Best Horror Novels, Ranked
And All Stephen King Everything Too
I’ve created a master list of the generally accepted top horror novels of all time – many of which I wouldn’t consider horror, but they consistently appear on horror lists, so here we are. I’ve thrown in some other interesting titles because I can. I’ve given Stephen King his own lists below as well, as only a few of his novels land on the horror list.
Best Horror Novels of All Time, Ranked
All Stephen King Books & Novellas Ranked
All Stephen King Short Stories Ranked
Best Horror Books of All Time Ranked
Book, author, 0-5 stars, terse review, year read/re-read
Ocean at the End of The Lane, Neil Gaiman, 2013 (4.25): Man returns to childhood home which leads to unreliable imaginative child narrator’s fantastical memories of a traumatic time when he was 7. A suicide and possible affair leads to all sorts of magical mayhem and terror and distorted memories. What really happened? That’s up to you. 2023
Coraline, Neil Gaiman, 2002 (4.00): Imaginative YA/Children’s horror classic. I imagine the movie could be terrifying, but there’s a lightheartedness to Gaiman’s simplistic prose that allows the book to be read by kids. Girl gets lost in a created evil version of her house and ‘hood, saves souls and parents and learns bravery and family love. 2023
Bird Box, Josh Malerman, 2014 (3.50): Quick paced, world is ending (or world is driving sane humans mad) and a band of survivors tries to survive blindfolded and blind. Babies are born and protected and heroine is lone survivor to make it to safe haven. Fun read. 2023
‘Salem’s Lot, Stephen King, 1975 (3.25) King’s take on Dracula, rife with massive plot holes (open the curtains! If vampires were this voracious, humans would cease to exist very quickly, etc.) Small Maine town overrun by nightdwellers. Not scary as billed, too many useless characters, but still gripping over its 600+ pages. Cool explanation of modern-day ghost towns though. 2024
Below, Laurel Hightower, 2022 (2.25) Short and dumb as hell, but still a page-turner. Timid woman winds up in an alien/monster dimension warp while trying to save a trucker on a back WV road; caves, flesh eating beasties, voices, protective giant bats, unexplained voices, naked frozen bodies… then she survives and no one believes her, the end. 2024
All Stephen King Books & Novellas Ranked
The Body (4.75): Novella I’ll be surprised if I like any King books better than this. Maybe bc my son was 12 like the boys when I read this. Great story; stirring, funny, poignant coming of age. Made me want to sit down with my son and REALLY tell him to enjoy his youth. 2023
‘Salem’s Lot (3.25): King’s take on Dracula, rife with massive plot holes (open the curtains! If vampires were this voracious, humans would cease to exist very quickly, etc.) Small Maine town overrun by nightdwellers. Not scary as billed, too many useless characters, but still gripping over its 600+ pages. Cool explanation of modern-day ghost towns though. 2024
The Mist (3.00): Novella, Massive storm heralds mysterious blinding mist that contains all sorts of horrible creatures that kill all humans. Flying octopi, giant spiders, creepy monsters… protagonist David trapped in grocery store with 5 year old son Billy. Lots of people die. David bangs Amanda within 24 hours of wife dying and apocolypse. Loony Fundie lady… they escape, but do they? Cool ambiguous ending. 2023
Elevation (3.00): Novella Dude losing weight but looks the same. Knows he’s going to go down to 0 lbs. White knights some lesbians, wins a race, saves the day, and floats off into the sky to die. Topical anti-MAGA stuff, metaphor for losing the weight of hatred and bigotry. Well written but trite and silly just the same. 2024
Carrie (2.75): Interesting to read as his first book; used fake news accounts and articles from future to tell evil telekinesis tale of woe. Carrie murdered the whole dang town; mom was a fundie. 2023
Blockade Billy (2.25): Novella Super short King departure… baseball tale about a guy who has a dark secret. He’s simply a bad, addled guy. Not my thing but kept me fairly interested. 2023
All Stephen King Short Stories Ranked
Key: NS (Night Shift); SC (Skeleton Crew); NAD (Nightmares and Dreamscapes); EE (Everything’s Eventual);JAS (Just After Sunset); FDS (Full Dark, No Stars); BBD (The Bazaar of Bad Dreams); YLD (You Like it Darker); SA (Standalone); UNC (Uncollected)
Jerusalem’s Lot (4.75): Cool Lovecraftian story told through 19th century letters between friends during a visit to ancestral home of Chapelwaite, right next to ‘Salem’s Lot. A precursor to the novel only in “evil places stay evil in different ways,” but damn, this is a great story and expertly written, even if derivative. Loved it. NS
One For the Road (4.50); First person from an old guy who lives next to the now “empty” and razed Jerusalem’s Lot, 2 years after the novel concludes. He and his barkeep friend try to rescue an out-of-towner’s family from the blizzard… in the Lot. It didn’t work out so well for that guy. Great atmospheric tale, good coda to ‘Salem’s Lot.
The Dark Man (4.00): 1969 college poem, the genesis of Randall Flagg. It’s a cool, disturbing, dark poem, drawn wonderfully. SA
The Music Room (3.75): Published in Playboy and an anthology where Edward Hopper paintings serve as inspiration for a story. King turned this painting of a loving, happy couple very dark, as they kidnap and starve wealthier men to steal from them during the depression. UNC
A Death (3.75): Old timey Dakota territories vagrant accused of murdering a 10 yr old girl over a silver dollar. King toys with our sense of guilt and innocence and then…. the silver dollar shows up in his poo after his hanging. Interesting construct. BBD
The Cookie Jar (3.75): The suicided mom’s magical never-ending cookie jar is a metaphor for something. Life, I’d guess with it’s sweet bits, mystery, and danger. Lits of allusions to other King stories. Great storytelling, a little obtuse. BBD
Harvey’s dream (3.50): Aging but not old, cold married couple awake and husband Harvey had a dream, mostly mundane but also prescient, so the part about his daughter dying leading up to a phone call worked well. Creepy. JAS
The Fifth Step (3.25 ): First appearing in Harpers, this is dark story, man. Recovering alcoholic convinces a random stranger in Central Park to unload his past mistakes/character flaws onto. They get along well enough until the secret that killing people makes him feel better comes out just as he… yeah. YLD
Laurie (3.00): Old widower is gifted a puppy he doesn’t want but he grows to love her (Laurie) and they find an alligator eating another old guy. That’s it. That’s the story. it’s well-written and breezy and… there you go. YLD
Morality (3.00): Financially struggling couple agree to do a terrible thing (punch a random kid in the face) for $200,000 from an old priest who’s never sinned. Once Nora punches the kid, their marriage spirals out of control, their sex becomes violent, she cheats, etc. They get their dream house in VT, but husband Chad sees that that his wife is getting off on doing bad things. It’s a little stilted and odd, but not poorly executed. BBD
The Crate (3.00): Mysterious monster in a mysterious crate long hidden away eats people violently and completely and one old friend trusts another to keep a secret quiet. UNC
A Face in the Crowd (2.50): A man’s guilty conscience plagues him while watching baseball games. Sixth Sense qualities. (With Stewart O’Nan) SA
The Glass Floor (2.00): King’s first paid-for piece (1967) where a room in a creepy house has a mirrored floor and ceiling causing freakouts and death UNC
The Night of the Tiger (2.00): This stinks. Traveling circus with a mean tiger trainer and a mean tiger who fight to the death because the trainer is apparently a shape-shifting tiger. Scene setting gets this its 2 stars; well done there. UNC
Premium Harmony (1.75): Easy, compelling reading. A couple argues, wife dies in a Kwik-e-Mart, the dog dies in the hot car, and the husband is thinking of other things like his “Premium Harmony” cigarettes that he can now smoke without getting yelled at. BBD
The Turbulence Expert (1.75): Dopey short story; guy flies to psychically absorb the deaths by turbulence in order to save flights. Dumb. YLD
Rush Call (1.50): Wrote this at 12 for his brother’s ‘zine. Aging doctor saves kid in car crash and finds meaning of Xmas. UNC
The Man Who Loved Flowers (1.25): This read like something I’d have written in Creative Writing 101. Guy is happy and pleasant looking but turns out to be a serial killer of women and it’s that “love” that makes him so happy. Pretty terrible. NS
The Blue Air Compressor (1.25): Rather terrible story of an angry writer who hates an obese woman and kills her and then runs away and kills himself. King wrote it in college and inserts himself into it, as the writer of it. Kind of weird, lot of lame. UNC
Jumper (1.00): Wrote this at 12 for his brother’s ‘zine. It’s cute, I guess, but clearly written by a kid. Cop specializes in saving jumping suiciders. UNC
CTMQ’s Reading Challenges & Lists
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