Worst of Stephen King - Worst books or stories

[Constellationzero]

Just finished Thinner.

IDK what King was trying to do here, because he seemed to fetishize the gypsies and tried way too hard to make them sound sympathetic. All he accomplished was the opposite.

 

[The Un-Clit]

Just finished Thinner.

IDK what King was trying to do here, because he seemed to fetishize the gypsies and tried way too hard to make them sound sympathetic. All he accomplished was the opposite.

I didn't get that impression at all. Gyppos do get a lot of hassle from townies irl and that's well known but he hardly made them out to be angels in the story.

I didn't think Thinner was a great book anyway but it definitely felt more Bachman then King.

 

[Mola Ram]

I didn't get that impression at all. Gyppos do get a lot of hassle from townies irl and that's well known but he hardly made them out to be angels in the story.

I didn't think Thinner was a great book anyway but it definitely felt more Bachman then King.

One of the things that set Bachman books apart from stuff written under his own name is that the characters tend to be noticeably shittier -- it's hard to find anyone to root for because everyone is some level of asshole.

 

[Constellationzero]

One of the things that set Bachman books apart from stuff written under his own name is that the characters tend to be noticeably shittier -- it's hard to find anyone to root for because everyone is some level of asshole.

That's it.

That was what kept running through my mind. Everyone is an asshole and no one is sympathetic.

I'll admit he about made me puke with his description of the cop's raging acne and the description of how the house smelled when Halleck went inside.

The Raft is still number one with horrific gross gratuitous torture and gore.

 

[Mola Ram]

The Raft is still number one with horrific gross gratuitous torture and gore.

I'd vote for Apt Pupil on that score. Did not need to see Todd's wet dreams about fucking Jewish girls with electrified dildos as a half naked Dussander creeps around the perimeter.

 

[The Un-Clit]

I'd vote for Apt Pupil on that score. Did not need to see Todd's wet dreams about fucking Jewish girls with electrified dildos as a half naked Dussander creeps around the perimeter.

If there is one thing King is good at, it's writing out hella-disturbing wet dreams his characters have. Brian Rusk's wet dream in Needful Things where his hot 5th grade teacher is tugging him off only to turn into Mr. Gaunt was especially squicky.

 

[Mola Ram]

If there is one thing King is good at, it's writing out hella-disturbing wet dreams his characters have. Brian Rusk's wet dream in Needful Things where his hot 5th grade teacher is tugging him off only to turn into Mr. Gaunt was especially squicky.

This was especially effective if you actually had a hot middle school teacher who kicked your hormones into puberty almost singlehandedly.

 

[Stardust_Ziggy]

I have to agree on The Dark Tower series, that’s one ending that genuinely made me angry and somewhat depressed. To put this into context, I started reading the books before #4 came out (yes, I was probably too young to be reading King novels), so by the time he finished them, I had spent 10 years with these characters. Only for all that shit to happen (why’d ya have to do Oy like that, man?).

I realize popular characters can be killed off, for a variety of reasons, but this just felt like a giant “F U” from King. This wasn’t even suppose to be horror technically, it was more of a fantasy series. King and endings go about as well together as peanut butter and hot sauce.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

His Xitter/Bluesky/Whatever the fuck, that's his worst.

 

[Wodanaz]

Misery is utter kino and the movie doesn't even cover half of it. It's a good film but has absolutely no internal monologue which is so important.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Misery is utter kino and the movie doesn't even cover half of it. It's a good film but has absolutely no internal monologue which is so important.

The Shining as a film legits butchers the entire bluntness of the book in favor of some shit about being "ambiguous". In the book it was EXTREMELY obvious, that everything going on was paranormal, and it got pretty trippy as well with the scares, whereas the movie doesn't even give a convincing Jack.

 

[Wodanaz]

The Shining as a film legits butchers the entire bluntness of the book in favor of some shit about being "ambiguous". In the book it was EXTREMELY obvious, that everything going on was paranormal, and it got pretty trippy as well with the scares, whereas the movie doesn't even give a convincing Jack.

I assume in good faith this is true since I have yet to read The Shining, however I forgive it in this instance because Stanley Kubrick is skilled enough to achieve what so many hack retards fail at - successfully changing aspects from the original and taking it in a new direction.

 

[Neodanthril]

The last 5 or so chapters of any of them. To evidence this I read desperation without knowing about the companion book and I remember the opening was interesting but the book ended like a wet fart.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

The last 5 or so chapters of any of them. To evidence this I read desperation without knowing about the companion book and I remember the opening was interesting but the book ended like a wet fart.

I think that It had a pretty good and climactic ending, minus the child gangbang that is. Salem's Lot just really depressed me at the end, with practically the whole town turning into vampires, Susan's death honestly hit pretty hard for some reason. Christine basically ends in cuckoldry which kind of pissed me off, although I guess i should have expected some of that after reading the Dead Zone beforehand.

 

[Mola Ram]

The Shining as a film legits butchers the entire bluntness of the book in favor of some shit about being "ambiguous". In the book it was EXTREMELY obvious, that everything going on was paranormal, and it got pretty trippy as well with the scares, whereas the movie doesn't even give a convincing Jack.

The scene with the dead lady in room 217 237 is scarier than anything in King's book.

But more to the point, there is moral ambiguity in the book that Kubrick scrapped. Book Jack is clearly somebody we're supposed to sympathize with: a guy with talent and promise who ultimately succumbs to his own demons. He's clearly a semi-autobiographical figure, with the rampant drinking and being a teacher to make ends meet until his writing career takes off (which it never does -- maybe it was King asking himself what might have been if his own writing had flamed out before he achieved success). The hotel feeds his inner turmoil and ultimately turns him into a monster, with him grasping a thread of redemption in giving Danny a chance to run before the Overlook consumes him completely.

Kubrick took one look at this character and decided, "Nope, he's a piece of shit, and he's going to be a piece of shit from the jump." I have no idea if it's the case, but I wonder if it was the fact that Jack once broke Danny's arm that sealed that particular deal. It's not that Jack goes crazy too quickly, as is often claimed, but that he's just a wretched human being from the moment we meet him.

The other big difference is that Movie Jack clearly loathes his wife and can't wait to be shut of her. Shelly Duvall plays Wendy much more as an abused spouse than the way the character is written in the book -- compare the scene in the doctor's office where she recounts how Danny's arm was broken. In the movie it feels far more like a beaten woman telling the same bad lies she's had to tell for years to cover up for her asshole spouse.

I think they're both quite excellent stories, each doing something different with the same material, but the older I get the more I lean toward what we see in Kubrick's film.

 

[Wodanaz]

Shelly Duvall plays Wendy much more as an abused spouse than the way the character is written in the book

I dunno man, I was questioning my own sanity when Jack lectures her about how if she can hear he's typing, then get the FUCK out of his face. The look on her face was just so nonplussed - it was such a non reaction to one of Jack Nicholson's best performances - that I was wondering if it was actually being played for laughs. Probably just bad direction in that scene.

 

[Mola Ram]

I dunno man, I was questioning my own sanity when Jack lectures her about how if she can hear he's typing, then get the FUCK out of his face. The look on her face was just so nonplussed - it was such a non reaction to one of Jack Nicholson's best performances - that I was wondering if it was actually being played for laughs. Probably just bad direction in that scene.

You could also read it as, "Geeze he's awful upset, but I've seen worse."

 

[The Internet Dick]

So is it safe to assume he is a pedo?

I wondered about that myself when I read the novel decades ago. I gave it thought because I had read most of King's books up to that point and admired some of his work, mainly his short stories. I stopped reading him years ago. Too many crappy endings, cardboard characters, and wooden dialogue. The man doesn't know economy and can't write a decent ending in a novel-length piece of fiction to save his life.

To the point, I don't think the kiddie gang-bang scene in It is the result of pedophiliac tendencies. I think it's more probable that King writes as a masturbatory act, without much (or any) thought, and his editors are too intimidated by his massive market value to rein in his excesses or question him regarding the ethics of a passage involving sex and children. King just spews a glob of words on screen and moves on without cleaning up.

In the end, it's a process problem. His Spontaneous Me method of writing can work well in the short form but apparently can't be sustained at novel-length.

As an aside, I've heard this great podcast where these three guys crucified King for the way he spergs out for hundreds of pages and then tanks the ending. The podcasters called him Mister Tippity-Tap. Wish to God I could remember the name of the podcast.

EDIT: Corrected typo.

 

[Wodanaz]

One of the things that set Bachman books apart from stuff written under his own name is that the characters tend to be noticeably shittier -- it's hard to find anyone to root for because everyone is some level of asshole.

Reading Rage right now and I can imagine I won't be rooting for a school shooter, but I quite liked Ben Richards in The Running Man. He's quick witted and just trying to provide for his family.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

I wondered about that myself when I read the novel decades ago. I gave it thought because I had read most of King's books up to that point and admired some of his work, mainly his short stories. I stopped reading him years ago. Too many crappy endings, cardboard characters, and wooden dialogue. The man doesn't know economy and can't write a decent ending in a novel-length piece of fiction to save his life.

To the point, I don't think the kiddie gang-bang scene in It is the result of pedophiliac tendencies. I think it's more probable that King writes as a masturbatory act, without much (or any) thought, and his editors are too intimidated to by his massive market value to rein in his excesses or question him regarding the ethics of a passage involving sex and children. King just spews a glob of words on screen and moves on without cleaning up.

In the end, it's a process problem. His Spontaneous Me method of writing can work well in the short form but apparently can't be sustained at novel-length.

As an aside, I've heard this great podcast where these three guys crucified King for the way he spergs out for hundreds of pages and then tanks the ending. The podcasters called him Mister Tippity-Tap. Wish to God I could remember the name of the podcast.

Personally, I just kind of get sick of the constant sad endings for the sake of "ReAliSm!!!!", like man, you are writing about a haunted car, or a town being taken over by vampires, or a psychic fighting the antichrist, not everything has to adhere to some fart huffing critic's standard of "ReAlOsTic!!!!"