Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Ewan McGregor]

There is also a pretty graphic sex-dream that an 11 year old boy has in Needful Things in which I believe he gets a handjob from his teacher, like with IT it also includes descriptions of his penis

It was completely irrelevant to the story, never bought up again or meant anything deeper, I'd post the quote but I'm not sure Null would appreciate it too much

Needful Things was 30 years ago also though

I've said this before ITT, but I don't think SK is a paedophile.

I do think he's been diddled as a kid, though.

 

[std::string]

Look: I have defended the scene from a mechanical point of view, and suggested that it's so critical to the plot that the "It" of the title is not referring to the monster at all, but to sex and the transition from childhood to adulthood via sexual awareness. None of this excuses the gross excesses of the scene or the totally unnecessary details (did we need to know Ben has the biggest dick?) or King, as is so typical of his writing, falling into hammer-on-the head literalism because he's usually incapable of a more deft touch. Add to this the fact he was snorting the GDP of a South American country and we can assume he was, optimistically, not entirely in his right mind when he wrote this

I have the same take on it. King sucks at writing endings and also It was a kind of coming-of-age novel so he just decided to do the most blunt thing possible.

He does claim he wrote It while sober, which I highly doubt, but okay...

 

[Mola Ram]

I have the same take on it. King sucks at writing endings and also It was a kind of coming-of-age novel so he just decided to do the most blunt thing possible.

He does claim he wrote It while sober, which I highly doubt, but okay...

Well, if he remembers writing it all, that suggests that at least he didn't do too much coke the day he wrote it.

 

[The Un-Clit]

There is also a pretty graphic sex-dream that an 11 year old boy has in Needful Things in which I believe he gets a handjob from his teacher, like with IT it also includes descriptions of his penis

It was completely irrelevant to the story, never bought up again or meant anything deeper, I'd post the quote but I'm not sure Null would appreciate it too much

Needful Things was 30 years ago also though

To quote myself from earlier in the thread:

Yes, but again it was used for horrific effect, not perving as in the dream the schoolteacher he had a crush on was tugging him off (I had a hot 5th grade teacher, I can relate) turned into the demonic Mr. Gaunt reminding him to fulfill his 'contract'. That was the end of the wet part long before it got close to wet.

By which I mean it was fully relevant, showing how Mr Gaunt can invade your very dreams once he gets a handle on your soul. It was also extremely UN-sexy and quite horrifying. Dosen't even come close in irrelevance to the sewer orgy or in fuckedup-ness.

 

[std::string]

Dosen't even come close in irrelevance to the sewer orgy or in fuckedup-ness.

Eh, I think it makes sense in whatever King was cooking up in his own brain. It was even foreshadowed with Bev's shirt popping off and all the Losers seeing her differently after that. King was writing the most stupidly blunt coming-of-age story ever.

Patrick's rape scene was thrown in there for seemingly no reason but nobody ever talks about that.

 

[Mola Ram]

Eh, I think it makes sense in whatever King was cooking up in his own brain. It was even foreshadowed with Bev's shirt popping off and all the Losers seeing her differently after that. King was writing the most stupidly blunt coming-of-age story ever.

There are allusions to Bev's sexuality and her subsequent unique place in the Loser's Club almost throughout the story. Her father even not-so-subtly accuses her of having sex with them, which is kind of where she gets the idea in the sewers. Those sorts of themes are not entirely indefensible; kids at the cusp of puberty are going to have sexual thoughts and not know what to do with them (Ben catching a flash of panties on the library stair and his reaction to it is a good example, and pretty true to life.) The question is how prurient or necessary this stuff is. I think there's an argument to be made for most of it until the sewer scene itself, which crosses so many lines I don't even think you can see them anymore.

Patrick's rape scene was thrown in there for seemingly no reason but nobody ever talks about that.

I don't recollect Patrick raping anyone or being raped. The scene with Henry Bowers comes across as pretty consensual; Patrick even backs off when Henry socks him.

 

[The Un-Clit]

Was going to say: No one talks about Patrick's rape scene because there wasn't one.

The scene with him and Henry was not only appropriate for the types of characters they are (including Henry's ambivalent reaction to how much he enjoyed what he knew to be 'faggot stuff' weakening his already tottering sanity further) it also put sex even stronger into Beverly's mind as she observed their shenanigans with lighting farts and then the tugoff.

 

[Mola Ram]

Was going to say: No one talks about Patrick's rape scene because there wasn't one.

The scene with him and Henry was not only appropriate for the types of characters they are (including Henry's ambivalent reaction to how much he enjoyed what he knew to be 'faggot stuff' weakening his already tottering sanity further) it also put sex even stronger into Beverly's mind as she observed their shenanigans with lighting farts and then the tugoff.

Exactly. She even finds herself thinking of Bill and what he's like below the waist, very similar to Richie's early scene where he realizes Bev is different from his other friends because he occasionally wonders what color underwear she's got on. The sexual stuff becomes more explicit and less innocent as the book goes on, hence my argument that the sewer scene doesn't "come out of nowhere" as is so often claimed.

The real debate is how necessary that scene was and whether it was obscene/pornographic in execution. It's difficult to argue it's not, no matter how well it fits into the story.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

Bag of Bones was a complete waste of time. Hearts in Atlantis was more self-indulgent, but BoB was boring and stupid.

 

[Mola Ram]

Bag of Bones was a complete waste of time. Hearts in Atlantis was more self-indulgent, but BoB was boring and stupid.

Bag of Bones had its moments, but honestly I haven't read it since it was first published, which is usually a sign that I don't think much of a King book. Never felt the urge to revisit it. I do remember being faintly grossed out by the age difference between the obvious King stand-in and the single mom ... well, not the age difference itself so much as King apparently realizing it would be gross and solving the dilemma by blowing the single mom away. It didn't even feel sad, just gratuitous.

Hearts in Atlantis is Stephen King writing about the 1960s, which is like the Boomer Singularity. Blech. Also, all stories that connect to The Dark Tower turn out to be pointless, as King foolishly made clear in DT7. So ... yeah, don't waste your time.

 

[The Un-Clit]

Bag of Bones was a complete waste of time. Hearts in Atlantis was more self-indulgent, but BoB was boring and stupid.

Totally agree about Bag of Bones. What a total waste of time to read. There was nothing that drew me into the story, I couldn't build an attachment with any of the characters. I can not name a single character from that book though I re-read it only in the last couple of years. It just plain sucked.

Hearts in Atlantis is Stephen King writing about the 1960s, which is like the Boomer Singularity.

Hearts in Atlantis I really kind of liked. Its stories are written in a time period that I know very little about as it's in a void after my parent's time but before I was born making it a very interesting slice of history for me. Sure they are very clearly self-indulgent but no less interesting to me because of that. The title story itself especially. The very beginning of the anti-'nam war sentiment in the US among college and university students isn't talked about nearly as much as the big riots, the summer of love, etc. and King's ability to tell a story when he actually wants to plays well here. Less so the shoehorned in romantic subplot but the story overall was an attention grabber and page turner for me.

In fact I think I will bust it out to read again once I finish the naval adventures of Alan Lewrie, the 'Ram-Cat' which I highly recommend to any fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin "Master and Commander" novels.

 

[Maurice Maine]

I really liked 11.22.63, really brought home the whole early 1960s halcyon years commie paranoia days.

 

[Mola Ram]

Hearts in Atlantis I really kind of liked. Its stories are written in a time period that I know very little about as it's in a void after my parent's time but before I was born making it a very interesting slice of history for me. Sure they are very clearly self-indulgent but no less interesting to me because of that. The title story itself especially. The very beginning of the anti-'nam war sentiment in the US among college and university students isn't talked about nearly as much as the big riots, the summer of love, etc. and King's ability to tell a story when he actually wants to plays well here. Less so the shoehorned in romantic subplot but the story overall was an attention grabber and page turner for me.

I loved Low Men in Yellow Coats at the time, but I am a jaded Tower Junkie and I've really never gotten over King's downright ugly take on the DT fandom in book 7. Oh, we're too obsessed with the tie-in stories that are even listed in bold on the "Also by" page in some of your books? Gee, sorry we helped put that extra wing on your house, Steve-O.

I should reread it and see how it holds up as a standalone story. Plenty of the DT-connected stuff does, after all, particularly Black House (but not Insomnia, whose Tower connection was nearly the only interesting thing about it.)

The title story I was less fond of; it just felt drenched in nostalgia I'd never understand since it was before my time, sort of like watching my parents and next door neighbors play the Baby Boomer edition of Trivial Pursuit. All of the questions were impenetrable and their delight over it was incomprehensible. Very much how that story made me feel, though it was technically well written, I suppose.

I don't remember much about the other stories, besides the ones where refrigerators and television sets fall from the sky, in a critique of American consumerism wrapped in King's trademark subtlety.

 

[Zashaiba]

Apt Pupil from Different Seasons was very cool. Sometimes I wish there was an alternate ending where they got away with it.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

That's one of his better novellas, for sure.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

Apt Pupil from Different Seasons was very cool. Sometimes I wish there was an alternate ending where they got away with it.

That one was horrifying, I cannot bring myself to read it again.

There was a side story in The Breathing Method from Different Seasons, one of the characters in the men's club tells a story about a congressman friend who has something in his trunk that "he found at the Virginia place. He's shot it and stabbed it, but can't kill it."

I want to hear more about THAT.

 

[catsandsoup]

Apt Pupil from Different Seasons was very cool. Sometimes I wish there was an alternate ending where they got away with it.

Iirc, Todd gets away with it in the movie.

 

[ChampFantana]

Can't people ever grow beyond their mistakes?

Not when he refuses to stop being a stupid, deranged faggot.

 

[newport100s]

I am a-log of King's because when you were a kid in the 2000's who enjoyed writing stories and reading books, your parents and relatives always got you his crappy books to try and "inspire" you. No matter how many fucking times you told them you didn't like his work and wanted to read books you actually did like, his books were forced upon you at birthdays and Christmas time.

My father made me read the shawshank redemption when I got a C in class, as punishment. But not because it's a terrible book, but because in his boomer mind, I would learn something from it. Great boomer parenting, giving a 13 year old a book that references gentilal mutilation, rape, and pornagraphy in the first few chapters, as punishment for getting a below average grade. Honestly I feel the same contemp for boomers as the mustache man felt for the small hats.

 

[Mola Ram]

That one was horrifying, I cannot bring myself to read it again.

There was a side story in The Breathing Method from Different Seasons, one of the characters in the men's club tells a story about a congressman friend who has something in his trunk that "he found at the Virginia place. He's shot it and stabbed it, but can't kill it."

I want to hear more about THAT.

Apt Pupil was one of those stories that fell considerably in my personal estimation when I started reevaluating his stuff in the wake of my autistic shrieking disappointment in The Dark Tower. I just found it in incredibly poor taste. It does, however, feature some of the most explicit examples of Different Seasons's running theme of homoeroticism, which I'd argue is what's actually different about that collection rather than the marketing claim at the time that it was King's first foray into the non-supernatural.

The other three stories are all fantastic, though, and I agree that the gentlemen's club in The Breathing Method is one of the most intriguing, evocative ideas he's ever had. There's one other story set there that I know of, a short in Skeleton Crew called "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands." Anyone know if he's written any more post-2000 or so?