Stephen King - what am I missing?

[chocolateaddictions]

As a teen I read quite a few and hated them all.

I’ve seen lots of the films - It, Carrie, Pet Cemetary, Misery, the Shining but could never get into the books. I never really enjoyed the films either but it was the sort of thing you watched at teen sleepovers.

I found them incredibly dull and almost impossible to get through. Carrie for example had pages and pages about telekinesis or something when I just wanted it to get on with the plot.

If you’re a fan, honestly what is the appeal? What am I missing? If you’re not, do you feel the same way as I do?

I love Stephen King and there’s lots to choose from. My all time favourites are Under the Dome, Duma Key and The Mr Mercedes Trilogy. If his writing isn’t for you I wouldn’t press on too hard though.

I grew up on Point Horror so Stephen King felt like a kind of natural progression in my early teens. IT, Needful Things, The Green Mile and The Stand were great, Dark Tower series and Mr Mercedes also really good as are some of his shorter collections ones. Newer stuff I'm less bothered about, and the one with his son I couldn't finish. I like getting stuck into long descriptions and side quests into people's inner thoughts, so it does suit me - although I appreciate why someone would feel like it drags on and on pointlessly.
I guess he's just a guy who knows how to write a pop-horror style easy reader, it's descriptive and intricate but not very complicated and I'm sure there are 'better' writers out there in terms of quality. But I get lost in the story and care about the characters, so it works for me.

I love the world he creates, geographically it’s all there - just an eerie, twisted version of it. and the characters- there’s so much detail, you feel like you know them. I loved his old / horror stuff precisely because it’s not fantasy - it’s absolutely set in the ‘real’ world but all gone horribly wrong. The little clues he drops that start the alarm bells ringing.

Salem’s Lot 😱 terrifying
The Shining
The Stand
Pet Sematary
It
Misery
The Dark Half

I prefer Dean Koontz, but he too, has written lots of books and some are gripping and some just seem meh!, I did enjoy SK ‘Fairy tale’, and I like his short stories, but his bigger tomes I found I lost concentration. Edited to add my favourite book of SK is ‘the institute’.

If you like horror but don’t like King, try M R James. If you don’t know anything about him, watch the Mark Gatiss documentary on YouTube.