I'm a Stephen King fan and though I haven't read nearly all of his work, I took the liberty of making a list of my 10 favorites and providing short reviews.
10. Misery (1987)
Misery is the story of Paul Sheldon, renowned author of the Misery series, who finds himself in a horrible and crippling car accident from which he is saved by former nurse Annie Wilkes. Initially with intent to nurse him back to health, she reads his latest novel and sees that Misery has been killed, and decides to hold Sheldon captive and force him to write another novel.
It's a really interesting and scary concept and you root for Sheldon the entire way. On top of that, more and more is revealed about Wilkes, making her possibly the best King villain.
The ending was a bit of a disappointment and it's bogged down by the passages from Sheldon's new novel, but overall it's quite good.
9. Under the Dome (2009)
This is one of the recent overlong King novels that has a plot that makes little to no sense. The plot is that an invisible dome appears over a small town, kind of like in The Simpsons Movie, and then everybody more or less goes crazy.
There are some ridiculous twists involving meth labs and the supernatural but these are for the most part acceptable because it's a highly entertaining and compelling satirical work of fiction. There are some really good characters here. Of course, this follows the frequently-occuring King philosophy that one in five people is a sociopathic killer. I guess that's a bit of a problem.
8. Carrie (1974)
Carrie is Stephen King's debut novel and one of the strongest debuts of the latter half of the twentieth century. It's told mostly through letters and newspaper clippings, much like Bram Stoker's Dracula, which no doubt had an influence on Stephen King.
As a reader, you want to cheer for Carrie because she is victimized horribly. She's bullied, she has a cruel reactionary mother, etc. But in the end she releases terrible horror on everyone. Definitely worth a read, a very effective horror novel.
7. It (1986)
I argue that It could have been the greatest horror novel ever written. Its story and creepy details make it maybe the scariest work in King's canon, but it's undeniably overlong and self-indulgent. Of course, self-indulgent Stephen King is still better than most writers.
It tells two narratives at once, one from the late-'50s and one from the mid-'80s. It doesn't pull this off flawlessly but I can't imagine it being done much better.
The plot is hard to describe. There's a horribly evil entity known as It that terrorizes Castle Rock, Maine, at its most basic level. But to explain further, there is a group of friends known as the Losers who live in Castle Rock in the fifties and fight It and successfully stop It until It comes back in the eighties but by that time due to It's powers they've forgotten almost everything so they are trying to remember how they fought it to begin with but on top of that they didn't even stop It completely to begin with. It's horribly complicated but also quite interesting.
The ending is a disappointment and it's another one of those novels that follows the philosophy that one in five people is a sociopathic murderer but overall it's very good.
6. The Stand (1978)
Many argue The Stand as Stephen King's magnum opus. It is a complicated fantasy/sci-fi/horror/adventure post-apocalyptic epic that really should be read.
I'll have trouble describing this because I don't remember it all too well. Nonetheless it's a post-apocalyptic society, and basically a story of good versus evil, the good being overwhelming underdogs. There are lots of characters, lots of subplots, and lots of creepy things going on.
Definitely worth a read and I plan on re-reading it this summer myself. I believe that would make it the first Stephen King novel I've reread.
5. The Green Mile (1996)
With the possible exception of The Stand, this is King's most emotionally-powerful novel. It's the story of a gentle black man (basically giant) on death row for the alleged murder of two little girls. The main prison guard, telling the story years later, begins to see that this man is incapable of committing murder.
Coffey is shown to be basically a Jesus-like figure with his healing powers, but he's also reminiscent of Lennie Small in his naivety. This is a powerful story of justice and guilt and certainly worth a read. As with Carrie, I am yet to see the movie.
4. Cell (2006)
Cell is a lot like The Stand, but a much shorter version. Having read this first, I enjoyed it a lot more. It's an apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic story of cell phones turning people into vicious monsters. It sounds ridiculous but it works quite well.
It's both a satirical statement on our reliance on cell phones, and an interesting post-9/11 novel. On top of that, it has some really strong characters. It's very dark and pessimistic, and the tone does nothing but draw you in to the story. Like some of the best of King's works, it is horribly and graphically violent.
For a while this was my favorite King novel. Though it no longer is, I can do nothing but recommend it strongly.
3. 11/22/63 (2011)
I actually reviewed this like a week ago in detail. I'm not going to waste my time now.
2. The Shining (1977)
Perhaps the greatest horror novel of the 20th century, The Shining is the tale of Jack Torrance, a man driven insane by isolation in a haunted hotel.
Everything about this is so wonderfully creepy. Some of the images and situations it conjures up are reminiscent of a real nightmare, perhaps the best attempt at capturing dreams on paper this side of Finnegans Wake. I still argue this as the most frightening book I've read as well, and I'm usually not scared very easily by books.
1. The Dead Zone (1978)
The Dead Zone is great. It focuses more on chills rather than scares and violence and it works very well because the characters are great.
I actually say that King's characters have never been stronger. Johnny Smith recovers from a five-year coma and finds that he has a strange power to look into people's lives, sometimes into the future. While he initially uses this power to help find a serial killer and do other stuff like that, he eventually focuses his attention on preventing a powerful candidate from being elected to public office, knowing that something awful is going to happen.
The characters are what make this great, but the plot itself is very interesting as well.
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