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I'm a devoted Stephen King fanboy. I've read everything he's published, and I even force myself to watch the movie adaptations. I'm even having a tattoo artist sketch ideas for a Dark Tower-themed sleeve (or two).
But I'm also not one to blindly like a book just because it came from the mind of good old Uncle Stevie. Here are the five worst Stephen King novels. Understand that in my opinion none of King's work is bad.
5. Cell
I was really excited for King's return to horror fiction (he had "retired" after completion of the Dark Tower series, much like rapper Too $hort "retired" after his 1996 album "Gettin' It). The concept sounded cool and relevant to the time (2006 was about the time that smartphones began to rule the world, so the paranoia around new technology seemed fitting), and after reading the opening chapter, I was practically cheering out loud for the gruesome brutality the novel showcased.The cheers were short-lived, though, as the book devolved into a half-assed amalgam of retreaded story lines. There were shared dreams by the good guys, all of which proved prophetic, and a strained Randall Flagg/Crimson King tie-in (the "Raggedy Man"). The book was dedicated to George Romero (zombie movie mastermind) and Richard Matheson (I Am Legend), and seemed to try a little too hard to stay within the apocalyptic zombie realm.
The ending was one of those cliffhangers that leaves you to fill in the blanks of what happens. Sometimes that strategy works, but in a straight forward, bloody gore-fest like Cell you want some resolution.
4. Tommyknockers
The problem is that I wanted to do a Johnny Cage crotch punch to almost every character in the book. Gard and Bobbi were both annoying, and King's greatest strength is creating character types. Usually you feel like you know the main ones, and you hate the villains with a murderous fury. In Tommyknockers there is no traditional villain, so instead you have to deal with mutated regulars to root against (which isn't as fun or engaging). Gard was a drunken dickhead at times, too.
It may be a minor offense, but I was really grossed out by Bobbi's menstruating near the buried ship. Shit, Steve, was that necessary? To make matters worse, I now picture Marg Helgenberger's ugly ass doing the bleeding since she played Bobbi in the terrible TV miniseries adaptation.
But hey, it was the '80's and I know King was doing massive amounts of drugs and drinking back then. I'll forgive him even if this book did kind of suck.
3. Rose Madder
In a Talisman sort of way the idea of transporting through a painting into another realm and having a counterpart on that side was good. Seeing as how (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) Rose Madder (the painting lady) could easily kill Norman (the abusive, police officer husband) I don't see why she had to enlist Rose to rescue the baby from the minotaur-like bull thing in the labyrinth. It may have been explained, but it's been a while since I've read the book and thinking back I just can't see why Rose Madder didn't do it herself if she was so badass.
Other than a plot that just seemed to weird for a novel (there may have been a good short story in there somewhere, but not a 400-page book), it seemed like King was really rolling with the domestic violence angle in the '90's. Dolores Claiborne, Needful Things, Insomnia - they all had a bit of wife-beating in them. The entire ending concerning the baby Rose and her new husband had was just bad. Magic seeds you received from a painting to help cure your daughter's bouts of rage? Sure, whatever.
King himself has admitted that Rose Madder wasn't his finest work. I agree.
2. Gerald's Game
In this story about a bondage sex game gone wrong, King delivers some pretty disturbing shit early in the book. (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) Jessie, the main character, is handcuffed to the bed as a means to help her husband regain his sex drive. He gets a little too aggressive, she kicks him in the crotch and stomach, he has a heart attack and dies. The best part of the book, for me, was while Jessie is trying to figure out how to escape the cuffs and a dog comes in and starts eating her husband. Totally horrific and hilarious in a demented way.
The problems start just after that. As Jessie starts to freak out she starts hallucinating. We're stuck with a cast of characters inside her own head debating with her about her past and questioning her life choices. Then we have to be taken down memory lane to a night when Jessie was molested by her father as a child, and somehow, confronting this memory grants her the strength to cut her arm and use blood as a lubricant to slip out of the cuffs.
There is an air of clumsy feminism from King in this one, and while he does sometimes tell stories well from a female perspective, this is not an example of that. In fact, I kind of liked Jessie less the more the story went on. Like Rose Madder, there is a decent story in there. It needed to be either a short story or have the second half completely rewritten.
1. Lisey's Story
It's easy to criticize King for writing what was ostensibly a stalker-horror story with mystical travel between worlds, but was ostensibly a love story. Many Constant Readers prefer it when the stories are grisly and terrifying. I love the scary stuff, but I also appreciate how much King can shift gears and provoke emotion. Those only peripherally familiar with King think he is a one-trick pony capable only of spooking or grossing out his readers. How many times have you heard someone surprised that Shawshank, the Green Mile or Stand By Me were King stories? Bag of Bones is one of my favorite novels in that regard. Lisey's Story failed in trying to capture the same sentiment.
I thought the story lacked suspense, and while the back story of Lisey's husband's family was interesting (they were pretty much genetically crazy motherfuckers) it wasn't enough. Much more could have been done with the alternate world, as it came off confusing and sort of acid-trippy for me. I also couldn't get past the name of the fantasy world - Boo'ya Moon. That sounds like Stuart Scott auditioning to be a Houston Oilers play-by-play guy in 1990.
This book wasn't terrible. None of these are. But I think most will agree that King is better than these stories would suggest.
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