my favourite stephen king novel is...and why...

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by zombie dai, Jan 13, 2023.

  1. zombie dai

    zombie dai people live in dreams, but not in their own Thread Starter

    mine is the shinning. i read it when i was 10 and the hedge animals and the naked lady in the bath left an impression on me, plus jack's seeping madness.

    yours?
     
  2. malcolm reynolds

    malcolm reynolds Handsome, Humble, Genius

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    Gerald's Game

    I read it at the start of summer my junior year of high school and it creeped the heck out of me. I just found the subject matter disturbing and that is saying something for a Stephen King novel. I never did finish Desperation after all of these years. The way he describes the dead girl's body in the stairwell at the beginning of the book just got to me for some reason.
     
  3. jwoverho

    jwoverho Licensed Drug Dealer

    Location:
    Mobile, AL USA
    THE STAND. King takes advantage of the size of the novel to develop a great group of memorable characters. The expanded edition, however, is too much. I like the original better.
     
  4. bem

    bem Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis
    The Stand. The first third of the book with Captain Trips is unnerving.

    It. The whole creepy vibe which he manages to keep until the very end.

    I know that's two but I'd have a hard time choosing which one I'd want to keep
     
  5. tommy-thewho

    tommy-thewho Senior Member

    Location:
    detroit, mi
    Misery it's fairly short.
     
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  6. Steve Simm

    Steve Simm Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC
    That’s a tough one. Salem’s Lot was the first book of his I read back around 1980 when I was 15 and I was hooked. He has written so many excellent books over the years that I really enjoy. I guess Salem’s Lot is my favorite..or The Shining..or The Stand or..?
     
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  7. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    One of the better movie adaptations too.
     
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  8. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    Read both. The expanded version doesn't add much but it seems better somehow, more epic.
    The original made-for-TV movie holds up pretty good for what it is.
     
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  9. Lots of his great old classics already mentioned. I guess The Stand gets my vote, because I love the way the plague spreads. I recently read The Institute and thought it was excellent and harkened back to his s early 80s novels like Fire Starter and It.
     
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  10. Karnak

    Karnak "81, 82, 83, 84..."

    If favourite means the most powerful-or 'horrible' that's what he's all about right? - Revival - I read it once, no plans to read it again.
     
  11. googlymoogly

    googlymoogly Forum Resident

    Yes. King usually lets in some light through the cracks in most of his fiction - "Revival" just shows that's there's nothing behind the veil at all.
     
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  12. MichaelH

    MichaelH Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bakersfield
    I've said it before and I'll say it again his eight book dark tower series is his magnum opus, the best he's ever written or will ever write again. He's the best author living today and many of his books are awesome, but in my opinion the dark tower is a cut above anything else. I know the last four books don't get a lot of love on here or anywhere on the internet for that matter, but they help to enhance the mystery of the series and ultimately shows the interconnectedness of it all. The way each character, both new and old, comes to their ultimate conclusion is just genius to me, and the whole series is just so endlessly fascinating that I savor each and every word. The dark tower truly is the be all end all of Stephen King's writings.
     
  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Ditto. And it's amazing how (mostly accidentally) some of his other books intersect with Dark Tower. Even his most recent novel -- Fairy Tale, which is a remarkable book, both poignant and very frightening -- could be considered an interdimensional trip into some of the weirder areas of Dark Tower, like going through one of the doorways and encountering mutants and monsters. I think one of the characters even says, "There are worlds other than these," which always sends a chill up my spine. I hope to god someday they can finally make a big-budget, epic TV series of Dark Tower and do it justice.

    I couldn't narrow it down to one, but here's a quick Top 5, in no particular order:

    Salem's Lot
    The Dead Zone
    It
    11/22/63

    and all the Dark Tower books, particularly "Wolves of the Calla."

    I've read all these 2-3 times (sometimes cheating with Audible editions), and they're remarkable stories. A lot of his '80s stuff is awful -- Dreamcatcher, Cujo, and The Tommyknockers are often criticized -- but King has acknowledged those were written under the influence of a lot of foreign substances. He even said, "I tried to read The Tommyknockers in the last few years, and I didn't even remember writing a lot of it." Some of King's stories are so frightening and intense, I have to put them down and take a break: the collection Full Dark, No Stars was one.

    The Shining is also fantastic, as is The Stand, Shawshank Redemption, Different Seasons, and I'd give points to a recent one, The Institute (soon to be a major TV miniseries). And for budding writers, King's book On Writing is a terrific account of his writing process, plus it also provides some autobiographical material of his terrible ordeal after getting run over by a truck back in 1999.
     
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  14. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    Terrible movie too.
     
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  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Don't get me started on Children of the Corn... :eek:
     
  16. No Static

    No Static Gain Rider

    Location:
    Heart of Dixie
    The Stand.

    I haven’t read them all but this one is like a slow burn. Interesting and wide-ranging characters developing at the ideal pace. If a book can be cinematic I think The Stand would be it. That the movie was pretty OK is a bonus. It doesn’t always work out like that with adaptations.

    It seems to, uh, stand alone when it comes to King novels.
     
  17. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world

    Location:
    Europe
    while I've always enjoyed his early novels - especially The Bachmann Books - I vastly prefer his short stories... Skeleton Crew would be my desert island choice (though I hope "Survivor Type" wouldn't be an omen)... but if I gotta chose a novel he penned under his own name, Salem's Lot it is... It would come in second...

    late period novel I enjoyed: 11/22/63
     
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  18. zombie dai

    zombie dai people live in dreams, but not in their own Thread Starter

    would anyone say his later novels can match up with the ones we have mentioned?
     
  19. MichaelH

    MichaelH Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bakersfield
    Billy Summers definitely can.
     
  20. vconsumer

    vconsumer Unapologetically 70s

    Location:
    Minnesota
    The Stand for me, followed closely by Salem's Lot. I think my attachment is mostly nostalgic. I had just gone through a Tolkien phase, and the cover intrigued me. , so I took it home from the library and had one of the best reading experiences of my childhood.

    [​IMG]
     
  21. I could not get into this one. Unlike most of his books, it just did not interest me.
     
  22. InStepWithTheStars

    InStepWithTheStars It's a miracle, let it alter you

    Location:
    North Carolina
    What I love most about King is how the antagonist of nearly every one of his novels is simply a personification of a negative emotion. Christine is about a self-driving car on the surface, but it's really about obsession. It is about a shape-shifting child-killing clown on the surface, but it's really about imagination and how that slips away as you age. The Shining is about a haunted hotel on the surface, but it's really about... well, obsession and imagination. That's the reason why it's so hard to make a film adaptation of his works: you can get inside a character's head and truly understand their thoughts and emotions through words, but it's so much more difficult to do that in film. The characters are so real, so believable, so relatable (even the villains) – you feel like you've known them your whole life and have gone through what they went through with them by the time you're finished reading.

    I couldn't pick just one if you offered me a million bucks. So here's a list of ones I couldn't live without, because I think they capture the things I just discussed best:

    The Shining
    The Stand
    The Dead Zone
    Christine
    It
    Four Past Midnight
    (if collections are allowed)
    Needful Things
    The Green Mile
     
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  23. Johnny66

    Johnny66 Laird of Boleskine

    Location:
    Australia.
    His best work is in the novella/short story form. Rage, Apt Pupil, The Body and The Running Man.
     
  24. Spastica

    Spastica Run aground on the floor for you....

    Location:
    Modesto, CA
    Pet Sematary

    Neither movie does justice to the story.




    I loved The Tommyknockers. It's definitely bat poop crazy though.... probably needed a rewrite.


    I always preferred his short stories and novellas over his novels.
     
  25. Karnak

    Karnak "81, 82, 83, 84..."

    I agree, though I have to confess that when watching the 80s version in the theatre, I slunk down in my seat, and closed my eyes when the the kid(Gage?) was reanimated. No idea if my then girlfriend noticed:).
     

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