Ready to Catch Up with King

[Neesy]

Hello Charon and Welcome! I'm glad you decided to take a break here. Hauling all of those people back and forth must be exhausting! All the best, mal

Happy Friday mal

 

[LilCoffinhunter]

Welcome! I was all over the place with my introduction to King, but if I had to pick a starting point from what I've read, it would probably be either Revival or Joyland. I'm sure a lot of people would suggest otherwise, but both are nice consumable stories that give you a sort of concentrated dose of the King flavor, and based on what I've read so far, I think both indicate how much he has developed (even though critics seem to disagree).
If you have any suggestions or notes about how and when to start Dark Tower, I'd be grateful, I loved The Eyes of the Dragon intensely, but otherwise I have zero experience with fantasy. I trust King, but I also know I need to be ready to really appreciate what he's putting out there. Either way, welcome!

Sorry for the late reply on this! Yeah, I'm getting a lot of suggestions among my friends to check out Joyland. As for The Dark Tower series, I enjoyed it so much that I'd say judt dive right into it. I know a lot of fans struggle with the first book, The Gunslinger, but I loved it. It's really not typical fantasy. Everything is sort of thrown in a blender - fantasy, horror (including a lot of cosmic horror), sci fi, Westerns and lots of great drama. It's pretty much its own world - I can't really think of anything else like it. I like to think of it as a place where maybe King felt the least confined by boundaries. I feel like if he was interested in something at the time, he could find a place for it in Mid-World. So, even though a lot of the tale is very sad, it also has this immense feeling of freedom to it.

 

[abbyhdsn]

Hello, all, my name is Charon and I've read a good portion of King's work. I got really busy over the years and, despite my love of reading, barely read anything for years. About 2 years ago, I read the entire Dark Tower series and it reminded me of how much I loved reading Stephen King. Other than the last books in The Dark Tower series, I haven't read any books he wrote beyond 1995 (Rose Madder). Where's a good place to jump back in? I've heard a lot of praise for 11/22/63.

I've had a similar situation. I read several King books back in high school but with AP classes and starting college, pleasure reading got put on the back burner. I've personally never read Carrie (crazy , I know), so that's where I've decided to pick back up!
If you liked Rose Madder, I think you'd like Lisey's Story. They have some similarities and many King readers I've spoken to who liked one found they liked both.

 

[Neesy]

I've had a similar situation. I read several King books back in high school but with AP classes and starting college, pleasure reading got put on the back burner. I've personally never read Carrie (crazy , I know), so that's where I've decided to pick back up!
If you liked Rose Madder, I think you'd like Lisey's Story. They have some similarities and many King readers I've spoken to who liked one found they liked both.

I agree with how good Rose Madder was (not everyone feels that way) but I did find Lisey's Story a bit hard to get into at first and my mind kept wandering. Eventually I did get hooked into the story and then enjoyed it very much.