jimbow8 Wrote:I don't know if any King books occupy my "this is awful" category, but I haven't read Gerald's Game. I like Firestarter and From a Buick 8. The botton of the King barrel for me would be Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher, Hearts in Atlantis (mostly because the movie was SO AWFUL), Eyes of the Dragon (because he didn't have a good grasp of the genre).
Gerald's Game was the worst and I'm glad I'm not alone on this one, so in a way, it would probably classify as one of the scariest books I've ever read. King has become so long winded in his books that it's become very hard for me to read them. I don't know how many of his books I've picked up and simply left them sit unfinished over the last 10+ years. I never have this kind of problem with FPW's or John Sandford's books. Bag of Bones is really the only book that truely stands out in my mind since Needful Things came out.
SDSwami Wrote:Bag of Bones is really the only book that truely stands out in my mind since Needful Things came out.I liked Bag of Bones a lot. Check out Black House, Desperation, and the Green Mile. Also I liked his recent books of short stories: Everything's Eventual and Nightmares & Dreamscapes.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. ... The piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
~ Howard Phillips Lovecraft
law dawg Wrote:The Gunslinger series is one of the greatest I have ever read. My fave series -RPJ (of course), Wheel of Time (Jordan), Gunslinger (King), Spenser (Parker), Rain (Eisler), Sword of Truth (Goodkind), Harry Potter (Rowling) and Discworld (Pratchett (especially Commander Vimes and Death)).
Scariest book is IT (King).
My opinion only. Your mileage may vary.
Law Dawg, if you like Jordan and Goodkind then check out The Game of Thrones by George R R Martin, the first of his Song of Ice and Fire series.
Great stuff. I'm re-reading it now (after about 6 years) and enjoying every page, again.
Dave
jimbow8 Wrote:Eyes of the Dragon (because he didn't have a good grasp of the genre).
This is the only King book I've read more than once. I was quite young when I read it, and hadn't read much of the genre (if any), but I really enjoyed it.
Dave
jimbow8 Wrote:I liked Bag of Bones a lot. Check out Black House, Desperation, and the Green Mile. Also I liked his recent books of short stories: Everything's Eventual and Nightmares & Dreamscapes.
Bag of Bones was very wonderful story. Specially, climax was awesome.
Desperation and Regulators.....same names, different persons. Relations of two books are interesting.
In the King's books, very weird and creepy book is Insomnia and Dark Half. :eek:
Kenji Asakura Wrote:In the King's books, very weird and creepy book is Insomnia and Dark Half. :eek:
I also was a King fan until he seemed to be stepping into the fantasy area. I prefer the old classics of his. Although if some of the newer stuff is good, maybe I will try it. I remember reading Christine, could not put it down all night. I would not walk in front of my car for 2 weeks!
Wouldn't you agree that what really scares you in a book really reflects personal fears? The best writers can just reach in there and tweak you.
As a woman, I found Dean Koontz' Intensity very scary.
Sandee
sandeedazey Wrote:I also was a King fan until he seemed to be stepping into the fantasy area. I prefer the old classics of his. Although if some of the newer stuff is good, maybe I will try it. I remember reading Christine, could not put it down all night. I would not walk in front of my car for 2 weeks!
Christine! A long time ago, I read it. Movie was not scary,because that movie was similar to The Car. But this novel was scary.
Quote:Wouldn't you agree that what really scares you in a book really reflects personal fears? The best writers can just reach in there and tweak you.
As a woman, I found Dean Koontz' Intensity very scary.
Sandee
I agree with your opinion, Sandee. And also I like Koontz. But scariest Koontz's novel was Phantom. That was very very scary.
Genuinely scary (non-FPW) books I've enjoyed...
Sarban: THE SOUND OF HIS HORN - nightmarish vision of an alternative future where the Nazis won, and genetically-altered humans are hunted for sport.
Ray Bradbury: THE OCTOBER COUNTRY - Good ol' Unca Ray could scare the bejeezus out of you when he wanted to. Some of his best, and most frightening, work.
Kingsley Amis: THE GREEN MAN - made into a not-so-bad BBC adaptation with Albert Finney, the original is great. The scene where God appears to the protagonist is one of the most metaphysically frightening scenes in literature, more like an unsettling visit from Internal Security than a holy visitation.
James Blish: DAMNATION DAY - an omnibus collection of two novels, wherein a nihilistic arms manufacturer pays a black magician to release all the demons of Hell for one day on Earth. Classic scenes where the Pentagon tries to deal with the fact that Dis, the capital of Hell, has arisen in the middle of Death Valley.
William Peter Blatty: THE EXORCIST - like most ex-Catholics (I no longer believe in hell, but know that's where I'm going), this novel struck some nerves that vampires and werewolves can't reach.
T.E.D. Klein: THE CEREMONIES - with this, a collection of 4 novellas (DARK GODS), and a handful of short stories, Klein revisited Lovecraft turf and combined it with the horrors of urban living. Sadly, he hasn't written much since.
Richard Matheson - Pretty much everything, but especially I AM LEGEND.
John Christopher: NO BLADE OF GRASS (also published as THE DEATH OF GRASS) - a worldwide virus destroys all grain (wheat and rice included), and civilization quickly begins to collapse. The ordeal of a small group of families trying to make it to safety through the collapse of public order in Great Britain terrified me when I first read it.
Shirley Jackson - THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE: Great novel, great (first) movie adaptation.
Philip Wylie: THE DISAPPEARANCE - Wylie was a popular curmudgeon in the fifties and sixties, all but forgotten now. This novel depicts as great an apocalypse as you could imagine: all the women disappear from the world of men, and all the men disappear from the world of women.
Fritz Leiber - OUR LADY OF DARKNESS - Fritz couldn't write a bad story. Great San Francisco-based novel; also check out CONJURE WIFE, YOU'RE ALL ALONE, and any anthology of horror, sword and sorcery, or science fiction.
M.R. James: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY - a master of horror by suggestion.
H.P. Lovecraft - THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, CALL OF CTHULHU, THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS
Stephen King: 'SALEM'S LOT, THE SHINING, THE STAND; THE DEAD ZONE is genuinely sad, a modern tragedy.
Robert Heinlein: THE PUPPET MASTERS: amazing combination of horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and anti-collectivist statement. Often ripped-off, never equalled.
Isaak Babel: RED CAVALRY (also printde as LYUBKA THE COSSACK) - not horror per se, but the dispassionate, staccato view of the horrors of war as represented by the Polish-Soviet conflict is genuinely terrifying.
Andrew Vachss: the Burke Series, and also stand-alone novel SHELLA. Highly Recommended.
Sarban: THE SOUND OF HIS HORN - nightmarish vision of an alternative future where the Nazis won, and genetically-altered humans are hunted for sport.
Ray Bradbury: THE OCTOBER COUNTRY - Good ol' Unca Ray could scare the bejeezus out of you when he wanted to. Some of his best, and most frightening, work.
Kingsley Amis: THE GREEN MAN - made into a not-so-bad BBC adaptation with Albert Finney, the original is great. The scene where God appears to the protagonist is one of the most metaphysically frightening scenes in literature, more like an unsettling visit from Internal Security than a holy visitation.
James Blish: DAMNATION DAY - an omnibus collection of two novels, wherein a nihilistic arms manufacturer pays a black magician to release all the demons of Hell for one day on Earth. Classic scenes where the Pentagon tries to deal with the fact that Dis, the capital of Hell, has arisen in the middle of Death Valley.
William Peter Blatty: THE EXORCIST - like most ex-Catholics (I no longer believe in hell, but know that's where I'm going), this novel struck some nerves that vampires and werewolves can't reach.
T.E.D. Klein: THE CEREMONIES - with this, a collection of 4 novellas (DARK GODS), and a handful of short stories, Klein revisited Lovecraft turf and combined it with the horrors of urban living. Sadly, he hasn't written much since.
Richard Matheson - Pretty much everything, but especially I AM LEGEND.
John Christopher: NO BLADE OF GRASS (also published as THE DEATH OF GRASS) - a worldwide virus destroys all grain (wheat and rice included), and civilization quickly begins to collapse. The ordeal of a small group of families trying to make it to safety through the collapse of public order in Great Britain terrified me when I first read it.
Shirley Jackson - THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE: Great novel, great (first) movie adaptation.
Philip Wylie: THE DISAPPEARANCE - Wylie was a popular curmudgeon in the fifties and sixties, all but forgotten now. This novel depicts as great an apocalypse as you could imagine: all the women disappear from the world of men, and all the men disappear from the world of women.
Fritz Leiber - OUR LADY OF DARKNESS - Fritz couldn't write a bad story. Great San Francisco-based novel; also check out CONJURE WIFE, YOU'RE ALL ALONE, and any anthology of horror, sword and sorcery, or science fiction.
M.R. James: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY - a master of horror by suggestion.
H.P. Lovecraft - THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, CALL OF CTHULHU, THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS
Stephen King: 'SALEM'S LOT, THE SHINING, THE STAND; THE DEAD ZONE is genuinely sad, a modern tragedy.
Robert Heinlein: THE PUPPET MASTERS: amazing combination of horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and anti-collectivist statement. Often ripped-off, never equalled.
Isaak Babel: RED CAVALRY (also printde as LYUBKA THE COSSACK) - not horror per se, but the dispassionate, staccato view of the horrors of war as represented by the Polish-Soviet conflict is genuinely terrifying.
Andrew Vachss: the Burke Series, and also stand-alone novel SHELLA. Highly Recommended.
"Flow with the Go."
- Rickson Gracie
law dawg Wrote:Discworld (Pratchett (especially Commander Vimes and Death)).
Discworld...YEAH!!!! that is a AWESOME series. And yes I love Vimes and Death's characters, but Rat Death is even better. Pratchett is a genuis, IMHO.
