Random Underrated Stephen King Stories (15 items)

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  (#12) Insomnia

  • Stephen King

  At 787 pages, Insomnia is nothing short of a tome. And although it has some things in common with his other longest works (It, The Stand) it perhaps doesn't have the epic, sweeping quality that made those books instant classics. 

  Stephen King has dismissed the novel himself at times, describing it as one of his lesser works. That's not to say that even with its daunting length, however, Insomnia is worth skipping.  This story of a man who can't sleep and begins to see strange visions after his wife's death is particularly affecting for anyone who's suffered from the titular infliction. There's a moody, dream-like quality here, present in other King works but never more at the forefront. 
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  (#11) Different Seasons

  • Stephen King

  All of the novellas from Stephen King's 1982 anthology Different Seasons have been turned into movies but this one, and considering that two of them became legitimate classics (The Shawshank Redemption, and Stand By Me) it's hard for The Breathing Method not to seem slight by comparison. But just because this story is smaller doesn't mean it isn't worth taking a look at. 

  A story within a story, The Breathing Method recalls a woman's strange approach to giving birth, as told by a man in an offbeat club. Like all the novellas in Different Seasons, there are otherworldly elements to it, but its genre is difficult to pin down. This odd, unclassifiable nature is what makes The Breathing Method, and indeed all the stories in Different Seasons, worth reading, even as it remains perplexing. 
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  (#7) Firestarter

  • Stephen King

  One of Stephen King's first major novels, and the inspiration for a 1984 film starring Drew Barrymore, Firestarter is strangely forgotten among the King novels of the same era (Pet Cemetery, Christine, The Dark Tower). It's a shame, because this book - about the spawn of two research subjects with pyrotechnic abilities - is a prime example of King at his broad sci-fi best. The premise isn't complicated, but lead character Charlie's flame-throwing powers provide an endless supply of great set pieces. 
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  (#8) Everything's Eventual

  • Stephen King

  The premise of The Man in the Black Suit is pretty simple: a boy has an encounter with the devil, who tries to scare him into believing things that aren't true, and recounts what happened as an old man. Originally published in The New Yorker in 1994, it was later compiled as part of the collection, Everything's Eventual, and still stands as one of the best short form pieces from the mid-point of Stephen King's career. 

  The Man in the Black Suit evokes fears we all had when we were young, and makes us remember what they felt like. By framing it through the eyes of an old man, afraid of his own mortality, it forces us to examine how those fears morph and change with age. 
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  (#10) Cycle of the Werewolf

  • Stephen King

  Cycle of the Werewolf is a 1985 novel about a werewolf preying upon the town of Tarker's Mills, and a young man in a wheelchair named Marty Coslaw who recruits his uncle to help stop it. It's standard horror fare, except that it also comes with striking illustrations by Berni Wrightson. It's not quite a graphic novel, but it adds another fun, unique element to King's expansive oeuvre.
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  (#5) Graveyard Shift

  Originally released in a 1970 issue of Cavalier magazine, Graveyard Shift went on to appear in the similarly titled Night Shift, King's first collection of short stories. For creepy, crawly, gross-out horror, it remains hard to beat.

  Following a group of men recruited to clean the basement of an old mill, the story takes a nasty turn when they find a horde of giant, mutant rats living beneath the surface. This includes a mother rat the size of a cow, with no eyes and legs, who only exists to breed. Needless to say, things don't go well for the cleaning crew. If you've got a rat phobia, this story is your worst nightmare. 

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