For me, I felt that The Tommyknockers just dragged on and on, lost its way several times and sputtered to a conclusion. I figure it might have to do with King being at rock bottom with his substance abuse struggles during the time he was writing it.

I also had a hard time finishing Insomnia as it just didn't grab me. Perhaps I was too young (in my 20s) to want to read about old folks. I will re-read eventually and come to it with a new perspective (and 15 more years).

I agree with you on The Tommyknockers. I read about 50 pages and had to put it away.

Another least favorite is The Regulators. I enjoyed the connections to Desperation, but I would have hated it as a stand alone book.

I completely agree about The Regulators. I bought it without reading Desperation and could not get through it.

I think that one and Pet Sematary are my least favorites. I just didn't like that one much at all.

Funny, for me it's The Tommyknockers too! I read a few pages when I got it from my parents, but I didn't like the style so I put it away. Also, I didn't understand some things that happened in the story. Maybe I should try it again...

I had read Desperation (or was it the Regulators though? It's the book where cars are coming down from a hill and almost kill everyone off in the street) first and I was hooked. Then I read the other novel and it didn't grab me as I expected. The characters were way to unrealistic.

The Tommyknockers is the only book of Stephen King's I couldn't finish on the first try. Even rereading it didn't make it any less frightening to me. I have a real phobia about people messing around in my head sort of thing. I don't like The Tommyknockers, but only because it is one of his scariest books to me.

I was very dissapointed in Kings most recent 'Lisey's Story' I just couldnt get into it no matter how hard I tryed.

steve waxes brilliant, good, fair, and occasionally zilch. an example of zilch is the recent "Cell," which utilizes his frenzied trip in time plotting. there is almost NO CHARACTER fashioning. it's more like a comic book of fiction. didnt like his collaborations with peter straub much either. funny. i liked tommyknockers. it went darker than most.

i have to agree with you andyray- didnt like the cell at all- thought it was monotonous and would never end

I actually quite like Tommyknockers. Gard ol' Gard cracks me up.

Least favorite, based on the fact that I didn't finish it is Insomnia. I didn't make it past the 4th Dark Tower book either. Just can't do it.

Least favorite that I did finish is From a Buick 8. Cell wasn't great either, but I would have to put it slightly above Buick.

I'd have to say that my least favorite was Dolores Claiborne. That opinion may change as I am re-reading all of his works in chronological order, but for now, that's my least favorite.

StefanY - I am doing the same, but interspersed with other reading. Over the last few years I've made it from Carrie to Firestarter, while also skipping ahead to Everything's Eventual and Cell.

I did enjoy Cell for its fast pace and gruesome violence, it reminded me of a Richard Laymon type story, minus the gratuitous sex.

TheTwoDs, I usually have two books going at a time: one that I read at work and one that I read at home. I'm trying to keep at least one of those a King book at all times. So far I've made it from Carrie to The Stand: the complete and uncut version (I read the complete uncut version instead of the regular version because I didn't feel that I needed to read it twice.)

I'm starting on The Long Walk tonight, as I'm trying to work the Bachman Books in as well as I get to their place in the publishing order. Then it's on to The Dead Zone. I've got Cell and Lisey's Story, and I'll probably read them as my second book at sometime out of the order of the series. I thought about waiting until I got to them, but I don't think that I have that kind of patience!

I know what you mean about patience, I feel the same way about Lisey's Story. I've read so many good reviews. The paperback is out in June, so I'll pick it up and read it then.

Lisey's Story was a challenge for me to get into. I almost gave up, but am glad I didn't despite Lisey herself being an annoying twit.

I've never been particularly keen on Cujo - never warmed to any of the characters,thus didn't really care about their predicament...The movie's pretty terrible too!

Ditto on the Cujo assessment Sid. I rooted for the dog. : (

Cujo wasn't one of my favorites, but it's not my least favorite either. I didn't really care for Cell or Rose Madder either, and I haven't been able to get into the Dark Tower series (the first book just didn't grab me), nor Firestarter. I tried, but it just didn't interest me.

I forgot Dreamcatcher. That's the worst one of his that I've read. I think I liked Cujo, but I read it a long time ago so I can't remember much beyond that.

Pet Semetary and Cujo--animals or kids gone bad= bad horror in my book. Also Tommyknockers was pretty painful.

Hm, but isn't that one of the fears of parents? That their kids do weird things or go wild? I thought that this was the moral of the story...

I have said it before, and I will say it again, I barely could make it through Lisey's Story. That "language of marriage" on every page just caused me to stumble and stop. I was patient. I waited. The overall IDEA was appealing to me, but I was disappointed.

Delores Claiborne... I could never finish the book, also couldn't get through the movie. For some reason it didn't hold my interest at all.

#1 - I didn't like Insomnia either; I forced myself to finish it, thinking along the way that things would pick up and the finale would be amazing or something, but the slow build up fizzled at the end for me.

I too agree that Tommyknockers was for me the worst, followed by Cujo and Dreamcatcher.

However, I love SO MUCH of his body of work, that these bumps don't bother me.

Everything else besides Christine. I tend to see King as a master at verbalizing what is unimaginably repugnant. I don't get much more than that from his works.

BTW: Dean Koontz falls into the same category in my opinion. Only difference is I've read very few of his works and never one I liked.

Message edited by its author, May 6, 2007, 1:07pm.

Of what I've finished:

Rose Madder - possibly one of the worst works of fiction I've ever read, by anyone at any time. Truly awful.
Dreamcatcher - Yee gawds, what a trainwreck.
It - I'm probably the only person in the world who hated it, but I did. The characters felt liked they'd stumbled out of a comic book.

Didn't hate Black House but I was sure disappointed by it. I was really expecting a lot more there.

What I couldn't bring myself to finish:

Desperation/The Regulators

I may take another crack at this one, since I generally like everything he's written as Bachman. But I just could not get into it.

I agree about Rose Madder, disagree about Dreamcatcher, and COMPLETELY disagree about It! lol But to each his own... :)

The Regulators is high up on my TBR pile, so hopefully I'll like it. If not, I'm only out a buck! (Gotta love used book sales at the library!)

gnork: your hates and likes are easy to figure:
your mind works simpler than others. (not stupider; this is not a negative thing)! The Bachman books are wholly simpler than the others you mentioned, especially Dreamcatcher. i have a friend who groks Ram Dass and linear revelations, but who is totally lost with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He simply doesnt care about mystery, horror, or fantasy. "With the child-hood I had, you cannot frighten. Witht he drugs I took, you cannot beat the fantasies I've already experienced." so says he.,

I wasn't a a fan of the Tommyknockers or Rose Madder but the Stephen King book that I just hated from front to back was Gerald's game. I even re-read it a few months later just to see if I really did dislike it as much as I thought I did (sometimes I have to give books second chances... kinda silly, i know). Alas I hated it even more the second time around.

gnork: your hates and likes are easy to figure: your mind works simpler than others. (not stupider; this is not a negative thing)!

No offense taken. :)

The Bachman books are wholly simpler

Not sure what you mean by this, since Desparation/The Regulators was one I couldn't bring myself to finish. Didn't particularly care for Road Work, either, come to think of it. Probably King was trying to write like Donald Westlake/Richard Stark (whom I do like, I admit...in fact I learned about him via King in the first place) and did not do a particularly good job at it.

than the others you mentioned, especially Dreamcatcher.

What is particularly complicated about people dying by farting themselves to death?

And, like I said, I see to be a minority of one amongst King fans with It. Everybody else seems to love this one. Except me.

Gmork - That was one of the things I loved about Dreamcatcher! But then again, I was raised with a somewhat crude sense of humor!

#31, to each their own, I guess. ;)

all the way back to...# 1 - I didn't hate Insomnia, though it did seem kind of over long. I thought the first part of the book was excellent, in fact, but that it went downhill with some rather odd things like a rant against those opposed to abortion (even though this does pretty much reflect my personal beliefs) and what to my eyes looked like a very forced tie-in to the DT series.

hearts in Atlantis I was very disappointed! nothing to do with his other works

Thank God someone finally mentioned Gerald's Game. There's a whole little spate of domestic violence books right around that time that I didn't care for at all, (Delores Claiborne and Rose Madder for instance) but Gerald's Game is by far the worst of them.

I've heard it suggested that those books were King's way of trying to artistically work through the frequent criticism that he can't write women. I think he just did the spouse abuse research for Insomnia (where it's a small part of the story) and couldn't get it out of his head, so he tried to write it out. (And, ironically, I think his earlier women--like Wendy Torrence and Donna Trenton--were much better characters.)

I wasn't a big fan of The Tommyknockers, but I think everything he wrote before he got clean and sober is better than anything he wrote after. I appreciate his need to put his life before his art. I think he should have done that. But the raw truth is that nothing he's written since he cleaned up his life can hold a candle to the darkness in those early books like The Shining and The Stand.

Arwenya, Hearts in Atlantis had everything to do with his other books... but style-wise, I know exactly where you're coming from. It had the small town feel of the Derry books, but the mystery of Ted Brautigan is hard to realize without Dark Tower 7, which wasn't even out when Hearts in Atlantis was published.

# 25 I felt the same you did re: Koontz until I read Odd Thomas and Forever Odd. (Haven't read the third one yet.) Nothing lifechanging or earthshattering in either book, but both were very entertaining.

Message edited by its author, Jun 6, 2007, 3:17pm.

To TheBently: re your comment that everything he did after he got clean and sober wasn't as good as before. yeah. kinda. but (1) he came into his own in FANTASY (not horror) with Rose Madder and the nuances of The Green Mile and Hearts in Atlantis (novelette). Too, I got clean and sober in 1989 and hadn't published anything until 1990. Since then -- four books. Thought you'd like to know from the horse's mouth. (We can be blessed that he continues to publish consistently decent books (EXCEPT FOR CELL). Havent read Lisey's story yet.)

I don't believe that S.F does a good "scary" alien/alien invasion story at all, hence his worst works IMAO, in numerical order are: Dreamcatcher, The Tommyknockers, The Regulators, Desperation (and yes, d....t!), It.

It did not have a great monster--I can't, can't for the life of me phantom what's so scary about a clown/giant spider/from outer space.

I am sorry to all those out there who are suffer from 'clown-phobia' and don't think I sympathize LOL....seriously, a scary clown?) but this story would have been great with a better monster.

Oh, I bought Roadwork, read it, deemed it a waste of time, and traded it. It's the only S.K book (I was compiling a collection) I never wanted to read again, little did I know that worst was to follow. Insomnia and Everything's Eventual are also on the list of stinkers.
I will constantly re-read every thing (except the stinkers I already have, of course) he has written before The Dark Tower 7 and just assume that whatever follows are his 'finally run out of steam "what left" ' attempts.

DaintyC - I don't think it was the form of the monster that was supposed to scare you, but the fact of it. The fact that it is older than dirt and feeds off of humans in some atavistic cycle that we can not possibly control. The fact that it preys on our fears and creates them for us. It is the progenitor of nightmare. It is eternal. It needs us, and in some twisted way, we need it.

That's what was supposed to be scary, not the spider. Not the clown. The spider was just how it was hanging out now. The clown form is the same - a vehicle for fear. Something innocent or otherwise harmless made terrifying. Other forms of it had been around for a long, long time (check out The Library Policeman to see what I mean).

paghababian, Yes you're right I live in France and Dark Tower 7 was not published but this is not the matter . I will try to explain more clearly what I mean. Reading Stephen King's book I'm expecting to be taken from reality to terror, fright,fantasy, horror...and in hearts in Atlantis there are only small touches (and very few) & after 100 pages I was still hoping to be taken in this world but NOTHING till the end of the book so I was very disappointed.
It's like Colorado kid. I was also disppointed.
It's not what I'm expecting when buying & reading Stephen King's books.

>39 Andyray: I didn't mean to appear to support the myth that artists have to be drunk or stoned to produce. That's simply not true. (In fact, usually the opposite is true--in your case, for instance.)

I think it's an unfortunate fact in S.K.'s case, but I think that's because his special gift is writing about demons and he's mostly exorcised his own. His best work came out of that flaming pit that he was living in and you can see it. It's possible that to write truly gripping visceral horror, you have to be living it on some level. But Peter Straub and Phil Rickman both do some excellent work, and they seem to be perfectly stable guys.

And you're right that he's done some decent work since, which wouldn't exist if he hadn't cleaned up his act. By now, he'd be dead. Personally, I really liked Bag of Bones, and, at the risk of getting flamed on this particular thread, I really liked Insomnia.

And don't get the idea that I don't applaud his choice (and yours, of course). But I still think literary history will split King's work into the troubled years and the untroubled ones.

"...The fact that it is older than dirt and feeds off of humans in some atavistic cycle that we can not possibly control. The fact that it preys on our fears and creates them for us. It is the progenitor of nightmare. It is eternal. It needs us, and in some twisted way, we need it."

Well said Bookmarque! (You obviously totally got this book)

I can wholeheartly agree now that's it been explained from that point of view. But that it had to be explained for me to get 'the shivers' effect, total defeats the purpose of the book being a good scare (that saddens me).

Call me simple, but other that calling up the images that a writer's word invokes, I don't want to work at finding a deeper/hidden meaning for the thrill of the scare (I can just read Shakespeare or the bible for that--the hidden meaning, not the scare, LOL).

I like my frights, my monsters right up in my face--and thats why I can never appreciate It the way you and its fans do.

I loved the Regulators, but didn't care much for Desperation. Didn't quite enjoy Hearts of Atlantis either.

for the reader who plaints that SK doesn't consistently reproduce the horror or thrill he/she expected, the key word to your problem is:

Expected.

when i pick up a king book, i expect nothing but to be brought into a world that he inhabits because he is going to tell me a story. it may be about a teenaged girl wandering through the woods trying to keep up hope by listening to a baseball game, or it may about a car with its own dark soul, or a rabid dog, but it is well presented and i feel comfortable in his world. the reason he's so good is he thinks of us before he writes and presents the story that way. he didn't do that in CELL and that book is the first strike he's made IMHO.

To TheBentley: you are absolutely right about the criticisms being split between two eras -- the using and non-using ones. At least, you would be right if our literary critics ever used chemicals to establish a "period" of a writer's life. unless we have a new kind of literary criticism of late, the 20th century critics would not get into chemical influences re a writer's works for love or money. to do that would take away from cerebral intent and make their psychology-prone slicing ineffective. It, in other words, would be too simple. SK has said he got his nightmares from his drinking dreams. cannot tell you how i know that. it's from an ANOYMOUS source.

almost two years later from the last comment and here's the score:

lisey's story -- havent read, but own.
duma key -- havent read, but own.
blaze -- could not read. THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING SK HAS EVER DONE IMHO. I won't put ikt in my library if i can not get throiugh it, but i'll put it aside and try again later.

i have read insomnia again and this time it came across as an A rqatingl and i am wondring how much i have changed cause before i gave it a c and it was not particularly rememberable. Now, however, the litle doctors with their snippers and the mean little fellow with his rusty razon wont leave my mind.

Gerald's Game, without a doubt. Utterly ridiculous. One of the worst books I've read.

Oddly enough, I despised Pet Semetary. I found it utterly boring. Maybe I went into it expecting too much (but come on, the cover of the book said Stephen King himself was scared to write this - I had high hopes!). I'm rereading all his books in chronological order and I'm definitely going to give Pet Semetary another shot, but man, that was painful the first time through.

Well... I didn't care much for the any of the Richard Bachman books, the ones that I read at least. The Long Walk, especially, that would probably be my least favorite.

But as far as books he wrote under his own name, I didn't care much for Cujo, and I didn't think Insomnia was that great either, after expecting it to be one of his best after all the things I've heard about it.

There's really no books of his that I can say I disliked, but some weren't just up to his usually standards of writing.

I thought Cell was just a bad, low-ball of a book. I did not hate it, I just felt it could have been much better had he focused a little more.

I read everything King published between 1974 & 1987, including all the Bachman and Danse Macabre (but not The Dark Tower as it was still a rare, limited edition at that time) and even Cycle of the Werewolf - anything and everything I could find - but 150 or so pages into The Tommyknockers, I thought I'd quit King for good. Terrible book. King at his worst. Someone mentioned he had a substance abuse problem at this time; doesn't surprise me, but then he also published Misery that same year, and I thought it was a throwback to his really classic, edgier stuff in the mid-70s - terrific. Turns out I quit King for about two decades. I'm loving Under the Dome! Where has this group been my entire LT life?

Hi bardsfingertips!
Hi BeckyJG!

Yo, Freeque!

I'll always be a King fan, so I will read whatever he outputs (in the form of Fiction).