# Ranking Stephen King



## sbaum4853 (May 3, 2010)

My top 10.

1. It - I think his most compelling and sophisticated novel. Intense, touching, terrifying, and totally engaging even over 1000+ pages.

2. The Stand - One of those books where you just get totally lost in it. I might have put it at #1, except the ending was a letdown, I thought.

3. The Long Walk - written as Richard Bachman. One of the most suspenseful reads ever.

4. Carrie - so much scarier than the movie. This one's cool because you don't identify with the victims, but with the predator.

5. Salem's Lot - starts slow, but man, when it gets going, it gets going.

6. The Shining - his best psychological thriller.

7. The Dead Zone - a great villain, a great lead character, a great concept.

8. Pet Sematary - a great fright fest, if not a particularly deep novel.

9. Cujo - reads just like it was written. Totally doped out on speed intense.

10. Misery - works even better if you've seen Kathy Bates in the movie.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

I'd rank The Dark Tower books as his best, especially _The Gunslinger_.


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## lisamaliga (Oct 28, 2010)

I'd have to rank The Stand and The Shining as #1 and #2 followed by Under the Dome. I haven't read The Long Walk yet but it's on my list.


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## dixiehellcat (Jan 23, 2011)

I'd put The Stand and The Dead Zone at the top. Cell was very good too, I thought. I loved Dark Tower all the way through, but the ending just fell flat for me.


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## RChaffee (Mar 3, 2011)

Dont forget Tommyknockers! Those dolls are creepy!


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## Mrs. K. (Dec 31, 2010)

The Talisman!


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## sbaum4853 (May 3, 2010)

Bleekness said:


> One book not in there which I would place (early in the morning now, so I'm lazy) is Nightshift. That is a great book of short stories, and the first work of King that I ever bought.
> 
> And nobody mentions Danse Macabre...


Yes...the short stories. Nightshift has The Boogeyman, which is one of my favorites.

And the non-fiction. Danse Macabre and On Writing are both great.


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## Harry Shannon (Jul 30, 2010)

What? No mention for "Pet Semetery" in the Top Ten? Despite a silly concept, one of the scariest books I have ever read. I'd have trouble putting them in order, but certainly The Stand, Salem's Lot, Dead Zone, the novella book Different Seasons, his short fiction collections like Nightshift...Rats, oh never mind. Too long a list. Best of all, his last couple of projects have really been a return to form. I'm actually looking forward to the one about the Kennedy assasination.


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## D. Nathan Hilliard (Jun 5, 2010)

1. It - This was King at his zenith. He kept getting better and better till this point, and kind of slid afterwards for a while. But this is where it's like he stuffed every scary idea he had left into one book.

2. The Shining - His most atmospheric book in many ways. Jack Torrance is a much more complicated and tragic figure in the book.

3. Carrie - The book that began it all.

4. The Stand - His most epic work. A true apocalyptic nightmare.

5. Christine - I think this one gets hurt because the movie that was made out of it didn't live up to the book at all, and the fact that it deals with what some people think of as a cliche...the killer car. But the book is better than that, and the characters make it transcend the cliche.

6. Pet Semetary - In some ways, this is his most frightening. The nightmarish choice faced by a grieving parent and it's horrific consequences really hit home...especially with the cat as foreshadowing.

7. The Body - The novella that became the movie "Stand by Me." Great coming of age story.

8. Needful Things - Another story thats much better than the movie it spawned. The characters are much more alive in the story.

9. The Dead Zone - One of the best psychic novels I've ever read.

10. For the last one, I'm actually going to go back to another one of his novellas...The Mist. An excellent little monster mash with a far better ending than the sophomoric one in the film.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff (Sep 21, 2009)

Ooh.  Great time suck.

I go back and forth between 1 and 2, but - 

1.  The Shining  
2.  Pet Sematery  
3.  Carrie
4.  It
5.  The Stand
6.  The Mist
7.  The Dead Zone
8.  The Talisman
9.  I would say Duma Key until Act Three, when everything fell apart in a way so shocking I think it's probably the most fascinating worst ending of all time.

Number ten would be another short but it's too hard to decide.


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## Christine Kersey (Feb 13, 2011)

I haven't read all of his stuff, but my favorite has to be The Stand. I also liked Christine and Cujo.


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## Robert Gregory Browne (Mar 10, 2011)

I'll go with _Dead Zone_ and _Pet Sematary_ as my two favorites. Pet Sematary has a twist within a twist that just blew my socks off and _Dead Zone_ is just so rich in characterization (like all of King's books) that I just can't fault it.

Oh, and Alex, I thought the ending of _Duma Key_ was great. A little crazy, but great.

My two cents.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I really like Nathan's list, but here's mine...

10.  Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. (One of the rare times where a King movie transcended the book... but only by the distance of a Morgan Freeman performance that was note-perfect.)

09.  Bag of Bones (It was either this or Insomnia... sentimental favorites from a period where some of this novels kinda sucked... as much as a King novel can)

08.  Cell (A very genre-bending take on the standard zombie novel. Shades of The Stand, though.)

07.  Under the Dome (climbing the list as I get deeper into it)

06.  Misery (Both in spite of the movie, and because of it... read it long before the movie, though)

05.  Firestarter (Way better than the movie, though Drew Barrymore was spot-on casting... and how OLD is Heather Locklear, for God's sake? Wikipedia says 49...)

04.  Cujo (One of my favorite reads as a teen... stayed up two long nights in a row, could hardly put it down.)

03.  Dead Zone (Johnny Smith is one of the best tragic characters of all time... the USA series really destroyed my fondness for it, though)

02. Pet Sematery (Forget the movie... the book delivered the creepy. And had one of the best head-fake misdirects of any book I've read.)

01.  It (Hate to echo so many others, but yeah... this one just rocked)

HONORABLE MENTIONS: The following are books that fluctuate on and off my list, depending on my mood and what I've read recently... THE BODY (a/k/a Stand By Me), A GOOD MARRIAGE, CARRIE, SALEM'S LOT, THE SHINING, CHRISTINE, INSOMNIA, NEEDFUL THINGS, THE GREEN MILE.

And I'm a bit strange... THE STAND, THE TALISMAN, EYES OF THE DRAGON, THE DARK TOWER... very little of that stuff ever deeply appealed to me.


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## L.J. Sellers novelist (Feb 28, 2010)

The Stand, of course, is my favorite. After that, I like his short stories best. Haven't read anything of his lately.
L.J.


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

I think Pet Semetary is near the top and I don't think it's a shallow book at all.  Like many of his books, the "hook" (a cemetery where pets come back to life) might seem trite, but there's a lot more going on than that.  As a matter of fact, this is one of my comfort books that I go back to a lot and I usually skip the parts about the cemetery itself because it isn't interesting.  As the book jacket says, it's a book about death and how loved ones deal with it (or not) in different ways.

Think about all the different kinds of deaths in that book, the kind of people that surrounded those that died, and how they reacted.  Just off the top of my head I remember the deaths of Paxcow, Church, the woman across the street, Gage, the wife's sister.

For me Pet Semetary is at or near the top slot...

edit: I'd like to add that I'm thrilled to see King getting his due these days.  I wasn't really a fan until I got married to a King freak.  Then, after I read a lot of his stuff I felt like he was a brilliant writer but most people didn't appreciate the subplots, social commentary and just plain great writing.  They only saw the top layer of horror in his writing.  It wasn't really that long ago that if I brought his name up when people were discussing great writers I would get the same reaction that I would get today if I mentioned Dan Brown (and I don't disrespect DB -- anybody who can write books that millions of readers want is a great writer in my view).  

I think he turned the corner when he put out "On Writing" but I'm not sure about that...


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Dave C,

I guess it depends on the crowd one hangs with, but I caught onto King as a young teen... but as a young teen aspiring to be a writer myself. And as a writer, King has many, many strengths that anyone would be foolish not to learn from.

Character-building? King's top-notch. Even some of his minor supporting characters feel like three-dimensional, realistic people - the sort of folks who live down the street from you, whether you like 'em or not.

Clean, readable prose? The only literary guy I can think of who is equally as accessible is Sherwood Anderson, and he wrote around the same era as Hemingway. The modern writer who is close to being as readable? James Patterson. Yet King achieves his accessibility while writing in chapters much longer and more substantial than the average three-page Patterson chapter, so King's more impressive that way.

I won't go into an exhaustive list, but I've always considered King's books the "main textbooks" of my own writing career. I doubt anyone else has ever, or will ever, influence me as strongly.

Sure, he has his weaknesses. Some of his concepts border on the ridiculous, for example. But even those that do (DOLAN'S CADILLAC, as a prime example) he somehow manages to pull off and sell the living  crud out of, so that you do get drawn in to the what if aspect of it all.


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## FrankZubek (Aug 31, 2010)

Let's not forget that he is still at it

A new short story, "Herman Wouk Is Alive and Well", is due out next month in The Atlantic the week of the 19th (and it's supposed to be available online for free the week before--

And another huge novel about a time traveler who goes back to the late 50's in an effort to try to prevent Kennedy from being assassinated. That's called "11/22/63" and is due out Nov 9

(it's supposed to be at least 950 pages long !)

and for more info on all King projects, this is an excellent source http://www.liljas-library.com/


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## bnapier (Apr 26, 2010)

1 - It: No one will ever write a more powerful horror story.  period.

2 - Misery

3 - The Dark Tower Book 2: Drawing of the Three

4 - The Shining

5 - The Long Walk

6 - Pet Semetary

7 - Tommyknockers

8 - Needful Things

9 - The Dark Half

10 - Salems Lot


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

I have to add "The Green Mile"... ooh, and "Gerald's Game" (love that one for some reason)... Those would both go on my list in the top ten.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff (Sep 21, 2009)

Rob, that's just crazy.  I mean, seriously, a FLASHLIGHT?


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

FrankZubek said:


> Let's not forget that he is still at it
> 
> A new short story, "Herman Wouk Is Alive and Well", is due out next month in The Atlantic the week of the 19th (and it's supposed to be available online for free the week before--
> 
> ...


King does the Kennedy assassination? Must read.


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## LDHesler (Mar 25, 2011)

1) Dark Tower (particularly "The Gunslinger" and "The Wastelands")
2) It
3) Hearts in Atlantis
4) Insomnia
5) The Talisman


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## brianrowe (Mar 10, 2011)

While there's a dozen or more of his that I love, particularly On Writing, Misery, The Stand, It, Carrie, Bag of Bones, and recently Under the Dome, there's just something really special to me about The Shining. It was his third book, the first to show real growth for him as a writer, and also just one of the most terrifying pieces of work ever published. I love me the King, and I love The Shining most of all!


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## Hayden Duvall (Mar 24, 2011)

It - still my favourite despite the way it ends (which didn't quite click with me.)  Wizard and Glass is my next favourite, and best of the Dark Towers books, and then maybe The Stand.  Such a hard choice.


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## dixiehellcat (Jan 23, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> King does the Kennedy assassination? Must read.


Ooh! Ooh! Me too.

And how did I leave off Danse Macabre? I guess I was thinking of strictly fiction. I wore a copy of that book out, back in the day.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

dixiehellcat said:


> Ooh! Ooh! Me too.
> 
> And how did I leave off Danse Macabre? I guess I was thinking of strictly fiction. I wore a copy of that book out, back in the day.


King's book on the assassination is a fictional take... at least to some extent.


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