Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Constellationzero]

The book is very long. Repetitive in structure, too,

So is The Tommyknockers. Like... this could've been shortened. A lot.

 

[Ewan McGregor]

does come off something personal to him

Apparently he had a fucked up childhood

I get it. I, too, taught high school. Doesn't make it any less weird the way he wrote it.

Ruthie Crockett's scenes came off as disturbing rather than sexual when I read it. It didn't give me the vibes of an author's fetish, more like something the author thought would be unsettling, and it effectively was.

I have quite mastered the art of identifying author fetishes over the years so I don't think I'm wrong with that one.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Finished IT.

It was amazing at first (Georgie, the fag bashing chapter, Stanley's suicide), then was good, but it just kept going and going while getting worse and worse, and when its over A THOUSAND PAGES LONG that's a long ways to fall.

Eventually it sucked my goodwill out and I just started breezing through it to get it done, and it came back together at the end.

I have a feeling that Stephen King, although he does obviously read a lot, writes at least some of his fiction as if he's imagining a movie instead. Because he often seems to have a weird way of describing scenes that sounds like he wishes it was a movie. Anyways, the prose is functional. Not amazing, but it works well enough. The premise is fascinating and is what carries the whole thing. The characters are good at first, but he beats you over the head with their traits over and over. Sometimes it feels like Marvel dialogue.

OVERLY STRUCTURED, WHICH IS DIRECTLY AT ODDS WITH A HORROR STORY. Too much repetition not just in explaining things but in doing things like "we're going one by one through each story about them coming home/meeting Pennywise, we're going to have a Mike history segment then, we're going to..." Most of the individual stories are fine, a few of them are very good, but presenting them in that way sucks a lot of the impact out.

I thought the ending ended up being very impressive. I would have liked much more stuff like the Chud ritual/Turtle stuff. He had lost me too much for the ending to really hit with full impact, but after reading about these jerks for a thousand pages the idea that they just forget it all - everything about their friendship - is gut wrenching.

I got really, really sick of reading him jerking off to Beverley (it's constant, oppressive, creepy and I don't like it).

It's a fucking mess overall, but it's still fascinating.

He and Gayman both have this ugly fascination with little boy sex, maybe Gaiman more so.

In King's defense. And I agree he's a perv.

My Pa remembers a bunch of preteen boys in elementary school running a train on some girl of similar age who was a slut. Being a slut that young you have to wonder, in hindsight, if she'd been molested or something, that's not normal, but what I'm saying is that the 50s/60s were a wild time.

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

It’s interesting to see the opinion presented that it’s ok King constantly includes child molestation in his novels because “he’s a horror author and that kind of thing is meant to elicit a horrified reaction from the reader”

While I agree to a certain extent that may be true, it only “works” if it is used sparingly. Once or twice using that as a scare I can kinda sorta understand, but it gets completely overused in his novels where you get to the point from being initially horrified by it to thinking “Jesus Christ, King, you’re writing about a child getting raped again? Got something you wanna tell us?” It stops being horrifying because of how often he uses it, and you start to wonder WHY he keeps returning to this particular well so often.

If there’s one thing we know about King, it’s that he loves to insert facets of his own life into his novels. How many of his works feature being set in Maine, with an alcoholic writer who grew up in a rural area having to deal with stereotypical bullies and religious nutjobs? Not too far of a stretch to wonder why pedophilia is presented so predominately in his works.

The entire plot of "Gerald's Game" is centered around how the main character Jessie was molested by her father when she was 12. Something is definitely up with Mr. King. I like about 1/3 of his writing, but the vast majority of it is just unhinged and puzzling. It's not even legitimately scary, it's just the bad writing of a degenerate imagination.

 

[Mola Ram]

I got really, really sick of reading him jerking off to Beverley (it's constant, oppressive, creepy and I don't like it).

It really is kind of weird, especially when you compare her with the other six, all of whom have some distinct characteristic that helps them defeat It and (mostly) leads to success as adults:

Bill: Leadership, great writer. Becomes a bestselling author.

Stanley: Super-rational, logical. Becomes the best CPA in the South.

Ben: Genius architect. Becomes the most highly sought after architect in the world.

Richie: Comedy mastermind. Becomes a knockoff Howard Stern.

Eddie: Fantastic sense of direction. Founds a successful limo business in NYC.

Mike: Appreciation for and knowledge of history. Likely would have become a famous historian if he'd left Derry.

Beverly: Uh ... extremely fuckable? Makes dresses or something.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

It really is kind of weird, especially when you compare her with the other six, all of whom have some distinct characteristic that helps them defeat It and (mostly) leads to success as adults:

Bill: Leadership, great writer.
Stanley: Super-rational, logical.
Ben: Genius architect.
Richie: Comedy mastermind.
Eddie: Fantastic sense of direction.
Mike: Appreciation for and knowledge of history.
Beverly: Uh ... fuckable? Makes dresses or something.

Beverley is characterized as a tomboy. That's not super deep, but it's not much less than the other characters. I wouldn't call them one note. It doesn't come up in her adult life, but she also seems to have been the only one who didn't actually do well in life (she was "successful," but her life was miserable).

I felt like shit that Eddie died in the cave, especially with that big fat wife of his that would have to go find another Eddie. Someone had to be the token to get killed off, I guess.

 

[Mola Ram]

Beverley is characterized as a tomboy. That's not super deep, but it's not much less than the other characters.

Her sexuality defines her in a way that's simply not true of anyone else. I suppose that's inevitable, the one girl among a gang of boys, but it does feel a trifle repulsive, especially considering how her father is one bad day shy of actually molesting her and how much attention is given to the fact that Tom's abuse really arouses her.

It's also one of the reasons I contend the gangbang doesn't come out of nowhere, and is, structurally, the most important scene in the book. Not that it's any excuse.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Her sexuality defines her in a way that's simply not true of anyone else. I suppose that's inevitable, the one girl among a gang of boys, but it does feel a trifle repulsive, especially considering how her father is one bad day shy of actually molesting her and how much attention is given to the fact that Tom's abuse really arouses her.

It's also one of the reasons I contend the gangbang doesn't come out of nowhere, and is, structurally, the most important scene in the book. Not that it's any excuse.

For me I wasn't mOrAlLy RePuLsEd or anything, but that scene was so bizarre and dumb that I just kind of flicked over it.

I had the same feeling, it's building up this dumbass preteen love triangle, Beverley's arc with her father and husband and all that, so much that it's clear that she, really, is kind of the co-main character with Bill. Ben and Mike almost compete for third, Richie gets tons of screen time but just so he can spout dumb shit, Eddie gets some good development (which makes it sadder when he dies, I'd have killed Richie), and Stan is just there, like King didn't want to waste his effort on him since he was predestined to die, or if I'm being more generous to emphasize how he was never made of the same stuff as them. Anyways, it all felt very purposeful and meaningful, but still stupid as hell too.


Speak of Richie, everyone knows King is the Tarantino of literature when it comes to going niggerniggernigger, but it feels especially absurd when you add in Richie doing the pickanniny voice every other page.

 

[Mola Ram]

Stan is just there, like King didn't want to waste his effort on him

I go back and forth between thinking Stan is deliberately enigmatic (we don't even know anything about his parents, despite familial trauma being crucial to Bill, Beverly, Eddie, and Ben; while Mike gets a lot of emphasis on his healthy home life, and we get a glimpse of Richie's parents being decent if bemused by their son's personality) and thinking there were just too many fucking characters and King couldn't come up with much for Stan beyond "Jew."

On the other hand, Stan gets what I consider one of the only truly frightening scenes: the dead boys in the Standpipe. Brr.

it feels especially absurd when you add in Richie doing the pickanniny voice every other page.

If you haven't read The Dark Tower II, oh boy are you in for a treat.

 

[Mettaur]

OVERLY STRUCTURED, WHICH IS DIRECTLY AT ODDS WITH A HORROR STORY. Too much repetition not just in explaining things but in doing things like "we're going one by one through each story about them coming home/meeting Pennywise, we're going to have a Mike history segment then, we're going to..." Most of the individual stories are fine, a few of them are very good, but presenting them in that way sucks a lot of the impact out.

One thing somewhat universal to King's best books is he wrote them very quickly and didn't think much of them. It was a book he spent a decade on and it shows. Much like the Shining it's very clear he put too much thought into it's first half and didn't know where the story should go. This is an issue with most of his novels which is why he's notorious for having shitty endings. He just starts with a solid premise and then goes "Well I guess I need to end it somewhere" and shits out an ending.

 

[McMitch]

One thing somewhat universal to King's best books is he wrote them very quickly and didn't think much of them. It was a book he spent a decade on and it shows. Much like the Shining it's very clear he put too much thought into it's first half and didn't know where the story should go. This is an issue with most of his novels which is why he's notorious for having shitty endings. He just starts with a solid premise and then goes "Well I guess I need to end it somewhere" and shits out an ending.

I would argue that you can read the exact moment King told his publisher how long the manuscript had gotten, and how much he had left to write, and was told he needed to end the fucking thing now if he ever wanted it published. That moment is when the kids go into the sewer, I’m convinced that he wanted that to be setup for when they properly confront Pennywise as kids later on, which would have coincided with the end of summer.

 

[Mola Ram]

I would argue that you can read the exact moment King told his publisher how long the manuscript had gotten, and how much he had left to write, and was told he needed to end the fucking thing now if he ever wanted it published. That moment is when the kids go into the sewer, I’m convinced that he wanted that to be setup for when they properly confront Pennywise as kids later on, which would have coincided with the end of summer.

Interesting. Can you expand upon what you thought was meant to happen? The kids do confront Pennywise, after all, and if they hadn't botched it there'd be no reason for the adult half of the story.

 

[McMitch]

Interesting. Can you expand upon what you thought was meant to happen? The kids do confront Pennywise, after all, and if they hadn't botched it there'd be no reason for the adult half of the story.

I think there was an entire confrontation against Pennywise that takes place at the same point in the summer that the kids go into the sewer. It would coincide with an adult section wherein the entire group confronts Pennywise outside the sewer before delving in. In the kids section, this would end up involving either another major injury, or an injury to family members of the group, dissuading them from trying to stop Pennywise. This would give Stan and Mike (I had to look up their names because they're "Jew" and "Black in my mind; they really don't have characters, especially as kids) a chance to actually play a role in the kids section of the story, maybe call back to Stan's suicide as an adult and foreshadow Eddie's death. Via happenstance (much like during the transition between the kids and adults sections), the kids won't meet up as a group until the end of summer approaches, where the last time the seven of them happen to gather, they're driven into the sewer by the bullies and we get the confrontation that we got. I can't tell you how the adult section of this would go, because the adult version of these characters don't really have any character to them. Even the kids outside Bill and Ben don't develop much past second-draft archetypes.

The core of the book is Stephen King turned 12 and he's been miserable ever since. This does, however, create a nice bit of theming in that the kid's part takes place over the course of summer break, which supports my idea that the end of the story coincides with the end of summer (King was also born in late September, which would also fall neatly in line with this thought). If King were more of an artsy writer, he would have had the adult section take place over the course of a winter, rather than a long weekend in July. It would have opened up for good characterization with having to explain how all these adults just drop out of their lives for a non-inconsequential amount of time to confront Pennywise (and would have justified Stan's suicide all the more; seriously it's the only reason he exists in the book, King doesn't even do anything with the Jew aspect beyond using it as a vector to be bullied).

One of the problems with It is that it's essentially two novels, one of which is a worse sequel, layered into each other. Almost all the time was spent on the Kid's section and the history of the town, because that's the story King wanted to write. The adult section serves to justify the less-than-savory aspects of the kids section, and suffers as a result.

 

[Mola Ram]

think there was an entire confrontation against Pennywise that takes place at the same point in the summer that the kids go into the sewer. It would coincide with an adult section wherein the entire group confronts Pennywise outside the sewer before delving in. In the kids section, this would end up involving either another major injury, or an injury to family members of the group, dissuading them from trying to stop Pennywise.

I don't know -- this sounds fairly repetitive. You already had a major injury to Eddie, and a confrontation with Pennywise on Neibolt Street. I'm not sure that what you're suggesting would have added anything or made a stronger link between adolescence and adulthood. I'm also not sure Mike or Stan would have gotten any more development: he had ample opportunity to do so with both of them before the summer, and if you think Mike doesn't have any character after all of his history chapters (something I'm not sure I agree with; Stan is harder to argue), I don't see how a few more scenes in August would have helped.

Contrasting an adolescent summer with an adult winter, on the other hand, is pretty brilliant.

 

[McMitch]

this sounds fairly repetitive

I didn't klnow if it would be better, I just think he wanted more. It's really disjointed that they get driven into the sewers when they do, and I will always hold that his initial intent was the confrontation as kids was to line up with the end of summer.

and if you think Mike doesn't have any character after all of his history chapters

I assign all those to adult Mike rather than kid Mike. It's not as egregious as Stan, but from a story construction standpoint their role as kids are barebones.

I really consider the kids and adults separate characters, as far as how writing a story works. The kids are all great, and if it was just their part and the history of the town you wouldn't lose much; but none of the adults are proactive in their own story, which is constantly being compared to the kids who are being proactive. It hurts their section and it downplays the climax to the entire goddamn novel, and retroactively makes Mike and Stan's roles weaker throughout. Mike exists as a vanguard to alert the others to Pennywise's return and to chronicle the history of the town, Stan exists to die at the start of the novel. The fact that they don't do anything during the kids section retroactively hurts the impact of what they do as adults. You could have a moment where Stan has to play a direct hero when Bill and Ben couldn't, to really hammer home the dramatic irony of his later-in-life suicide and the impact his absence makes towards finally killing Pennywise. Kid Mike is just there and just black and the fact that him being black is a vector for being targeted for bullying is done much better with Ben's weight and Stan being jewish. A moment to show that he's instrumental at the time, not just to keep an eye on the town, only helps serve the story. The major aspect of the novel is all seven of them are necessary from the outset, but King fails to show why for two of them and kind of shoehorns a reason for the third at the end.

Contrasting an adolescent summer with an adult winter, on the other hand, is pretty brilliant.

Have you ever experienced a piece of media where you think to yourself "Man, that's fucking good. I wish I had come up with that?" For me, it's stuff like Ceasar's Legion from Fallout, or bullets as currency from Metro 2033 (I guess I do consume a lot of Post-Apocalyptic fiction). This thought I had right here, is the exact opposite of that: "Man, that's fucking good, why didn't this retard think of it?" It's a shame, because it's not exactly a brilliant way to structure a story, especially one as long as It. It's not even too obvious, because he spends time discussing the town in all seasons anyway. I'd also like to correct myself: the adult section takes place in May, not July.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

As much as I would love to dunk on King and call him a pervert (I'm sure he is to a degree) but the whole IT gangbang and general rape is nothing more then just "shocking" content to normies.

"In a dark dark room there was a ghost!"

Pswah, what is this? Scarey Stories around a boy scout camp fire?

"In a dark dark room there was a ghost! And this ghost was a boy who got raped and now he rapes you!"

Whoa! This isn't any kiddie horror. This is mature horror for mature adults who adult.

Think back to fanfic.net. All the dark, mature Harry Potter fanfics had rape, suicide, and so much swearing in it because that's serious literature for older people is like. Did you get shock from the edge? Go back to your safe Harry Potter story because the adults are in the room and they want to discuss mature storyline like how Draco raped Hermione and now Ron is considering suicide by jumping off his broom because Dumbledore groomed him.. As I said, matured storylines for mature people.

 

[Constellationzero]

I'm almost finished with The Tommyknockers...

My GOD, I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE Bobbi Anderson. Gardner's kind of a distant third. He has some redeeming characters, but Bobbi is just un-fucking-likeable even from the beginning. Anne Anderson is far more likeable, and King was going way out of his way to make her sound completely unsympathetic.

Ev Hillman: I've only so far read The Gunslinger. But it seems like Ev Hillman could almost be resurrected in Midworld at some point. I absolutely love Ev (not that he should be resurrected).

I kind of laughed out loud at the part where Newt Berringer's dick flopped out of his pajama bottoms.

I wonder just how much of this King even remembers actually writing...

 

[Mola Ram]

I'm almost finished with The Tommyknockers...

My GOD, I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE Bobbi Anderson. Gardner's kind of a distant third. He has some redeeming characters, but Bobbi is just un-fucking-likeable even from the beginning. Anne Anderson is far more likeable, and King was going way out of his way to make her sound completely unsympathetic.

Ev Hillman: I've only so far read The Gunslinger. But it seems like Ev Hillman could almost be resurrected in Midworld at some point. I absolutely love Ev (not that he should be resurrected).

I kind of laughed out loud at the part where Newt Berringer's dick flopped out of his pajama bottoms.

I wonder just how much of this King even remembers actually writing...

The Tommyknockers is widely regarded as his worst novel, and while I haven't read much of his output past 2004, it's not hard to see why.

 

[catsandsoup]

I like the Tommyknockers because it reminds me of the better parts of It and Needful Things, lots of rambling about spooky towns and the side characters within them.

But Gardener is possibly one of King's most irritating characters, and that includes all the writer self insert expys that reduce their loves to weeping gratitude. He's like a Tarantino joke brought to life, the alky who's self pityingly tired of people bringing up the OnE tImE he shot his wife.
The end where he's like 'Gosh, I think these clawed murderous aliens might be just as bad as those darn republicans and this corrupted government!' Ffs.

I liked Ev, and I liked Anne Anderson just for a) pissing off Gard and b) King's sad little mention of how she has an enormous dildo (boo, hiss!) which just makes me assume he's not packing himself and Tabitha's assured him it's fine, women don't really like them that big, except the scary lesbian types. Bobbi didn't really seem to have much of a personality beyond being a cool girl (writes cowboy stories), although my fave part is how she taught the dog to play dead at 'My Lai'. Legit insane, especially since King went on to write the 9/11 story about how murder is apolitical, dammit!

 

[The Un-Clit]

The Tommyknockers is widely regarded as his worst novel, and while I haven't read much of his output past 2004, it's not hard to see why.

It is? That's the first i've heard. I really enjoyed it, far FAR more then the majority of his output for the next 10 years after Tommyknockers. It's not perfect, but it had a great concept, great worldbuilding, some pretty unlikeable main characters for sure, but since it all goes bad for them in the end that's fine imo. It even has an almost satisfactory ending.

What do you folks who don't like Tommyknockers dislike other then the main characters?