Cell and Insomnia are the only two King novels I've read that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. They're both forgettable. I can even enjoy Tommyknockers for the sheer lunacy of parts of the story, but not those two.
Good call. Both were no fun for me. Tommyknockers is a bloated mess, but there are some nice bits here, and there. The story borrowed quite a bit from Five Million Years To Earth.
I hated Cujo so much, that when I got to the point where a major character dies <no spoilers>, I threw the hardback against the wall and put a dent in it. King later admitted that one of his children was extremely ill and had to go to the hospital, where it was touch-and-go for a couple of days. He opted to kill <certain character> as "a sacrifice for the gods," but later said he was glad the movie changed this ending. I did praise Cujo at the time in the way King got inside the head of the dog and described its cloudy thinking, being infected with rabies (and perhaps something more). It took real skill to do that. The stuff with the batteries had me yelling "WHAT? WHAT?" out loud for days. It made no friggin' sense, since they could easily get a lot more power, not by using human beings for batteries or getting D-cells from the store, but just by buying a generator. When the lead character asks the alien about that, the alien snaps, "well, I didn't know that!" King exhibits a lot of technical ignorance in his books, about computers, electronics, video, and audio. His book Cell hinges on the idea that an audible signal could be received on a telephone and immediately turn the person who answers it into a zombie. Not gonna buy into that. I can't send my sense of disbelief into "stun." The 2016 film adaptation lost big money and got horrible reviews (and justly so).
I like Cell, but agree wholeheartedly on Insomnia. A total chore for me to get through. I was actually just skiming through this thread to see if anyone was going to make case for that one as their favorite. And I really like The Tommyknockers. Though I do remember the frustrating way King would end the tiny chapters on cliff-hangers and then the next chapter would be some history lesson of an unrelated event.
Salems Lot The Stand The Dead Zone Christine I hated The Tommyknockers so much that I stopped reading him. That poor dog.
11/22/63 The Shining Salem’s Lot Gerald’s Game The Dead Zone The Gunslinger (In fact the entire series) These are my top ones and Fairy Tale is up there, too.
Always thought I was the only one who didn't "appreciate" all the extra material in the expanded version. Sometimes editors know what they're doing.
The Stand is the most epic. I really liked Insomnia, and wish that it could be made into a movie, but I know that Hollywood is not very interested in making movies starring senior citizens and like most of the King movie adaptations, I would likely be disappointed in the final product. But it could make a great movie or miniseries. 11/22/63 is his best work of the last 20 years IMO. And while we are at it, King seems to repeat the following tropes quite often. -The protagonist is some kind of writer. -There's almost always some kind of bully character if the story involves children, or a sociopath thug that won't go away until very near to the end, such as Jim Rennie in Under the Dome, if the narrative involves mostly adults. -Less common than the examples above, but still prevalent is a kind of grating woman, a "Karen", if you will, who only seems to exist to scorn her family. Usually the relative of one of the main characters that everyone dreads but nonetheless won't or can't push out of their lives. Almost like one of the bully/thug characters, but not as threatening. That aside, I appreciate King's prolific output, since I still have not read a little more than half of his work but feel like I've been reading something new from him almost my whole life.
I just finished "The Institute" as well and enjoyed it. I'm not sure it is my favorite, but that is a hard choice to make, especially when comparing books that you may have read many decades ago. The one I read before that was "Lisey's Story" and that I did not like too much---the weird, repetitive language throughout was annoying to me. I'm going to have to do something thinking before I can declare a 'favorite' Stephen King novel. Right now I am reading "The Green Mile". I used to read all of his books, and then kind of burned out on King so I ignored him for 25 years or so and then started reading him again so I have many to get through now
**Tangent Discusion** Does it bother anyone else when you want to discuss BOOKS and people insist on talking about MOVIES that are based on the book in question? (This frequently comes up when discussing Stephen King books) It bugs me to no end. Kind of like in the old days, when I wanted to discuss MUSIC with friends, and they would insist on telling me about the MTV Video of the song or its use in a movie.
He’s on record as saying Insomnia spent a significant period as a ‘trunk novel’ before it came out. During that period, he put out a TV miniseries called Golden Years which gave an airing to many of the themes which later appeared in the book. From memory-we’re going back about 30 years-it wasn’t one of the better King adaptations, and I can’t remember if I finished watching it. That said, I didn’t get on with Insomnia, either.
There's this guy on another forum who absolutely loses it when people here don't stay on topic. I don't think we should be restricted to commenting solely on what the topic is. I don't mind myself when my threads take a trip down alternate roads.
I bought "Insomnia" when it was a new book and started reading it and I started waking up at 2 am and not being able to go back to sleep for a few nights in a row, which I blamed on the book and stopped reading it then.....and have never picked it up since then. It's still sitting on my bookcase right now. I feel like I should give it a go again but who knows? I like my sleep.
After some thought, my favorite King novel so far is 11/22/63. I just love time travel as a subject. His latest novel, "Fairy Tale" has some of those qualities, in a much more fantasy-oriented direction. That was a decent book too.
In this case, the OP chose the Visual Arts section to start the discussion, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that movie/TV adaptations have been included.
Absolutely. We got a brand new King after his accident. Joyland, Duma Key, Lisey's Story, 11/22/63, the Mr Mercedes triology ... all excellent. I just finished his latest novel Fairy Tale which is the first one that was weak and I've read them all. I hope this is not a hint of things to come. One of my favourites of the classic King novels is Christine. It is much more than horror, it's an excellent coming of age story.
Two of his novels I’ve always disliked. There are others but these are the bottom of the barrel for me.
I adore Insomnia. Carrie, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, Creepshow, Cycle of the Werewolf, Needful Things, Hearts in Atlantis, Everything's Eventual, From a Buick 8, Elevation, The Institute, Later, Billy Summers, Fairy Tale, all excellent.
That's a fair point. I should have been more clear in my 'tangent'; I wasn't merely referring to this thread, but rather, any time I would try to discuss King's books in social situations, the convo would inevitably turn to the movie adaptations instead of sticking to the books themselves. Mostly people that don't read but only watch movies but felt qualified to comment on King from that alone.
Duma Key, Joyland and 11/22/63 were enjoyable for me and recommended. I didn't read the others you list. Did you like The Institute? I thought it was a strong return to form.
I found The Institute a bit of a slog to get through to be honest. The kids seemed out of date in their portrsyal- like the same as the kids in his books set in the 50s etc.
In the 70's and 80's King was one of my favorite authors. I read or collected everything he wrote. Then he wrote "The Tommyknockers", that stopped me in my tracks. After that "Insomnia", kept trying to read it , and all it did was put me to sleep. Never re-visited his writing after that. My favorite horror story by him is 'Pet Sematary", that was scary, and upsetting. I remember reading it and saying to myself "I hope he doesn't go were I think he is going to go", but he did. His best work IMO is "Misery" and "Dolores Claiborne" tied in with "Gerald's Game". Both 'Misery" and "Dolores" made good movies. His Magnum Opis is "The Stand". I will have to re-visit his writing, curious about "11/22/63". He is a good writer, sometimes carried away, but he usually has a pretty good start, it the endings that suffer for the most part. "It" was great until the end. I do credit him with his story-telling ability. He has written some fantastic tales, but he seems to be running on fumes sometimes. One of the best horror writers. Hard to always stay in top form given his output. His contempoaries, Straub, Streiber, Campbell and Barker,( to name a few) do not reach King's level very often.
