This honestly feels like it could go without saying, but I feel like Stephen King gets categorized as a quantity over quality author a la James Patterson, but he is MY prolific writer of drugstore paperbacks, and some of these are genuinely some of my favorite reads of my life. The Long Walk is where this journey began for me, and I really love that it happens to be his very first novel as well. Not in terms of publication, but it was the first manuscript he completed, felt embarrassed about and threw away, only for Tabitha King to save it and insist it had something. Full credit to my workmate at Roger’s Video, Colin Barden, who told me the gist of this story during a slow shift and it lingered in my mind enough for me to acquire a copy and feverishly read it through. This was 18 years ago, and since then I have read 72 publications, seen many films and shows adapted from his work and fully intend to read everything he has published.
His books kept me company at my office job at Menzies and made so many shifts tolerable and, occasionally, actually fun. Different Seasons has the distinction of keeping me up an entire night as I read Apt Pupil beginning to end. Low Men in Yellow Coats, which is featured in Hearts in Atlantis, was also a novella I had to finish in one session while visiting in-laws. Under the Dome took three days, but it is one of his longest novels at over 1000 pages, so those were some long sessions up in Edmonton. The Regulators and Desperation accompanied me on my honeymoon to Osaka, Japan. Skeleton Crew was my airplane read on the way to my first E3. Pet Sematary accompanied me when I spent a week in the hospital three years ago with COVID and an allergic reaction to kidney medication.
Stephen King also has the distinction of being one of the only multiverses I care about. The Dark Tower series itself is not amongst my favorites of his work, but it provides the connective tissue between so many other books that they feel interwoven in a way that fuels more and more reading. I feel driven to see every corner of this world he has created. Below is my ranked list of all the books I have read. Of course, this list will grow as I finish more books, but I think it is robust enough to publish alongside this.
Stephen King strikes me as someone who truly enjoys his medium and there is a playful quality to most of his work that makes the occasional turkey palatable at the very least. Of this list of 72, I feel 50 are at least “Good”. Given the volume of work we are talking about here, I feel that is testament to an extraordinary talent.
As for his work in film, I somehow feel Sleepwalkers is the most representative of the goofy, b-movie vibe he seems to be striving for. That is to say, Stephen King is hilarious on top of being an author of horror. Comedy and Horror are the best of friends.
Stephen King Ranking
- The Long Walk
- Misery
- Under the Dome
- Dolores Claiborne
- Hearts in Atlantis
- Four Past Midnight
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
- The Regulators
- The Shining
- Different Seasons
- Skeleton Crew
- Pet Sematary
- IT
- 11/22/63
- The Stand (Complete and Uncut)
- Christine
- The Green Mile
- Danse Macabre
- Night Shift
- ‘Salem’s Lot
- The Tommyknockers
- Later
- Everything’s Eventual
- Needful Things
- The Eyes of the Dragon
- Desperation
- The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
- Mr. Mercedes
- From a Buick 8
- Blaze
- Revival
- The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole
- Carrie
- The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
- Holly
- The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
- Doctor Sleep
- End of Watch
- Insomnia
- Cell
- Gerald’s Game
- Elevation
- Dreamcatcher
- Thinner
- Finders Keepers
- Cujo
- The Institute
- The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
- Joyland
- Rose Madder
- If It Bleeds
- Full Dark, No Stars
- Duma Key
- Lisey’s Story
- The Outsider
- The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
- Billy Summers
- The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
- Just After Sunset
- The Running Man
- The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
- The Colorado Kid
- Nightmares & Dreamscapes
- The Dark Half
- Cycle of the Werewolf
- Faithful
- The Dead Zone
- Rage
- Bag of Bones
- The Talisman
- Firestarter
