Okay, it doesn't have to be a book you've completed. If it was bad enough to give up I guess that should count.

For me, it was a book called Tower of Evil by James Kisner. I'm a sucker for stories set in mostly abandoned high-rises, so this one sounded like fun. But even after struggling through the poor writing (which I can sometimes forgive) the character kept thinking somebody was pulling a practical joke on her when spooky stuff would happen; even after a decapitated head rolls up to her desk! Oh man, I tossed the book aside after that!

Message edited by its author, Apr 13, 2008, 10:36am.

Worst book I couldn't finish? Black Dawn by D A Stern.
Worst book I forced myself to finish. The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon.

I susect this will make me very unpopular, but for me (dare I say it...) it's Anne Rice Interview With The Vampire. I originally bought the trilogy, but couldn't even get through the first book. I was soooo disappointed after reading such great things about it too. It's very rare I won't (can't) finish a book, but I'm afraid this was it for me. I feel like I need to send a grovelling apology to her many fans - but this is just my opinion and I guess I just don't get on with her style of writing.

I'm with you, biliobeck. There's no explanation why I immediately watched the movie after finishing the book. Double yech!

#2 Why was the Laymon book one of your worst? I'm interested because I initially liked his books but quickly disliked them because of his reliance on sexual assualts in all of his books that I read. His approach to them really alienated me from his writing, so much so that he was the writer I nominated in the most disturbing books thread.

I'm with you #3 and 4. I was excited to get the book and then never finished it.

I don't think there is anything to apologize for with the Anne Rice books. For me, the first was ok but after one or tow more they all sound the same. I'm not sure they even fit the catagory of horror or scary, more of a romantasized version of the common vampire saga. Not the worst I've read, but certainly not the best, and I'm definitely not going to add any more to my collection despite the fact I'm a very big vampire fan in general.

As for the worst book, Hmm, I'll need to ponder that.

How funny Pete. Leisure is about to republish The Woods Are Dark and a lot of people are excited about it. I haven't read it yet myself though.

Richard Laymon skates a very thin line with me. He gets really close to Dean Koontz (a writer I just can't stand) territory to me, but so far he hasn't crossed the line. Though I have enjoyed a few of them, Richard Laymon is the literary equivalent of a straight to DVD horror movie.

>>Richard Laymon is the literary equivalent of a >>straight to DVD horror movie.

Perfect analogy! While I enjoy some of Laymon's short fiction, his novels are generally terrible. His boobs-fixation is similar to that found in the cinematic oeuvre of director Russ Meyer, only with worse plotting. As with Koontz, I've never been able to understand the mass-appeal of Laymon's novels, except that they don't have a whole lot of big words. I especially did not enjoy The Traveling Vampire Show.

>>I'm a sucker for stories set in mostly abandoned >>high-rises

In that case, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of The Search for Joseph Tully by William H. Hallahan

Message edited by its author, Apr 14, 2008, 10:29am.

#3 - I loved The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned, but I could never get through Interview. I tried several times.

I only tried Interview. Maybe I should try some other Rice books before I pass judgement.

#9, Ken,

In that case, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of The Search for Joseph Tully by William H. Hallahan

The Search for Joseph Tully has been ordered. I hope you're right. I've invested a whole $0.75 in this little endeavor. (Don't you love Half.com?)

Message edited by its author, Apr 14, 2008, 6:49pm.

The Woods Are Dark starts off with aone of the most ridiculous first paragraphs I have ever read. The personality he gives his characters is completely pointless. At the beginning of the story we have two girls swapping personalities. One is scared and doesn't want to do something and the other is arguing with her then they just swap viewpoints. I had to re-read to make sure I hadn't read it wrong. There are plot holes you can drive a bus through. Ok some soilers coming up. There is one man that the savages of the story are terrified of. There are 100's of savages and this one man has a machete, that's it. Yet these savages run and hide from him. Yet they are quite happy to attck a group of people when these people have a gun for protection. Oh yeah and about his ridiculous sex scenes. There is a scene when a couple (consisting of a girl and a guy who had tried to sacrifice her to the savages) get it on on the poch of a house surrounded by severed heads and lots of the savages watching the. Yeah I'm sure you'de feel horny right then>
I could handle the stupidity of books if they were written well, but with the terrible characterisation and juvenile plotting it just makes me crazy.
It really rankles that people put Jack Ketchum in the same category as Richard Laymon.

Woah. Yeah I do like his short fiction though, less opportunity to reasort to the ridiculous.

AlsoAnne Rice novels. Only got Memnoch The Devil, could not finish that. If I wanted to read a couple of pages describing the drapes in a hotel room I'de get an Ikea catalogue, for free.

>>It really rankles that people put Jack Ketchum in the >>same category as Richard Laymon.

RabidPete, one reason for that might be because the first mass-market paperbacks by those authors came out in 1980 or so and each dealt with over-the-top violence. This was just before the Great Horror Deluge occurred and was definitely pre-Splatterpunk. Ketchum has always been a far better writer, though.

>> The Search for Joseph Tully has been ordered. I >>hope you're right. I've invested a whole $0.75 in >>this little endeavor.

JS, I hope you're getting the one I originally bought when it came out (red and black cover w/sword) and then somehow lost somewhere along the line. I liked the novel enough to have recently purchased the collector's edition from Millipede Press. I just reviewed it briefly here on LT (with others to follow).

Message edited by its author, Apr 15, 2008, 10:10am.

Ken,

(red and black cover w/sword)

That's what the scan showed. Of course I have no clue if the scan will match the book.

Have you read any other William H. Hallahan novels? I'd never heard of the guy before your post, but some of his books have glowing reviews over at Amazon.

Pete,

Your impressions of The Woods Are Dark sound sooo funny! I'm actually curious to read the book just for the 'oh, come on!' factor.

I've never understood those people who put down Stephen King and hold up Richard Laymon as some sort of master writer.

I don't mean to run the man down. Check my library. I have every Leisure reissue of his work. But come on, if Stephen King is the equivilant of Steven Spielberg (a talented artist who puts out populist stuff), Richard Laymon is the equivilant of Russ Meyer (breasts and violence will cover any plotholes or lack of style).

I have to laugh, because I thought the same thing about RabidPete's post. It almost makes me want to read the stupid thing. I've always had a soft spot for the REALLY bad stuff. I must have seen the movie Toxic Avenger a good dozen times in high school, because it was just soooo ridiculously horrible!

I've always had a soft spot for the REALLY bad stuff.

I think that's a pre-requisite for being a horror fan. Yeah, Stephen King and Peter Straub are literate guys who deserve some respect. But every horror fan seems to also love some cheesy writer like Richard Laymon or John Saul who's only defense is 'I like bad stuff!'

Interview with the Vampire is not Mrs.Rice best work. I tired to read it and just couldn't. I have loved just about everything else she has written. I wish she would go back to "horror"
I do agree that her books are not really horror but when i go to the bookstore I find myself in the horror section lol

I guess I am out of the trend Interview with the Vampire is about the only Rice book that I liked.

Well, it's the only one of her vampire stories I really liked. Second place was Tale of the Body Thief, but a distant second. I liked Ramses the Damned, though.

I have to agree with everyone here, Laymons novels are generally complete trash, the only one of his that I actually thought was half decent was The Stake, but even that, despite claiming to be a vampire story, had barley any vampires in it! It it was was really was how a serial killer effects a family, but like all Laymond novels, there was one plot hole that you could just, as one fellow member said, you could drive a bleedin bus through. What really pees me off about his work is how he always relies so much on sexaul assualts and other love story subplots to cover up these gaping holes, and another thing that infuariates me is how he always describes a persons private parts when they get scared! I quote from Funland:His whole body shivered, and his penis shrunk. I mean come on people!!!!!

One book I never finished was Dark Dance by Tannith Lee. It was about vampires if I remember correctly. The problem I had with it was that there was not one sympathetic character in the book. Maybe that was the intent, but I found it off-putting enough that i stopped reading after a few chapters.

One book I never finished was Dark Dance by Tannith Lee. It was about vampires if I remember correctly. The problem I had with it was that there was not one sympathetic character in the book. Maybe that was the intent, but I found it off-putting enough that i stopped reading after a few chapters.

Yeah.

Message edited by its author, Jul 16, 2009, 6:38pm.

#23: ...another thing that infuariates me is how he always describes a persons private parts when they get scared!

Yeppers, I agree for the most part (unless it's part of the story--maybe they're naked, whatever). Stephen King does the same thing, I notice.

#24 & 25: Really? That's too bad. I loved Dark Dance and the other books that followed. It was one of the few fangless vampire books I'd ever read before. And as for the characters, I liked that they were so cold. It made the series much darker, especially since there's very little bloodshed compared to some of today's vamp books.

This is easy. It's a book by Dean Koontz which shall not be named by me again. It was that bad. I try to deny that it could possibly have existed.

A close second would be House of Leaves. I shudder to type it's name. Totally awful.

I agree, some of Dean Koontz's books suck, but I still consider myself a fan. One I really didn't like, though, was Midnight.

Another flop for me was Wilding by Melanie Tem, which I read this year. I've read/liked several of her short stories (usually ones she's written with her husband), but novels just don't seem to work for her. I don't know; I may still give her another try.

Others:

A Red Heart of Memories by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (It's more fantasy than horror, but it involves ghosts, witches, and the like. I was surprised so many people liked it. It was pretty damn confusing for me.)

Sleepwalk by John Saul (I still like several of his other novels.)

Witch Spell by Guy N. Smith (I'm still a sucker for his crab series, though.)

Lord of the Dead by Tom Holland

Shadow People by Helen DesErmia (I try to be open-minded, but Christian horror?? Just not possible.)

Dark Lullaby by Jessica Palmer (Ghosts again, but not very scary. Tedious.)

Be Mine Forever by Rosemary Laurey (This is what I get for being a vampire fan--a really bad paranormal romance.)

Nightwing by Martin Cruz Smith (Such a disappointment. Barely involves any bats.)

And basically anything by R. L. Stine (even as a kid, I didn't like how formulaic his books were)

Also, I'm kind of on the fence with Dennis Etchison. I can see where he'd be great at writing short stories, just not novels. I've read and own 2 of his books--California Gothic and The Shadow Man--but the stories are just so disjointed, like he pasted several short stories together or something. Still, I'm always on the look-out for more by him.

#28 - I'd wondered about Lord of the Dead. Several times I almost picked it up at Half Price Books, but couldn't figure out if it was a good idea or just too self consciously precious.

Oh, and I think I should browse this thread more often. I picked up Black Dawn at HPB (I'll be honest: because of the cover!) and now I remember that Pete warned me off of that book in post #2! Beauty of a cover though.

Well, Lord of the Dead is only half-bad, I guess. It started off good--kind of like Interview With the Vampire with the narration to a captive audience member--but it grew tiresome--travel Europe, kill vampire "father", travel Europe some more, repeat. I guess it's part of a series, but I'm no hurry to read the others.

And I know what you mean about cover art. I try not to look @ the front cover when I'm out book-shopping; instead I try to rely on the synopsis, publishing company, and/or a few chapters (if it's a new writer to me). Usually I'll know what to expect from that. Too many times I've been mislead by the front cover--ugly cover and a great story, or just the opposite.

Regarding Etchison, I definitely prefer his short stories, or even the short story collections he's edited, over his novel length works. The few novels of his that I've read (or attempted to read) seemed like short stories that were stretched into novels -- decent premises, but too much filler. However, not all his short story collections are that great either. The Death Artist was pretty much forgettable.

Thanks for the input, daddygoth. I'll look for his short story collections instead. (I'm sure I've read some of shorts in other anthologies; I just can't think of any right now.) And as for The Death Artist, you're probably right. I haven't found too many positive reviews of it. LT, for some reason, predicts I'll just love it. Hmm, I doubt it.

worst horror novel ive ever read? well for personally the awnser comes quickly and with no hesetation what so ever. Lost Boys by orson scott card.

that was not, repeat NOT a horror book, it was over 400 pages long i read to to page 395, and can i tell you what had happened in that 395 pages? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never read an Orson Scott Card book. I've almost picked up Lost Boys several times due to the positive reviews it has gotten. But then I made the mistake of reading some of Card's non-fiction columns. He comes of as a real jerk and I'm not real eager to pick up any of his stuff. (Though I'll eventually read Ender's Game since I already own that one.)

I just realized I haven't listed what I thought was the worst horror novel I've read. That honor still has to go to Deborah Sherwood's Blood Sisters. It was one of the plethora of horror novels put out by Zebra during the mid 80's to mid 90's horror boom. I remember very little about it as I read it in high school when it was first published. However, not remembering much about it is definitely a good thing. It also had the typical Zebra cover at the time -- a skeleton in some form, in this case, one dressed in a cap and gown with a dying rose in one hand and a bloody diploma in the other. Zebra had some hidden gems back then, but it also had its share of Blood Sisters.

#36: Ha, and I'm guessing it was you who gave it 1/2 stars, am I right? ;) At first, I thought you meant Blood Sisters by Mark Manley, which I plan on reading . . . eventually. But after doing a search, I found a dozen-plus books with that title here. Didn't find a cover of it on LT, but thank you, Amazon:



And thanks, daddygoth, for listing it. I love those bad 80's covers! :D

Message edited by its author, Aug 15, 2009, 3:31pm.

Man, sometimes a cover like that makes the book worth picking up!

Yeppers. Maybe not pay full price for it, but I'd definitely read it to see if the story's as cheesy as the cover.

Yes, that's the book and my rating.

The only reason I still have that in my library is that I collected the horror novels from Zebra, Leisure and TOR during the boom period. I remember going to K-Mart once a month and picking up both Zebra titles, one or two Leisure titles and the one or two TOR titles (however many happened to be printed that month) since they were sold at 25% off cover price. They were $3.95 -4.50 cover price at the time. Of course, this was back in the 80s when K-Mart was "the" place and you could actually find something you wanted/needed.

There are plenty of cheesy covers from the 80's from Zebra. I'll go through my collection and find/post some. Blood Sisters is one of the cheesiest, from what I can remember.

Yeah, I'm still a sucker for those 3 publishers, too. When I'm bookshopping, that's one of the first things I look for @ the top of the spines. Unfortunately, some of them are now labeled "fiction" instead of "horror", so it takes me twice as long. I wonder why the change. Is horror such a dead genre? Or such a turn-off for some people?

Btw, good idea about scanning/uploading covers. I'll have to go through my library and find some cheesy horror covers to upload, too. They're always good for a laugh. :)

From what I've heard, they are labeled as fiction now because horror is down, and many stores don't even have a horror section now. By going with Fiction on the spine, it's lumped with the other general fiction. This is a bad thing in that it gets lost in the fiction section, but if it was still labeled as Horror, booksellers might not order any/as many since horror is not a big seller outside of the big names.

TOR and Leisure didn't have as many cheesy covers as Zebra. Zebra/Pinnacle (published by Kensington) no longer has a horror line as it appears to have ended with Maberry's trilogy (which is an excellent series). TOR does the occasional horror novel, but I think they are mainly vamps. Leisure still has the twice a month publication and they are all now labeled with Fiction on the spine.

I think Diamond, Berkley, Warner and Pocket had their share of cheesy covers as well back in the 80s.

That's pretty much what I was guessing. It's too bad stores lump fiction and horror together (some places put horror in with sf/fantasy, I've noticed), because I usually skip the contemporary section--and probably miss out on a lot of books/authors that way (tsk, tsk). I'll have to check that area out next time I go shopping.

Even our library puts horror in with fiction, which most of our patrons don't like (myself included), because most people think of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Anne Rice, etc and nobody else--or nobody new, I guess--so no wonder horror's not making a comeback. But one place I have noticed it spreading into is the romance genre (y'know, "chick horror", as one of my friends calls it; aka paranormal romance). I never read romance before, but I am now (which is scary in itself).

And, yes! Pocket . . . the 80's . . . those were the worst. :D Or the best now, looking back.

I didn't know Pinnacle had dropped its horror line. I was picking up the new books put out by Anthony Izzo and R. Patrick Gates and I'd been hoping that Joe McKinney would finally put out a new book after Dead City.

Maybe they'll switch over to Leisure?

If they haven't dropped it, it's been on hold since the third in Jonathan Maberry's trilogy was published last year. Go to kensingtonbooks.com and take a look. The only horror they have scheduled is the "chick horror"/paranormal romance that sara mentioned. I think I read where Anthony Izzo had a three book deal with them, and three have been published. R. Patrick Gates had one published (or reprinted) each year up until last year, but last year's was more of a psychological thriller (from what I remember) than horror or sci-fi horror as was the case with Vaders. I haven't heard anything about another book from McKinney. He did write a novella called People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies which is a sequel to Dead City, and you can read for free.

Those three authors, along with James M. Thompson, Tamara Thorne, Scott Nicholson and Stephen Gresham made up a good amount of their published authors once the line was resurrected in the late '90s. However, neither Thompson nor Thorne has had one published in years, and Gresham is no longer writing horror. Scott Nicholson told me last year that he doubted he would be publishing with Kensington again. So, it appears their line is dead again.

I did read about Nicholson and Kensington parting ways. I was hoping that he would hook up with Leisure or Berkley.

I wonder if McKinney hasn't published more because of lack of a book deal or because of writers block? Abaddon books has a 'series' called Tomes of the Dead that deals with zombies. (I put series in quotes because as far as I know, the books aren't related. They just all deal with zombies.) It would be nice to see Joe put out a book for them.

It WOULD be nice to see Joe McKinney put out another book. Dead City was entertaining. "People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies" was a good, short sequel. It answered the question as to why some of his zombies were much faster than others.

Trust me jseger9000, NEVER EVER read that book, it is falsely advertised as a horror book, when absolutely NOTHING ever happens, all it may as well be is some Morman family drama. Its a total peice of garbage. How anyone in the world can rate that rubbish as a great work of horror is beyond my comprehension.

#48 - Trust me, I won't be adding any more Orson Scott Card books to my library any time soon.

good jseger9000, another rubbish one I've read was Guy N Smiths Entombed. Goddamn that was such a dissapointment. It had an awesome title and cover and the blurb made it sound awesome, but all it was was just another boring religous story about a preist trying to get rid of some demonic force, there was absolutely nothing new in it, oh and a few ghosts added in for kicks, and a very weak kick at that.

The characters just seemed like carboard cut outs and the story line was dull, slow and boring.

Right some spoilers coming up now, in one part of the book the lift they use to get back up from the mines stops and it is carrying the priest, the manager of the mines and some other people who work there becomes stuck and then the preist has the vision that his Girlfriend back at home was being taken over by a demonic force so he climbs up the metal and everything and finally gets to the top and rushes back home and banishes the demon and what do him and his girlfriend do then I ask you? Did they go back and help those poor people trapped in the lift with a demon trying to get them? Or try and help the people trying to get the power back into the lift?

Oh no no no, they dont do anything like that, what they do is GO UPSTAIRS AND HAVE SEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean come on! about 10 people are trapped in a lift with a demon under them thats probably going to kill them and take their souls dammit! and all they do is have sex?????????? Wow it is a strange world we live in!

Another thing was that when the priest finnally banishes the demon from the mines he is with one of the survivors from the lift (the others got killed by the demon), a potholer and his girlfreind when the roof caves in and we dont even know what happens to the survivor! he is not even mentioned when the walk down the hillside so what happened to him? was he crusherd flatter than a strawberry pancake or did he get out?

Guy n smith reminds me, like Richard Laymon, of a person whose writing what he hopes to be made into a cheesy low budget horror movie.

LOL. I need to slow down when I read these messages, because I thought you meant 10 people were having an orgy in an elevator. (Wouldn't you if you were soon to be stuck in hell for all eternity? :D ) I haven't read Entombed, but I have read several of Guy N. Smith's others. Terrible, yes, but I just can't get rid of them yet. They're like crack.

lol no saraslibrary, what I was saying was that the preist got out of the elevator, leaving the others in there, got back to his girlfreind and banished the demon that had taken her over and instead of going back and helping the people in the elevator with a demon thats probably going to kill them all they did was go to their room and have sex. Jeez, what a selfish, dirty preist :D.

I thought you meant 10 people were having an orgy in an elevator.

Now, I'd buy that book!

lol, well the satanists have a huge orgy in the woods but im afraid to say it all ends up rather horriblly when the leader gets killed by satan.

The more I hear about Entombed, the more I kinda want to try it.

I went to check it out on Amazon. It only has one review, but it is pretty funny.

The Husband by Dean Koontz was the worst I've ever read. The ending made no logical sense to me!

I know, Dean Koontz books make hardly any sense at all, I read the taking but put it down because some random events kept happening, like it raining semen and aliens invading that I just put it down after just 100 pages as hardly any of these events were explained in any shape or form.

Now, I suppose this will get me incredibly umpopular, and dont get me wrong, the guys a bloody excellent writer, but it has to be stephen kings it. (better titled, HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLLY FINISH IT?)

now before you start feeling the need to come round and tear my balls of, let me just explain why first.

Excellent story, but I had to put it down after 300 pages, why? TO GODDAMN LONG!!!!

Stephen king has the habit of doing this in most of his books and short stories, I dont know about you, but I like books that are 300 to 400 pages because it is a good, ussually fast paced, read. Stephen king, I find goes wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy over the top on this. His average book length is 600 pages.

Now like I said, I think most of his stuff, excluding the novels Liseys story and Rose madder, Is some the best stuff Ive ever read, but I just hate it when he always writes his books so long.

Another issue I have is the pacing, I do like a slow build now and again, Introducing the characters, the situation blah blah blah... but some of his stuff I think is just so slow I find I get bored before something intresting acctually happens.

Yet another thing is some of the unnecassary back story, in Cujo he says about one of the characters, Gary, and how he won a medal and then misused it but it has no relevance in any way to the main plot.

Like I said, dont get me wrong, hes an excellent writer, his novels like Salems Lot and The Shining were awesome (as well as bloody scary) and he sure kicks the asses of terrible writers like Guy N Smith and Richard Laymon, But I just dont like it when I feel he is trying to be self indulgent.

I got a chuckle outta that, cujo. I think most people agree (I do anyway) that Stephen King's too verbose (well, maybe not Cycle of the Werewolf). That's why I only attempt one of his books when I know I have plenty of time to kill (summertime when I was a kid was ideal). I've always wondered if/when they'll put out cliff notes of his novels, though I doubt he'd like it. Wasn't he kinda pissed that an abridged version of The Stand was published? I can't remember now. Plus it's freakin' 3 in the morning, and I should be in bed (work tomorrow). (shuffles off)

I found that Cujo is much better if you skip three pages every time he mentions the ad agency.

I wish I could that (skip pages), but it seems sacrilegious or something (for me anyway ;), even if I'm reading about ad agencies, etc.

Goydaeh, I'm still plodding through it and I wish someone had told me that at the beginning, I'd be finished now I'm sure. Well, if I also skipped five pages every time marital problems come up too...

I don't know if this one will ultimately qualify as one of the worst horror novels I will have read, but I'm finally going to read Pauline Dunn's Phantoms. I mean, The Crawling Dark. For those that haven't heard, Dunn, which is a pseudonym for two sisters who had three horror novels published under the Zebra imprint in the 90s, plagiarized Dean Koontz's Phantoms in two books. Supposedly, there are entire sections in The Crawling Dark that are plagiarized and some smaller sections in Demonic Color. Since Phantoms is one of my favorite Koontz novels (when he wrote pure horror, not that pseudo-horror stuff of recent years), I figured I'd check this one out. I read Dunn's third novel Flesh Stealer years ago and remember it to be a slightly better than average horror novel.

hhmmm, intresting. A pseudonym used by two sisters? Ill think Ill probably chech that out sometime, since Im running out of horror stories to read at the moment. I would try Dean Koontz, but I really am not to eager because of the reveiws some of his books of got on amazon.co.uk. (The books were your heart belongs to me, the darkest evening of the year and the taking, I acctually picked up the taking, but put it down a qauter of the way through as all it seemed to be were a series of random, disjointed events that were not even explained in away shape or form.)

#63 cujo9....IMHO - you should just say no to Koontz. He's appallingly bad.

Well, before you completely pitch out Koontz, you may want to check out his series starting with Odd Thomas. It's very good, IMHO. Also, I just read The Face as part of our Halloween reading list over in the 75 Book Challenge group. Even though it suffers from Koontz's flowery prose, the plot more than makes up for it.

On the other hand, Koontz did produce that wretched Frankenstein reworking...8^}

#63 - ...since I'm running out of horror stories to read at the moment.

Cujo, you should check out the Leisure horror club at Dorchesterpub.com. They'll send you two horror novels a month, though the quality of the novels can vary quite a bit and very few of the novels are fantastic. At any rate, almost anything they send you will be better than Dean Koontz (well, Richard Laymon is questionable).

#65 - On the other hand, Koontz did produce that wretched Frankenstein reworking...8^}

Have you noticed that those books have been reissues, without any credit to the 'co-authors' (who I'm pretty sure wrote every word between the covers).

Talking about King, I'm re-reading Pet Sematary and am struggling. This book is a short story compared to a lot of his other work, yet I find the pages of superfluity turn me off. The story idea is good; it just seems to be an Andean serpentine route to get there.

I don't know if it's just the second read blues (that's why I never re-read Anne Rice) or if writing has evolved away from King so much that his 'cutting edge' writing style is now redundant.

It feels like: bored, bored, Oooo! Good!, bored, bored, chill!, bored, bored.

I think that is the real problem of Koontz and King: they wrote too damn much (in more ways than one). If Harper Lee had written prolifically, we would probably still revere To Kill a Mockingbird but not as much as if it had been her only book. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a few well placed words inspire; a hell of a lot of words are just a hell of a lot of words.

#66 - Have you noticed that those books have been reissues, without any credit to the 'co-authors' (who I'm pretty sure wrote every word between the covers).

Yeah, well, if I'd been one of the co-authors, I wouldn't want my name on it either! 8^}

I completely agree that Koontz and King have written too much. And given their success, there probably aren't a lot of folks around who will tell them when something stinks.

me too. queen of the damned is my favorite book ever.

Koontz has written too much. King has not. King can never write too much. Never. Nope. Absolutely not. Well, I think we all could have done without The Tommyknockers, and maybe Cell, and somebody certainly should have given him a great big whack upside the head when he was in the middle of Under the Dome, told him to tighten it up a bit. Otherwise, however, I can't think of another one of his book's that weren't of the utmost quality, not only for genre fiction but general fiction as well.
Koontz is okay in small doses, much of his work can be tossed in the garbage. Same with Laymon.

I admit it: I remember liking The Tommyknockers quite a bit. I'm wondering how it will hold up when I reread it for the SK Flavor of the Month project.

Koontz has written too much. King has not.

Aawww, you guys are so hard on him (Koontz, I mean). But I don't know if that's true (Koontz writing more). If you subtract his co-authored books (which, as a few of you've mentioned, probably weren't even written by him) and compare what he has written, word-for-word, with King's books, I'm betting King would win. SK's a pretty verbose writer (not that that's a bad thing--sometimes). Plus, I keep hearing good things about Koontz's Odd Thomas series. I have a coworker who read those and loved 'em, which surprised me, since she hates horror. I'll have to give those a go. It's been awhile since I've picked up a Dean Koontz book (a recent one, anyway).

And since everyone's nominating a least-favorite King book, mine would probably have to be Gerald's Game. It's a great idea, but way too long. It would've worked better as a short story, imho. Luckily, I haven't read too many crappy books lately, so I can't add another to this thread.

Oh, and out of curiousity for all you read-a-SK-book-per-month (or whatever it's called), do you read the book, then watch the movie, or just leave it at the book? Just curious, because I can't think of too many of his books that weren't made into movies. It'd be a fun challenge. I'll have to see if I have The Tommyknockers and join ya if I do.

I feel I should point out that "King has not written too much" does not mean the same thing as "King has not written more" :)

I tried the Odd Thomas series. It wasn't as bad as a lot of his other stuff (one-dimensional characters and good god the schmaltz), but I had a hard time with his habit of writing ten-word long-paragraphs (wtf is up with that? It's bad enough in newspapers, but novels?) and I lost interest halfway through the second book. I used to love him, but that was when I was like 13.