Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Mola Ram]

Does anyone else wish that some day King might get off his ass and finish The Plant? Frankly I thought it was one of the most interesting half-novels he'd come up with. Obviously he did too since he published it AS a half-novel in a couple of anthologies.

A neat concept with the empathic plant, another fucked up black family, a publishing house environment dealing with nutty lolcow fans who are actually dangerous, I really liked it and wanted moar.

Man, it's been so long since I read The Plant -- it would have been the first release, when he was doing it on his website or something similar -- that I forgot it existed. I remember it being interesting, but I wasn't so invested in it that I lamented its unfinished nature. But I will say it's never going to be finished. The first time I heard anyone mention The Plant was in Harlan Ellison's Watching, in a review of, I think, The Running Man, so from around 1987. Apparently King had been sending the chapters to friends as a Christmas card, and Ellison was fulsome in his praise of it. But that means King started writing it well over 40 years ago. That's a bigger gap than it took him to write all of The Dark Tower. Offer it up to the souls in Purgatory, it ain't ever coming.

Because she would have been born and became an adult in a time where near 10% of black Americans were Republican. She’s not an R voter because she’s a good person, she’s a good person despite being an R voter.

Abigail was born, in the original version of the novel, a mere 8 years after the Civil War, it would have been ludicrous to make her a Democrat. I'll give him credit, though: there was really no need to mention her politics at all, and he took it far enough that she believes the only thing dumber than a broody hen was "a New York Democrat." I'd also guess that younger King was certainly a hippie, but not the foaming at mouth Boomer you see on Twitter.

 

[The Un-Clit]

Man, it's been so long since I read The Plant -- it would have been the first release, when he was doing it on his website or something similar -- that I forgot it existed. I remember it being interesting, but I wasn't so invested in it that I lamented its unfinished nature. But I will say it's never going to be finished. The first time I heard anyone mention The Plant was in Harlan Ellison's Watching, in a review of, I think, The Running Man, so from around 1987. Apparently King had been sending the chapters to friends as a Christmas card, and Ellison was fulsome in his praise of it. But that means King started writing it well over 40 years ago. That's a bigger gap than it took him to write all of The Dark Tower. Offer it up to the souls in Purgatory, it ain't ever coming.

Damn I didn't think it was anywhere near that old, as you mentioned it was on his website and I read it in an anthology dated around the year 2000 and the story features websites and digital cameras so I assume he had been updating it over the years in that case. I was hoping if it was only 20 or so years old there might be a chance because I found it to be one of his better concepts of the time and well written too, especially the batshit crazy stalker villians. Well I can still hope, but it ain't likely.

 

[Mola Ram]

Damn I didn't think it was anywhere near that old, as you mentioned it was on his website and I read it in an anthology dated around the year 2000 and the story features websites and digital cameras so I assume he had been updating it over the years in that case. I was hoping if it was only 20 or so years old there might be a chance because I found it to be one of his better concepts of the time and well written too, especially the batshit crazy stalker villians. Well I can still hope, but it ain't likely.

He may have been writing it as early as the 70s, so I'm sure he was updating it as he worked on it over the years. You wonder if it's turned completely obsolete by now, not because of technology per se but because it can't possibly reflect the current state of the publishing industry.

Under the Dome was another one he'd been working on for ages before it was finally published.

 

[Slideshow Bill]

It's also worth noting he'll sometimes write kids being sexualized in scenes that aren't tense or scary or anything. Like in IT he just randomly describes how Ben has a boner as a kid and in the Dark Tower series Jake's classmate pretty much said she wanted to fuck him in the classroom closet entirely out of nowhere.

I forget which book but there was one where one of his self inserts was talking to a little girl going to the beach (she's about 4-6) and he says that she looks like she'll be pregnant at 12, iirc. People saying that he adds this shit for scares are coping imho.

 

[Señora Airi]

Frankly I can’t stand this guy. I picked him up for the first time after growing up on the likes of Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson. I found his writing to be lackluster and try-hard.

My main problem with him is that he's a pulp /airport writer while being rather egotistical irl.

 

[Mola Ram]

My main problem with him is that he's a pulp /airport writer while being rather egotistical irl.

He was a lot more down to earth years ago, or at least he seemed that way. I think what happened was that as the generation that grew up on him started making their own movies and writing their own novels, they put him on an undeserved pedestal, and at some point he started believing the bullshit.

 

[McMitch]

People saying that he adds this shit for scares are coping imho.

I would say it’s less a cope as much as it’s an admittance that once he started using it, it became a crutch for cheap shocking content. Like using the “nigger”-word or graphically describing bathroom matters. King is was a 100 IQ writer writing for 100 IQ readers, and the more shocking things he put in the harder it was for him to outdo himself in the next book.

 

[std::string]

He was a lot more down to earth years ago, or at least he seemed that way. I think what happened was that as the generation that grew up on him started making their own movies and writing their own novels, they put him on an undeserved pedestal, and at some point he started believing the bullshit.

My personal theory is that he's smart enough to realize that he had to turbo shift into "well I am a highbrow novelist and does anyone else hate Trump?" to avoid getting canceled.

King's obsession with magical retards and magical negroes and magical retarded negroes is honestly kinda not gonna fly in 2024.

 

[Tragon Dirtle]

I've been rereading it (I just finished the fire at the black spot chapter) and I forgot just how much he talks up his obvious self-insert, Bill. Beverly talking about he's a surprisingly broad 12 year old, his friends calling him a man not a boy, everyone saying they're reassured by his natural authority and goodness. And then he grows up, goes bald but in a virile way, talks slowly but in a sexy way, and marries a film star.

He can't say anything about Ben without pointing out how fat he is. Like I remember Stephen I haven't forgotten from the last page. I wonder if he was fat as a kid. Also, I feel like he keeps sneaking in the word economical when talking about Stan. After a certain point it had to be deliberate.

 

[Constellationzero]

My personal theory is that he's smart enough to realize that he had to turbo shift into "well I am a highbrow novelist and does anyone else hate Trump?" to avoid getting canceled.

King's obsession with magical retards and magical negroes and magical retarded negroes is honestly kinda not gonna fly in 2024.

Or literally using the words NIGGER and FAG over and over in his older stuff.

 

[Mola Ram]

Or literally using the words NIGGER and FAG over and over in his older stuff.

It's always so casual in his older stuff too. My personal favorite is The Stand, when Larry visits his mom just as the plague is beginning to take hold:

"I heard your song on the radio. You sound like a nigger."

"That brown sound, sho do get around!"

*sniff* Brings a tear to the eye.

 

[std::string]

Or literally using the words NIGGER and FAG over and over in his older stuff.

The description "Negroid lips" pops up in like three of his books and it's hilarious. Yeah, it is technically a scientific term but come on.

You don't really hear much criticism of it either aside from rare stuff on Twitter. Somehow this weird looking old white dude who lives in Maine got the vaunted pass.

 

[Lone Star]

You don't really hear much criticism of it either aside from rare stuff on Twitter. Somehow this weird looking old white dude who lives in Maine got the vaunted pass.

None of them actually read his books, or at least only stick to the more popular ones that generally avoid this language. They just clap like seals every time he says "Orange Man Bad" in an unhinged rant.

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

My main problem with him is that he's a pulp /airport writer while being rather egotistical irl.

Stephen King is a perfect example of Worthington's Law:

 

[Constellationzero]

1. They're not able to read at their appropriate age level (See: Harry Potter and Star Wars)
2. They're somehow proud of that.


Got to the part about the hovering, independently moving Coke machine in Tommyknockers. That was about as fucked up as 'Becka Paulson.

 

[I Shidded I Farded I Came]

I recently heard someone say a lot of King's stuff works better as cheesy comedy, and hoo boy is that the case for Tommyknockers.

The whole ending sequence starting in the kitchen is almost a perfect comedy. Gard trying to get to the ship while repeatedly injuring himself and blatantly being dragged to the finish line by the author could be a scene in one of the scream movies.

 

[sixuglymidgets]

Wasn't there a scene in needful things where he described in graphic detail a young boy having a wet dream?

 

[The Un-Clit]

Wasn't there a scene in needful things where he described in graphic detail a young boy having a wet dream?

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.

 

[Jerri's Kid]

I've been on a King kick. He's an easy read and though I've graduated to more literary works I admit that King was a gateway drug of sorts for me as a teen and his work nurtured my love for reading and writing . Sometimes you want the literary equivalent of Lay's potato chips, and King is very satisfying in that way.

So far this year I've read The Tommyknockers, Doctor Sleep, Desperation, The Regulators, Under the Dome, Salem's Lot, and Needful Things. I'm about halfway through Night Shift which is probably his best collection of short stories, though Skeleton Crew is no slouch.

I think the quality of his writing started to drop off in the late 1990s, when I read Desperation and The Regulators for the first time. Those books had some good parts but he starts to get hokey with his villains and more blatantly adopts this idea that evil is stupid and self-defeating. True, his previous works had evil characters who could fit this bill, but he wasn't as obvious about it as he was in Desperation and The Regulators.

His post-accident work seems a lot worse. For instance, I read Revival last year because people kept saying that it was a return to form and it sucked. Only the first part of the book was any good and the whole middle was filled with characters that just noodled on and on about King's boomer hobbies like classic rock n' roll and classic cars and other boomer shit. Then you have the ending which is bleak but you could have tacked it onto any story. If you want a truly good bleak ending you should read Pet Sematary instead.

I sometimes wonder if drugs are actually beneficial to some artists since it seems that his cokehead days produced the strongest work. What do you think?

 

[Constellationzero]

Sometimes you want the literary equivalent of Lay's potato chips, and King is very satisfying in that way.

Very well put. I usually read in bed before sleep, and depending on how long, or what kind of work day I've had, King fits the bill nicely.

RE: Skeleton Crew.

1. The Raft legitimately almost made me throw up and made me shudder, so...good job?
2. Gramma was...okay. His stab at Robert W. Chambers and Ambrose Bierce, I guess.