Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[skykiii]

but I don't think his decline has been as severe as say, Dean Koontz.

What's this about Dean Koontz now? Can you give me the deets?

Was Koontz ever good? All I know is someone once told me his books were basically a slightly gorier Scooby Doo.

 

[Flaming Carrot]

What's this about Dean Koontz now? Can you give me the deets?

Was Koontz ever good? All I know is someone once told me his books were basically a slightly gorier Scooby Doo.

Koontz started off his career as a fairly decent science fiction author. In the mid-70s he move into thriller/horror territory and wrote some pretty good books until about sometime in the mid 90s when he really started phoning it in. Slightly gorier Scooby Doo is actually not a bad description of his current work. The protagonists are all flawlessly good, the antagonists are cartoonishly evil, and there's going to be a dog showing up at some point.

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

and not the "main character has a wet dream about raping a Jewish girl in a concentration camp" part?

Of course not, animals are holy and only Evil People have them even pretend-hurt ><'

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Dolores Claiborne and Carrie are among his best works imo.

Gerald's Game made me quite literally lose my lunch. Word of advice, if you are going in blind, be careful. Also don't eat beforehand. And yes I am hinting at THAT scene.

He is so insufferable now though. Like Stephen shut up and keep writing.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

I read Gerald's Game when I was 15, BIG mistake. I never made a concerted effort to read all of King's books, but Thinner, Tommyknockers, Roadwork, Needful Things, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon all stuck with me. The Dark Tower was the first book that ever made me angry, so I vote for that as his worst. "EEEEEE!" Get fucked.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

Out of all the King collections I've read, I feel the worst I read is Different Seasons, and I'll explain my reasonings for each story:

• Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Aside from the creative way the main character escapes prison, I found this to just be massively dull the whole way through.
• Apt Pupil: The whole thing is horrendous in terms of content, and I think King was going for that. I physically felt like I needed to take a shower after reading the bit where the main character is (NSFL: having wet dreams about being an SS officer at a concentration camp and raping Jewish girls).
• The Body: The only story in the collection that I found remotely likable. The bits where the narrator shows off his written work as an adult I didn't like and skimmed over because it had nothing to do with the boys looking for the dead body, and this part dragged on and on. I know modern King is no stranger to putting left wing Twitter rants in his books, but there's a part near the end of this story where he takes an unnecessary potshot at Reagan. The characters in this story act more like... caricatures of preteens. Like I have never seen a preteen curse this much before I got to middle school, and the story is just incredibly padded with unnecessary things when it could have been really good if King actually tried. Doesn't help that there is LOTS OF CAPS LOCK FOR VOLUME EMPHASIS during the scene where one of the boys is shouting back and forth at the owner of the town dump.
• The Breathing Method: Just not a good story. Tries WAY too hard to be shocking, especially with the main character, a doctor, describing rudimentary abortion methods he's seen early on. Had to skim over a few pages because I just can't handle gore involving reproductive anatomy. I just can't.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Out of all the King collections I've read, I feel the worst I read is Different Seasons, and I'll explain my reasonings for each story:

• Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Aside from the creative way the main character escapes prison, I found this to just be massively dull the whole way through.

Agreed this one's pretty dull, the movie makes it a lot more interesting.

• Apt Pupil: The whole thing is horrendous in terms of content, and I think King was going for that. I physically felt like I needed to take a shower after reading the bit where the main character is (NSFL: having wet dreams about being an SS officer at a concentration camp and raping Jewish girls).

It's been over a decade since I read Different Seasons, but I remember thinking this one was really good, it's much better than the movie, the opposite of Shawshank.

• The Body: The only story in the collection that I found remotely likable. The bits where the narrator shows off his written work as an adult I didn't like and skimmed over because it had nothing to do with the boys looking for the dead body, and this part dragged on and on. I know modern King is no stranger to putting left wing Twitter rants in his books, but there's a part near the end of this story where he takes an unnecessary potshot at Reagan. The characters in this story act more like... caricatures of preteens. Like I have never seen a preteen curse this much before I got to middle school, and the story is just incredibly padded with unnecessary things when it could have been really good if King actually tried. Doesn't help that there is LOTS OF CAPS LOCK FOR VOLUME EMPHASIS during the scene where one of the boys is shouting back and forth at the owner of the town dump.

I remember thinking this one was really good, falling somewhere in the middle where the movie is a classic but the story stands up respectfully to it.

• The Breathing Method: Just not a good story. Tries WAY too hard to be shocking, especially with the main character, a doctor, describing rudimentary abortion methods he's seen early on. Had to skim over a few pages because I just can't handle gore involving reproductive anatomy. I just can't.

I like the framing of the story, though in hindsight I realize King is ripping off Peter Straub's Ghost Story, I liked the way the end of the framing capped off the whole book, but the actual story itself is an odd "what was the point?" head scratcher.

My guess is originally Different Seasons was going to be just 3 dramas with nothing supernatural, but the publisher got cold feet about a Stephen King book with nothing supernatural so early in his career, so he whipped up The Breathing Method very quickly just to help get the other 3 published.

 

[A-Stump]

King has a weird habit of slipping kid fucking into his books. Many only know or reference ITs gangbang scene but I'd say there's worse. Lets see what the contenders are...

The part in Tommyknockers where for some reason he feels it very necessary to describe little boys being anally raped by their father

The junkyard scene in IT. Those who have actually read the book will know what I'm talking about.

The Talisman. Yes I'm aware it was a collab but the bathroom scene with the sheriff had King's grubby weird little fingers all over it

Gerald's Game. I haven't seen the miniseries or movie or whatever they made of it but I feel like they omitted the key point in the book which is where the main character has to remember her father jizzing on her backside to escape her bonds. No, I'm not joking or exaggerating. That really is the major stepping stone in the story.

'My Pretty Pony', a short story where he again for no real reason at all decides to describe a teenage girl jacking off her little brother in the middle of it.

Oh but the worst one of all is obvious to any who have read it

Black House. It's Black House and will always be. I know it was a collab with Straub again since it's Talisman's sequel but King's hand in it really shines through with the horrible shit. He threw away all pretenses and just went full-on sicko. Want to read 625 pages of graphic child rape, torture, and murder? No? King clearly wanted to write about it. The van that hit King two years before the release of the novel must have really knocked his marbles around because he thought describing some old dimension traveling Albert Fish knockoff sucking off a little boy and biting his dick off made for good reading material.

If there isn't a Jimmy Saville revelation after he's kicked the bucket I will honestly be shocked. The dude clearly has something on his mind and since he writes in his problems (booze, drugs, tortured writer syndrome) I think all these things I've just mentioned point to something.

 

[std::string]

If there isn't a Jimmy Saville revelation after he's kicked the bucket I will honestly be shocked. The dude clearly has something on his mind and since he writes in his problems (booze, drugs, tortured writer syndrome) I think all these things I've just mentioned point to something.

He was a high school English teacher though, and none of them have come out to say anything about his pedo tendencies as far as I know. And I can promise you that we know who the weird pedo teachers are.

At least he kept it confined to his novels I guess.

 

[A-Stump]

He was a high school English teacher though, and none of them have come out to say anything about his pedo tendencies as far as I know. And I can promise you that we know who the weird pedo teachers are.

At least he kept it confined to his novels I guess.

I'm not trying to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist but none of the kids I just mentioned are high school age and he may have a demographic You have to admit it's p damn weird

 

[toilet_rainbow]

Obligatory IT child orgy mention. Hard to top that as the filthiest thing his mind has conjured up. Although God, @A-Stump really is right about all the child rape in his writing now that I think about it. He also apparently really likes writing about cum eating (e.g. that short story in Nightmares and Dreamscapes where the maid consumes a writer's jizz so her child can also be a gifted writer)

I overall enjoy King's short story output a lot more than his longer stuff. King is most entertaining (and effective) in small doses. Even his shorter novels and novellas are superior to me. For whatever reason I just couldn't get into The Dark Tower.

That being said, I also much more enjoy his older stuff than his stuff from sober on. Especially after the car accident that almost killed him. WE GET IT, STEVE, THE GUY ALMOST KILLED YOU REAL GOOD. I swear to God, he has a reference to that car wreck in almost every newish work of his that I have read or seen. It's like it's on his checklist along with "writer protagonist."

Oh yeah, I also used to enjoy his non fiction stuff a lot more. He used to write for Entertainment Weekly. On Writing is genuinely good shit (or was to my teen mind). I don't bother with his tweets.

From what of his I've read, Joe Hill writes pretty similarly to his daddy at the peak of his career. So I enjoy his stuff on similar levels.

 

[A-Stump]

That being said, I also much more enjoy his older stuff than his stuff from sober on. Especially after the car accident that almost killed him. WE GET IT, STEVE, THE GUY ALMOST KILLED YOU REAL GOOD. I swear to God, he has a reference to that car wreck in almost every newish work of his that I have read or seen. It's like it's on his checklist along with "writer protagonist."

It's funny how you mentioned not being able to get into the Dark Tower because guess what? The greatest mention of that is in those books. To describe the Dark Tower in the loosest terms, there's a big bad boy trying to tear all forms of reality apart and the story is about trying to stop him from doing so.

So, you may be wondering where the van comes in. Well you see, King wrote himself in as God of the universe. Not joking. Not making it up. He, I swear to God, wrote himself in as the only thing keeping the universe together and the van that hit him was actually an agent of chaos trying to bring it all crashing down.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

From what of his I've read, Joe Hill writes pretty similarly to his daddy at the peak of his career. So I enjoy his stuff on similar levels.

I really liked 'Heart-shaped Box', but 'Horns' was complete dogshit. I haven't read the Christmas one because it sounded terrible, and the AMC adaptation was offensively stupid.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

describing some old dimension traveling Albert Fish knockoff sucking off a little boy and biting his dick off made for good reading material.

King also wrote a scene like that in A Good Marriage.
When the retired cop was telling the wife at the end what her husband had done to one of his last victims' son.

 

[Jason Wynn]

King also wrote a scene like that in A Good Marriage.
When the retired cop was telling the wife at the end what her husband had done to one of his last victims' son.

Don’t forget his novella The Library Policeman. Good portion of it involves the protagonist remembering being molested by a hobo pretending to be a library cop as a kid.

King really does have a fixation on certain things…

 

[Cheesegirl78]

Don’t forget his novella The Library Policeman. Good portion of it involves the protagonist remembering being molested by a hobo pretending to be a library cop as a kid.

King really does have a fixation on certain things…

I forgot about that one. Damn, he really DOES have a thing for that.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Ya know, as weird as it sounds I dont read King for his imagination or creativity honestly. If I wanted a horror story with fantastic imagery and terrifying sight, I'd pick up Clive Barker.

THE VIRGIN STEPHEN KING

• All stories feature asshole writers with drinking problems and are set in Maine, because he is too autistic to think outside of own personal experiences.
• Wrote an underage gangbang scene in IT, probably a closet paedo.
• Spells the word 'cum' as 'come'.
• Got pwned by a truck, lol
• Is now scared of trucks, writes a story about how scawy trucks are.
• Drug addict.
• Shat on J.K. Rowling after she'd been publicly complimentary of him, all to appease the troon platoon on Twitter. Cucked.
• Wrote Pet Sematary, read it back, got so scared by fictional events in his own story that he imagined that he shut it in a drawer for three years. What a pussy!
• Doesn't even like horror - wants to write Tolkien, but with cowboys and evil monorails and a literal self-insert.
• Last book was literally just X-Men fanfiction that he wrote with his nepobaby son.
• Ruins own stories, retroactively, by trying to post-hoc tie them into some retarded Marvel tier 'shared universe' bullshit.
• Whiny, nasal voice with a New England accent, so he's even able to ruin audio versions of his shitty books.
• Lumbering and ungainly fucking lummox of a man. 6'4".
• Looks like the asshole boss from The Incredibles.
• Spells his name with a PH, rather than a V, which is the objectively gayest way of spelling it.

THE CHAD CLIVE BARKER

• Stories showcase a wide variety of characters and locales, because doing the same shit over and over is boring.
• Regularly features themes of perversion and sexual deviance in his work, but always from a point of horror or disgust, never in a coomery way.
• Knows trannies are disgusting, butchered freaks - creates beloved horror icons out of them in the Hellraiser series.
• Writes short stories that are scarier and more interesting than the rambling, dull, literal hundred page novels Stephen King puts out.
• Somehow perfectly understands the nature of dread and terror, despite being a top tier alpha male who has literally never, ever been scared by anything in his whole life ever.
• Gets polyps on his vocal chords, causing irreparable damage to his voice. Gives no fucks, because it makes his voice growlier and more scary.
• Short king. 5'10".
• Looks like a cool party boy.
• Has sex with men, but is still less gay than Stephen King.

 

[Meriasek]

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.
Also, him writing himself as a God in Dark Tower is less self-aggrandizing than it sounds, the Dark Tower is basically his attempt at being meta, while also being entirely literal about it. The multiverse there is his collected literary works, and he thought it would be a good idea to include himself in it. At least he takes the piss out of himself in that.
Still sucks, though. I mean, I enjoyed his books as a kid and I really liked the Dark Tower, but growing older it just becomes too apparent how he's a rather unimaginative hack.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

Don’t forget his novella The Library Policeman. Good portion of it involves the protagonist remembering being molested by a hobo pretending to be a library cop as a kid.

King really does have a fixation on certain things…

Or that short story where the kid meets the devil in the woods while he's out fishing. The devil tells the kid that his mom died of a bee-sting, and just casually mentions that his dad will start butt-fucking him as soon as she's in the ground.

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

Met this old dude who said he went to AA with Steve K.

"Fucking asshole would not shut up"