[Closed] So I've read It and The Stand - what next?

Salem's Lot, Pet Cemetary then all the short stories.

Salem's Lot is just an excellent, extremely well written horror story, but it's also a love letter to small town America and to the act of writing itself.

Pet Cemetary is one of the best books about grief I've ever read.
Heartbraking and very scary indeed.

A sandwich?

+1 for Salem's lot. Christine and the Shining both excellent as well. tbh anything from his vintage years is a good read - anything from his later years is awful. Not sure where the line of division lies.

Thought The Stand was all far too drawn out and the ending seemed rushed

I should add I really enjoyed both

I think the line of division was The Tommyknockers, the first truly awful novel.
Drink and drugs ruined most of the later stuff, I believe.

I prefer his earlier stuff too, he went a bit overblown in the nineties (and I know that's ironic given the length of The Stand but at least it covers ground, unlike say Rose Madder or From A Buick 8 (couldn't finish that one)). Love his novellas, so Different Seasons and the Bachman Books are great, love The Shining, Christine, even the first few Dark Tower novels. On Writing is fantastic if you've an interest in writing as well as auto biog stuff, and really enjoyed Everything's Eventual, a later short story collection.

I also really enjoyed the Bachman Books and Christine.

The other one that springs to mind of the same era and by similar author Dean R Koontz called Night Chills. It was based around subliminal advertising tested in the 1950's, which was subsequently outlawed and then found to be a hoax, I think. seem to recall it interesting subject matter tho and story.

Dark Zone worked for me. Heck, I even liked Cell.

I really enjoyed Gerald's Game, but it's half a lifetime since I read any King. I pretty much abandoned him when I discovered Dean Koontz.

I remember The Running Man being very good too, and The Dead Zone.

Salem's Lot is fantastic, I'm really not a horror fan but it's just a great book that happens to be horror.

If you decide to wander off towards the Dark Tower, it's a killer combination of pretty long, compulsively moreish, and... not actually very good. But once you start it's hard to stop.

Sorry, meant Dead Zone…

Carrie.
Dark Tower - northwind summed it up really well.
Four Past Midnight is a good short story collection.
Maybe try James Herbert too.

The Talisman was pretty good took ages to get going but was ok after that.

The Dark Half is great

Switch authors and try Peter Straubs Shadowland then maybe Ghost Story. When I was really into King I found Straubs stuff excellent.

Pet Semetary, The Shining. Both are much better than the films, which is saying something for the second of those two.

If you want something a bit shorter, Skeleton Crew is a fantastic compilation. Some of the stuff in there is genuinely scary / disturbing.

I've not read a lot of his newer stuff but Duma Key is good. Takes a while to get going though. I also really liked the Dark Tower series, but it peaks in the first three or four books.

Pet Cemetary is properly creepy, read that one next

I really enjoyed this - Joyland - a short story by Stephen King standards!...

[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Joyland-Hard-Case-Crime-Novels/dp/1781167699/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401873370&sr=1-11&keywords=stephen+king ]Stephen King - Joyland[/url]

+1 for the short stories.

I failed my A-levels from too much reading Stephen King books 🙂

APF

How did I forget Dead Zone!?! Love that book. 🙂 +1 for Skeleton Crew, and he did another (earlier, I think) compilation of shorts called... Night shift? Maybe? That's pretty good.

11.23.63

Dreamcatcher?

Different Seasons - includes 'The Body' (Stand By Me) and 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' (er, the Shawshank...)

The Shining (his best)

Carrie

[i] it's a killer combination of pretty long, compulsively moreish, and... not actually very good[/i] 😀

I've read the Dark Tower twice but struggled to finish The Stand. They both start off well but go down hill, and the author comes across as a bit of a cock.

Its put me off his other stuff, is it any different/better?

Peter Straub - Floating Dragon

Nobody has recommended - Insomnia. From what i remember a sa lad it was an amazing read. One of the many Stephen King books i was totally hooked on from start to end.

Funny you mention his later books were not any good, i put it down to a generation thing. I loved his books as a teenager but i thought i just moved on. Maybe for me it was a bit of both.

Never liked Dean Koontz, apart from lightning. His books had no depth at all.

Get cracking on Justin Kronin's "The Passage" & "The twelve" & you should finish just in time for the final chapter in October.
(If you read sa slow as I do...)

Different Seasons is excellent, really enjoyed Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, and I'm a big fan of the film.

Conversely (and still as a fan of the film) I really didn't get on the with The Shining, for me I couldn't get away from the imagery as depicted in the film, but the plot is actually very different - everything significant in the film is missing from the book, and vice versa.

Misery is good, as is Kujo. IMO most of the 'classics' are all worth a read.

My tip for King is the short stories. Some epic stuff including shawshank redemption. The best of the novels have been made in to films so that’s a good indicator. Misery is a class read as is needfull things and the shinning.

Never liked Dean Koontz, apart from lightning. His books had no depth at all.

He's quite inconsistent, I've found. He's written some of the best genre books I've ever read, and also some of the worst.

If you like Koontz / King, then Stephen Laws is worth investigating. No-one's ever heard of him and he's great.

Misery is a class read

I enjoyed Misery, but it's one of the few cases where the film is better than the book.

Its put me off his other stuff, is it any different/better?

Yes.

Pet Cemetery scared the hell out of me.

I read it while I was working at Edale Youth hostel. You can imagine my reaction when I opened the door to clean one of the bunk rooms and saw a black cat sitting on the bed and staring at me 😯

(It transpired some daft woman thought it was perfectly reasonable to take her cat hostelling with her)

Actually I have still occasionally have dreams about my mum (who died five years or so ago) coming back to life "wrong". I'm pretty sure I can blame those on Pet Cemetery.

i thought both salem's lot series/film and the dead zone were both great films.

salem's lot mini series/film scared the crap out of me when i was 9-10. danny glick floating to his brother's window,then the scratching 😯

"who's there?"

"IT'S MEEE DANNNNYYYYY!"

"LET ME IN!"

😯

i thought both salem's lot series/film and the dead zone were both great films.

I read the book before I knew there was a film. In it, Johnny is a pathetic character in the literal sense; whilst he's the main character in the book, he struggles to get ahead and he spends most of his time essentially being a victim. You can't help but feel sorry for the poor sod that through no fault of his own the world seems to have it in for.

In the film, he's played by Christopher Walken. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Chris Walken is a superlative actor, but I can't offhand think of a piece of cinematic casting quite so wildly, jarringly off the mark compared to the picture the novel had created in my head.