Stephen King

My Dad gave me a copy of Salem's Lot when it first came out back in the 70's. I was 12 and he'd read it and thought I might like it. It changed my reading habits overnight.

I've been a faithful King reader since then. I like some better than others: some I've reread a dozen times, others I've never reread.

I liked King better when he didn't have Protection from Editors.

It's been awhile since I've read anything by him, but I do like his earlier stuff. "The Body" is absolutely brilliant and should be assigned reading somewhere. "The Stand" is my favorite of his fiction. It scared the crap out of me. I read that around the same time the nuclear holocaust movie "The Day After" came out, and that was scary, but it was "The Stand" that really freaked me out.

Of course, "On Writing" should be on every writer's shelf.

Justin91 said:

Yes, I love his short collections...Night Shift, Different Seasons, Half past Midnight...the list goes on!

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I'm glad that you and so many others agree with me, but I've got to say I cringe every time I see my post quoted because of the horrible typo in it. "Novel's". Seriously?! How embarrassing.

I will admit that I can see why some people find him boring, at least in his longer works. As much as it pains me to admit it, I think Ellison was right. He could stand to prune it down some in many of his novels. I love them even so.

MGraybosch said:

I liked King better when he didn't have Protection from Editors.

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Then you should love him now. Stephen King is the only truly big name writer I've ever known who had an editor removed for not editing his work enough.

His wrote three novel in the nineties, realized the editor was not doing his job, and made the publisher give him an editor who would. That resulted in Bag of Bones, a novel that won a bunch of awards, and has been followed by some of what I think is his best writing ever.

I think many confuse long length with lack of editing. You can't say this without seeing the original manuscript, and, for that matter, without realizing that many, many novels are not cut because they need pruning, but because the publisher doesn't want to take a chance on losing any more money than absolutely necessary.

Very long length is more a matter of subjective taste, rather than objective quality. On a personal level, I love King's longer novels more than most of his short ones. Many must agree, else he wouldn't sell nearly as well as he does.

I've been a SK fan since I was a kid and read Salem's Lot. Lord, I was scared to death by that book. Then I went back and read Carrie and after that read every book as it came out.

My favorite: The Shining. Scariest book I've ever read and still my favorite. Most of the rest I've read, some I liked, some I loved, some I loathed. I haven't read any of The Dark Tower, Gunslinger stuff. Just didn't appeal to me. The last one I read was The Cell which was pretty good.

Others are right when they say he's hit and miss, but I'd give anything to be able to write like him on his bad days.

Jamesaritchie said:

Then you should love him now. Stephen King is the only truly big name writer I've ever known who had an editor removed for not editing his work enough.

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You made two mistakes with this post. First, you assumed that I thought that King's work was poorly edited simply because he has a penchant for writing long novels. Worse, you had the temerity to assume that you could tell me that I "should" love a particular author.

Telling me what I "should" do is my wife's privilege, you see.

My beef with King doesn't stem from the length of his works. I prefer his "complete and uncut" edition of The Stand to the version that was first published. I read long novels by other authors on a regular basis. And I have no business complaining about the length of other writers' work when the first draft of my own WIP weighs in at almost 300,000 words.

The reasons for my suspicion that Stephen King gets away with ignoring his editor(s) has nothing to do with the length of his works. It is my opinion that a competent and tenacious editor would have seen King insert himself as a character in the last few novels of his Dark Tower sequence and say, "Don't frigging do that!" Likewise, he would have taken one look at Cell and said that it was weapons-grade craps. If you're going to write a zombie apocalypse, come up with a better origin than a rogue signal from a cell phone.

MGraybosch said:

Likewise, he would have taken one look at Cell and said that it was weapons-grade craps. If you're going to write a zombie apocalypse, come up with a better origin than a rogue signal from a cell phone.

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It's been a while -- where there zombies in Cell? I thought it was insane people who had their brains scrambled by the signal.

And what editor anywhere would tell King to rewrite the book with a different plot? I mean, the cell phones were the core of the entire book, so you're asking an editor to not edit, but rather reject the novel outright.

"Herman, I kind of like Moby Dick, but can you remove all the whale stuff? Maybe use endangered pandas instead?"

RickN said:

It's been a while -- where there zombies in Cell? I thought it was insane people who had their brains scrambled by the signal.

And what editor anywhere would tell King to rewrite the book with a different plot? I mean, the cell phones were the core of the entire book, so you're asking an editor to not edit, but rather reject the novel outright.

"Herman, I kind of like Moby Dick, but can you remove all the whale stuff? Maybe use endangered pandas instead?"

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Yeah, they pretty much became zombies.

RickN said:

It's been a while -- where there zombies in Cell? I thought it was insane people who had their brains scrambled by the signal.

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For all intents and purposes, they turned into 28 Days Later-style zombies.

I remember reading King many years ago and being totally sucked in. Particularly, The Dead Zone, It, and The Body stood out as riveting tales. I can't remember the details or why they struck me as extraordinary.

Because of my past experiences, I picked up a used copy of Needful Things. I tried to read it but the suspense dragged on waaaaaay too much and I eventually gave up. I might try again, perhaps when other things like television and internet aren't available to distract me.

I absolutely LOVED On Writing.

Chumplet said:

I remember reading King many years ago and being totally sucked in. Particularly, The Dead Zone, It, and The Body stood out as riveting tales. I can't remember the details or why they struck me as extraordinary.

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Duma Key was better than I expected.

MGraybosch said:

For all intents and purposes, they turned into 28 Days Later-style zombies.

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Tiny quibble. I'd say that's what they started out being, after The Pulse. I don't think I'd call them "zombies" in the long run, however.

Cranky said:

Tiny quibble. I'd say that's what they started out being, after The Pulse. I don't think I'd call them "zombies" in the long run, however.

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It doesn't matter to me; I only finished the book because it had been a Christmas present.

The dark tower series is my favorite. I like The Cell, Lisey's Story and I'm currently reading Duma Key right now. By far the one that got me was The Cell and Lisey's Story.

Buick 8 was good too, it felt like a modernized version of Christine. His older books are really good, loved Misery and Salem's Lot.

Fire Starter was good too. His style isn't for everyone though. Not everyone is going to like every author. I don't like S. Meyers stuff or John Grisham (can't stand JG and his style of writing) but hey that's okay too.

I agree. He isn't for everyone. And not everyone is going to like the same author. I think I like his stuff simply because of how dark it is. Then again, I've always liked the darker stuff. Especially Edgar Allan Poe. He is the all-time father of horror

His Bachman books are much tighter and more focused than most of his work. The Long Walk is probably my favorite of his novels. I agree with others that his short stories can be excellent.

It was terrible. I enjoy long books, but that one should have been half as long. I couldn't finished The Tommyknockers. And the last three books of The Dark Tower were dreadfully disappointing, mostly because the first four rose to such great heights that the fall was tremendous.

I've enjoyed just about everything else of his that I've read.

Favorite Stephen King novel

Mine's IT. I'd have to say it's the greatest novel of all time. Christine and From a Buick 8 second and third.

The Stand. Hands down, no contest. (Well, and On Writing, but that doesn't really count, I suppose)

Yeah I hear that a lot. But tell me, why The Stand hands down? I found it boring and extremely bloated after the first 500 pages. And the old woman's dialogue was maudlin and contrived. There were plenty of flaws in The Stand that IT didn't possess. But that's my opinion anyway.

I'd say "The Shining," though I'm still pouring my way through his stuff and haven't read any of the other real classics just yet.

VRGunslinger1982 said:

Yeah I hear that a lot. But tell me, why The Stand hands down? I found it boring and extremely bloated after the first 500 pages. And the old woman's dialogue was maudlin and contrived. There were plenty of flaws in The Stand that IT didn't possess. But that's my opinion anyway.

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It has its flaws, don't get me wrong...and I can't really put my finger on WHY it intrigued me so much. Some of the particular characters fascinated me (names escape me at the moment, haven't read it in a few years), along with the ways their story lines intertwined as the book went on.

It's definitely a matter of personal taste. I was ready to gouge out my own eyeballs by the end of IT, and would have stopped reading in the first 300 pages if someone hadn't insisted to me that it WOULD get better (it didn't).

The Stand for me as well. I liked the premise and I loved Stu. I actually read it two or three times.

(As a disclaimer, I did most of my Stephen King reading when I was 13-14. The only Stephen king books I've read to come out after 94' were On Writing and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.)

I didn't like the 3 Stephen King novels I read (suffered through them because they were supposed to be good). Let's see, Christine, Cujo, and The Shining.
I just don't like the genre, I guess.

VRGunslinger1982 said:

Thethinking42, your comments about IT make me want to gouge my eyes out. Haha. Kidding.

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Hahaha, as I said, personal taste.

Kathleen42 said:

The Stand for me as well. I liked the premise and I loved Stu. I actually read it two or three times.

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Yes, Stu, I loved him. And Nick. I think Nick was one of my favorites. I know there's one more that's escaping me right now. Might be time to pick it up again...I've only read it a dozen times...LOL