Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Cheesegirl78]

That's the one King book I'd really like to read, The Running Man. I hear it's a lot different from the movie, as in it goes around the entire country rather than being contained in an arena like in the Schwarzenegger flick. I'd like to finish reading Pet Sematary as well. I started reading that one years ago while in a library, but I never checked it out at the time and I never picked it up again. What I read of that one, I remember it being pretty good and really drawing me in.

Pet Sematary is his scariest book, IMO.
Both of the movies sucked, but the book is great.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

The Running Man is probably the best of his novellas. It's almost pure action, very little exposition.

 

[Active User]

The movie is essentially an entirely different story with an entirely different tone. Even Arnold being cast as the main guy at all exemplifies that, given the dire straits the dude is in in the book and how he's all malnourished and such.

 

[X Prime]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a bit: King doesn't write copious amounts of child rape scenes because he's secretly into that, but merely because he's a hack who can't figure out other ways of shocking the reader and depicting a corrupting influence in other ways than "innocent child gets corrupted into sex". His content is awful by design, he's a horror writer after all, but he's also kinda bad at it and doesn't have much imagination.

How does that work when the IT child orgy is portrayed as positive?

 

[Zaryiu2]

Is Dark Tower worth reading (if you stop before the events in the tower itself) or not and if not any better alternatives? Also now I am really not sure what from Stephen King to read since well... the stuff mentioned in the last few pages of this thread is really uncomfortable

 

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Just finished his latest, Fairy Tale, and while it's never going to be up there with his top work it's a pretty good yarn. No kiddie or fetish stuff and very little political sperging, and King limits himself to one entirely gratuitous sex scene at the end. 6.5/10

 

[Jason Wynn]

Th

Is Dark Tower worth reading (if you stop before the events in the tower itself) or not and if not any better alternatives? Also now I am really not sure what from Stephen King to read since well... the stuff mentioned in the last few pages of this thread is really uncomfortable

The first five Tower books are really damn good. Song of Susannah and final novel, also called The Dark Tower go really off the rails and introduce some truly stupid shit, and I’m saying this as someone who has a huge soft spot for the series. Read at least up until Wolves of the Calla and then if you’re still really invested I’d finish the last two. Just be warned it does take a pretty big dip in quality at that point

 

[Slideshow Bill]

King has a weird habit of slipping kid fucking into his books.

In books like The Bluest Eye or Kiterunner, whenever there's child rape, it's always portrayed as horrific and traumatic.

Spoiler: Spoilers for both of those books

In Kiterunner, there's this kid that rapes the protag's brother and when he is an adult, he rapes the protag's nephew. It is relevant to the protag's character development and isn't just there for the sake of shock value.
In The Bluest Eye, an 11 year old girl is raped and impregnated by her father, That book is about the traumas of the three protag girls (one obviously has it worse) and how a community can fail to protect its vulnerable

When Stevie does it, it's almost never relevant to the narrative or a character's development. I want to put a sign over his desk that reads "PLEASE KEEP BOTH HANDS ON THE KEYBOARD AT ALL TIMES".

 

[Constellationzero]

Th

The first five Tower books are really damn good. Song of Susannah and final novel, also called The Dark Tower go really off the rails and introduce some truly stupid shit, and I’m saying this as someone who has a huge soft spot for the series. Read at least up until Wolves of the Calla and then if you’re still really invested I’d finish the last two. Just be warned it does take a pretty big dip in quality at that point

Honestly I tried to start The Drawing of the Three and stopped by chapter 2. I really enjoyed The Gunslinger and I'm not a fan of Louis L'Amour-esque novels, but I thought King effected a great mashup of dark fantasy and classic (Tom Mix?) type western. I'd hoped for something at least similar with The Regulators, but...not a fan.

I just kind of decided The Gunslinger, for me, stands on its own even though he didn't make it to the tower yet. Really liked the little side story about the "God" Amoco. It was kind of clever. Plus I liked the end with the man in black reading the Gunslinger's Tarot.

Just me though. I can totally understand others liking the whole series and wanting to read more.

 

[skykiii]

So as a creative writing exercise I decided to see if I could write like Stephen King.

Here we go:

Spoiler: Should be worth at least ten Autistic rankings

A man, his wife, and their two children were driving to their new home. They were glad to get out of their car because it smelled like shit, because they had been shitting non-stop the entire way. They went into the house and were disturbed at all the black cock pictures on the walls which they tore down and burned in a baby crib. After that a gang of homosexual eldritch ninjas jumped out of the closets and raped the children.

The dad resorted to drinking a lot, which saved his life as eldritch ninjas can't stand the smell of alcohol, so the father stayed in his office drinking and pissing all day. The mother took to obsessively washing the dishes until she used so much dishwashing liquid she began to imagine she was actually talking to the scrubbing bubbles mascot, who ordered her to scrub the skin off her hands in order to finally get the urine and fecal smell out.

Meanwhile the son and daughter, who were both still embryos, went to the forest where they met local psychotic teens who raped them and then called them mean names, which of course hurt worse than raping them because I have absolutely no idea how trauama works. They were saved by other kids, and then the son and daughter went with these other kids and found a cave where the Trix Rabbit lived, but the Trix Rabbit was actually evil and worshipped The Thing Between the Aisles. They realized the only way to stop it was to band together and burn down Wal-Mart, but first they all had sex with the one girl in the group as a team-building exercise.

On the way to burn down Wal-Mart, they saw a black man without pants. They could count the wrinkles on his cock. This man was actually the sheriff, and he was carrying a Bible and wearing a MAGA hat, and as he passed by the kids heard him say "how I wish I had been born white!"

Right before reaching the Wal-Mart, the kids saw a handsome-looking man in glasses shoot a church with a rocket launcher. This man then smiled and gave them a thumbs up, and the kids felt their spirits soar.

As they stepped inside the Wal-Mart, they could feel the evil. One of the boys, Dee Rump, related the fact that Wal-Mart had actually been founded by a guy from Arkansas, which of course meant the chain was evil and probably transphobic. One of the kids, a three-year-old named Mollie, revealed just then that she used to be named Melvin but transitioned on encouragement from her teacher. Just then Dee Rump succumbed to evil and turned on the kids, revealing he was on Wal-Mart's side and saw capitalism as the ultimate force for good. The daughter suddenly felt compelled to clean herself to get this asshole's sperm out of her, and they all killed Dee Rump.

Then I, the author, appeared and struck Wal-Mart with a meteor from heaven and the kids all cheered.

 

[Constellationzero]

Today at the local Goodwill, I found a pristine first edition Cujo.
I've never read it, but I saw the movie as a kid. What are your thoughts on Cujo, the book?

 

[Jason Wynn]

Today at the local Goodwill, I found a pristine first edition Cujo.
I've never read it, but I saw the movie as a kid. What are your thoughts on Cujo, the book?

It’s ok. King was so blitzed out on coke at the time he has no memory of writing it. If the book was just focused on a rabid dog and the danger he poses to the stranded mother and son it would have been pretty good. King tries cramming unnecessary supernatural elements into it though tying into The Dead Zone. He focuses a bit too much on the affair the mom is having with a local bum as well. If the book was trimmed down a bit it would be really good. As it stands I think it’s still worth a read, but it’s one of his mid-tier books at best.

 

[TokiBun]

I appreciate the rec for Running Man I’m loving the book so far.

But what the fuck is this sentence? King is putting us Kiwis to shame with this level of racism lmao
“The man behind the desk was of middle height and very black. So black, in fact, that for a moment Richards was struck with unreality. He might have stepped out of a minstrel show.”

JUST SAY HE’S BLACK. And yes a few pages ago he had the main character say nigger.

 

[Constellationzero]

I appreciate the rec for Running Man I’m loving the book so far.

But what the fuck is this sentence? King is putting us Kiwis to shame with this level of racism lmao
“The man behind the desk was of middle height and very black. So black, in fact, that for a moment Richards was struck with unreality. He might have stepped out of a minstrel show.”

JUST SAY HE’S BLACK. And yes a few pages ago he had the main character say nigger.

In Night Shift, The Boogeyman has the main character telling the psychiatrist about finding his daughter's body in the bedroom and she, (I quote) "Was blacker than a nigger at a minstrel show."

Which is one reason I wonder if he rocks his TDS so hard to try and get out ahead of the I can only read Harry Potter and Star Wars crowd.

 

[TokiBun]

I’m baffled he has Twitter keyboard warriors defending him on a daily basis. If they’ve read his stuff it must not be less popular works like we’ve mentioned. I can’t recall his big books ever making minstrel show comparisons.

 

[McMitch]

I appreciate the rec for Running Man I’m loving the book so far.

But what the fuck is this sentence? King is putting us Kiwis to shame with this level of racism lmao
“The man behind the desk was of middle height and very black. So black, in fact, that for a moment Richards was struck with unreality. He might have stepped out of a minstrel show.”

JUST SAY HE’S BLACK. And yes a few pages ago he had the main character say nigger.

I’m baffled he has Twitter keyboard warriors defending him on a daily basis. If they’ve read his stuff it must not be less popular works like we’ve mentioned. I can’t recall his big books ever making minstrel show comparisons.

“Nigger” is unironically Stephen King’s favorite word. On one hand: it’s a cheap and easy way to set tone or setting or characterization, and in the other: he clearly gets a child-like glee from saying bad words.

 

[TokiBun]

He really does and what annoys me is I had no idea the main character in running man is meant to be a racist? It just comes out of nowhere at the beginning race doesn’t have anything to do with his backstory it’s so weird.

 

[Constellationzero]

For a while, I wanted to know why King didn't get a cancelling over Dedication. Then I remembered (again), that none of these NPC SJW retards are able to read at their appropriate age level. This is why everything is framed against Star Wars and Harry Potter.

Because that story was the most batshit, degenerate, and (I'm sure) ignorant story with all black characters (except for the "racist" white author who the black protagonist was licking up his jizz from the hotel bedsheets) I've ever seen.

 

[Illumithotty]

Dedication sort of makes sense for its disgusting details; folk magic isn't pretty and something like 'eat that dude's jizz off the sheets' is pretty much on point for what some hoodoo woman would suggest. It's not a very good story but I can see where the inspiration may've come from, and with most 'magic' coming from kids cartoons or asian/indian influences, good ol' conjure woman magic still probably seems exotic.

And with Rose Madder, it's also not a very good story. But again I can kind of see where some thought may've gone into it, or at least specifically with how the male characters are set up. For all its faults - the abrupt interjection of the supernatural that comes to completely dominate the plot, some really thin supporting characters that're just pulled from central casting, etc - I don't think it would've been a better book if it had male characters added just to flesh out the cast and provide a pre-hashtag #notallmen figleaf.

But while a lot of people rightfully zero in on all of the weird pre-teen sex in It, what really bothered me about it years later was the ripped-from-the-headlines nature of the gay guy getting murdered. Almost step-for-step used in the book. I know it's not the first or the last horror book to just grab an actual crime and use it for shock value, but it's just another grimy twist to the book.

 

[Constellationzero]

Dedication sort of makes sense for its disgusting details; folk magic isn't pretty and something like 'eat that dude's jizz off the sheets' is pretty much on point for what some hoodoo woman would suggest. It's not a very good story but I can see where the inspiration may've come from, and with most 'magic' coming from kids cartoons or asian/indian influences, good ol' conjure woman magic still probably seems exotic.

And with Rose Madder, it's also not a very good story. But again I can kind of see where some thought may've gone into it, or at least specifically with how the male characters are set up. For all its faults - the abrupt interjection of the supernatural that comes to completely dominate the plot, some really thin supporting characters that're just pulled from central casting, etc - I don't think it would've been a better book if it had male characters added just to flesh out the cast and provide a pre-hashtag #notallmen figleaf.

But while a lot of people rightfully zero in on all of the weird pre-teen sex in It, what really bothered me about it years later was the ripped-from-the-headlines nature of the gay guy getting murdered. Almost step-for-step used in the book. I know it's not the first or the last horror book to just grab an actual crime and use it for shock value, but it's just another grimy twist to the book.

You're right about the Brouja hoodoo stuff. I didn't have a problem with that (the jizz sheets thing was still weird though). But I'm just a little surprised the SJW's haven't gone after him for telling a black woman's story that isn't his to tell kind of thing.