First, I want to ask who of you likes Stephen King? Why or why not? Secondly, Who of you have read his fantasy (and a bunch of other genres) book series The Dark Tower? I'm a huge Stephen King fan, if for just the fact that he's what really got me excited about writing, and am currently in a Stephen King/Dark Tower book club with some friends. I just wanted to hear all of your opinions!
Been a while since I read Stephen King, but he is my favorite all time. I started when I was 13 with Salem's Lot and he drew me in from there. As I got older, I moved on to Koontz, Lumley and McCammon, but he remains the top of my list. My two favorite are Salem's Lot and The Talisman.
I have read most of his early works. I sort of stopped insisting I read everything his ever written these past few years, but there's still some I like. It & The Stand are my absolute favorites. The Dark Tower series I also enjoyed immensely.
I read The Stand and Tommyknockers. He's really long-winded for my personal taste, though I am a fan of how he delves into characterization. I have not read his Dark Tower series.
I'm reading 11/22/63 right now. Honestly, I think he gets a bad rep. He has many famous stories, many of which have been adapted into film. If you read his book On Writing, it's clear he is an intelligent individual who is skilled in writing. I can tell he's skilled in writing from 11/22/63, which is a good book. I think he's a skilled writer, and a talented storyteller. He's not Nabokov, not Orwell, not Wilde, not Hemingway, not even close to any of those guys. He's also not trying to be, and doesn't really deserve to be held to those same standards. I also think King (and maybe this is obvious) is always going for commercial, which may mean he deliberately dumbs down his writing. If there are any counter examples to this, I'd love to take a look.
Shakespeare also 'dumbed down' his writing for commercial purposes. I think the difference between the good, the great, and the amazing is; The good can get a lot of people to like a thing. The great can create a work of art with letters. The amazing can do both.
I really enjoyed them. I think 1-4 are the best and 5 just has a cool plot but the later half of the series kinda drags on and the a lot of people really hate the ending. I think Wizard and Glass is the best book followed by Drawing of the Three. I haven't ready every single Stephen King book....far from it but 11/22/63 has been my favorite so far out of them all. I've read the Dark Tower series, The Shining, The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon, Dolores Claiborne, Gerald's Game, Rose Madder, Talisman and IT (which I couldn't finish) Some I really really loved and some I didn't one bit but yeah out of them all I think 11/22/63 was my favorite. But I'm going to be diving into The Stand this summer so that ranking might change.
Love Stephen King. I think he's great. He tells the story for the story's sake. To some, that segregates him from greatness. I disagree. He is a very moving writer.
I also enjoy Stephen King. 11/22/63, Under the Dome, Green Mile... Some of my favorite books. The Dark Tower? That one I didn't like. While I loved the characters, the story was boring and, quite frankly, kind of weird. I couldn't visualize half of the story nor could I get into it. Didn't much like The Stand either though, for the same reasons.
Big Jim Renney scared the hell out of me when I read Under the Dome. He is probably, for me, King's scariest character. That man ran the f-ing show!
I am not a fan of King, I find him tedious and wordy. I would like to at some point take a peek at his first two or three works, to see if it was the contract that killed his writing career, or if he really is that wordy and tedious.
While I liked Under the Dome, I thought Big Jim was silly. His character seemed way overblown and unrealistic. Wizard and Glass was probably my favorite in the dark Tower series.
Oh, hell no. Junior Rennie terrified me way more than his dad did. The group he was able to assemble? *shivers* It's hard for me to read that book a second time because of the atrocities I know he's going to commit later.
Carrie, Salem's Lot, and I think The Shinning were his first works. Carrie was a faced paced ok story for a first novel. Salem's lot was very face paced, in my opinion his best. The Shinning is where he starts to get a little long, but its a great story. Salem's Lot, The Stand, and the Talisman are great early reads from King. His other work is good, but these three always stood out for me.
@Cave Troll if you read The Stand, you will see a book that is huge. But it has a nice pace to it. Great Story but an average ending. This one was so good that he didn't know how to end it. Except for the last 50 pages, it is the best he has ever put out. He just didn't know how to end it. You might like it though, it just was "meh" to me.
This is actually my favorite of all time. I read it in 1990 while in the gulf for 13 months. Really wish they would make this one a movie. McCammon also has a vampire one called They Thirst that is pretty good also. Swan Song to me was the best apocalypse book I have ever read. Bringing this up just makes me want to read it again.
I read and enjoyed the Dark Tower series. A couple of the books were a slog, but the fantastic characters and ending made up for it. I was introduced to king at 11, with Dreamcatcher. He and Michael Crichton kept me occupied in some pretty isolated times. Yes, King does ramble quite a bit at the beginning of his books, but it seems like necessary meat to me. Characters are his specialty, endings his weakness. I recommend: The Dark Half Duma Key (his only book as scary as The Shining) The Shining Salem's Lot Christine (a classic) The Talisman The Stand Any one of his short story collections, though Bazaar of Bad Dreams doesn't have quite the same bite as the others. I haven't met a person that read The Tommyknockers and liked it. I tolerated it because it still had a ghost of his charm, but something was really just wrong with that one; it was likely published on fame alone.
I've met people who liked it, surprisingly enough. I think the book was written either right before or right after King cleaned up his act with all the drugs and alcohol.
Oh you're right: From James Smythe, The Guardian, "Rereading Stephen King, chapter 25: The Tommyknockers" The context gives me more respect for the book.
