Write this down Tyjenks.
I know some people like it, but some people were Nazis too.
Duma Key is a win as far as I’m concerned, but like most King works there are some dissenters.
This looks like King doing his brand of science fiction, more like Firestarter or the first half of The Stand, rather than horror. I’m on board for that.
And I’ve read everything of his. Yes, Under the Dome sucked (I put it with Tommynockers and he doesn’t have the excuse of being drunk and high while writing it.)
King is the only author that I’ve kept reading since I was 13. Even his bad stuff keeps me turning the pages.
Would love to hear you rank his books, if you’ve followed them all.
I’ve been listening to the Dark Tower books on car trips with my wife for years - am now finally approaching the end of the 6th book. During that time, I decided to also listen to his books chronologically on my own - got though Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Rage, Night Shift, and The Stand (during which I also read the extended version for comparison) before petering out. I much preferred his earlier books to the later installments in the Dark Tower – much less indulgent, better edited, more narrative focused - they read like they’re written by a completely different author. He seemed to get fetishistic in his style as he got older, constantly indulging in the same segues and quirks, and becoming far less coherent - even though he obviously was/is a lot more confident and assured as a writer, which has him moments. His (d)evolution reminds me of Chris Claremont of the X-men, heh.
Still, I obviously have fondness for his storytelling to have gotten through so many books.
Huh. I really liked Under The Dome. It was long but pretty layered and epic.
I have taken up the challenge, found a list of all his published work and quickly ranked them. I’m going with my gut, mostly.
I’ve thrown almost all the short story collections together below his good novels and above his dreck. It’s hard to remember them all.
There are also some repeats, so they have The Bachman Books as a separate book, but then, since he published them all separately later, they have them listed separately. Those are considered as a group, rather than each one, although I do like Rage (the school shooting one) better than The Running Man (which is totally different from the movie.)
It also turns out I haven’t read everything. There are a bunch of limited editions that I haven’t read, and his e-books have eluded me. There seem to be a bunch of short stories listed separately, which apparently haven’t been collected yet. Add to that his baseball shit, and a photo book that I don’t really care about.
So here it is, let the arguments commence!
- 1978 - The Stand
- 1990 - The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition
- 1975 - Salem’s Lot
- 1977 - The Shining
- 1982 - Different Seasons (novellas)
- 1986 - It
- 1987 - The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
- 2000 - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft(nonfiction autobiography)
- 1983 - Christine
- 1980 - Firestarter
- 1991 - The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
- 1994 - Insomnia
- 1985 - The Bachman Books (novel collection)
- 1977 - Rage
- 1979 - The Long Walk
- 1981 - Road Work
- 1982 - The Running Man
- 1987 - Misery
- 1993 - Dolores Claiborne
- 1981 - Danse Macabre (nonfiction about horror)
- 2008 - Duma Key
- 1979 - The Dead Zone
- 1989 - The Dark Half
- 1998 - Bag of Bones
- 2006 - Lisey’s Story
- 1999 - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
- 1995 - Rose Madder
- 1992 - Gerald’s Game
- 1984 - Thinner
- 1984 - The Talisman (written with Peter Straub)
- 1982 - The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
- 2003 - The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (revised edition)
- 1974 - Carrie
- 1981 - Cujo
- 2004 - The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
- 1997 - The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
- 1983 - Pet Sematary
- 1996 - The Green Mile (originally published as a monthly serial consisting of six parts:The Two Dead Girls, The Mouse on the Mile, Coffey’s Hands, The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix, Night Journey, and Coffey on the Mile)
- 2003 - The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
- 2004 - The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
- 1990 - Four Past Midnight (stories)
- 1999 - Hearts in Atlantis
- 2006 - Cell
- 1978 - Night Shift (stories)
- 1988 - Dark Visions
- 1993 - Nightmares & Dreamscapes (stories)
- 2010 - Full Dark, No Stars
- 1997 - Six Stories (stories)
- 2002 - Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales
- 2008 - Just After Sunset
- 1999 - Storm of the Century
- 1981 - Roadwork
- 1982 - Creepshow (comic book, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson)
- 1983 - Cycle of the Werewolf
- 1985 - Skeleton Crew (stories, including “The Mist”)
- 2002 - From a Buick 8
- 1987 - The Eyes of the Dragon
- 1996 - The Regulators
- 2001 - Black House (written with Peter Straub)
- 1996 - Desperation
- 2009 - Under the Dome
- 2000 - Dreamcatcher
- 1991 - Needful Things
- 1988 - The Tommyknockers
I haven’t read everything apparently. What follows are titles that I don’t recognize or haven’t read, although they may be stories that were included in other collections and I just don’t remember the titles.
- 1960 - People, Places, And Things - Volume 1 (limited edition with Chris Chelsey)
- 1964 - The Star Invaders (limited edition)
- 1988 - Nightmares in the Sky (Photo book with text by King)
- 1989 - Dolan’s Cadillac (limited edition)
- 1989 - My Pretty Pony (limited edition)
- 1995 - Umney’s Last Case
- 1999 - The New Lieutenant’s Rap (limited edition)
- 1999 - Blood and Smoke (audio book)
- 2000 - Riding the Bullet (electronically published novella)
- 2000 - The Plant(electronically published)
- 2000 - Secret Windows
- 2004 - Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season
- 2005 - The Colorado Kid
- 2006 - The Secretary of Dreams
- 2009 - Stephen King Goes to the Movies
- 2009 - The Little Sisters of Eluria (limited edition)
- 2009 - “Graduation Afternoon” (in PostScripts)
- 2009 - “Throttle” (in He is Legend)
- 2009 - UR (e-novella available only on Amazon.com’s Kindle)
- 2009 - “A Good Marriage”
- 2009 - “Big Driver”
- 2009 - “1922”
- 2009 - “Fair Extension”
- 2010 - Blockade Billy
- 2011 - The Chronicles of Harris Burdick
- 2011 - “The Dune”
- 2011 - 11/22/63
- 2007 - Blaze
I’d like to disagree with some of your rankings, but the fact that you went to the trouble means you probably have a better recall of the books than me, so I defer to your judgement. Except Talisman. You blew that one. ;)
Seriously, nice job putting together the list. I am too intimidated to do the whole thing. By that, I mean too lazy to even do a top 10.
I’ve also read most of Kings stuff and I don’t see much wrong with that list, at least in the top 10 or 15. I’d probably put Dead Zone and Under the Dome higher, but the rest is nitpicking.
Yeeeeaaaah…some of that is significantly out of order (I will always consider Desperation to be special because it’s the book that finally taught me how Old Testament religious types would go about dealing with the world), but, in good news, at least a few of those things you don’t have are short stories. For The Colorado Kid, you’ll have to buy it in paperback from the Hardcase Crime Library (I have it, but have not yet read it, because it was written after Cell and I’m proceeding chronologically). Blaze was the new Bachman novel he did a while ago, but all I remember of it (again, haven’t read it) is that the lead is either autistic or mentally challenged. I’ve also got Faithful sitting around unread, which I mostly got because when he originally started it, it was just going to be him and Nan writing about being baseball fans, and then the Red Sox turned around and won the World Series that year, so I figure the book might be pretty interesting. Secret Windows is just a book-club-only collection of other short nonfiction pieces you can get in other places if you try.
I expect that the rest of the shorts (and maybe even some of the really short prose, like Colorado Kid and Blockade Billy) to be collected in the next twenty years or so. He’s always been good about doing that, and if he should happen to pass away it’s an obvious revenue option for his inheritors.
I’m not making a list like that, because I’ll have to punch people in the nose when they decide to be wrong about something and try to correct me.
It wasn’t that hard to put together, just google a list of Stephen King books, then order it appropriately.
Just ordered Blaze. Secretary of Dreams is some kind of illustrated story that goes for $235 used. Colorado Kid is also out of print and goes for $100 used (though the Kindle edition is $4.99, talk about books as artifacts). Anything that says “Limited Edition” I didn’t even bother looking up. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick is a collection of authors writing stories based on Chris van Allsberg illustrations which is tempting, but my backlog is too big.
I know I’ve read Desperation, I can see it here on the shelf. I honestly don’t remember it, which is why it scored so low. It came out at the same time as The Regulators and that one I remember.
And you’re right, maybe Dead Zone is too low. What I was doing was just saying, “Is this one better than this one?” and a whole bunch of stuff started beating it. I remember The Dead Zone as being a very gray and drab feeling book, with an overwhelming sense of depression. It may have more to do with what was going on in my life when I read it than the actual book. Also it’s hard to separate some of the better movies from the books in my memory.
Desperation sticks with me because it struck me as an honest and authentic take on how you would deal with religion. If there’s an omnipotent superbeing, you are his fucking property, and you don’t get to decide how things will be or what the world should be like any more than your dog gets to make suggestions about the decor in your apartment. Sometimes you’ll get a bone, but mostly your job is to do what you’re told or suffer the consequences, and you’re not expected to like it. It was harsh and terrible and, when I contrast it against the pap I have to listen to before my talk shows start on Sunday, really quite delightful.
Also, if my paperback copy of Colorado Kid is actually worth that much, I might have to consider selling it, because holy shit. It’s only available in paperback, though. Oh, and Little Sisters is definitely a short story that was definitely reprinted somewhere, because I’ve read it, because it’s about the vampires who tried to eat Roland before the start of The Gunslinger.
But if you’re listing impossible books, I believe that there are a few monumentally shitty ones that he turned over to the library at his alma mater to keep under lock and key from the before Carrie time. I’m basing that on some weird book I accidentally bought at a Half Price that listed all the stuff he’s done that you can’t readily get to, though, so grain of salt and all that.
Guess I haven’t read as much King as I thought, this is my list - not ranked, I read most of these in the 80s when I was in my teens, hell if I can remember how they compared. I will say I remember enjoying The Stand the most but that was the last one I read.
1990 - The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition
1983 - Christine
1974 - Carrie
1979 - The Dead Zone
1983 - Pet Sematary
1985 - Skeleton Crew (stories, including “The Mist”)
Though I have hardcover editions of Bag Of Bones, Rose Madder and Gerald’s Game, just never read them.
I did start reading Dreamcatcher last week and aside from King’s style (his “tone”), which irritates me at times, I’m enjoying it. Without spoiling the book for me, why did you rate it near the bottom of the list?
Maybe the movie soiled his memory of the book. It was not good. I did not think it was that bad either, but I think I have rose colored glasses where many of King’s books are concerned. I really liked Needful Things, too.
His overuse of magical retarded people hits a peak in Dreamcatcher, and he goes for the total gross-out. You’ll know it when you get to it.
Also, the ending is kind of goofy.
Needful Things was a lot like Under the Dome for me. Most of the book is spent on stupid and/or hateful people, and the only victory for the heroes is really to survive the shitstorm. I prefer confrontation and sacrifice to achieve victory, which is why The Stand is number one, but YMMV.
Yeah. The grossout factor in Dreamcatcher is over the top.
At least we can all agree on The Stand. [Throws that one onto mental backlog]
Any book with ass weasels just isn’t going to be good.
I did see the Dreamcatcher movie last year and thought it was pretty bad though I honestly don’t remember much about it.
Not remembering seems to be a common theme with King’s lesser works. :)
Dean, Desperation is the one set in a small desert mining town with a crazy sheriff. It’s a ‘mirror’ of The Regulators, though I only read Desperation of the two.
I broadly divide King’s books into two groups: schlock and not schlock and I do not use the world schlock in a derogatory sense. Think of it as the difference between a B-movie and an A-list one. Both can be enjoyed on their own terms (this is separate from whether a specific book is actually good, of course).
I enjoyed Desperation and Cell as schlocky stories.
Looking over Dean’s list, it seems pretty solid to me. I’d rate The Dead Zone higher (top ten, most likely), as well as some of the collections – King is an excellent short story writer, IMO.
I have a lot of unread King books I’m finally starting to go through now. I stopped reading his stuff sometime during his drug-addled phase and finally jumped back in with Everything’s Eventual.
What fascinates me about Dreamcatcher the movie is how, normally, a movie about ass weasels would be Sci-Fi channel level schlock, or at best maybe a Corman movie that reused the sets from Battle Beyond The Stars. But instead, it somehow managed to get Lawrence Kasdan to direct it, William Goldman to write it and a 68 million dollar budget. For a movie about ass weasels.
Also, I have no proof of this, but I am utterly convinced Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore switched roles right before they turned on the cameras.
I would put The Long Walk, Duma Key, and Wizard and Glass substantially higher. The Long Walk in particular I think is one of the best things he’s written. Probably not -the- best, but up there. It’s such a simple concept and there’s so little actual action, as such, but it’s incredibly nightmarish. Duma Key I loved and I prefer a good ghost story sort of thing to rogue psi powers in Carrie and Firestarter (and I didn’t much care for any of the characters in Carrie that I can recall). Wizard and Glass…fitting in the context of the overall narrative of the Dark Tower series it’s a weird tangent and kind of jarring, so I can see rating it lower on that basis. But purely on its own merits I think it’s a gripping, tragic story that’s some of King’s best writing.