All Stephen King Books

Under the Dome was complete shit. I powered through that book which I have never had to do with a King book before. I thought Duma Key was pretty decent as far as recent stuff goes. But my favorite book of all time is and always will be The Stand

I'll add another +1 to the list of people assessing The Stand as Stephen King's best work. If I had to develop a top five list of his novels, I would say:

1. The Stand (What more needs to be said?)
2. Bag of Bones (A ghost story, but not strictly a horror novel. Includes one of the most affecting character deaths in any of his novels)
3. Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower series peaked at this point and, unfortunately, took a rapid dive in the following book)
4. The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman. One of his view novels I've finished in one sitting)
5. Dreamcatcher (The friendship between Jonesy, Beaver, Pete, and Henry is well-realized, and the scenes with Mr. Grey in Jonesy's head especially stand out. Also, shit weasels)

a bag of bones took me 5 years to finish. i bought it the day it came out i got halfway through it . was disgusted with how bad it was and put it into my SK bookcase and forgot about it. 5 years later i was bored looking for something to read, i pulled BoB back out and tried again. was able to finish it this time, but only just. its really bad and dripping with pc mangina juice. there are better SK ghost stories out there

The Stand and It are clearly his two best novels. Shawshank is the best piece of writing he's ever done, but it doesn't have the depth some of his other stuff has. Drawing of the three and Wizard were both awesome.

Also, I think Eye of the Dragon is one of the best fantasy novels ever written. The fact he has never really revisited it except tangentially is pretty fucking irritating.

The Shining is the only thing of King's I've never read. I saw the movie first and just never really felt the urge to read it.

Needful Things is still my favorite, although I had never read It until recently. And I've never read the dark tower stuff, I started The Gunslinger and got distracted and never finished it.

Thinking about picking up The Stand, is this considered one of his better works? I heard he released extra material later on so the newer versions should have all of that?

Sure, it's in the "better" category. It's very good most of the time and that's about all you can ask for with a brick of that size. I've read both the abridged and unabridged versions and I honestly can't remember a single fucking thing so I wouldn't worry too much about which you end up with.

Salshun_sl said:

His single greatest work is Insomnia.

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I dunno if I'd say greatest work, but I'm glad to see someone else appreciate this book. It was really good. And of course it's filled with references to his other books, most prominently It and The Dark Tower.

Insomnia is one of my favorites as well. It's just a hard recommendation to make unless someone has already read a whole bunch of King's other works.

It also makes me very, very sad how Insomnia gets discarded towards the end of the Dark Tower but the entire conclusion to that series pisses me off.

Arbitrary_sl said:

Insomnia is one of my favorites as well. It's just a hard recommendation to make unless someone has already read a whole bunch of King's other works.

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Why? It's a great book on it's own, you don't need to have read anything else to enjoy it. People get way too wrapped up in the connections. That shit is gravy not meat, the book is the meat. Read and enjoy. This shit is making many people's reviews of Sanderson' books pretty insufferable as well.

On the subject of Insomnia: I forget if it was James or Keg back on FoH who summed the book up great with something in the vein of "If you told me I'd love a book about some old fucker who can't sleep I'd call you crazy".

Insomnia isgratuitouswith its references. It's referential porn. And King goes on to later empty his ass over the entire thing at the end of the Dark Tower series.

I take it back. I would recommend it to someone who hasn't read anything else.

If you pick up The Stand, do the longer version. The paperback is like 1100 pages. And each was awesome. I only read that because it was a slight tie in to The Dark Tower series, but it was worth it.

I liked The Talisman & Black House which were co-written by Peter Straub. I also really liked Salem's Lot. He's a really masterful writer. Really gives a great setting and atmosphere. You wonder just how well he does it. His descriptions of things aren't anything special, but they're VERY effective. I couldn't describe my own dick as well as he does a piece of confetti that's fallen from a ceiling. It's damn impressive.

So no love for Kings 11/22/63 with small tie in to books like It.

Its a good and typical King book, nice read till you get to the ending which is kinda meh.

Last one I read was Doctor Sleep and it was alright until the villain shits herself in the final act and her entire super squad of vamps turns out to be The J.O.B. Squad and all go down in a single paragraph.

Every watch the movie Hearts in Atlantis?

They take the first story of the four (which is not Hearts in Atlantis, that's the second story) but call it Hearts it Atlantis anyway and then go about making it shit.

Nothing negative to say about the book though.

Got The Stand on audiobook (I have 24 free audiobooks to burn on audible). So far really enjoying it.