Starting Stephen King

[Johnny Velvet]

EDIT: Removed

[WOM]

Starting Stephen King

I read Christine as a teenager, and King's excellent On Writing. Everything else is just too damned long.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Starting Stephen King

It's quite a few years since my teens, and several years since I gave away my entire (extensive) Stephen King collection. I think I started by reading Cujo which, IIRC, won't really have stood the test of time. Christine and Carrie are quite accessible though, if that's the right word.

Anyway. In no particular order:

The Stand
Pet Sematary
The Dark Half
It (particularly good for Coulrophobes like me, that one)
The Shining

Oh, and his books written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman can be quite good.

[Lang Spoon]

Starting Stephen King

It and The Shining are both massively overlong, but contain wonderful passages of ickiness and description (no one does nostalgic better than King, much of the 50s parts of It have a similar feel to the film of Stand by Me. By the end you'll feel like you grew up in Redneck Maine as well).

But his endings (in general, but especially for his two "classic" doorstoppers) are. Just Terrible. And in It's case, severely fucking dodgy.

Compared to what passes for massive selling popular fiction now (Jack Reacher, those middle aged Pervy Steig Larsson books, Dan Fucking Brown, JK Rowling and the Somehing of Something classist gloop) his writing has flow and doesn't patronise.

Mibbees start with the Shining, the ending's only a bit shitey.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Starting Stephen King

All fair comment.

We're agreed that parts of The Dark Half are especially affecting. Made me nervous for quite some time, that book.

[Haddock]

Starting Stephen King

Salem's Lot, The Stand and The Shining of the early ones. Pet Semetary is memorable but also pretty disturbing. Duma Key is for me the best of his later works. He's very prolific and has written a few works that didn't appeal in the first place, I've ended up skimming or have given up on, but's it's a particular pleasure to immerse yourself in the best of his novels. He's a great escape.

[Jon]

Starting Stephen King

I remember first hearing about him in maybe the mid 80s so I thought I'd better take a trip to the local library and give him a whirl to see what al the fuss was about, even though I was not a fan of the horror genre in any medium. Maybe that is the reason why I borrowed a collection of his non-horror short stories, called Different Seasons.

Two stories stood out for me, one was called Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Many years later I saw the Shawshank Redemption and thought the plot seemed vaguely familiar and, after checking, I realised it was based on the first short story in this collection. The second story that stood out for me was called The Body. After checking its title on Wikipedia, I have only now realised that it too was made into a very successful film - Stand by Me.

[jameswba]

Starting Stephen King

Of his novels, I've only read Carrie and The Shining. Both are scary and disturbing, but the latter definitely needed a better editor. Jack is a brilliantly realised character in the book though ; you certainly get why King wasn't (initially) happy with Nicholson's portrayal.

But the thing I've read by him that freaked me out the most was a short story called The Road Virus Heads North, from a collection called 999. Presumably there's a Dorian Gray influence, as it's about a painting that changes.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Starting Stephen King

Lang Spoon wrote: Compared to what passes for massive selling popular fiction now (Jack Reacher, those middle aged Pervy Steig Larsson books, Dan Fucking Brown, JK Rowling and the Somehing of Something classist gloop) his writing has flow and doesn't patronise.

What's pervy about Larsson's books? I admit I've given them a pass so far, considering them, rightly or wrongly, middlebrow IKEA whodunnits. Now I know they're pervy I might give them a go.

[Lang Spoon]

Starting Stephen King

The Pervy is more about the main character being a stand in for the author (ageing, crusading right on journo) who happens to be irresistible to young Manic Pixie Dream Girl types.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Starting Stephen King

Ah, so many excellent King novels and stories (and yes, too many crappy for TV adaptations). Absolutely start with Salem's Lot. Then in no particular order It, Pet Sematary, Christine, Misery, The Body, and - I would particularly recommend now - The Dead Zone.

[jameswba]

Starting Stephen King

Lang Spoon wrote: The Pervy is more about the main character being a stand in for the author (ageing, crusading right on journo) who happens to be irresistible to young Manic Pixie Dream Girl types.

That's one thing - it's pure middle-aged male fantasy. But if we're considering Steig Larsson, I'll take back all I said about The Shining being overlong. The first book of the Larsson trilogy - I couldn't be bothered with the others - is about 500 pages too long. Basically, Larsson knew nothing about writing, his translator knew nothing about translating, and his editor knew nothing about editing.

[Bored Of Education]

Starting Stephen King

"It" genuinely made me yelp in shock on a bus as I turned over one page and I remember it being one of his best. Can't remember the dodgy ending though.

I second - or third, or whatever - Pet Semetary and also enjoyed Needful Things although it's hardly a classic.

[Lang Spoon]

Starting Stephen King

Try reading the last 300 pages, not just the stuff at the chronological end BoE. I'd be surprised if even the obviously negligent or cowed King in Pomp Editors could let that through these days. Saying no more , cos, spoilers.

For some reason I never got round to Salem's Lot. very tempted to hit a musty second hand bookshop to get the full embossed eighties glory.

[Lang Spoon]

Starting Stephen King

I've never read the Dead Zone either, fuck sake. That film was shit scary in the early eighties, and it's got Walken and the Good Sheen so it's very much the exception to the shit King adaptation rule (and Misery; which is agonizing claustrophobic and nerve shredding reading).

And aye the Dark Half is genuinely fucked up uncanny. Nasty engrossing stuff, I guess the coke jags were seeping into the typing.

[ale]

Starting Stephen King

Grew up with SK reading Salems Lot at time of publication when about 13 years old...recommending a scary read now at 55 is tricky ...doubly so when (with all due respect) the OP is unlikely to be of an age when horror fiction gives cause for frightmares...SK has endured enough to gain a reputation outside of the genre he pioneered but personally its the early ones which i keep re-reading & recommending...Salems Lot Shining Dead Zone & Stand bear comparison with the best of late 20th century fiction writing...

[ale]

Starting Stephen King

Before On Writing was Danse Macabre...which was Kings tribute to the horror genre in which he was well versed & at the time of writing (late 70s) was resolutely clinging to...even then much of it was references to movies & fiction which few examples apart were not well known or familiar...always thought if a contemporary writer could update the subject it would be interesting...what gets forgotten is Kings success as a horror novelist encouraged a phenomenal growth in the genre...Peter Straub James Herbert Clive Barker Robert McCammon Ramsey Campbell the most obvious..

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Starting Stephen King

jameswba wrote:

The Pervy is more about the main character being a stand in for the author (ageing, crusading right on journo) who happens to be irresistible to young Manic Pixie Dream Girl types.

That's one thing - it's pure middle-aged male fantasy.

That's a cross-medium trope. Whether it's novel, film or TV, it's almost compoulsory for any middle-age writer to create a middle-age alter ego that 20-year old girls find irresistible.

[Bored Of Education]

Starting Stephen King

I quite enjoyed The Tommyknockers but apparently King hates it.

[elguapo4]

Starting Stephen King

"The stand " and "the dead zone " are my favourites, the latter is scarily accurate with regards to the current occupant of the white house. If you're just starting King his collections of short stories are a good way to start, stories like "the reach " "the man in the black suit " and "the things they left behind " are amongst his finest work

[mirko bolesan]

Starting Stephen King

Jon wrote: I remember first hearing about him in maybe the mid 80s so I thought I'd better take a trip to the local library and give him a whirl to see what al the fuss was about, even though I was not a fan of the horror genre in any medium. Maybe that is the reason why I borrowed a collection of his non-horror short stories, called Different Seasons.

Two stories stood out for me, one was called Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Many years later I saw the Shawshank Redemption and thought the plot seemed vaguely familiar and, after checking, I realised it was based on the first short story in this collection. The second story that stood out for me was called The Body. After checking its title on Wikipedia, I have only now realised that it too was made into a very successful film - Stand by Me.

Bachmann Books are pretty good novellas too. Long Walk, a walking 'race' where the last person still walking wins, plus the Running Man - obviously made into a film but it was years after that I ever noticed the connection as the stories are quite different. I remember the other stories being good too, but it must be almost 20 years since I last read any King.