Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Jason Wynn]

"Sleeping Beauties" was cringe. It even doesn;t work as a feminist propaganda. Nature of the women's trance is such that they will tear to shred men who are sincerely trying to help them, but are totally defenceless against men who actually want to hurt them. And there is theme "one woman should not decide for all women"... but at the finale, bunch of women from small American town decides for all (King, as many wokes, is ridiculously americanocentric). King was one of my favourite writers, but most of his new books I read was quite shitty... Last one I truly enjoyed was "Revival", because of Lovecraftian themes I like.

It’s so strange looking back at his “feminism/girl power!” books from the mid-90s and comparing them to his feminist stuff today.

Rose Madder had a genuinely creepy villain, and an interesting tie in to the Tower mythos. Dolores Clairborne told a very realistic story of an abused wife and her daughter who finally snapped, and Gerald’s Game took a horrifying look into the psyche of a woman having to confront childhood trauma. What made those books different than the ones today is that while all three did have a feminist angle, they were still relatable and didn’t pound you over the head with a retarded “WOMEN GOOD! MEN BAD!” message like his coke-addled brain does today.

 

[Constellationzero]

Currently reading The Tommyknockers again (first time since high school).

The chapter about the talking Jesus picture was equal parts hilarious and wild.

King does himself no favors trying to write as therapy for his alcoholism. Gardner is unsympathetic and cringe and I suspect King used him as a self insert thinking he's the smartest asshole in the room.

 

[Replacement Account]

Currently reading The Tommyknockers again (first time since high school).

The chapter about the talking Jesus picture was equal parts hilarious and wild.

King does himself no favors trying to write as therapy for his alcoholism. Gardner is unsympathetic and cringe and I suspect King used him as a self insert thinking he's the smartest asshole in the room.

The king self inserts usually die horribly in most cases

 

[The Un-Clit]

Haven't read the entire thread yet, but as a massive Steven King fan AND critic at the same time I have to chime in with my 2 cents before I get sidetracked.

The guy is old. I'm way older then most of the posters on the Farms but let me tell you now, Steven King is fucking OLD now. No writer hits 100% home runs, but his writing over the past 15 years or so has hit a major decline. While he still produces the occasional banger (The Institute I really enjoyed, it was like a follow-up to Firestarter, one of his best early works) most of the content of this period is terrible. Especially his current focus, noir-copycat bullshit. If I never see another 'Mr. Mercedes' universe story it will be too soon. I LOATHE his female dectective character who'se name I don't even remember because the stories sucked such ass. Especially The Outsider.

His earliest works, especially his earliest Richard Bachman works are almost entirely his best. It's a shame 'Rage' has been cancelled both by the literary world and himself. It's understandable in the current world of school shootings, possibly the most dispicable trend that has ruined the education process for the last couple generation of kids but the story itself is fucking gripping, even if it's a shitty excuse for what the protag does. I cannot believe 'The Long Walk' hasn't been made into a movie yet, imo it was far more ripe for a movie then many other early works that got one.

His cocaine and booze era produced his absolute best long form work imo: Firestarter, It, Misery, Tommyknockers, The Stand, Christine, Needful Things, The Drawing of The Three, fucking knockouts and I know I am missing several.

Later Bachman, not near as good. Desperation/Regulators were both terrible misuses of a pretty good concept with 'tak' and the Unformed. Cell felt very 'by the numbers' like the Family Guy parody with Steve and his publisher: 'next book is gonna be about a....' (looks around the office and grabs a desk lamp) 'a haunted LAMP monster! raaar! raar!' Those books around this period were either fluff like that or else preachy fem-works of which only Lisey's Story was any good. Booya Moon reminds me of Clive Barker's dream sea, Quiddity.

The Dark Tower.....hoo boy. What a rollercoaster of awesome to suck and back again and again and again. The first book, raw, stark and fascinating. The second, a fucking MONSTER of a book that got me incredibly hyped for the series, I couldn't wait as a teenager until The Waste Lands came out which was imo the best book of the entire series. It was after this that King really started blovaiting and introducing retarded word salad that sounded like a Vietnamese takeout menu most of the time, and mixed compelling concepts and stories with...I don't even know how to say it but he ruined the series when he fucking wrote himself into it. If it was JUST the accident that near killed him and it was barely touched on, it might have been acceptable. But he turned himself into a LITERAL Deus Ex Machina and....fuck. Book 7 was excellent UNTIL it came to the final battle with The Crimson King. I cannot believe his editors or his own consience let him get that through.

I'll spew more about his short work (which is consistantly MUCH better then his long form work) and touch on shit I didn't rant about here later. but to conclude, his worst work?

Gerald's Game.

 

[Constellationzero]

The king self inserts usually die horribly in most cases

Good, because Gard has already gotten on my nerves and Bobbi is unsympathetic and kind of Mary Sue-ish.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

"Sleeping Beauties" was cringe. It even doesn;t work as a feminist propaganda. Nature of the women's trance is such that they will tear to shred men who are sincerely trying to help them, but are totally defenceless against men who actually want to hurt them. And there is theme "one woman should not decide for all women"... but at the finale, bunch of women from small American town decides for all (King, as many wokes, is ridiculously americanocentric). King was one of my favourite writers, but most of his new books I read was quite shitty... Last one I truly enjoyed was "Revival", because of Lovecraftian themes I like.

My girlfriend enjoyed it, so I gave it a read and... yeah, you can tell it was written by a man who doesn't interact with women much. Funnily enough it was written by two men.

In the other world, they just happen to have women who know how to do the things they need. I think one woman was married to a carpenter, so she's somehow able to use that to fix the dilapidated houses despite never saying if she worked with her husband. She just knew because he talked about it. And other women knew how to do other things that generally women don't. I think at one point they even point out how much of a contrived coincidence it is that everything fell into place so neatly, but then it's brushed over immediately and only presented as women being necessary to create a perfect society.

I actually had hope for the book when one of the women from the prison murders someone. Reality finally sets in and the King boys might actually admit that yeah, women are humans too. But then nothing happens, none of the other prisoners, even the violent ones, cause any issues and everything is perfect and happy until it's time to go home. And as you pointed out, the "One woman should not decide for all women" thing doesn't work because if even one woman stayed behind in the fantasy world, every woman would have stayed in their cocoons.

It's a shame, it was an interesting idea. But modern feminism ruined it.

 

[catsandsoup]

King likes to be celebrated as a feminist and a liberal; but its more about his ego than any real ideology. See: how quickly he sold out JK Rowling for Twitter points.
I always think of the uncut Stand and how he delights in describing the woman who's 'morbidly afraid' of rape, who he might as well call Karen, and her 'No big loss' death. But then he's like 'well, men are so awful, they created a woman rape zoo for the goodies to defeat.' So maybe that fear wasn't so morbid. He doesn't really give a shit about women (or men!), it's all about how he gets buttpatts for anodyne bare minimum efforts: 'I dared to venture that rape is bad! Validate Uncle Steve-o, youths!'

It's the same with blacks, 'Holly' had long swathes about how the villains are all racist (or Covid deniers, which is apparently the same thing) and throwing in Sandra Bland references, meanwhile he's living in the whitest state in the US and probably hasn't interacted with a black person since Amos and Andy.

 

[Mola Ram]

It's the same with blacks, 'Holly' had long swathes about how the villains are all racist (or Covid deniers, which is apparently the same thing) and throwing in Sandra Bland references, meanwhile he's living in the whitest state in the US and probably hasn't interacted with a black person since Amos and Andy.

The Shining is one of his best books, but there are some sections toward the end where Dick Hallorann is interacting with other black guys and it is the purest, Olympic class cringe you can imagine. It's what a white stoner imagines black dudes sound like.

Thankfully, he got quite a bit better by the time he wrote It (where, oddly, Dick Hallorann shows up again), the segments with Mike Hanlon's family being immeasurably more bearable. I guess he met some black folks by then.

He's really become a much worse writer in his old age, though I'm not sure whether it's dotage or just that he's fucking himself up with Twitter, the drug that replaced his fondness for cocaine.

 

[The Un-Clit]

The Shining is one of his best books, but there are some sections toward the end where Dick Hallorann is interacting with other black guys and it is the purest, Olympic class cringe you can imagine. It's what a white stoner imagines black dudes sound like.

Thankfully, he got quite a bit better by the time he wrote It (where, oddly, Dick Hallorann shows up again), the segments with Mike Hanlon's family being immeasurably more bearable. I guess he met some black folks by then.

You want to see some hilariously presented black folks from a very young Stephen King you absolutely HAVE to read 'The Running Man'.

(Seriously though, it's a great story. Read it if you haven't yet.)

 

[Mola Ram]

You want to see some hilariously presented black folks from a very young Stephen King you absolutely HAVE to read 'The Running Man'.

(Seriously though, it's a great story. Read it if you haven't yet.)

Been a long time -- like, 30 years or more -- so I don't remember what you're talking about. I'll have to check it out, I remember enjoying the Bachman books.

 

[Lone Star]

You want to see some hilariously presented black folks from a very young Stephen King you absolutely HAVE to read 'The Running Man'.

(Seriously though, it's a great story. Read it if you haven't yet.)

Detta Walker is a baffling example of black person writing. The evil and needlessly violent alter ego of a black woman that speaks in over the top ebonic hoodspeak that's mostly just a cunt for no reason, at least for no reason I remember. And her nice side speaks normally, it's only when she goes feral that she speaks in such a stereotypical way. What did King mean by this...?

 

[Mola Ram]

Detta Walker is a baffling example of black person writing. The evil and needlessly violent alter ego of a black woman that speaks in over the top ebonic hoodspeak that's mostly just a cunt for no reason, at least for no reason I remember. And her nice side speaks normally, it's only when she goes feral that she speaks in such a stereotypical way. What did King mean by this...?

DAT'S WHAT I WANT TO SEE! DAT POKIN!

 

[The Un-Clit]

Been a long time -- like, 30 years or more -- so I don't remember what you're talking about. I'll have to check it out, I remember enjoying the Bachman books.

When Richards escapes from the fire he set in the YMCA and comes up out of the sewers, a little black boy who speaks like a picaninny spots him coming up and thinks he might be 'de debbil'. 'doan' stick me wif no pitchfork you sumbitch!' The kids older brother is a hood gangbanger by day and secret well-read revolutionary by night, and the mother is a pure 'Mammy' stereotype.

And overall, yeah the Bachman Books were all great. I honestly can't even say which one I liked best of them, they're all solid. If Misery had gone out under the Bachman name like it was going to before he got outed as King, it would have been the best one tho.

 

[Mola Ram]

If Misery had gone out under the Bachman name like it was going to before he got outed as King, it would have been the best one tho.

Misery is one of his best books period, so yeah, it might well have made Bachman a household name.

However, it also would have unmasked him, because I'm fairly sure that in Danse Macabre he describes a recurring nightmare where a crazy woman chases him around a house with an axe to force him to write a book.

 

[Constellationzero]

King likes to be celebrated as a feminist and a liberal;

Also King:

Creepshow 2, last tale, The Hitchhiker: "Ohhhhh, look, it's a bLaCk gUy!" (Points like a loon)

Dedication: Protagonist licks white rayciss guy jizz from old hotel bedsheets. Nigger repeatedly used.

The Boogeyman: Protagonist's daughter dies and looks "Like a NIGGER at a minstrel show!"

The Tommyknockers: Anne the lesbian "masturbates to a grim and cheerless climax" then pees herself later outside Bobbi's house (pretty sure King was kind of making fun of lesbos before finding out about his daughter)

Salem's Lot: Repeated references to queers. Maybe King was DL curious, lol?

I've only so far read The Gunslinger, but I'm aware of the dynamic between Odetta and Roland.


I love me some OLD Stephen King, but the man needs an entire auditorium of fucking seats.

 

[McMitch]

He's really become a much worse writer in his old age, though I'm not sure whether it's dotage or just that he's fucking himself up with Twitter, the drug that replaced his fondness for cocaine.

King’s decline as an author came about when he turned forty, and the combination of heavy drug and alcohol use with turning forty turned off his testicles. It’s the same reason most of the rock stars of the late-60’s into the 70’s started to suck once the 80’s came ‘round. You see, the secret ingredient to making great media is testosterone. It’s what drives you to create an impressive work to peacock around, and you don’t even need a lot of it. Once King’s T-levels dipped below his estrogen, he started writing to impress women, that is rather than writing to impress people. This direction is 100% a folly, because you’re cutting your market in half, and focusing on the half that is less likely to respond well when construction or content pushes the envelope; something King built his career on.
A contributing factor would be that, by the time he was writing It, he had clearly forgotten how to develop his story beyond the second draft or so, and his editors wouldn’t provide criticism beyond not forcing them to develop new binding techniques for his newest phone book.

 

[El Microwave]

I really disliked Rage when I read it as a kid (my school library kept it lol). He just goes on and on about stupid shit, and the way the class just sits and gossips while he holds them hostage is dumb. It's not entertaining nor is it realistic, so why does it even exist? Carrie was nice though.
It was 7 years ago that I last read The Tommyknockers so forgive me if my memory is faulty, but I remember Bobbi letting the machine she unearthed write for her. The idea of it automatically creating stuff from beyond was really cool even if the rest of the book was disappointing. It always reminded me of a song by an early 80s new wave band called Los Microwaves:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=hS5mhpc71rA

I wonder if Stephen King had heard the song. Is the idea of a typewriter or synthesizer or [insert creative utinsel] writing or composing on its own a trope of some kind? Do any of you know of a book or movie about the topic? And are there any good books similar to The Tommyknockers that are actually well written? Also, what do you think about rumors that Stephen King didn't write all his books and that some, or even most, were ghostwritten by a committee? I haven't read enough of them to be able to say yes or no since you'd need some examples of differing writing styles as evidence. And one more question for my Kiwi friends: is Salem's Lot worth it? I found it in a bargain bin and have put it off for some time. There are more important things to read first but it sits in the back of my mind, eating at me.

 

[McMitch]

Also, what do you think about rumors that Stephen King didn't write all his books and that some, or even most, were ghostwritten by a committee?

His decline as an author is pretty clearly his own. Based on descriptions of his daily habits, King’s best personality trait may just be his ability to write damn bear constantly.

is Salem's Lot worth it?

Salem’s Lot is one of his best books. I’d say the best way to read it is to read Dracula immediately beforehand.

 

[skykiii]

Thank you for that. Think I'll stick to high/drunk Stephen King. And Clive Barker, lol.

Sorry if this has been asked already (probably by me) but how is Clive Barker anyway?

I think the only thing I've read of him is The Hellbound Heart. Other than that, the phrase "Clive Barker's Clive Barker's Jericho by Clive Barker" echoes in my head for some reason.

 

[skykiii]

I've dead ass seen this very thing happen when I was in college and grad school. Person I had a few core classes in common with had this done to him in Creative Writing.

This reminds me of an anecdote I once read somewhere.

The author of the anecdote was a fan of Dune by Frank Herbert, and his writing professor was talking about all these "rules" for writing... and every single thing was a rule Dune broke.

The guy approaches his professor after class and mentions this. The professor's response is "Dune is bad writing, but it's great literature."