All hail the King! (Stephen that is)

[horrorfan]

Just to get the discussion going again, what are your top five favourite stand alone Stephen King novels? I say stand alone because I'd be tempted to include the Dark Tower or short stories.

For me:

1) The Stand
2) The Long Walk
3) Desperation
4) IT
5) The Shining

[keytolife]

Just to get the discussion going again, what are your top five favourite stand alone Stephen King novels? I say stand alone because I'd be tempted to include the Dark Tower or short stories.

For me:

1) The Stand
2) The Long Walk
3) Desperation
4) IT
5) The Shining

Funny thats very close to mine. I need to exlude any of the last 10 years so from the classic i´d move up IT to 2) and prefer She to Shining.

[Rylant]

The Stand
It
Salem's Lot
The Eyes of the Dragon
Cujo

Rylant

[Pengwin7]

Can't argue with these lists... I haven't read a majority of King's work... but I have read & loved The Stand, It, and the Long Walk (as a shorter story).
I read 11/22/63 last year, that was pretty good - very enjoyable as a mid-length read.
I'd recommend it - and I'd imagine it would be top 25% of most people's rankings of King's work - it's good.

The Long Walk is my favourite.
I love a physical journey in a story that plays along with the psychological concepts of the character(s).
Even though it was a shorter work, it's my fave.

I read the first few Gunslinger books while in high school... but the story has since faded from my memory... so I have to question how much I really enjoyed it.
Maybe it was simply too much to remember (in the same sense that I can't honestly say I remember much about LOTR except for leaving the shire and arriving at the end Mountain & some parts with golum).

For me, the "supernatural" antogonist has never worked so well in a singular form and I actually look forward to his works that do not include a Randall Flagg-ish evil being.

[Instant Karma]

The Shining
The Stand
Salem's Lot
The Dead Zone
Christine

(I roll old school.)

EDIT: I would include "Different Seasons" over "Christine" as a whole, but I didn't want to select a specific novella from it.

[newfcollins]

I find the problem with Stephen King books now is that it feels like he doesn't know how the book should end, so he just comes up with some crazy stuff that makes no sense. I really liked The Dome until the last 50-100 pages. I really liked the Cell until the last 50-100 pages. etc etc. It's a shame, because I think the Cell would have been my favourite King book until about halfway through and it started dying a slow death.

Anyways, for me, his best book was The Stand. Desperation and The Regulators were well done as well (need to read them back-to-back). After that, it's a bunch of his short stories/collections that I like.

[Instant Karma]

I find the problem with Stephen King books now is that it feels like he doesn't know how the book should end, so he just comes up with some crazy stuff that makes no sense. I really liked The Dome until the last 50-100 pages. I really liked the Cell until the last 50-100 pages. etc etc. It's a shame, because I think the Cell would have been my favourite King book until about halfway through and it started dying a slow death.

Anyways, for me, his best book was The Stand. Desperation and The Regulators were well done as well (need to read them back-to-back). After that, it's a bunch of his short stories/collections that I like.

I don't think this is some new phenomena. This has been the knock against him for quite a long time. He's addressed it himself in interviews.

I mean, just take "IT", for example. All that to get to a giant spider? Really?

[The Comish]

Did anyone here finish reading Gerald's Game? It was the only King book I couldn't finish and I've read and enjoyed a lot of his books.

[plug]

Did anyone here finish reading Gerald's Game? It was the only King book I couldn't finish and I've read and enjoyed a lot of his books.

I did. It was demented the whole way. Easily the worst book of his that I have ever come across.

[horrorfan]

The Long Walk is my favourite.
I love a physical journey in a story that plays along with the psychological concepts of the character(s).
Even though it was a shorter work, it's my fave.

Yeah this one hooked me early and could hardly put it down. You could easily read it all in one go and it had that almost realistic feel to it, like it could actually happen. Impressive considering he wrote it in the 60s (I think I read it was the first book he ever wrote) and now we have all these reality/adventure type competitions out there.

Desperation and The Regulators were well done as well (need to read them back-to-back).

Yep agree they should be read consecutively. In the Regulators, it's impressive how he used a lot of the same characters as Desperation but in a completely different context.

Did anyone here finish reading Gerald's Game? It was the only King book I couldn't finish and I've read and enjoyed a lot of his books.

It's been awhile since I read it and I think it falls in the group of books that I thought was decent at the time, but not as memorable as many others.

[Instant Karma]

Did anyone here finish reading Gerald's Game? It was the only King book I couldn't finish and I've read and enjoyed a lot of his books.

I believe this was the book that formally ended my tenure as a Stephen King "P1", although some of his earlier works (eg. "IT" and "The Dark Half") set that ball rolling.

[horrorfan]

Some speculation on The Stand and IT films:

http://deadline.com/2014/11/the-stan...ms-1201291709/

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/fukun...xt-summer.html

I'm intrigued by both of them but holding my breath until all the facts are confirmed and everything happens. These two are among my favourite King books (The Stand is my favourite) so hope it's done right.


Plus an interview between King and AC/DC back in the 80s:

[horrorfan]

Time to refresh this thread. Interesting read about upcoming plans to make several King works into films. Some are more likely than others, of course.

http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/steph...in-development

[NoWayOut]

I'm with you about The Stand HF. The miniseries was good but too constrained with the medium used to deliver it. So much meat left on the bone. Really hope the 3 or 4 film idea leads to something, not just teasing us.

[The Bottlenecker]

I have long enjoyed Stephen King, and would say my top 5 King books are:
A) It
B) The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
C) The Stand
D) Needful Things
E) The Shining

I don't suppose my second and fourth choices will got a lot of support as faves, but I really enjoyed them both.