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Even a writer as fecund and celebrate asStephen Kingchurns out a bomb once in a while , and there are surely a few record book of his that the author does not look back on lovingly . King ’s first novel , Carrie , was publish in 1974 and it became an instant hit , putting King on the mapping and ushering in one of the most influential writers of not just that era , but of any geological era .
Stephen King has continued to churn out one to two book a year just about every twelvemonth since , meaning he ’s been writing and at the top of his game for more than half a century . Of course , he ’s also had some puff of air . Over the eld , Stephen King has been undefendable about adaptation of his books he ’s hate . But to his credit and in the interest of fairness , he ’s also been as unfastened about his own work he ’s not been happy with over the years .
5The Tommyknockers
Published 1987
Of all his books he ’s most unhappy with , Stephen King the most open about hatingThe Tommyknockers , which deserves a revision . King put out the volume in 1987 , and while it was a bestseller that yr , as was every Stephen King book by that time , both King and his fans concur it was n’t his near effort . It ’s not that there were n’t the seeds of good thought in the novel , but it ’s broadly check thatThe Tommyknockerswas too wind and ego - indulgent , without the coherency it needed to be really great . King trashed the novel in a 2014 interview withRolling Stone , order
" The Tommyknockers is an awful account book . That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act . And I ’ve think about it a lot lately and said to myself , ' There ’s really a expert Good Book in here , underneath all the sort of spurious vigor that cocaine ply , and I ought to go back . ' The book is about 700 Thomas Nelson Page long , and I ’m thinking , ' There ’s probably a good 350 - page novel in there . ' "
4Dreamcatcher
Published 2001
The Tommyknockerswasn’t the only one of his books to catch flack from the author in the 2014Rolling Stoneinterview . His 2001 Christian Bible , Dreamcatcher , is also one he count back on and only sees fault and mussy writing , and for the same intellect : the impact of drug on this work . This time , however , it was n’t because he was using them lawlessly , like his notorious cocain use in his other eld , but because he was at the mercifulness of painkillers after the 1999 stroke that almost kill him . As he excuse , he was in a lot of pain at that sentence . The adjustments needed to work around it , as well as the painkillers he was on , compromised his writing :
" I do n’t likeDreamcatchervery much . Dreamcatcherwas write after the accident . I was using a spate of Oxycontin for painful sensation . And I could n’t crop on a computer back then because it ache too much to sit in that position . So I write the whole matter longhand . And I was middling stone when I wrote it , because of the Oxy , and that ’s another al-Qur’an that show the drug at work . ”
3Rose Madder
Published 1995
King also was n’t too fond of some of his mid-’90s books , an era in which he got a scrap too outside his comfort geographical zone and endeavor to be what too many think of as a " real " author , that is , he in reality sit down and outlined his volume . King has often said that he does n’t do any hard plotting of his leger nor does he outline . As he described it in aWall Street Journalinterview in 2021 , it ’s just not his style . " The thing is , I do n’t limn , I do n’t have whole plots in my head in progression , " he said . " So I ’m really happy if I screw what ’s going to bechance tomorrow , which I do , as a subject of fact , I jazz what ’s go to happen in the novel I ’m work on . And that ’s enough . "
Stephen King ’s Non - Dark Tower 1990s book
Publication Year
Needful Things
1991
Gerald ’s Game
1992
Dolores Claiborne
Insomnia
1994
Rose Madder
1995
Custom image by Yailin Chacon
The Green Mile
1996
Desperation
The Regulators
Bag of Bones
1998
The Girl Who get it on Tom Gordon
1999
Ever the experimenter , he attempt to deepen that in the ' 90s , to varying success . While his books of that epoch were all relatively well - received and best seller , he just was n’t happy with the ruined product , feeling that they did n’t sound like him . Perhaps he ’s the only one who can see the seam because he felt he was n’t being straight to his operation as he was drop a line them . But the books of that geological era are ones he ’s not well-chosen with , as he explained in his 2000 memoirOn authorship :
" As I tell you , I have indite plotted novels , but the results , in books like Insomnia and Rose Madder , have not been peculiarly inspiring . They are ( much as I hate to admit it ) stiff , hear - too - concentrated novel . The only plot - driven novel of mine which I really wish is The Dead Zone ( and in all fairness , I must say I like that one a great deal ) . "
2Insomnia
Published 1994
As mentioned above , 1994’sInsomnia , which was a stealthDark Towertie - in book , was also a victim of that plotting - out approach shot of the mid-’90s . As his books got longer and more complex and layered – and he was no longer under the influence of drugs – he realized that he might need to try out outlining his stories to keep data track of the narrative and avoid continuity government issue . But , as he say , the results feel too formulaic , and so he eventually went back to his natural approach of letting the ideas flow as they come to him . As he said at another point inOn Writing
" I mistrust plot for two reasons : first , because our lives are largely plotless , even when you tally in all our reasonable precaution and careful preparation ; and secondly , because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of substantial creation are n’t compatible . It ’s best that I be as vindicated about this as I can – I require you to understand that my basic impression about the making of stories is that they passably much make themselves . The problem of the writer is to give them a billet to grow ( and to transcribe them , of course ) . "
1Rage
Published 1977
Of the books he is n’t happy with , his bookRage , one of his Richard Bachman books , is n’t one that King dislike because he think it ’s poorly written . or else , he dislike it because of its subject matter and the impingement he ’s allegedly had on aggregated shot . Ragetells the story of the riotous and violent high schooling senior Charlie , who kill a few instructor and go for his fellow students surety after being suspend . Published in 1977,Rageis a disturbingly prescient story detail the horrors that too many unstable school day crap-shooter have unleashed in reality in the past few decades .
Stephen King ’s Rage has spur substantial controversy in the fourscore and 90s , but despite its difficult subject issue , it has an important message .
Unfortunately , Ragewas also found in the possession or mention as an brainchild for a handful of school shooters . Though he only knew of two at the fourth dimension , King bespeak his publishers to pullRagefrom bookshelf and he has banish it from being reprinted , and as such , King’sRageis now out of print . He explained his abstract thought in his 2013 essay , gunman :
" That was enough for me , even though at the time , the Loukaitis and Carneal shootings were the onlyRage - related ones of which I was aware . I asked my publishers to pull the novel from publication , which they did , although it was n’t easy . By then it was part of an motorbus containing all four Bachman books . ( In addition to craze , there was The Long Walk , The Running Man , and Roadwork – another novel about a torpedo with psychological problems . ) The Bachman collection is still available but you wo n’t find fad in it .
My Holy Writ did not go against Cox , Pierce , Carneal , or Loukaitis , or turn them into killers ; they discover something in my Quran that address to them because they were already broken . Yet I did see fad as a potential accelerant , which is why I pull it from sale . You do n’t leave alone a can of gasoline where a boy with firebug tendencies can lie hand on it . "
Even though he ’s written almost 70 book and countless forgetful story , it ’s nice to lie with that even an writer as prolific and famous asStephen Kingstill has works he ’s not slaked with .
rootage : Rolling Stone , Wall Street Journal , On penning , " Guns "
