alternative history thing and instead went with whatever that crazy shit was. I saw someone say that there was a tie in to the Dark Tower series with that ending, which might explain my confusion, never read that.

Needful Things is still my favorite King book, so awesome. I started reading The Gunslinger but didn't get far before I got involved in something and forgot about it.
The stuff where the world starts falling apart and shit was weird, I just thought it was very sweet how he goes back to see Sadie when she's an old lady. Idk I just thought it was romantic/touching whatever, and wasn't a totally depressing ending...how some of his books tend to be lol.