# Reading first Stephen King Novel



## T.N. Kettman (May 20, 2009)

I picked up the book "Misery" at a thriftstore a while back, and finally started to read it. I have about 70 more pages to go, and so far it is pretty good. Certainly not the best book I have every read, but it is keeping my interest. This is my first King Novel, and I just expected it to be more...scary. Like mess with my mind, can't sleep scary, not cut off the characters legs with an ax scary. Does anyone know any "mess with your mind" books out there (king or otherwise)?


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## RomanticRose (May 20, 2009)

King's _Bag of Bones _or _It_.


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## Dr. Malone (May 20, 2009)

_It_ was very frightening when I read it as a kid.  Misery was more of a good read than scary.  Most of King's books are more enjoyable than really scary.


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## Adjective Ocean (May 20, 2009)

T.N. Kettman said:


> I picked up the book "Misery" at a thriftstore a while back, and finally started to read it. I have about 70 more pages to go, and so far it is pretty good. Certainly not the best book I have every read, but it is keeping my interest. This is my first King Novel, and I just expected it to be more...scary. Like mess with my mind, can't sleep scary, not cut off the characters legs with an ax scary. Does anyone know any "mess with your mind" books out there (king or otherwise)?


 
It's more suspense than anything. Oddly enough, I've found that King's better books are the ones that don't go for flat out horror. It seems that when he does try to scare you he over does it a bit. I like King though and if you're interested in his other non-horrish books, I recommend the Dark Tower series.


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## Dr. Malone (May 20, 2009)

Apt Pupil is quite chilling.  It's from one of his short story collections.  The book it's in has four novellas, one of the others being Shawshank.


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## Leyline (May 21, 2009)

King's best 'head messer' is probably _The Shining_, especially if you like a long and intricate build up of atmosphere. _The Tommyknockers_ has a wonderful, weird and compulsively readable first half but, IMO, is let down by a drab second half. His fairly recent _Duma Key_ goes for less visceral territory this time and mainly aspires to be creepy.


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## RomanticRose (May 21, 2009)

Dr. Malone said:


> Apt Pupil is quite chilling. It's from one of his short story collections. The book it's in has four novellas, one of the others being Shawshank.


 
_Four Past Midnight_.   The Langoliers, another head messer, is also in that book.


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## Leyline (May 21, 2009)

RomanticRose said:


> _Four Past Midnight_.   The Langoliers, another head messer, is also in that book.



Actually, _Apt Pupil_ is the 'Summer' segment of King's _Different Seasons_, along with _Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption_, _The Body_ and _The Breathing Method_. 

You do remind me of _Four Past Midnight_ though. _The Library Policeman_ and _The Sun Dog_ are real head-messers, especially _The Sun Dog_. I remember a strong case of the creeps with that one.


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## Katastrof (May 21, 2009)

I loved _Misery_ when I first read it, but you're right, it's not really a book that messes with your head (although if I was in the same situation I think I'd be scared out of my mind). 

I'd also try out most of his short stories; although not as deep as some of his novels, I find them more enjoyable to read over and over again (especially his collection _Skeleton Crew_)


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## Dr. Malone (May 21, 2009)

I think Misery is his fantasy/nightmare.

I forgot how old Different Seasons was until you mentioned The Body.

I know King didn't invent the concept of being conscious but unable to react during an autopsy, but that short he wrote based on the subject has always stuck with me.  Based on that short, I've actually developed a worry that some consciousness will linger with the body after death, and I'll be stuck in a black coffin for all eternity with nothing to do.

And I think he started working on The Dark Tower when he was still really heavy into drugs.  That's what someone told me at least.  Reading it, I believe it.  I definitely don't think it's supposed to be horror.  For me that series is kind of slow moving with occasional flashes of brilliance.  I never got past the third or fourth book, though.


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## VinrAlfakyn (May 21, 2009)

The Ruins is supposed to be scary. I haven't read it yet, but the movie was creepy. It's the only movie that's ever made me sick. I had to rush out real quick because I felt I was going to puke or pass out (during a certain part anyway.) I'll have to tell you if the book is really scary or not after I read it.


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## Heid (May 23, 2009)

I haven't read it but I've heard "Pet Semetary"[sic] is very scary/creepy.


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## caelum (Jun 30, 2009)

Some of his short stories have really freaked me out.  I read "The Jaunt" when I was in my early teens, and I remember having serious trouble sleeping that night.  You know when you wake up from a nightmare scared out of your wits, turning on lights and stuff.  That scared.  Just the notion...  I will say no more.  Mr. King, I tip my hat to you.  I recommend The Skeleton Crew.

Oh, The Raft!  Oh shit I forgot about The Raft.  Man was that fucking shiver-inducing.  Freaky ass story.


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## DavidGil (Jun 30, 2009)

I haven't read many of his books, but I did enjoy Salem's Lot even though it was a tad corny in one or two instances. Not the actual story, but just one or two things that happen. People who've read it probably know what I mean.

I have The Stand and It etc. ready to read but don't get much chance to do much of that at the moment. Did try reading Insomnia but found it a bit too... slow. I'll have to give it another try though when I get chance due to it being integral to The Dark Tower series I believe.


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## Robosquad (Jun 30, 2009)

I'm about three-fourths of the way through _It_ right now, also my first Stephen King book.  So far it has failed to scare me (except once when I heard the show draining in strange gurgling noises, but that wasn't really the book's fault).  

However, it has succeeded in being entertaining and well written.  King is great with characters and pacing.  I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good read, if you're looking for scares and are over twelve years old, this probably isn't going to do it.

I think it's probably easier for a short story to be truly scare than a full novel.  A short story can focus on some isolated terror, while a novel has to balance plot and characters, which can lessen the shock.


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## Battlemage (Jul 1, 2009)

The Little Sisters of Eluria was the only story by King I have really liked.  It mixes the whole apocalypse thing and what the world is like afterward.  Sci-fi I guess you could say.  I have bought several books of his over the years and could not quite get into them, thus quitting everyone after a few pages.  
I find his little collections of short stories are his best...pick one up.


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## Beja-Beja (Jul 1, 2009)

Kind of off topic but I couldn't sleep after I read the ending of Faulkner's _A Rose for Emily_


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## Lanex (Aug 3, 2009)

Leyline said:


> King's best 'head messer' is probably _The Shining_



This is the one am getting onto next, after recently purchasing it off of Amazon. I've heard good reviews about this book so hope it turns out to be good.

Currently reading _It_ though, taking forever, lol.


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## SevenWritez (Aug 3, 2009)

Dr. Malone said:


> And I think he started working on The Dark Tower when he was still really heavy into drugs. That's what someone told me at least. Reading it, I believe it. I definitely don't think it's supposed to be horror. For me that series is kind of slow moving with occasional flashes of brilliance. I never got past the third or fourth book, though.


 
Smart move. The Dark Tower series went downhill fast in the first one hundred pages of the fifth novel. The last book was horribly written, as well.


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## Dr. Malone (Aug 3, 2009)

I heard that he wrote himself into the last book.  Like he was in the Tower or something.


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## PSFoster (Aug 4, 2009)

The one that really gave me the creeps reading it was Cujo.  I borrowed it from the library one time when my husband was out of town. Then when he came back he brought home...of all things...a St. Bernard.

I like The Stand, It, and The Green Mile, too.


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## Black_Board (Aug 4, 2009)

I thought Cujo was boring as hell. The problem with King is that he tends to ramble and ramble, describing useless details, flourishing intermittent hints of genuiousity in a couple of chapters, and then, falling back into this dragging pain-in-the-ass exposition for the rest of the story. 

He doesn't allow you to imagine. He slams you with fully blown, intricate details of all the character's thought process, allowing no room for respiration or mystery. He goes about telling the readers flat-out someone is going to die, then for the rest hundred or so pages repeats the same message and shows you how he died. What in the fucks world? 

If you really want to read King, I recommend his anthologies of short stories, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew. That's about it. All his other anthologies suddenly become verbose and hamfisted with recycled plot lines.

If you have read one King novel, you've read them all.


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## Black_Board (Aug 4, 2009)

Oh, one other thing, his endings are all horrible. 

Because he never plans or outlines his stories. He even said it in his memoir, On Writing: he rarely know where his plots are headed, therefore he resorts to trick, supernatural gimmicky faux endings such as the one in Bag of Bones or Gerald's Game or Rose Madder or The Dark Tower and 50 other of his books and anthologies. Whack.


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## SevenWritez (Aug 4, 2009)

Dr. Malone said:


> I heard that he wrote himself into the last book. Like he was in the Tower or something.


 
He wasn't in the Tower, but he was integral to its survival. He used the incidient where he was hit by the van and, in the novel, made it so that The Red King somehow influenced the driver to hit King, and that Roland and gang pushed him out of the way just in time. One of the characters died saving Uncle Stevie, and Roland hated him for it. Oh, and Roland and Stephen King supposedly "looked like each other."

It was stupid.


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## SevenWritez (Aug 4, 2009)

I consider Cujo and The Stand his best novels.

It, The Shining, Salem's Lot and Pet Semetary are all dog shit. In my opinion, of course. I couldn't even finish It, and I quit reading Salem's Lot after the girl or whoever was turned into a vampire and all the characters were huddled about plotting how to kill the bad guy. 

I also really liked Bag of Bones and Lisey's Story.


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## kidstaple (Aug 10, 2009)

SevenWritez said:


> I also really liked Bag of Bones and Lisey's Story.



Haha, you sound like the opposite of everyone else that's read King. A lot of people don't like the majority of his newest stuff. Not that its a bad thing mind you. I actually think it's awesome.


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## Tom88 (Aug 10, 2009)

I've read alot of King, but there's not much point in throwing recommendations around, since everyone here seems to feel differently. Can't say I'd ever agree with someone dismissing The Shining as dog shit...

Take your pick out of his most acclaimed, I suppose. My personal favourite would have to be Cujo. There isn't much supernatural tomfoolery going on there. Just strong, believable characters.


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## KangTheMad (Aug 10, 2009)

_Misery_ was just f'in creepy, because you can imagine it actually happening in real life. _It_ was very good, but since I read it when I was 15, not too scary. Stephen King books are scary if you imagine yourself in the character's positions, but not very much otherwise. _Duma Key_ was a surprisingly good one of his, but if you want just pure awesomeness in a King book, read _The Talisman. From a Buick 8_ was also a very good book he wrote. Along with _'Salem's Lot_ if you want a vampire book that isn't meant to be read by teenage girls with hormones squirting out their ears.


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## Leyline (Aug 10, 2009)

caelum said:


> Some of his short stories have really freaked me out.  I read "The Jaunt" when I was in my early teens, and I remember having serious trouble sleeping that night.  You know when you wake up from a nightmare scared out of your wits, turning on lights and stuff.  That scared.  Just the notion...  I will say no more.  Mr. King, I tip my hat to you.  I recommend The Skeleton Crew.
> 
> Oh, The Raft!  Oh shit I forgot about The Raft.  Man was that fucking shiver-inducing.  Freaky ass story.



*"Longer than you think, Dad!"*

Haha.


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## Dr. Malone (Aug 11, 2009)

Didn't he offer one of his more recent short story collections in eBook formula?  It was like five or six years ago, but I remember people talking about how revolutionary King was for doing it, and I think he even whored it out in the preface.


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## KangTheMad (Aug 11, 2009)

Black_Board said:


> Oh, one other thing, his endings are all horrible.
> 
> Because he never plans or outlines his stories. He even said it in his memoir, On Writing: he rarely know where his plots are headed, therefore he resorts to trick, supernatural gimmicky faux endings such as the one in Bag of Bones or Gerald's Game or Rose Madder or The Dark Tower and 50 other of his books and anthologies. Whack.




Rose Madder was a good read for something I found in the basement.

The Green Mile is the only book of his that made me cry.


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## ooghost1oo (Sep 11, 2009)

Stephen King is great. Self-admittedly not the best writer, but extremely entertaining.

The "Gunslinger" Series is the best for me. The seven books were written haphazardly over the course of about 30 years, and are a lot of fun.


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## Hard Sun (Sep 14, 2009)

I was hoping you Misery was the novel you're reading. It's one of my favorite novels ever. It does mess with you're mind, just wait till you hit the last 50 or so pages, and even more so the last 3 or 4...I still think about it sometimes. Oh, and these little things I'm thinking of weren't in the movie.


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## Leyline (Sep 15, 2009)

I'm trying to track down _Four Past Midnight_ at the moment. I remembered the plot to "The Sun Dog" the other night and just remembering gave me the creeps. Haha. And the same for "The Library Policeman".

This'll bug me till I find it.


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## Red_Venus (Sep 16, 2009)

Oh have mercy! Stephen King rocks! _The Stand. Delores Claiborne. Needful Things. Nightshift. Four Past Midnight. Skeleton Crew. _Who the hell can read those books and not be totally freaked out and intrigued????!!! I also loved a lot of his work under the pen name "Richard Bachman" like _The Long Walk_, _The Dark Half_, _Thinner_, and _Rage._

While I was pregnant with both of my kids I suffered horrible insomnia. Stephen King was my cornerstone during that time. For shorts, I've read "Nightshift", "The Ledge", "Quitter's Inc", "The Boogeyman", "Strawberry Spring","Jerusalem's "s Lot", "The Man Who Loved Flowers", "Gramma", "The Mist","The Monkey", "The Library Policeman", and "The Langoliers" more times than I can count. All of them are quick enough to get through, but still a great late night read. _The Stand_ is by far my favorite book by King. 

_Delores Claiborne_, _Rose Madder_, _The Shining_, _Misery_, _The Green Mile_, _Shawshank Redemption_, and _The Stand_ are all books I own and read at least once a year. I really enjoyed_ It_ and _Lisey's Story_ (which is an really interesting read, though not from the horror perspective).

Also, King wrote a book called _The Cycle of the Werewolf_ which was intended to be a calendar but ended up an illustrated book. I first laid eyes on King's work in third grade when a friend of mine rented _The Cyle of the Werewolf_ from the highschool library and came to stay the night while her father went to A.A. The freakiest sh*t ever to an 8 year-old. Trust me.


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## Dr. Malone (Sep 16, 2009)

> I'm trying to track down Four Past Midnight at the moment.



I think I've seen it at Wal-Mart, actually.  Paperback.


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## JosephB (Sep 16, 2009)

I've yet to read King. I have no aversion to him, I just haven't gotten around to it. I'm going to pick up something today at the library, I think.



Red_Venus said:


> While I was pregnant with both of my kids I suffered horrible insomnia.



It's fascinating to me how this affects different women. My wife couldn't stay awake. With our first, she was in bed by 8:00 or so every night -- and out like a light. I'm the one who got all the reading done.


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## Red_Venus (Sep 16, 2009)

JosephB said:


> It's fascinating to me how this affects different women. My wife couldn't stay awake. With our first, she was in bed by 8:00 or so every night -- and out like a light. I'm the one who got all the reading done.


 
I would have preferred to be tired and asleep early every night, but in retrospect, it did give me the opportunity to read quite a bit. King wasn't all I read, just a good portion of my reading. I found great enjoyment in biting into a good creepy tale when the rest of the world was dark and silent. A small part of me couldn't help but wonder if the stories had a possibility of being true...there's nothing quite like the imagination after midnight, unless of course, that imagination belongs to a sleep-deprived-rollercoaster-hormoned-pregnant woman.


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## Selorian (Sep 16, 2009)

Dr. Malone said:


> I think I've seen it at Wal-Mart, actually.  Paperback.



I believe a film based on of the stories is getting ready to come out, so it is getting another round of exposure.  I saw it on the shelf at Wal-Mart just yesterday.

Edit:  Just did a quick check.  The movie is Dolan's Cadillac, starring Christian Slater, and is from the Nightmares and Dreamscapes book.  That may be the one I saw at Wal-Mart, but I still think I saw Four Past Midnight as well.


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## Leyline (Sep 16, 2009)

You guys think I'm made of money? LOL. Yard sales, library sales, friends and junkshops are where I get my books.


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## Dr. Malone (Sep 16, 2009)

> I believe a film based on of the stories is getting ready to come out, so it is getting another round of exposure. I saw it on the shelf at Wal-Mart just yesterday.
> 
> Edit: Just did a quick check. The movie is Dolan's Cadillac, starring Christian Slater, and is from the Nightmares and Dreamscapes book. That may be the one I saw at Wal-Mart, but I still think I saw Four Past Midnight as well.



I love that story and I've been hearing of movie rumors for years now.  Cool to know they're finally going to get it out.


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## Crazed Scribe (Sep 20, 2009)

I've wanted to read king for awhile now and have never gotten round to it but I think it's about time that I did. 

What would be your recommendations for a first stephen King novel? I don't want to know his best (I don't want to feel that everything else of his will be inferior and then not read them) but a good one, one to draw me in and make me read more of him? Thanks to anyone who will take the time !


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## garmar (Sep 22, 2009)

Heid said:


> I haven't read it but I've heard "Pet Semetary"[sic] is very scary/creepy.


I was going to mention this one but you beat me to it. I don't know if it got to me because I'm a parent or what, but I had to set that book down several times. I don't know if this one is mentioned, but he has a collection of shorts called Skeleton Crew with some genuinely creepy sh!t in there. There is even one about a guy that eats himself from the feet up. :???:


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## PSFoster (Sep 24, 2009)

Carrie would be a good one to start with if you haven't read any.


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