$DF0 The Almost Complete works of..... |1-Stephen King JOKre/Wildfire I'm a BIG Stephen King fan, but like many people I am willing to admit that he does write the occasional dud. So I decided to write the definitive guide to Stephen Kings books. But I havn't got them all so this is actually the not-so-definitive guide. So here, in the order they appear on my bookshelf are all my Stephen King books:- $FAB The Dead Zone This one is very hard to get hold of nowdays as it is not one of his better-known novels. The story revolves around a man named Johnny Smith who is involved in a car crash and wakes up from a coma almost 5 years later to find out he has psychic powers. He soon discovers that this "gift" is not all it is cracked up to be..... The Dead Zone is one damn good read. It is not as long as some of Kings other novels, but everything which you need to know is there. Does get a bit tedious while John is in his coma, but everything gallops once he awakens. UK Price (Paperback): £1.90 (this was 1980) Publisher: Futura Publications LTD ISBN: 0 7088 1874 9 Rating: 8/10 $BAF Insomnia Unfortunatly, not one of Kings better novels. Ralph Roberts starts to suffer from Insomnia after his wife dies, and then from stranger visions. Then, whilst awake one night, he sees small, bald docters leave a house after a death scene. Soon, he is seeing the bald docters everywhere..... This novel begins well, but towards the middle of the book it simply loses all depth. It was a struggle trying to finish it. UK Price (Paperback): £5.99 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0-450-60848-4 Rating 4/10 $FAB The Stand A plague devastates civilisation, leaving few survivors. Soon, the survivors start to have dreams, dreams of the coming of "The Dark Man" Again, one of Kings lesser novels. Not quite as bad as Insomnia, but still not up to his usually high standard. I think that the problem here is with the characters. For a world with so little people, there are an awful lot, and as such King fails to examine each one enough, leaving the reader with little more than a name. UK Price (Paperback): £4.99 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0 450 04552-8 Rating: 5/10 $BAF IT This is more like it! A 1116 page epic, IT reads more like a documentery than a story. 7 kids grow up in Derry, Maine. A town beneath which lies an untold of evil. an evil which surfaces every 25 years. It kills, and then rests again. The inhabitants know, but they choose to forget. But not the children. It is the children who face IT. Who drive IT away on summer thinking IT dead. But 27 years later, it comes back. The children, now grown-up, must return to Derry to fulfill their promise. This time, they will kill IT. IT is un-put-downable. The novel is not simply a story. It contains newspaper cuttings, extracts from the diary of Mike Hanlon - one of the grown-up kids, flashbacks going back to the begining of time when IT first appeared, and the story of the kids and the grown-ups. IT is not only Stephen Kings best novel to date, but is also the best book I have ever read (and I've got through a few). Buy it now. (Oh, and if you've seen the film ignore it; it does the book no justice). UK Price (Paperback): £6.99 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0-450-41143-5 Rating: 10/10 - buy it quick! $FAB The Bachman Books A collection of four of Richard Bachmans (Kings pseudonym for a while) books:- Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man. The two best stories of the four are Rage and The Running Man. Rage tells the story of a high-school teenager who goes crazy and holds his class hostage. It very well written and is extremely believable. The Running Man is all about a man who, in order to get money for his family, takes part in the TV game show The Running Man. For this show, he has to run. He can go anywhere in America, and his family will get 100 dollers for evert hour that he manages to prevent being killed buy paid hunters or by members of the public (who are commisioned if they kill). The Bachman Books is well worth a read, and as each of the stories can be finished in one go, there is no need to read them all at once. UK Price (Paperback): £4.95 Publiher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0-450-39249-X (a wierd one there for ISBN-spotters) Rating: 8/10 $BAF Geralds Game A short one this. Jessie Burlingame is left stranded naked in a woodland hut, handcuffed to her bedposts when she accidently kills her husband during a kinky bed session. And er... thats it. The entire book concentrate on her looking back on her life. Suprisenly, for such a crap plot, the book is rather good. There is a genuinly scary moment when, at night in the dark, she realises that there is somebody else in the room with her, but she cannot move because of the hand-cuffs. Great stuff. UK Price: £5.99 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0-450-58623-5 Rating: 8/10 $FAB Misery Another goodun this. Paul Sheldon is involved in a car crash. He awakens in the home of Annie Wilks, his "number one fan". Oh yes, she is crazy too. Unable to move, he is forced to write a book for her. To bring back a character which he has just killed. Because if is does not, she will make him scream, and scream, and scream..... This is great. Pure, uncontained violence. If you thought the film was gory wait 'til you read this! Lets just say she goes one step further than just crushing his legs with a mallet...... UK Price: £4.99 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0-450-41739-5 Rating: 9/10 $BAF Nightmares & Dreamscapes This is a collection of short stories. Most of them are very good, although a few are mediocre, but they are all readable. I wont go into each story in detail, but will list each and give a rating. Dolons Cadillac - 8/10 The End of the Whole Mess - 10/10 Suffer the Little Children - 9/10 The Night Flier - 7/10 Popsy - 7/10 It Grows on You - 5/10 Chattery Teeth - 7/10 Dedication - 6/10 The Moving Finger - 10/10 Sneakers - 10/10 You Know They Got a Hell of a Band - 6/10 Home Delivery - 6/10 Rainy Season - 8/10 My Pretty Pony THE ONLY ONE I HAVE NEVER READ Sorry, Right Number - 9/10 The 10 O'Clock People - 10/10 (WOW!) Crouch End - 6/10 The House on Maple Street - 9/10 The Fith Quarter - 6/10 The Docters Case - 7/10 Umney's Last Case - 8/10 Head Down - 6/10 Brooklyn August - 7/10 King also devotes a chapter to notes, explaining how the stories came about and why they were included. UK Price (Paperback): £5.99 Publisher: Yup, Hodder & Stoughton again ISBN: 0-450-61009-8 Rating: 9/10 $FAB Needful Things The town of Castle Rock, Maine, has seen many horrors before. But now, in the last Castle Rock story, the entire town becomes part of the tale. In the high-street, a new shop has opened. The sign says Needful Things, and it seems correct. A person going in there will find the one item he has wished for all his life. And speaking to the owner, Leland Guant, he will find that there is no cash price. The price is much more costly, love, hope, even the human soul. Not a bad one this. It is long, but not tedious, and it is nice to finally bury Castle Rock, the host of many of Kings books. UK Price (Special Edition Hardback): £19.99 Publisher: BCA ISBN: CN3396 (Another one for the spotters) Rating: 8/10 $BAF Rose Madder Kings latest, Rose Madder is different to his other works. It tells the tale of Rosie Danials, who after 14 years of marriage to a husband who beats her, decides one moring to leave him. Alone in the city, she meets new people and starts a new life. She even finds a painting; Rose Madder, which catches her eye. This is a really good book. There is a suprising contrast between drama and fantasy; one minute she is in a womans refuge, the next walking into a gothic painting. It really does make you think. UK Price (Hardback): £16.99 RRP (I got it for £7.99 in a WHSmith sale) Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0-340-64013-8 Rating: 9/10 $DF0 |1-Part 2 to Follow Next Month.....