Stephen King's lesser known books

[gmw]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

[...] King took the ideas and characters from Desperation and said 'I wonder what would happen if I plunked these characters into an Ohio suburb?' and did just that.[...]

And so managed to produce two forgettable books in one go. I thought The Regulators was going to be okay*, but it turned into the same sort of schlock horror as Desperation (3/5), but worse (2/5). It may seem odd for a Stephen King fan to dislike schlock horror, but when he puts in the effort he can do so much better and they're the ones I (used to) hang out for.


I liked the The Tommyknockers (4/5). Stephen King's version of a science fiction story. I've read it a couple of times, too. I hadn't mentioned it mainly because of the sort of criticism you noted.


* The Regulators seemed more King than Backman - the previous Bachman books all had a style quite distinct from usual King. I didn't like them as much but I thought it was interesting to see how he had been able to write in such a different but still distinctive voice.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by gmw

And so managed to produce two forgettable books in one go. I thought The Regulators was going to be okay*, but it turned into the same sort of schlock horror as Desperation (3/5), but worse (2/5)...

I liked the The Tommyknockers (4/5).

Different strokes for different folks.

Aside from my personal opinion, on Goodreads, Desperation rates 3.81, The Regulators 3.7 and The Tommyknockers 3.52. On LibraryThing: Desperation 3.59, The Regulators 3.38 and The Tommyknockers 3.32. Someone out there besides me has managed to enjoy those 'forgettable' books.

Aside from my enjoying the story and characters of each book, it was also nice to see King step outside of Maine for a bit.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by gmw

The Regulators seemed more King than Backman - the previous Bachman books all had a style quite distinct from usual King. I didn't like them as much but I thought it was interesting to see how he had been able to write in such a different but still distinctive voice.

I think that's more a coincidence of the books he chose to publish as Bachman. Rage in particular was an early book he wrote. Not something he wrote to disguise himself. The same goes for Blaze.

Thinner (hardcover Bachman, paperback King) was very much a King-style book and Misery was intended to be a Bachman book before he got found out.

I also think he chose to publish The Regulators as Bachman just to have a bit of fun rather than make some sort of statement on differing voices he can write in.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Different strokes for different folks. [...]

Absolutely! I find it very interesting how people's tastes overlap or otherwise. Luffy already mentioned they enjoyed Desperation, so what looked like similar tastes in King stories is not a perfect overlap. (I guess, technically, a 3/5 is still a "like" from me, but it's a like with reservations similar to what I had with Pet Sematary.)