Best and least best book from each decade?

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Devourer

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Oct 8, 2017
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70s - 'Salem's Lot
80s - IT
90s - The Stand - C&U (only novel I like from this decade & it's really from the 70s.)
00s - Duma Key (only novel I like from this decade.)
10s - Doctor Sleep (only novel I like from this decade so far.)

As for least, it's hard to say for most decades except for the current one. Revival is not only hands down the worst SK book I've read, it's flat out the worst book I've ever finished, period.
 

Brooks

Well-Known Member
Nov 4, 2014
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70s - 'Salem's Lot
80s - IT
90s - The Stand - C&U (only novel I like from this decade & it's really from the 70s.)
00s - Duma Key (only novel I like from this decade.)
10s - Doctor Sleep (only novel I like from this decade so far.)

As for least, it's hard to say for most decades except for the current one. Revival is not only hands down the worst SK book I've read, it's flat out the worst book I've ever finished, period.

Worst book ever? Revival wasn't one of his best but readable with a decent plot. I'll take any of SK's novels over James Patterson's any day. One chapter of SK has more description and detail than one entire book of Parterson's . Different strokes for different folks......
 

Devourer

Member
Oct 8, 2017
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For starters, I said worst book "I've ever finished." Second, I don't read authors with book series (such as the Pattersons of the world). Nor do I understand why people prefer quantity to quality. For example, I find that most TV series folks rave about don't even have enough quality content to fill a feature length film. There's an insane amount of trivial/mundane detail filler that frankly does nothing for the overall story, which brings me to your comment about description... One of Stephen's major issues is that he goes way overboard with that sort of fluff. For me, knowing what tooth paste someone uses does not make for richer character development. If I wanted that kind of information, I'd read Twitter all day instead. Revival strikes me as an exercise in pointlessness & poorly written pointlessness at that. It has none of the intrigue that at least gives some merit to King's other lesser works.

Again, this is just my opinion based of my own experience.
 
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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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For starters, I said worst book "I've ever finished." Second, I don't read authors with book series (such as the Pattersons of the world). Nor do I understand why people prefer quantity to quality. For example, I find that most TV series folks rave about don't even have enough quality content to fill a feature length film. There's an insane amount of trivial/mundane detail filler that frankly does nothing for the overall story, which brings me to your comment about description... One of Stephen's major issues is that he goes way overboard with that sort of fluff. For me, knowing what tooth paste someone uses does not make for richer character development. If I wanted that kind of information, I'd read Twitter all day instead. Revival strikes me as an exercise in pointlessness & poorly written pointlessness at that. It has none of the intrigue that at least gives some merit to King's other lesser works.

Again, this is just my opinion based of my own experience.
....guess he can strike your name from his overly-descriptive Christmas card list....
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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For starters, I said worst book "I've ever finished." Second, I don't read authors with book series (such as the Pattersons of the world). Nor do I understand why people prefer quantity to quality. For example, I find that most TV series folks rave about don't even have enough quality content to fill a feature length film. There's an insane amount of trivial/mundane detail filler that frankly does nothing for the overall story, which brings me to your comment about description... One of Stephen's major issues is that he goes way overboard with that sort of fluff. For me, knowing what tooth paste someone uses does not make for richer character development. If I wanted that kind of information, I'd read Twitter all day instead. Revival strikes me as an exercise in pointlessness & poorly written pointlessness at that. It has none of the intrigue that at least gives some merit to King's other lesser works.

Again, this is just my opinion based of my own experience.
Interesting! Its the details, the small describtive pieces that makes the story, for me, take root properly and when it later goes wrong it seems so more real just therefore and feels the more. For me king wouldn't be King if not. Then of course he sometimes gets overwordy but its not always coupled to the describtions in my view.
 

Cockadoodie Paper

New Member
May 2, 2018
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This is gonna be tough. So many favorites, and also not many that I don't like! But here we go. Won't include the DT series since that just complicates things too much.

Favorites:

70s: The Stand
80s: IT
90s: Hearts in Atlantis
00s: Duma Key
10s: 11/22/63

Least best:

70s: Rage
80s: Cycle of the Werewolf
90s: The Regulators
00s: Blaze
10s: End of Watch

we should do fave/least fave short story from each collection now!
 

Wayoftheredpanda

Flaming Wonder Telepath
May 15, 2018
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Out of what I've read,

70's- The Stand
80's- IT
90's The Green Mile

Can't really speak much for post 00's cause I've only read one of those (The Outsider)
 
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