King's Most Underrated Books?

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Mary Strickland

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May 18, 2009
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Fire Starter was my first brush with SK, and thought it was an excellent story. I came across Carrie close to the same time, also an excellent story, I like edgy stories. But that's when I knew any other writer would be second best.
 

SutterKane

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Jun 7, 2014
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Fire Starter super underated and imo its one of the best.

I agree. That was the first one I read and a couple months ago I re-read it and it still holds up extremely well. It had the misfortune of being released at the same time as so many others people consider classics and kind of got lost in the shuffle.
 

kingricefan

All-being, keeper of Space, Time & Dimension.
Jul 11, 2006
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Misery. For me it's incredibly creepy. The movie version has the same vibe. Neither one gets much attention.
Misery the book won numerous awards and the film garnered an Oscar for Best Actress for Kathy Bates. It doesn't get alot of attention now because it's an older book. It's one that, if it's on TV, I stop what I'm doing and watch. Bates is brilliant in her portrayal of Annie Wilkes. She deserved that statue!
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
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I've been thinking about this, and I'd add The Colorado Kid. I think about that one often, though it's one of his 'small' books. It was quite lovely in construction and execution, but no one seems to talk much about it.
 

doowopgirl

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Aug 7, 2009
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Misery the book won numerous awards and the film garnered an Oscar for Best Actress for Kathy Bates. It doesn't get alot of attention now because it's an older book. It's one that, if it's on TV, I stop what I'm doing and watch. Bates is brilliant in her portrayal of Annie Wilkes. She deserved that statue!
I didn't realize that it actually won awards. I couldn't agree more with you about Kathy Bates performance.
 

Sarah love

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Jul 30, 2014
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I did a quick search for similar threads but didn't see one. So if this is like the millionth thread on the same topic I apologize ;-D

Anyhoo, from my experience it seems like there is the core of Kings most respected works from your average reader or general audience like Carrie, Salems Lot, The Shining, The Stand, IT, The Dead Zone, Pet Sematary, Cujo, Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Different Seasons....and then you get the typical "King lost his mojo" people who never really seem have read past the one book they may have not liked all those years back and openly dismiss anything past his so-called prime.

A lot of casual readers of his work (I don't mean to sound like I'm looking down on people who aren't as rabid as us, cuz I'm not. I swear) never give an concrete reasons as to why he lost it, they just state it like fact and draw an arbitrary line through the sand with his older 70s/early 80s as the best and everything else is forgettable. :facepalm_smiley:

Now I'm not so rabid as to think every single word he's published is gold. But I am rabid enough to think that most of his stuff is good to great. And really, for every well received/famous book of his I think there is one equally great book that is either forgotten or unfairly poo-pooed on.

So let me just make my list here of Kings most underrated books in no real order:
-Dolores Claiborne
-Lisey's Story
-Roadwork
-Rose Madder
-The Long Walk
-Dreamcatcher
-The Regulators
-The Running Man
-From A Buick 8
-Duma Key
-Gerald's Game
-Needful Things
-Rage (by virtue of it's out-of-printness. I have no clue how it would be regarded today if it were still in print)

Honorable mentions are Firestarter and Christine. they aren't on the official list because they fall into the "Old Good Stuff" and are well known by the public, but at the same time I rarely seen them mentioned with the others.

Most of those listed above are equal to just about any of his tried and true classics imo. What do ya'll think?
Misery. For me it's incredibly creepy. The movie version has the same vibe. Neither one gets much attention.
I love Misery! The film had me shouting at the TV and hidin behind things. Amazing book.
 

Kingster

Member
Oct 12, 2013
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This is the perfect thread I think, in reference to King because he has so many masterpieces that some do get overlooked a bit..
The answer wouldn't include a lot of his books but a small some, Black House and Talisman for starters. HOW til this day can there still be no movies for these 2? That's blasphemy lol. I LOVED them. They're actually 2 of my favortes of all time. They aren't all that under-rated to us readers but to the general public, I'd say they are. Also The Dead Zone and the Eyes of the Dragon are IMO both under-rated. .