Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Little Red Corvette]

Lolita is surprisingly hilarious. We known that humbert rapes dolores because he says so, but there isn't any detailed kiddie sex scenes(like the one in it). The way he talks about dolores and kids in general is pretty disgusting. But the book have other themes besides pedophilia. After reading, i have no ideia how someone could think that novel condones the main character actions.

 

[Jason Wynn]

The one where everyone goes to ant hell when they die and get swallowed by Slaanesh...


I just hope it's not in the same universe as the Green Mile, I don't wanna see John Coffey end up there

Yeah I’ve never understood why people like Revival so much and consider it a return to form for King.

I read it about four years ago, thought it had an interesting premise and was fairly invested until that retarded ending that made me say “fucking seriously?” out loud after reading it. It’s something a kindergartner would come up with, it makes the whole rest of the novel one big shaggy dog story. Not a good one at all

 

[Wampak]

Stephen must be educated about MPREG

 

[McMitch]

The Shining was the only pre-sobriety King I never read up until recently. It’s a great book that benefits from having been written before he really developed a style (though it’s obvious that he really enjoys calling black people “nigger” in his writing), and differentiates from the movie enough that even pop-culture osmosis wasn’t enough to hurt my interest in it. That being said, the first paragraph of the plot synopsis of Dr. Sleep alone was enough to convince me never to touch that book with an eleven-foot pole.

 

[Shakespeare]

Recently I read "The Outsider", it was alright. Until the end where it's revealed (Or at the very least heavily implied) that the monster is actually a pedophile.

 

[Bonesjones]

Recently I read "The Outsider", it was alright. Until the end where it's revealed (Or at the very least heavily implied) that the monster is actually a pedophile.

He really needs to stop self inserting in his novels.

 

[Flea Man Marbles]

Love me some Stephen King, but someone as prolific as he must have some stinkers. By far the worse thing I've read of him lately was his newer novel "Elevation" King takes several thinly-veiled jabs at Orange Man, and the story just doesn't really do anything, nor is there any explanation as to what is happening to the main character's sudden and perplexing weight loss.

 

[Puddleduck]

yawn fests, especially insomnia

I see what you did there!!!

like King the same way I like cracker barrel or seinfeld. Its nothing out of the ordinary in terms of structure or imagery or concept, but it's done in a good comfy quality where you let the mistakes slide and enjoy his really good descriptions of mac-n-cheese.

Yeah, there's something about the way he writes, I love his prose. Even when he's sperging on about nothing much it's great.

 

[naaaaiiiiillllll!!!]

The one where everyone goes to ant hell when they die and get swallowed by Slaanesh...


I just hope it's not in the same universe as the Green Mile, I don't wanna see John Coffey end up there

Yeah I’ve never understood why people like Revival so much and consider it a return to form for King.

I read it about four years ago, thought it had an interesting premise and was fairly invested until that retarded ending that made me say “fucking seriously?” out loud after reading it. It’s something a kindergartner would come up with, it makes the whole rest of the novel one big shaggy dog story. Not a good one at all

Was curious, so I looked up the ending on Wikipedia and found somebody...

 

[Fortunato Brown]

I still love when Larry Correia referred to Under the Dome as Stephen King copying the Simpson's Movie.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

Can he shut the fuck up about Trump already? I'm not kidding, I'm about 30 pages into Billy Summers and he brought him up about 5 times so far what the fuck.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Can he shut the fuck up about Trump already? I'm not kidding, I'm about 30 pages into Billy Summers and he brought him up about 5 times so far what the fuck.

His cutoff point for me is primarily at the end of the 90s/early 2000s. After he got hit by the truck and when he got sober is when he really started going off the rails politically. Even before then you could kinda see how batshit he was politically in a few of his books (Rose Madder and Insomnia being egregious examples) but even those two books I think have saving graces (unpopular an opinion that may be)

I just can’t get into his new stuff. Tried reading The Outsiders and a lot of that was just Trump sperging and ACAB bullshit. I think I’ve just outgrown his stuff. He was good when I was a teen and in my early 20s but there’s far better horror authors out there.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

I just can’t get into his new stuff. Tried reading The Outsiders and a lot of that was just Trump sperging and ACAB bullshit. I think I’ve just outgrown his stuff. He was good when I was a teen and in my early 20s but there’s far better horror authors out there.

I don't know, I still think that he has stuff worth reading post-2000, but he's definitely hit the wall that's for sure. The Institute was fantastic, I'm not sure why The Revival got so much shit. I thought it was overall one of his better endings in at least 20 years. There's the Mr Mercedes trilogy, I've heard really good thing about Joyland...

I think the thruline here is that the less supernatural/crime oriented his newer books are, the more likely they are to be good.

 

[Quijibo69]

Recently I read "The Outsider", it was alright. Until the end where it's revealed (Or at the very least heavily implied) that the monster is actually a pedophile.

That's about half the books he writes, there's a kid who gets diddle in The Library Policeman.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I don't know, I still think that he has stuff worth reading post-2000, but he's definitely hit the wall that's for sure. The Institute was fantastic, I'm not sure why The Revival got so much shit. I thought it was overall one of his better endings in at least 20 years. There's the Mr Mercedes trilogy, I've heard really good thing about Joyland...

I think the thruline here is that the less supernatural/crime oriented his newer books are, the more likely they are to be good.

That’s funny you mention Revival because I actually really enjoyed it up until the ending. I dunno, I think I felt the ending just made the entire rest of the novel one big shaggy dog story.

He can do Lovecraftian horror quite well. Jerusalem’s Lot is one of my favorite short stories by him, and Gramma was good fun, but I just couldn’t jive with Revival’s ending and what he was trying to do

 

[Dom Cruise]

The number of pedophile references and other sexual stuff involving minors is definitely weird in light of today's world, it's definitely weird that it's a topic that's so interesting to him.

Spoiler: long analysis of this

In IT you have written descriptions of Beverly admiring her young nude body in the mirror, Pennywise in the form of her father later talks about wanting to fuck her and put her "clitty" in his mouth and says "yummy, yummy, in my tummy!"

Now Pennywise is supposed to an entity of cosmic evil beyond comprehension, so him saying the most vile shit imaginable is not out of character, the whole sequence is one of the scariest King has written, my jaw dropped and it gave me a sick, terrified feeling in a way almost no horror media has after I was an adult.

A male character in IT also waxes nostalgic about the time he used to look up girl's skirts at the library while they were standing on the stairs.

That's before even getting into the infamous "child orgy" which is purely a "what the fuck was he going for there?" moment.

In Insomnia the main character flashes back to when he was a boy and a friend of his would sneak up behind women and lift their skirts up with a stick he called his "peeky wand", this sequences comes pretty out of nowhere.

In the more recent 2011 short story Mile 81 a boy talks about how much he loves seeing the "bare boobies" on the TV show Boardwalk Empire and finds an abandoned dirty magazine and gawks at the "shaved pussies", also more recently in Doctor Sleep Snakebite Andie's father would molest her and tells her "if she'd old enough to pee, she's old enough for me"

In Apt Pupil when digging through the Nazi's old stuff the young boy Todd finds a black and white photograph of a women he knew wearing nothing but a black garter belt and stockings.

Even in Dark Tower 2 when Roland is digging through the gangster's stuff he finds a magazine of child pornography and we even learn the title, "Child's Play", although to be fair the guy then gets his jaw blown off by Roland's gun and is then eaten by the "da da chum?" lobstrosities, so maybe King wanted that guy's death to be extra satisfying.

Someone already mentioned The Library Policeman, the infamous sequence is absurdly disturbing even by King standards.

I could list examples of weird sex stuff all day, they stick out in your memory because they are so gross.

I don't know man, King's willingness to really go for the throat and get into really uncomfortable and horrifying territory is maybe just part of what's meant to scare even an adult audience, what's more horrifying than children being hurt? What's more creepy than anything sexual involving kids? At some point fog riddled graveyards and "a skeleton popped out" hokum will not scare an adult but the aforementioned things will get under any adults skin.

You can say it's tacky and sleazy for him to use that stuff but it's not like it's the only thing in his bag of tricks, King uses the written word well, getting inside a character's head, having access to everything including the smell of a place, the feel of something on your skin, there's lots of stories that are scary without needing the sexual elements, but it's his ability to send a shiver down the spine of even adults who have seen a thousand horror films that makes him a legend in the first place.

So I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt unless actual evidence comes out that says otherwise, still it's weird and you can't help but wonder...

Can he shut the fuck up about Trump already? I'm not kidding, I'm about 30 pages into Billy Summers and he brought him up about 5 times so far what the fuck.

I didn't think the Trump references were too bad in The Outsider, I mean he's always thrown in things referencing current events, pop culture etc of the time he's writing, it would be weird for there to NOT be any Trump references.

But I can imagine it gets worse over time.

His cutoff point for me is primarily at the end of the 90s/early 2000s. After he got hit by the truck and when he got sober is when he really started going off the rails politically. Even before then you could kinda see how batshit he was politically in a few of his books (Rose Madder and Insomnia being egregious examples) but even those two books I think have saving graces (unpopular an opinion that may be)

If you want a cutoff point The Bazaar of Bad Dreams published in 2015 is maybe a good one, that was right before shit started getting retarded.

King's 2000s output is a mixed bag but for whatever reason his output in the 2010s and even the 2020s is surprisingly strong, late 90s, early 2000s is way too early a cutoff point and you miss a lot of good stuff.

I just can’t get into his new stuff. Tried reading The Outsiders and a lot of that was just Trump sperging and ACAB bullshit. I think I’ve just outgrown his stuff. He was good when I was a teen and in my early 20s but there’s far better horror authors out there.

But The Life of Chuck is brilliant and published in 2020 and has no political sperging.

Like I said I enjoyed The Outsiders although it's not one of his best.

King's 2000s output is a mixed bag but for whatever reason his output in the 2010s and even the 2020s is surprisingly strong, he's one of those rare artists that seems to only get better with age in a lot of ways, I'd recommend you giving him another try.

While maybe they're not all winners I'd say Stephen King's novels are actually among the best things from the 2010s pop cultural landscape, he managed to somehow not only avoid the rot but excel while so many other things started going to shit, it's kind of amazing.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

That’s funny you mention Revival because I actually really enjoyed it up until the ending. I dunno, I think I felt the ending just made the entire rest of the novel one big shaggy dog story.

I think, if anything, it was one of his best endings because it was not what you'd otherwise expect. It's also lovecraftian and nihilistic as fuck. It's not just that everything goes wrong, it's that there's no way for things to go right. Even if you manage to live your best life, you will still end up completely fucked on the other side, to discover what is on the other side of that door is not just a terrible mistake, but it's one that simply destroys and renders null what is on the side of yours. There's no escaping it. There's no killing yourself. There's no doing good deeds. There's no salvation. You are simply fucked. All you have left is hoping to spend as much time holding air in until you inevitably drown in a cosmic nightmare. Nothing you have ever done mattered, nothing you will do matters, you're literally just ant food, you're the autistic dream of a crazy lovecraftian god waiting to devour you when he wakes up. It makes you wish hell was real, because then heaven would be real, but instead there's none of this, just suffering and possibly only suffering from eternity, without meaning, for good and bad alike.

That's a ballsy as fuck way to finish a story. In a certain sense, it's the yin to the Dark Tower's yang.

I download a pdf and holy shit there's like 14+ references to Orange Man Bad, and a few of them are about Melania

Get help you cunt.

 

[Alex Krycek]

I’ll always enjoy IT sans the Child Gang Bang and the Lighting Farts and gay handjob scenes.

As a book I liked the Stand.

The rest of his stuff I either haven’t read or don’t care for.

 

[Dom Cruise]

For what it's worth I think it took a long time for him to recover from the van accident which is why his writing was so wonky for most of the 2000s (it's probably his worst decade for output, though there are a few standout gems)

But even prior to the van accident a lot of his 90s work is a bit on the eh side as well, that could have had to do with recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and again, there's some real noteworthy exceptions.

He started off very strong in the 70s and 80s which is what made him such a legend, but then kind of coasted for a while while dealing with personal shit like the aforementioned addictions and van accident, eventually he recovered though and alongside a certain maturity as well simply doing it for so long really hit a new stride in output, I'm serious when I say that among the American pop cultural landscape of 2011-2022, as so many things went to shit, Stephen King's writing actually got better than what it was immediately prior, it's been fascinating to see and makes me glad he wasn't killed all the way back in 1999.

Though there is an issue with TDS, but the dude was always a very basic bitch Democrat from the start, so it's not too hard to overlook, remember all the shit with Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone? And I forgot to mention, as @Dwight Frye mentioned, the strawmanning of pro-lifers in Insomnia is HILARIOUSLY overblown.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

For what it's worth I think it took a long time for him to recover from the van accident which is why his writing was so wonky for most of the 2000s (it's probably his worst decade for output, though there are a few standout gems)

But even prior to the van accident a lot of his 90s work is a bit on the eh side as well, that could have had to do with recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and again, there's some real noteworthy exceptions.

He started off very strong in the 70s and 80s which is what made him such a legend, but then kind of coasted for a while while dealing with personal shit like the aforementioned addictions and van accident, eventually he recovered though and alongside a certain maturity as well simply doing it for so long really hit a new stride in output, I'm serious when I say that among the American pop cultural landscape of 2011-2022, as so many things went to shit, Stephen King's writing actually got better than what it was immediately prior, it's been fascinating to see and makes me glad he wasn't killed all the way back in 1999.

Though there is an issue with TDS, but the dude was always a very basic bitch Democrat from the start, so it's not too hard to overlook, remember all the shit with Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone? And I forgot to mention, as @Dwight Frye mentioned, the strawmanning of pro-lifers in Insomnia is HILARIOUSLY overblown.

I would agree with the 2000s being his worst, I mostly got off the train after Regulators/Desperation, not that they were bad per se but I think I was just burnt out on SK at that point (having read everything up to that point aside maybe a few short stories/novellas).

I still reread both IT and The Stand (uncut) every couple of years or so, and finally decided to give the Dark Towers a shot after I saw that it had been finally completed (in fact it had been completed a long fucking time ago, I had read the gunslinger in the early 90s and didn't want to continue until he published everything when I read he planned on making like 8 volumes long. I read it and I was really happy. Then I saw the Mr Mercedes tv show and that was pretty good. Then I saw Doctor Sleep and it was really good, and now I'm back catching up with what I've been missing.