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If this thread has been made before, I will close this (sorry, I'm somewhat new; I also can't search). I've just always wanted to complain about how bad "Cujo" is. Also, I'm about halfway through "Tommyknockers" right now, and I'm thinking it's not so great. I guess most of King's new stuff isn't very good either, although I haven't read his new short fiction collection. What's the worst in your opinion?
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May 4, 2009 09:10
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Cujo is not a bad book, not by a long chalk. I'd say Rose Madder is his worst, but I ain't read Cell or Lisey's.
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May 4, 2009 11:40
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The worst Stephen King novel is whichever the 3rd or 4th non-Stand standalone one you read is, because that's about when you realize they're all basically the same mediocre novel over and over again and never read another. For me it was The Green Mile.
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May 4, 2009 13:13
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All of them *declares self king of comedy*
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May 4, 2009 15:06
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The Dark Tower. The failure that is this book is not matched by any of his other works. Sure, most of them are complete garbage, but the problem in this one is how long people invested themselves into the series. After all that time, they were given a book that was just awful, in every way possible.
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May 4, 2009 16:23
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The worst poo poo is that story about the loving cymbal-banging monkey. I swear to god that guy used to just go to antique shops, look around and say to himself, "Hmmm, what hasn't been haunted yet?" The moment he realized that the only thing left was the shop itself blew his loving mind.
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May 4, 2009 16:47
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QuentinCompson posted:I'd say Rose Madder is his worst, but I ain't read Cell or Lisey's. Rose Madder is excellent, you're silly. Lisey's Story though, that was pretty drat bad. OP can I ask what you didn't like about Cujo? It was one of his earlier works so he was still a little lacking when it came to style, but it also didn't suffer from his "Time to end the book!" mentality with his later works. It's not my favorite, but it's definitely not the worst. It's not even in the bottom ten.
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May 4, 2009 17:03
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Dreamcatcher. It's so horrible on every possible level. Most of the other books here at least had some redeeming feature. Tommyknockers had the awesome gadget montage near the climax, and it ended well. Cell was decent for the first two thirds before poo poo went off the deep end. Cujo is scary in the sense that such a thing could happen to anyone. Rabies is a scary disease. But Dreamcatcher has nothing for it. It is awful.
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May 4, 2009 18:06
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I pretty much stopped reading King after finishing the Dark Tower series. I picked up From a Buick 8 and Cell at my local library's annual book sale for a buck each. I paid $1.98 too much. Buick was just plain awful. Zero suspense. No payoff. Yawn, yawn, yawn. Maybe the movie won't suck. Cell was essentially The Stand with killer zombies instead of the superflu. It was okay until the final third when I realized nothing was going to happen. Maybe the movie won't suck.
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May 4, 2009 18:40
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ConfusedUs posted:Dreamcatcher. It's so horrible on every possible level. I gotta go with this. His wife called it the "poo poo weasel" book (or something like that); he talks about it in the afterword. To me, that pretty much sums it up: it's a book about poo poo WEASELS FROM OUTER SPACE. Cell was pretty bad, and I just read Lisey's Story and wasn't terribly impressed by it either, but neither of them holds a candle to poo poo WEASELS FROM OUTER SPACE. I loved The Dark Tower, but I can totally understand why people hated it and thought it was the worst thing ever.
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May 4, 2009 18:41
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In On Writing, King talks about how he doesn't even remember writing Cujo due to substance abuse. I gotta go with The Dark Tower though. After following that series since I was a young teen, only to have King totally obliterate it at the end. I was a huge King fan up until that point; I haven't read anything by him since.
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May 4, 2009 19:04
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Insomnia. Seven hundred pages about a retired old man with sleep problems followed by 100 pages of boring metaphysics and a tie in with the Dark Tower that King proceeded to completly disown when he actually finished up the series (serves me right too, the supposed Dark Tower conneciton is the only reason I wasted my time). King is a great writer if you have the right balance of forces. Keep him confined within a fifteen to hundred and fifty page limit and he can do some really interesting stuff. Shorter than that and he gets pointlessly weird, longer and his characters start spending fifty pages at the supermarket.
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May 4, 2009 19:29
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Helsing posted:Insomnia. Seven hundred pages about a retired old man with sleep problems followed by 100 pages of boring metaphysics and a tie in with the Dark Tower that King proceeded to completly disown when he actually finished up the series (serves me right too, the supposed Dark Tower conneciton is the only reason I wasted my time). Insomnia is awesome. The answer to the question posed in this thread is always going to be Cell. Cell is absolutely horrible. If I read a Stephen King book or story that I don't think is that good, I can at least say "Hey, this is still better than Cell!"
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May 4, 2009 19:38
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Okay I was thinking on this, and I got it: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It is the only Stephen King book that I've only read once because it was so fuckin' dull I put it on the shelf the second I was finished with it and never looked back. I don't remember any details of the book (Girl gets lost, girl hallucinates Tom Gordon walking with her, girl kills a bear? I think?) all I remember is that I hated it when I was reading it.
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May 4, 2009 19:41
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cheerfullydrab posted:Insomnia is awesome. The answer to the question posed in this thread is always going to be Cell. Cell is absolutely horrible. If I read a Stephen King book or story that I don't think is that good, I can at least say "Hey, this is still better than Cell!" To be fair, the first half of Cell is pretty good. It's only once we learn more about the horde that things go to poo poo.
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May 4, 2009 20:22
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Women's Rights? posted:
I remember it being boring as hell (at least to me it was). It's 400 pages of a woman sitting in a car. There's also the sideplot of her husband trying to sell advertising.
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May 4, 2009 20:39
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Helsing posted:King is a great writer if you have the right balance of forces. Keep him looped on whiskey, beer, cough syrup, cocaine, and weed and he's GREAT. Sober him up and run him over with a van and he gets pointlessly weird, longer and his characters start spending fifty pages at the supermarket. More accurate now.
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May 4, 2009 21:51
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The eclipse novels. Oh, god, the eclipse novels. I like the cheesier stuff like Cell, and I have no problems with lesser works like Insomnia, but, the loving eclipse novels never should have been published.
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May 4, 2009 22:04
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NosmoKing posted:More accurate now. I agree. His next book is supposedly going to be longer than The Stand...
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May 4, 2009 23:43
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I'm going to have to add another vote for Dreamcatcher. I knew he'd just been hit by a goddamned van and still I read that book wondering what the gently caress he'd been thinking when he thought this stuff up. I mean, the opening scenes with all the attention lavished on farting... yes, all right, there was a point to it, but there's only so much FAAAART FART FART I'm willing to accept. And I actually sort of like The Tommyknockers, although I'll agree that it's not one of his best. (Once I finished Dreamcatcher I fully intended to sell it to Half-Price Books and get it the hell out of my house. Somehow, I forgot to put it on the stack. Six months later we were cleaning out the bookshelves and I pulled out Dreamcatcher and had a total AAAAH THE SHITWEASELS ARE HAUNTING MEEEEE moment.)
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May 4, 2009 23:48
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The only Stephen King book I started but never finished was Bag of Bones. I don't know if I just had too much else going on but it just seemed a lot slower than most of his books and I just wasn't really into it. I'm surprised at all the King hate though I've almost always been entertained by him.
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May 4, 2009 23:56
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Agreeing with Insomnia. I loved King back in middle school but that book made me stop reading his work. I put it down, realized how absolutely boring and pointless it was and never went back. I'm generally sick of Stephen King's formula anyway. Group of people encounter mysterious entity that can only be defeated in a very complicated yet obvious manner, with the help of a wise older man, nerdy teenager, rear end in a top hat, retarded/gifted/disabled child, author, middle-aged woman, and resourceful man. The way they "defeat" the creature in both insomnia and Desperation (I gave him a second chance) was both so lame it made me laugh.
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May 5, 2009 02:43
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I'm a big fan, but I've got to go with Gerald's Game. I couldn't tell you exactly why, only that it's the only book of his I don't believe I've ever finished. I own a copy, and about every six months or so I pick it up, and generally a day or so later I put it back on the shelf.
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May 5, 2009 03:19
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While I hated Cell I have to say the worst is probably Lisey's Story because it was so bad that I couldn't even read it. I got through maybe one chapter before deciding that it sucked and taking it back to the library. I think its the only King novel that I've never been able to at least finish even if I didn't really like it.
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May 5, 2009 03:20
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Eclipse12 posted:Agreeing with Insomnia. I loved King back in middle school but that book made me stop reading his work. I put it down, realized how absolutely boring and pointless it was and never went back. I think much Steve rage can be summed by saying "STOP USING MAGICAL RETARDS!!!"
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May 5, 2009 03:38
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I don't get the hate for Cell, what did you guys expect, its a king book. They all pretty much turn to poo poo at the end. Though for worst king book, I gotta go with Lisey's Story. Though for best I gotta go with Dolan's Cadillac or Survivor Type. Both show what king can do if he keeps it short.
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May 5, 2009 03:46
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ConfusedUs posted:Dreamcatcher. It's so horrible on every possible level. Close the thread, we've found the answer. Also, Cujo's a good book. It just isn't actually a horror novel at all, despite the fact that the publishers (or somebody) stupidly decide to market it as one. If you read it as the story of a failing marriage, it works just fine.
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May 5, 2009 04:14
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Gonna go with Dreamcatcher. At least Cell had a good first chapter, Dreamcatcher didn't even have that. The only thing I remember is some anecdote about the guy's mom falling over and making GBS threads herself.
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May 5, 2009 05:11
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Hey, no matter how bad Dreamcatcher was it wasn't as bad as the movie where THE RETARD TURNS INTO AN ALIEN.
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May 5, 2009 05:24
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No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get through Lisey's Story. It just didn't seem to be going anywhere.
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May 5, 2009 05:35
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muscles like this? posted:Hey, no matter how bad Dreamcatcher was it wasn't as bad as the movie where THE RETARD TURNS INTO AN ALIEN. Honestly, I thought that it actually made more (and better) sense than in the book. My vote though is Song of Susannah, with Cell as a distant second. I liked the Dark Tower enough, but Song of Sussanah bored me to tears. And Cell is weird in that every chapter is worse than the preceding chapter, it was kind of cool (if it hadn't been such a terrible book).
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May 5, 2009 08:10
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The Dark Tower is such a let down because you keep thinking of the Gunslinger and remembering what King is capable of.
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May 5, 2009 09:01
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Lisey's Story was a chore initially but once you get past the whole pretentious made up language and get to the weird interdimensional stuff, it's not too bad. My vote would probably go to Wizard and Glass. That entire novel could do without the whole middle section.
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May 5, 2009 11:28
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IRQ posted:The worst Stephen King novel is whichever the 3rd or 4th non-Stand standalone one you read is, because that's about when you realize they're all basically the same mediocre novel over and over again and never read another. For me it was The Green Mile. I don't know how you can say this with The Green Mile as an example. The Green Mile is drastically different than most of his other novels.
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May 5, 2009 12:05
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Deltron 3030 posted:I'm surprised at all the King hate though I've almost always been entertained by him. Oh I don't think anyone here actually hates Stephen King. We're just beiing honest - not every book he puts out is great and even the biggest fanboy has to admit to that. He's put out some wonderful books, and I have an entire shelf dedicated just to Stephen King, but for every amazing book he puts out, he also shits out a turd. Lately the turds are beginning to outweigh the great books, and I really wish that in his twilight years he would stick to short stories. His short story collections are always great with a high ratio of crap to gold.
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May 5, 2009 12:58
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Hennergy posted:My vote would probably go to Wizard and Glass. That entire novel could do without the whole middle section. gently caress off, that's one of the best things King's done. If you didn't have a lump in your throat at the final Susan scene at the very least, you have no soul.
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May 5, 2009 13:00
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Hemp Knight posted:If you didn't have a lump in your throat at the final Susan scene at the very least, you have no soul. Oh well then. Maybe it was because I skipped a hundred pages of it because it was so drat slow.
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May 5, 2009 13:23
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Women's Rights? posted:Okay I was thinking on this, and I got it: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It is the only Stephen King book that I've only read once because it was so fuckin' dull I put it on the shelf the second I was finished with it and never looked back. I don't remember any details of the book (Girl gets lost, girl hallucinates Tom Gordon walking with her, girl kills a bear? I think?) all I remember is that I hated it when I was reading it. Came here to post this. Not only is this the worst Stephen King novel I have ever read, it's one of the worst novels I have ever read period.
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May 5, 2009 14:59
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Hemp Knight posted:gently caress off, that's one of the best things King's done. It wasn't so much that the middle was necessarily bad, but for fucks sake it was after the cliffhanger with Blaine. They get off, settle down, and Roland tells a story that takes up pretty much 7/8ths of the book with little to no progression towards the Tower until the end? Ugh. If it didn't rip you completely away from the quest for the Tower, and was maybe told in interspersed flashbacks while they kept moving (like how he did it in Gunslinger, and kind of LOST style), I wouldn't have felt so bored and ultimately annoyed with it. He definitely could have trimmed off more than half of Roland's flashback.
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May 5, 2009 15:13
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As many people have said Dreamcatcher. The only time I think I even slightly enjoyed it was the short sentence or two relating back to some random graffiti and IT. Or maybe it was another book. If it was i officially did not enjoy a single second of that book. I possibly might have said the cell but I had read a few reviews saying how increasingly bad it got so only end up reading the first half dozen chapters or so. As people said it started off pretty good. Some classic B grade everything going to poo poo king in the first chapter. After reading it i really thought it could of been a really good book, then it just started to get really bad and I stopped reading.
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May 5, 2009 15:49
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