How much Stephen King have you read?

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Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
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The Netherlands
I can no longer decide whether my favourite book I've ever read is still IT, or if 11/22/63 has taken over.

Yeah, I forgot that one. It seems Green Mile and 11/22/63 are the only two with some sort of consensus (past Misery I mean, up til when pretty much all is good). Apart from those it's a constant gamble if it will be a good one or not.

I'm not talking about the ability he has of turning a book page into a film screen where you see the book happening visually right before you. That is always intact (I thought in Gwendy that was not always quite as strong, but those were probably Chizmar's parts). I'm purely talking about the ideas not being that great and the book ultimately feeling like a bit of a letdown.

It seems to me the best books are when a writer has a story clearly in his head and writes it down as a good as he can. With King his earlier work has that feel (say, The Dead Zone for example), but with his later work it's more like he is searching the story while he is writing, which makes the stories often unnecessary long and he simply doesn't always find a great story.
 
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