This may sound dumb, but I’ve never read for this man. I’ve always just heard about him on social media but never ventured to read his work. Opinions, please. Should I invest? Feeling like fiction lately. I’ve read so much non-fiction through throughout my life that I think I deserve a couple of fiction books to get busy with for a little while.
Thanks in advance
EDIT: Thank you so much to all who answered. I have read and appreciated every single comment. I have decided to start with fairy tale since I ran into the book at Walmart. So giving that a shot to see. Thank you so much
Start with night shift
He wrote under a pen name to prove to himself that his work was valuable and not just selling due to branding. He wrote Running Man under the name Richard Bachman. It was turned into a Schwarzenegger film in the 80s. It’s cheesy (the film), but fun.
Christine and Carrie should also be good for getting a feel for King. I read Running Man, but not the other two. I just know them from film adaptations. The Stand and It are also worth checking out, I’d think.
I’ve actually seen the movie and I loved it. And I did NOT know that Stephen king did sci fi?
Very slow-burning books, and I almost always lost interest before finishing them. I found The Dark Tower especially tedious. After I couldn’t force myself read it, I got the audiobook version a lnd tried to listen to it three times, but always fell asleep. Ironically, the books I genuinely enjoyed were some of his longest ones: It, and The Stand.
As Richard Bachman, on the other hand, he wrote loads of entertaining books. It almost seems like in that persona he didn’t give a shit what others thought of his works, and the books ended up eminently readable.
That bad? I’m getting mixed signals all over. Lol
Funny. I had the same experience. I loved the stand and it but couldn’t get past an hour or 2 of the dark tower.
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I really liked 11/22/63, it was my first King novel, but then I read The Outsider and was disillusioned.
I personally like Stephen King. I grew up reading Carrie, Cujo, Misery, etc. They are iconic.
I started reading again a year ago but found them very long to physically read. I listen to them now and noticed a pattern. Many are slow burns, often have an older male involved (or maybe because I just read 11/22/63, Pet Sementary, and Fairytail around the same time), always have characters that reminisce, world building is great with all the details, solid characters.
I wouldn’t read many all at the same time. Try a Stephen King rec, 1 or 2. If you dont like, move on. He doesn’t just do horror. He can do other genres too. Very talented.
I still like his stuff. I just read Holly and liked it. Tried Fairytale. Wasnt my thing.
My experience with him is unusual since the only thing I read of his works was his treatise on writing, a sort of memoir in which he recounts his experience with writing and work ethic.
The thing about King is, and he’ll admit this now, he used to do a bunch of drugs and hammer out several novels back to back. He’s an incredibly talented writer, but sometimes his stories are just some cool shit he thought of that doesn’t really go anywhere. Sometimes there’s deep introspection, sometimes it’s just a big scary dog that terrorizes a family.
And Cujo is great. Read it. Read all his books. Just not all at once. The Dark Tower series is another good example, because it does a lot of world building, but also sometimes the story just happens and everyone moves on to the next thing. The Stand has a similar issue. It is well written, meandering, thoughtful, and mindeless all at the same time.
There’s also a loosely connected universe between the Shining, It, The Dark Tower, The Stand, and probably a few others I’m forgetting. These are all good books/series, but my recommendation is not to read them back to back. You’ll start to see the patterns and fall backs he uses as an author when he just needs to wrap things up and publish the book.
Doctor Sleep also expands on the powers in The Shining and Needful Things references many of the evil entities in the stand and It.
I have always loved the way King weaves his baddies into many of his stories and basically implies that they are all the same kind of evil dressed up in the “clothing” to suit its purpose at any given time.
Now that I think of it…I think in Cujo when he is narrating the dogs infected mind, he alludes to the generalized evil as well. It’s been a while since I read that one tho.
I’ve read every Steven King book. They all have varying levels of depth, but they’re all very well written and immersive. I think everyone here had a reasonable point about a lot of his endings turning out fast and dark.
You may not enjoy this if you like stories that feel like they come to a proper conclusion, but I think that’s where he excels at making his stories feel dark. The endings are almost always NOT satisfying. They often hurt.
Another thing people don’t like about him is that he’s a period writer, so lots of his writing is filled with current events from the time when he wrote the book. This makes a lot of his older books feel really dated (like Tommyknockers). But it’s good for me.
Also, like most people who have also commented, i recommend starting with his short stories, and his more popular works. They really are good.
I find his short stories better than his novels.
“Night Shift” is my favorite of those collections.
Fuck Steven king. He wrote a perfectly good start to the dark tower series. Then he wrote books 5,6 and 7 and fucked it all up. God-damned son of a bitch. I’d have preferred to have been left with blue balls after wizard and glass than to have gone through the shit that followed.
But, that being said, I highly recommend books 1-4 of the dark tower series.
You should read Misery.
THANK YOU! The six year long cliff-hanger to Wizard and Glass was enough for me to stop reading his books altogether.
Movies made from King books are usually classics, though, as long as King himself is not part of the production process. His remake of The Shining was a stream of hot vomit to the face. But Kubrik’s version is a masterpiece.
Recommend starting off on some of his short story collections and if you like those, there’s a good chance you’ll like at least some of his novels. I’ve been reading most of his stuff for 40 years and have pretty much enjoyed all of his work. His endings can be iffy and he tends to sometimes feel a little tropey, but the writing itself is often enjoyable to read and solid. His book on writing called appropriately “On Writing” is excellent and great for understanding the writing process either as someone who wants to write or as a reader who wants to better be able to think about what they like to read and why.
I’d start with a smaller one. His writing is very steady and consistent. Sometimes there are weird sexual undertones (weird in a bad way).
I’d recommend Terry Pratchett Discworld. I can’t get into King but Pratchett is good for my English soul.
I like Pratchett’s world building but I hate the naming of things. I lose track of the who and where because my brain refuses the associations.
I grew up reading his early works in the 80’s and beyond. Well written, novel themes, sometimes fucked up beyond belief. It’s obvious he did lots of drugs.
Recommended.
I really enjoy Steven King’s work. He has an engaging style and some great, often spooky ideas.
He doesn’t plan his stories out; he just writes and lets the story flow, essentially shooting from the hip. Sometimes this works out great, other times he winds up resolving things with a deus ex machina. Generally you aren’t reading his books for the ending, but rather the journey. His short stories tend to avoid this issue - it’s much harder to write yourself into a corner when the story isn’t that long.
The best introduction to King is probably his first novel, “Carrie.” Some of it is now cliche or standard tropes, but that’s just because of how impactful this book was. “Firestarter” is another great introduction.
