Stephen King is prolific as fuck, and a lot of his books are

King writes like a guy who is still paid by the word. People would take him more seriously if he was a better self-editor.

>>10007415
The Long Walk for sure, other than that, I don't know, his most famous shit

Is it true he did copious amounts of cocaine in the 80's and doesn't remember writing Cujo?

>>10007415

Any of his most famous works (The Shining, IT, The Stand) will give you the best and worst of his style. He repeats him themes and characters a lot. Just read one and if you don't want more then you don't have to.

>>10007415
>want to read It
>hear that theres a pedophilia scene where they gangbang an underage girl in a sewer for no plot reason at all

I don't know about King now I wanted to give it a shot but now it sounds awful.

I really really liked the Dark Tower Series

>>10007415
The first four Bachman books, especially The Long Walk. Any of his other early non-series books up to and including Misery. The original version of The Gunslinger. I don't know if The Colorado Kid is essential, but it's pretty good.

>>10007638
Yes, and now he will scold you on twitter for your improper politics.

>>10008146
Lol I don't care. He's an accomplished multi millionaire, he can do whatever he wants

>>10007415
The Stand is a great Big Seventies Novel and very much worth reading. The first book of the Dark Tower was promising, but the series retreated into kingisms quickly thereafter. Beyond that his earlier stuff is readable, his later stuff isn't.

>>10007415
The Shining, Pet Semetary, and It are his best "monster" horror novels (Ghost, zombie, cosmic horror)

Misery is my personal favorite book he wrote and it really moves. I think I read the whole book over a weekend because I couldn't put it down.

Night Shift (his first short story collection) is a hell of a lot of fun, the only story in the whole thing that I didn't like was "I am the Doorway" (and it was so bad I put the book down for months). My favorite stories in that one are Graveyard Shift, The Ledge, Grey Matter, and Quitter's Inc. I think Jerusalem's Lot was ok, but over long (had a kick ass ending, though).

I've heard both Different Seasons and Skeleton Crew are fun.

The Bachman books are great, as others have said. The Long Walk and Running Man being my favorites. Rage wasn't really that good.

I also really liked The Regulators. Not scary, but fun and violent as fuck. Never gonna look at a can of Spaghetti-O's the same way again.

Also, I liked the first 200 - 300 pages of Dreamcatcher, but jesus christ that book turns to shit. I know the old joke is King can't write an ending, but I think he drops the ball harder with that one than anything else I ever read from him. Seriously, the first 150-ish pages are excellent, then the next 100 or so are 'interesting' and I was really getting into it, then the following 400(?) pages are shit tier garbage.

>>10007415
Stephen king writes the best underage gangbangs

His collections of short stories have some genuinely creepy stuff among the sea of shit. He can also be fun at times, like that story about an architect who gets locked up in a portable bathroom and left for dead.

>>10007891
How the fuck did he get away with that?

>>10008301
There is a plot point to it and it's not a gangbang per se. It's a train, as in one after the other have sex with Bev.

Dark Tower

>>10008169
This guy knows what he's talking about

>>10008156
Of course he can do what he wants. But why do you want to spend your time with him?

>>10008169
This, emphasis on Misery, its a fucking masterpiece and sometimes I feel its painfully underrated seeing those people talking about Dark Tower and other King's novels but forgetting the most perfect book that deals on what is to be a writer

Cujo, Green Mile, The Running Man and Shining are also good shit

And avoid his short stories, they are all crap

>>10008762
>And avoid his short stories, they are all crap
bad bait. his short stories are where he shines, generally. survivor type and the jaunt are fanatastic.

>>10008169
>>10008762

Misery is superb. It was the first King novel I've read. Seems like its just down hill from there.

King is an emotional author. That’s why this board hates him, I reckon.

11/22/63 moved me to tears many times. I’m re-reading IT now. INSOMNIA was sort of good. He has an interesting mythology behind his work, like the whole Turtle thing and the Other and the Macroverse and all that.

I thought the first Dark Tower book was total shit - but to be fair I am more moved by realism. The last 50 pages were very, very out there. Maybe I’m a pleb.

>>10007415
The very bare essentials:
The Stand
His short story collections

When King wrote Thinner as Richard Bachman a critic proclaimed that it was the sort of book King would write if he could write.

King is fanfic-tier. Arthur Machen and Robert Aickman are horror authors actually worth reading.

>>10008762
Misery is good, but it is most certainly not a masterpiece unless you have very low standards.

And even in Misery he couldn't rein in his tic for gratuitous over-the-top violence. Misery thrived on suspense, not garish violence, but he just had to dilute the suspense by the latter.

But credit where credit is due, Misery is pretty good and certainly one of the best if not the best King novel I've read.

>>10009052
>King is an emotional author. That’s why this board hates him, I reckon.
No, this board "hates" him because he's not a very good writer by any measure.

>Maybe I’m a pleb.
There's no maybe about it.

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>mfw reading the jaunt
Why couldn't his full novels be as good as his short stories. Even his short collection movie (Creepshow) is better than most of his other adaptations and the good adaptations take many liberties.

>misery his best novel
>Not the girl who loved Tom Gordon
I don't believe lit actually reads books.

The grapes of wrath or the winter of our discontent, which is better?

>>10009284

So I liked The Stand. At least the first half of it. The ending is so disappointing and pointless, you really could stop reading with one or two hundred pages left and you wouldn't miss out on anything.

>>10008514
Idk why wouldn't i

>>10009641
Tom Gordon is fucking great but King had to ruin it with his braindead liberal race-mixing propaganda.

>>10007891
>for no plot reason at all
That's not really true.

>>10008169
>I am the Doorway
>Bad
???
The idea of a spaceman getting an alien inside his body which manifests out of his skin in golden eyes which take offence to the confusing human world it sees is cool as fuck, nigger.

>>10009284
Only things I ever read. The Mist is the only King horror that I was ever influenced by.

>>10008446
>>10009802
>not true
They defeat a cosmic horror that exists beyond our universe but then they get lost in a sewer. Fucking an eleven year old girl one after another helps them to remember how to get out. Incredible writing.

>>10009696
I personally liked the ending. I thought it was funny at the very least and anything that isn't a complete drag when it comes to Stephen King is good in my books. Randal being reincarnated in the South American tribal place was interesting, too.

>>10007415
He's been just writing the same book over and over for all these years.

>>10010097
Stephen King is total garbage. The literary equivalent of deviantart furries. He's a testament to the power of marketing and a highly credulous public.

>>10007415
Many of his short stories are excellent, and I recommend all of his short story collections.
As for novels, out of the ones I've read I recommend the following:
The Stand (uncut version)
Pet Semetery
It

>>10009551
For a while, the ending of that was the most a short story ever got me pure chills of unease-wise. Until then it had been the end of another King 1, think it was either 'The Road Virus Heads North' or the 1 titled strawberry spring or summer (the 1 from Night Shift where a guy recalls college).
Then 'The Jaunt' got dethroned by the last page of King's own kid Joe Hill's story, 'The Cape'. From the same collection, "Twentieth Century Ghosts", the non-existent short story summarized by the narrator of 'Best New Horror' is a great piece of creepy atmospherics.

>>10008169
>Also, I liked the first 200 - 300 pages of Dreamcatcher, but jesus christ that book turns to shit.
Yeah, Dreamcatcher could have been awesome. I feel similarly about Duma Key.

His short story collections are better than any of his novels desu.

>>10007415

Whatever you read of his, follow the Golden Ratio and read the first 61.8% of it. King is stronger at setting things up and letting them go for a while than he is at endings. That'll reduce your load by around 40% right there

>>10007415
It, Misery, Different Seasons, and The Green Mile. That's literally it.

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>>10009020
Explain this then

>>10008156
An extremely right-wing perspective, which he doesn't share.

>>10011807
No anon, follow the pareto principle. And the 20% that contains 80% of the good stuff is the first 20%. To this day I don't know why I didn't stop reading The Stand at page 300.

>>10012043
Why is it bad? I've only read his collection Everything is Eventual and there are some standout stories in it.

>>10012082
I couldn't find a good story in it, they all made me cringe at some point and the prose was consistently subpar

''Under the weather'' was actually a good read looking back, but except by this one single isolated case, the whole book was a torture

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>>10008178
I clapped when I read this comment. It broke new ground.

>>10012230
Underage gangbang! Underage gangbang!

>>10009641
> i don't believe lit actually reads books.
/lit/ doesnt read shit. Its just an echochamber for the better half of /pol/

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>>10009641
>Taste is completely objective
>We all need to circlejerk on my shitty opinion otherwise you are all posers
>Some people here are writers, but he can't understand why they would love Misery

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Misery was the best of what I've read.
Carrie was alright, "classic"
Children of the corn was short and inconclusive
Gerald's game was quite good, underrated
Needful things had the best atmosphere and setup but the ending will make you hate the whole book
Thinner is more of a comedy than anything "Then his mobster friend went Rambo on the gyppos"

I only read him for the atmosphere which is always great 50-60s Maine.

Anyone here read Hearts in Atlantis? It's one of his short story collections. I would rate it as his best one.

>>10008168
Yeah, I thought it was weird how The Gunslinger was so stylistically different from his usual stuff, and then from the second book onwards it's regular King.

>>10007415
Not sure but I loved It and Insomnia as a teenager.
Especially Insomnia, I wish they made a good artsy horror movie out of that one.

>>10012636
Lol none of you are writers. Don't kid yourself.

@10013542
>Unless you make 5 digits with your writing you can't be a writer XD

You ain't even getting a (you) out me, fuck off cancer

>>10013608
Keep deluding yourself. It's funny! You may string a few barely coherent sentences together but the quality of writing here is about back of the cereal box level, if not worse.

So, which is better: the grapes of wrath or the winter of our discontent? Exactly. You don't know. You wouldn't because you're a fucking idiot.

>>10008112
The one with the school shoooter is really bad though, like I'm pretty sure he said it was the first novel he ever wrote.

>>10010097
Why do you think the book is called IT?

"IT" is how children often refer to sex, and at such ages it is horrifying to learn of. When they had sex they overcame the fear. Still pedo bait though.

You should hear about the other stuff he included: http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/top-5-sickest-stephen-king-sex-scenes-nsfw-6371394

>>10007619
My favorite book of all time

>>10009465
unless you count good prose, world building or creativity but I know you don't because you're a pretentious faggot

>>10014657
>top 5 list
Dismissed.

>>10010097
If you had a brain you'd understand the entire book is about the main characters getting over their parents' obsessions in order to move forward. In Bev's case, she needed to defy her father's obsession of her purity.

who /talisman/ here?

@10013663
>Being this pretentious in an anonymous imageboard for (you)s

Just die

>>10008169
Misery was such an excellent book. I know IT, Pet Semetary, and The Shining influenced how I perceived mundane made horrifying, especially in the case of the Wendigo in Semetary. I did enjoy the short story of Jerusalem's Lot, as well, even though it was a little too much like H.P. Lovecraft's Rats in the Walls.

I got the newish paperback edition of Gunslinger. Not a movie tie in - it's a bit older.
Unfortunately it does not include the original artwork. First Editions of the series are out of the question - which version is the best to get?

>>10014076
I think it's good when you consider he wrote it before school shootings were the corniest trick in the book.

>>10015334
Lovely book. I cried when Wolf dies.

>>10015711 Just answer the question and then I'll leave you little normie g faggots alone. See, I actually read, unlike the majority of you guys here so if that makes me pretentious, on a literature board, so fucking be it. Fuck off. Whatever I'm doing, it's working. Can you say the same? No? Exactly.

>>@10016663
>Gets called out for being a prentious faggot baiting for (you)s
>Start spouting bullshit memewords without making any sense like they hold any objective value
>''I actually read btw'' sure, nobody here reads, you are the special snowflake 1%
>Trying to spout elitism on a fucking anonymous imageboard full of ego and calling other people normies

Die

>>10015990
bump