Just wondering.  Am I the only horror fan in existance that doesn't think King is all that?

I have to disagree with you.

As far as Horror is concerned Stephen King is 'The King'.  Except for a very few books I did not like and thought he wrote them in a hurry, he consistantly wrote books that described the characters and people well, writes well, makes you scared, really scared!

Just my opinion.

I figured ppl would disagree of course.  But I wanted to see if anyone else agreed or I was the only one.  I think there are way better horror writers out there.  I do not think he is the King.  His last 20 novels all have the same formula.  A group of ppl trapped together.  Misery , Pet Semetary, and Eyes of the Dragon were good.  However, he is not deserving of the title King of horror in my opinion.  In fact, he's copied ideas from other writers he thinks noone knows about.  But to each his own.  I just want to know if there's anyone else out there that thinks he isn't the best of the bunch. 

i dont care for his older work but his stuff from the mid 90's is great ( cell , under the dome, and others)

I loved him when I was young and he first started putting out books..Salem's Lot, Carrie. I sort of lost interest the last five years or so. I did love "Cell". My sister just loves him! I will say that our opinions are very unpopular!! lol

If Cell is from the mid 90's I lost interest a lot sooner than I thought.

Denise

I was like that with Dean Koontz.  I couldn't get enough of him.  Then, I just got sick of his writing.  Now I won't read his stuff.  I feel better knowing I'm not the only one who isn't all that impressed with King lol.  We may get tarred and feathered though.   Wink!

The movie Pet Semetary wasn't that good, but I loved the book.  Did you read Misery?  I thought Annie in the movie was like Minnie Mouse compared to Annie in the book lol.

Kathryn

I'm just curious, is there anyone you think is deserving of the title King of horror? Also, which books/writers would you say he has taken ideas from? These might be good ideas for my future reading. I haven't read a Stephen King book for a while. I used to enjoy some of them, kind of hit and miss recently.

Thanks.

I've never found King particularly scary, his son Joe Hill's book 'Heart Shaped Box' was scarier than anything King's written.  That said, Stephen King is a hell of a storyteller.  The Stand, Salem's Lot, Duma Key, The Green Mile, etc. are all completely engrossing. 

I find King is too descriptive.  I like action.  The only king book I liked was cell.  I do love his movies.  I have found the same thing with Koontz.  I loved his earlier work( phantoms, house of thunder, watchers etc..)  But his new books are just like king- much too wordy.  I have found I like Ketchum, Keene, Kilbourn(sp?- wrote-afraid)

I don't mind calling King the King of Horror. He made it more main stream and popular.  I think perhaps I just grew tired of him. I find that happens with most authors I used to love. At first you are anxiously awaiting the next novel and than all of a sudden you aren't. I went from King to Koontz and now rarely read Koontz..... I did like Heat Shaped Box and did not know it was King's son. Right now I love David Wellington's vampire books. I read his werewolf novel "Frostbite and liked it. I think we evolve and sometimes our authors don't.

Denise

When I say the King of horror, I'm not meaning in sales and exposure.  I want to clarify that up front.  I believe the King of horror to be someone who is a creative, talented writer, that consistantly puts out original, excellent books.  There are many excellent horror writers that I love.  Straub, McCammon, Neiderman, Tessier, Sarrantonio, Waggoner.....and so on. However, The true king of horror died long ago.  He defined and began the genre.  H.P. Lovecraft!

I was looking thru all the swappable books and found some horror novels that when I looked them up, they were stories written before Mr. King ever penned his work.  They sounded almost exactally like stories Stephen has written.  I didn't write them down, but I will go back and look tonight and post them.

King has had the exposure and made it in the business so he can pretty much write anything now.  It doesn't have to be any good.  He churns them out like Danielle Steele does romance novels.

You hit the nail on the head when you say authors sometimes don't evolve.  That is definitely what has happened with King.  He's failed to evolve his storytelling imo.

As a person who loves horror I am ashamed to admit that I have never read Lovecraft! Perhaps I will someday, who knows.. I look forward to your post about earlier books that King's stories resemble.

Denise

Kathryn,

No flames from me.  I find the like/dislike for books and authors very personal.

Every time I suggest a book/author I will add: " I find this is a great read, but you may hate it even if you liked similar books."

So, I like the wordiness and description - storytelling of Stephen King, other people love fast pace action. Wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same.

I do agree with H.P. Lovecraft, some of the scariest I ever read.  I was happy when they were out of the house.  I felt bad vibes just keeping them around.

As far as Koontz is concerned I liked some of his earlier works (my favourite is Watchers) and I like the Odd Thomas.

One really scary book was 'Maynard's House' by Herman Raucher. I read it about twenty years ago and it still gives me the creeps. 

Angie

Well I put Maynard House on my reminder list. It sounds good!

Denise

Thank you for the great horror idea!  I'm going to try to find Maynard's house.  I don't mind descriptive stuff either, but some authors do go overboard with their flowery descriptions.

Lovecraft is definitely on my list, I just haven't gotten any of them yet. Also, lots of authors borrow from others - sometimes I find it interesting to go read the original they borrowed from. Good way to find new books and authors.

Its not that I have a problem with borrowing.  They almost have to because maybe its all been done before.  Its just that it irks me a little that someone like King gets credit for defining the genre when he borrows too much and keeps rehashing stuff he himself has written.    I'm working on that list I promised everyone too.  Dang I wish I'd written all that down.  lol.  But I'll get it posted.

Ok.  This is difficult finding all of these again, but they are listed right here in swap somewhere.  As I come across them I'll recognize them and post them.  I found them when I joined a few months ago and was looking for great books to put on my lists.  Many didn't interest me, so I passed them by, but I remember thinking, "Hmmm.  So King isn't the originator of this type of story."  I mean they sounded almost exactally like his.  You all might come across some when you are browsing. There are several pre Stand novels that are about groups of ppl fighting evil after the world ends from a virus.  There are a few about twins, one trapped in its siblings body.  That sounds like The Dark Half to me.  Many pre Pet Semetary pet zombie stories.  I saw one about mutated giant insects.  The Mist was about that right?  Anyway, I will be on the look out for those titles.  Oh and several pre-it stories about groups of kids facing evil.

I like Stephen King's writing style and how he draws his characters, though I know I am not really a typical horror fan. 

And for anyone scoring at home, Cell was published in 2006.

I used to like the way he made some of his characters.  Especially Annie Wilkes!  I truly did.  But if you look carefully at the Mist, the Regulators, Desperation, It, The Langoliers and even that offensive TV garbage(well to me) Storm of the Century, you will see the same characters revamped over and over.  And now I hear Under The Dome has a group of characters working together.  I'll bet you have the same types there too.  Oh I forgot about The Stand.  Same characters just with differing names.  Also, I was wondering if I'm the only one that notices that in every book he writes there are one or 2 characters you know he wants you to root for that are self righteous, and overbearing but he doesn't seem to think they are.  He wants them to be heros and heroines, but they are obnoxious.  I think King used to be a good writer.  I couldn't write like he does.  I just think he's undeserving at this time of the praise and accolades that he gets.  Ppl  tend to think anything he writes is platinum. 

Thanks for posting the publication date of Cell. That makes me feel better...otherwise I lost some years!! lol

Denise

I can only say that Lisey's Story (2005) and Duma Key (2008) are a couple of my favorite Stephen King novels, so clearly I don't buy the idea that his best writing is in the distant past.  If you dislike those, then obviously we disagree on style.

As far as horror writers are concerned I think Richard Layman has them all beat.  There is also bentley little even though his characters

can be a bit dull but his stories are pretty good.  I think King leans more into the sci-fi myself.  I do like his stories and find them to be

a lot of fun but I do tend to get lost in them because he usually has so much going on with his characters.  I like king because when you open 

one of his books you never know what your gonna get.  Other good horror writer's I have though not all of them are on my shelf are Richard Layman, Ed Lee

Jack Ketchum and Jeff Strand are the best.  Unfortunately they don't get the advertising like they should and unless your a horror reader most people don't

know of them.  But above all of them who tops it all of is Richard Matheson and William Nolan.  I know Richard Matheson is up there in age and I did read his 

last book "the Hunted"  I sure do hope he writes at least one more.