Ditto "The Langoliers." Four Past Midnight was the first Stephen King book I read. Picked it up in the airport gift shop to read on a redeye flight to the west coast. Couldn't sleep on the flight LOL.
Favorite King Short Story?
- Thread starter Christine62
- Start date
-
This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.
I like short stories because you can get a good read, get a really good dose of story, in a short time. And, you can get more than one per sitting if you are reading for several hours straight. I loved 1408, Jerusalem's Lot, Return to Salem's Lot, Mr. Todd's Shortcut...so many good ones, hard to list them all. Grandma was creepy too. And the one about the giant rat. There are so many more that I love!
I love the collections of short stories also. I own tons of anthologies. I still don't understand why publishers would rather do a novel of an up and coming author than a collection of short stories. Short stories show an author's chops I think. They have very little time to build this world, so the writing has to be wicked tight. If I read a particularly good short story by someone I have never read before, I will THEN seek out their other work, the longer stuff.
All of them. I absolutely love his collections, all of them. I can't choose just one. Everythings Eventual is probably one of my most revisited books. I'm gagging for him to do another collection. "That Feeling That You can only say what it is in French" is probably an all time favourite. And the one that I forget the name off, about the travelling salesman who collected graffiti in a book, and is trying to decide whether to kill himself. I could go on and on and ON about the shorter stuff.
Really difficult question. I haven't even read them all, I'm sure. First one that sticks out though is The Body (better known now as the movie Stand By Me). Always a good one, very readable and entertaining and most importantly, tense! The movie captured the essence of the story quite well but always the book is better.
I had a quick squiz at the library list yesterday and noticed that actually my favourites (which I didn't list here yesterday) are listed among the novella's. I think I just need a little bit more than the shorts.
My absolute fave is probably 'The Mist', though I have so many that jump around in my head like unruly kids going "What about me?" that it's unfair to have to name a single one.
'All That You Love Will Be Carried Away'? From Everything's Eventual?
'All That You Love Will Be Carried Away'? From Everything's Eventual?
- Cain Rose Up
- Rage (discontinued and apart of The Bachman Books)
- The Langoliers
- Suffer the Little Children
- Chattery Teeth
Gosh girl, help me out then. I am trying to find other short stories to read and having a hard time because they are soooo ....mmm what's the word? Boring? Predictable? Blech? Mr. King is really, really spoiling me--I'm having trouble reading anyone else.
Thanks everyone for your faves--what strikes me about Mr. King's SS is the same level of detail and intimacy ---the man takes his time.
Quitter's Inc. But there are so so many of them I love!
Neesy
#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
Welcome to the SKMB (I really enjoyed The Langoliers, too)
My Pretty Pony is one of my favorites, I don't think anyone has mentioned that one yet.
"Man in the Black Suit." That, along with "Mars Is Heaven" by Ray Bradbury, are the two horror shorts (because "Mars Is Heaven" is horror, no doubt about it) that have been burned into me like slow acid.
Pick up a copy of the Best American Short Stories - it comes out annually, and you can occasionally find an older volume. Every year they have a guest editor (Sai King was "it" in 2007), several great authors have taken a turn. I have been turned on to so many writers I would have never read by this series. The editors read them blindly so you end up with a collection that includes authors you know and some you've never heard of. And then there's a blurb by each author in the back of the book where they explain how the story came to be. I have the collection from 1993 forward.
I have to say, too, that although I love shorts, I find horror and spec fiction shorts to be crazy uneven in quality overall. It's just a different form, and just because an author is great with novels, that does not necessarily translate to shorter works. And horror, especially, tends to be bad because (I think) writers cave to using some shortcuts that end up feeling like they are "dialing it in." But again and again, King knocks it out of the park. He's just Da Man.
There is so many short stories I like here's few.
Children of the corn
Road Virus Head North
Mangler
Grey Matter
and much more.. I love Steve's short stories. They are sometimes better then novels
Children of the corn
Road Virus Head North
Mangler
Grey Matter
and much more.. I love Steve's short stories. They are sometimes better then novels