[shadow9d9]

I decided to cave in and try Stephen King because of another thread here. I bought Dark Tower 1-4 for a total of $11 on half.com. Could anyone recommend 1-2 others? I hear Pet Sematary is good?

Also, keep in mind I only read fantasy/sci fi... so if they could edge toward that, I might like it better.

Also keep in mind I saw the steven king tv movies for quite a few and don't care to read their books since I'd already know the gist... The Stand, The Langoliers, one of the Carrie movies, and I've seen The shining. I've seen some others but I can't seem to recall their titles. One was about a plague I think and one was in a haunted mansion. I didn't care for any of them really.. but I hear his books are better. Help me out.

[Ward]

Forget the movies, its silly to say you needn't read the Stand, for example, because you saw the movie, its perhaps King's finest work.

Books I'd recommend to you are The Shining, Pet Cemetary, Misery, The Stand, The Dead Zone, The Dark Half, and Eyes of the Dragon (a fantasy book). Most early King is good, his two early short story collections are also worth reading.

Only read Sf and Fantasy? You ought to broaden your horizons beyond mere publishing labels; much of what King writes is Fantasy, but you'd never know it looking at the way he's marketed.

[Nottobrite]

I would recommend Insomnia, which is one of my favorites. Also, the Talisman and Black House. All have fantasy elements, and tie somewhat into the Dark Tower book.

Eyes of the Dragon is a good story, and the closest you'll get to Fantasy with SK.

I would also agree that both The Stand and IT have more to offer than just the movie, give them a chance. They are two of his best.

[tracyt1800]

I really enjoyed "The Green Mile". After finishing the book I watched the movie. The movie was decent but the book was great.


Tracy

[foolofgold]

The Green Mile is excellent I believe. The Stand is great as well.

[DrBloodmoney1]

The Eyes of the Dragon (http://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Dragon-Stephen-King/dp/0751504572/sr=8-1/qid=1172546031/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8031939-3965657?ie=UTF8&s=books) is a prequel/tie-in to The Dark Tower. And it's quite good. Otherwise, The Shining, Pet Semetary, Carrie, and Gerald's Game are all quite good. Stay away from Lisey's Story, because while it is quite good, it is quite different from most of his other books and not representative of the majority of his writing.

[KatG]

Ah, the problem of Mr. King. He doesn't write just one type of fiction. He writes horror, dark fantasy, fantasy, and the occasional sf story. Which gives you a very wide selection.

Dark Tower -- a dark fantasy series, Gothic in tone, includes some sf elements. Not my favorite, but the absolute pinacle for some readers. Shows changes in King's style as the first were written when he was a young man on up to the last ones written when he was a much older man.

Eye of the Dragon -- it may be a prequel, but it's nothing much like the Dark Tower series. It's much more of a fairy tale sort of fantasy tale. Though it has its dark edges, it's not the bleak Western that Dark Tower is.

Green Mile -- a straight historical fantasy, and a favorite of mine. But it was written as a serial novel, so if you read it as a whole, there's lots of repetition -- which actually makes a sort of neat pattern structurally, but some folk may not like it.

Dead Zone -- a fantasy thriller with some horror aspects

The Stand -- a science-fictiony epic fantasy with very symbolic characters

Pet Semetary, Carrie, Salem's Lot, Cujo, The Shining, Needful Things, various others -- straight horror novels, but a lot of them are low on gore if gore is what you look for. Not that his stories are always low on gore. High on spooky, though, whether gory or not.

From a Buick 8 -- a sf-tinged dark fantasy mystery.

And well, I don't know all of them, he's got too many. Best to just look at the plot descriptions and see if they interest you and then not read into it with too many expectations.

[Nottobrite]

I would think that in some ways to call The Eyes of the Dragon a prequel of the Dark Tower clouds the issue of the book. 90% of Kings books are arguably tied into his Dark Tower world, either obviously, or subtly. There are lots of potential tie ins with the book and the series, but I thing in tone, and overall concept the books share very little.

Yet, I enjoyed both.

[Julian]

Ah, the problem of Mr. King. He doesn't write just one type of fiction. He writes horror, dark fantasy, fantasy, and the occasional sf story. Which gives you a very wide selection.


On the contrary, the "problem" of Mr King is - it seems to me - that he does write one type of fiction. He does so in different ways, but essentially he is writing the same stuff over and over.

That is not, by the way, necessarily a bad thing.

The obvious answer to this question, surely, is to go on and read the rest of the Dark Tower books (5-7)? Barring that, I can say that I was impressed with The Shining and Misery. Both, however, have obviously been filmed (although Kubrick's version of The Shining is quite different to the book).

[Hobbit]

Ah, the problem of Mr. King. He doesn't write just one type of fiction. He writes horror, dark fantasy, fantasy, and the occasional sf story. Which gives you a very wide selection.

Previous threads that might help, usually in the Horror Forum:

Stephen King books you've read/own (http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8221)

Stephen King (http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14367)

Top 5 Stephen King (http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4681)

Hobbit