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Favorite Stephen King?


So, what is your favorite Stephen King work? I've read most of his works and his novella, DIFFERENT SEASONS is probably my fave.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge Stephen King fan. He is so much more than a horror writer. He's a writer who threads the macabre into mundane landscapes and familiar characters. Too often, he's written off by the literati as a genre fiction writer who's in it for the money (as if a writer has to live and die in penniless obscurity to be any good). Needless to say, I was thrilled when he won the O'Henry Award in 1995 (?) for "The Man in the Black Suit," a short story that appears in EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL.
 

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Login to find out (May 16, 2005 at 5:45am)
What do you think about that ubiquitous criticism of King; that he can't write female characters? Have to admit, to my mind, they do seem to be either caricatures of teenage angst or old harpies. He did try to silence the criticism with Dolores Claibourne, but I've never read that...
 
Login to find out (May 14, 2005 at 9:19pm)
Oh, he's SO MUCH MORE than a horror writer.
 
Login to find out (May 14, 2005 at 9:17pm)
Loved THE STAND so much I read it twice. It was, like so many of King's works, made into a movie--an ABC mini-series, that was actually pretty decent. I believe it was nominated for an Emmy and/or a Golden Globe.
 
Login to find out (May 14, 2005 at 5:21pm)
The Long Walk is definitely the story that floats to the top whenever I think of King. Not really a horror (but then for a supposed 'horror' writer half his stuff doesn't turn out to be horror at all!)... Oh, and The Stand: I liked the epic nature of it. (And that's really a fantasy saga!)
 
Login to find out (May 14, 2005 at 2:09pm)
Uppercut, King prohibited future printings after Columbine, I think. I'm sure our people were very pissed about that!
 
Login to find out (May 14, 2005 at 2:08pm)
The Dead Zone and Christine are both brilliant!
 
Login to find out (May 12, 2005 at 8:15am)
Ah, the old 'little boy's heart' technique. Never worked for me, kept knocking it over, getting heart juice all over my papers. Eventually the cat run off with it. Each to their own, I guess.
 
Login to find out (May 12, 2005 at 7:34am)
only book i've read of his is 'christine'...saw an interview of his on tv a couple of years on CNN just before he was to be given some lifetime achievement award or something and was asked how he keeps coming up with stories after all these years...he responded with a smile, in a trademark Stephen King response "I have a heart of a little boy and it's in a jar on my desk". :D
 
Login to find out (April 29, 2005 at 1:26pm)
Actually, I've just read that because of RAGE's sensitive subject matter, King has prohibited all future printings of it. I'll see if I can get a copy from his former editor (I think my bro has a very old copy as well).
 
Login to find out (April 29, 2005 at 1:22pm)
For the first time ever, I've tallied the number of King novels/nonfiction/collections I've read over the years and the grand total is 40 out of 56 (I counted each of the Green Mile books separately). A couple of King novels that I, shockingly, haven't read and plan on reading very soon: FIRESTARTER and RAGE. The former was, of course, adapted into a film starring a young Drew Barrymore. The latter is much more interesting: a disturbed high schooler kills his teacher and takes his class hostage and the novel unfolds over the course of the afternoon. This title is banned in places because of recent school shootings.
 
Login to find out (April 29, 2005 at 1:10am)
Being a writer I found "On Writing" his best work because I was very curious about him. He also gave some good advice. As far as fiction I really liked the Bachman Books.
 
Login to find out (April 27, 2005 at 1:34pm)
Izmael, have you read "The Body"? It's brilliant and is actually in the same collection as "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," which was the basis for the Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins film. DIFFERENT SEASONS is the collection that features the novellas (it also features "Apt Pupil" which was made into a movie starring Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro, directed by Bryan Singer).
 
Login to find out (April 27, 2005 at 1:27pm)
GJamil,
You didn't like THE RUNNING MAN? Stephen King wrote both that and THE LONG WALK as Richard Bachman. I read both works years ago and enjoyed them.
 
Login to find out (April 27, 2005 at 1:24pm)
I've tried countless times to get into the Dark Tower series, with no luck. There are so many direct references in King's other works--The Talisman, Black House, Hearts in Atlantis come to mind---to the Dark Tower and it has always intrigued me. I own all of the books in the series, so perhaps it's time to give them another shot.
 
Login to find out (April 26, 2005 at 3:49pm)
Well, I for one have enjoyed the Dark Tower series for over a decade now. I still remember the day that Andrew Strickland lent me the first few books of the saga in the seventh grade. Or was it the fifth? I have only read some of his short stories aside from that. I remember watching "IT" without permission from my parental unit as a child, and it scared the jeepers outta me. Stephen King wrote "The Body," the basis of "Stand By Me." I own "Stand By Me" on DVD; quintessential childhood fodder from the 80s (along with the DVD collection of "21 Jump Street"). Paranthetically, though, Stephen King had nothing to do with "21 Jump Street." I also thought that "The Shawshank Redemption" was poetry in motion. I think that Morgan Freeman's cadence for the voice over narrative had more to do with that, but a lot of it was the language employed in the script. As a general rule of thumb, though, I stay away from the horror genre. I'm much too old to slip into bed with my parents now.