Read pretty much everything of his I could get my hands on including under the Bachman name, except for some reason I haven't kept up with the latest efforts. So I have not read DUMA KEY or LISEY'S STORY. I've also picked up BLAZE a couple of times but haven't read it all the way through.
By "everything" I mean novels and short story collections that I was aware of, and one non-fiction book, DANSE MACABRE. I even read his brief experiment in on-line publishing which he abandoned because the shareware model broke down after Chapter 2 (you could download a chapter for free and were supposed to pay $1 within a couple of weeks). My wife loves THE GREEN MILE and the non-fiction ON WRITING, even though she is very much not a King fan otherwise.
Hard for me to remember them all, so I'm going by the list on King's webpage:
http://www.stephenking.com/library/written_old-new.htmlNIGHT SHIFT - first thing of his I read, probably circa 1978. I'd never heard of the guy. I was hooked immediately. One thing I liked right off the bat was that he experimented with some more literary, non-supernatural stories.
CARRIE - read this sometime after the movie came out. By the time I read this I was definitely a King fan and was looking for his name on bookstore shelves. I'm not sure if I've ever seen the whole movie, come to think of it.
FIRESTARTER - Remember enjoying this one. Has a lot in common with Koontz, who somebody mentioned.
DANSE MACABRE - read and reread. A book about the horror genre from a true fan.
CUJO - this was probably my least favorite. I just didn't get why I was supposed to care. Nothing really seemed to happen here. In ON WRITING talks a lot about his drug and alcohol use (amazing he survived) and says he basically doesn't remember writing this one.
DIFFERENT SEASONS - A different type of King. I loved it. Wonderful stuff.
THE PLANT - I think this was the online story.
CHRISTINE - This one scared me more than any other and I still can't figure out why.
PET SEMATARY - Great, but this was one of several instances where I could have done the Annie Wilkes (MISERY) thing if I was an insane stalker type. In other words, he killed off a character I loved, for what seemed like no good reason. He did it to me again with "The Mist" in SKELETON CREW.
THE TALISMAN - teamed up with another of my favorite authors, Peter Straub, with what I thought were positive results. I also thought that it was interesting to see a fairy tale with those uniquely King-ish touches.
Actually, when I discovered Peter Straub (GHOST STORY) my first thought was "wow, this guy is scarier than Stephen King and may actually be better."
SKELETON CREW - short story collection, loved it all.
THE BACHMAN BOOKS - I love seeing people try out different styles and voices, so I really enjoyed all of these.
DARK TOWER - yep, read all of these and thoroughly enjoyed them. Except the very end. Another potential Annie Wilkes moment.
THE TOMMYKNOCKERS - didn't hate it, but this was just sort of OK.
THE LANGOLIERS - ditto
THE STAND - another different kind of book. I enjoyed it. Somewhere along the line I read a critic who talked about King being a "moral writer" and I couldn't figure out what they meant. In this book I started to realize that God is often an actual character in his stories. Not necessarily saying lines, but there behind the scenes moving the chess pieces.
Geeze this list is getting long. I'll cut it off here. Like I say, I think I've only missed the last two novels and read pretty much everything else, including the sequel to THE TALISMAN that he did with Straub. I read and enjoyed ROSE MADDER and DOLORES CLAIBORNE which some people don't like. A book like DOLORES CLAIBORNE or the novella THE BODY (which became the movie STAND BY ME) makes me think we're getting a real glimpse into the world King grew up in. We have a personal connection to THE BODY, in that a friend of ours is an ex-wife of one of those characters. Suffice it to say these are not nice people.
THE GREEN MILE was another experiment in publishing, and while I admired him for the idea of experimenting, I was irritated at the price ($2.95 for each of 6 installments). So I waited to read it until somebody came out with all 6 under one cover for a normal novel price.
I even read THE COLORADO KID, which is a totally different kind of thing published under a "Hard Case Crime" label. It isn't really a hard-boiled detective novel, the cover is just made to look like that. It was a cute yarn, once more showed us how good King is at drawing those Maine characters and just telling a good story.
