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Of the nearly 70 novels Stephen King has written, there are 20 that can be considered science fiction in one way or another. This is including the books he wrote under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, but not counting any novellas, even though some of them were published separately, and certain ones, like “The Langoliers,” are a bit longer than his shortest novels (like Carrie).
Also, to get to 20, you do have to include books that mix science fiction with other genres. Some of the ones below are primarily horror, with a little sci-fi on the side, and then with The Dark Tower books, they’re being counted as sci-fi, but some of them are a little heavier on the dark fantasy and Western genre elements. Also, while The Stand is post-apocalyptic, and many post-apocalyptic stories are also science fiction, it’s just otherwise too light on sci-fi elements to be included here (if it were, though, it’d be #1… for what that’s worth. The Stand’s amazing).
20
‘The Regulators’ (1996)
Conceptually, The Regulators is interesting, because it was released at the same time as Desperation, with both stories seemingly focusing on the same group of characters, but in different realities. So, that’s to say that beyond the names being shared, things are incredibly different. Desperation is heavier on supernatural horror, and maybe some fantasy, rather than sci-fi, while The Regulators does feel like a work of science fiction.
There are moments here and there that are readable, and maybe the first couple of chapters before everything collapses are intriguing, yet overall, The Regulators is a miss.
It’s also not a very good work of science fiction. Maybe going into details regarding what kind of sci-fi it is would count as a spoiler, but to spoil this, it would have to be some level of coherent. The Regulators is genuinely just too messy to approach in that sort of way. There are moments here and there that are readable, and maybe the first couple of chapters before everything collapses are intriguing, yet overall, The Regulators is a miss. But again, that concept – and it being a “Richard Bachman” book released at the same time as a Stephen King book – was fairly neat.
19
‘Cell’ (2006)
Cell is a post-apocalyptic novel that sees Stephen King wholeheartedly tackling the zombie sub-genre, though here, the beings that function like zombies are made so by a strange signal broadcast. Many people become inhuman, violent creatures, and then those who aren’t turned have to survive the way ordinary people in zombie stories (or general post-apocalyptic stories) usually have to.
As was the case with The Regulators, Cell doesn’t get off to a terrible start. When things are falling apart, and the signal is making the world basically collapse, it’s kind of pulpy fun. Unfortunately, the fun is not sustained for much of the book. Eventually, Cell gets kind of tedious, and it doesn’t really end so much as it just stops, at a point. The book as a whole is arguably not terrible, but it is more than a little disappointing, and is one of a fair few stories King had published around the middle of the 2000s that are pretty weak, by his usual standards.
18
‘The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole’ (2012)
The first book in The Dark Tower series being mentioned here is an odd one. Technically, it’s the most recent, at the time of writing. But it’s not the last one, chronologically speaking, with the events here taking place between books #4 and #5. So, The Wind Through the Keyhole is kind of The Dark Tower 4.5. It makes more sense to treat it like the book equivalent of a deleted or extended scene, and read it after book #7, than to slot it in between books #4 and #5.
Like, book #4 is already flashback-heavy, with much of it being Roland telling his ka-tet (AKA his companions) a story from his youth. And then in The Wind Through the Keyhole, he tells another story, and then there’s a story told within that story. It sounds cooler than it is. In all honesty, The Wind Through the Keyhole feels like two (maybe three) Stephen King novellas slapped together, and then made a little more interesting because of the involvement of some characters from The Dark Tower. It’s really not essential, and it’s also pretty light on sci-fi stuff, but it would’ve felt weird to include all the other books in the series without also mentioning The Wind Through the Keyhole, so there it is.
17
‘Dreamcatcher’ (2001)
“Hallucinatory” is the best word to use to describe Dreamcatcher. The second-best word might be “messy.” A third word, if you want one, is “interesting.” Now, “interesting” isn’t necessarily the same as “good,” or “worth reading,” so this isn’t exactly the point in the ranking where all the books start being good to great. However, it is the point in the ranking where it starts feeling hard to say “Definitely stay away at all costs.”
There’s a unique atmosphere and feeling to Dreamcatcher that’s sometimes nauseating, and sometimes confusing, yet also – again, returning to that tricky word – sometimes interesting. It’s about a group of friends who encounter something potentially extraterrestrial while hunting, and then they have to fight for their lives when they also clash with military forces investigating the related phenomenon. Dreamcatcher feels, to a greater extent than most lengthy Stephen King novels, like it was made up as things went along. There’s a lack of coherence, but some good stretches alongside the frustrating parts. Actually, lots of that can be said about another epic-length King book featuring extraterrestrials.
16
‘The Tommyknockers’ (1987)
That other King book, published more than a decade earlier than Dreamcatcher, was The Tommyknockers. This one’s more sprawling, since it’s about many people in a small town who have their lives forever changed after a seemingly alien object is discovered within the vicinity. The focus on a core group of friends, as was the case with Dreamcatcher, isn’t really there, with The Tommyknockers going for a bit more of an epic thing.
That means the highs might be a little higher, or more surprising, while the lows stand out all the more, too. It’s beyond messy, but because some of The Tommyknockers is quite good, and small sections here and there feel pretty close to vintage King (it was published in the 1980s, after all, and that was a strong decade for the author), it can be cautiously recommended if you really like Stephen King… you’ve just got to be patient throughout the sloppy parts (and boy oh boy are there some sloppy parts).
15
‘The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah’ (2004)
Back to The Dark Tower again, Song of Susannah is going to be singled out right now as marking the point in the ranking where things start getting pretty good, so yay. This is a fairly good book. The books that are going to be mentioned after this are also good, and eventually, they’ll start being great, because that’s the way rankings work, and Stephen King has definitely written some great stuff.
This is all avoiding talking about the sixth Dark Tower book, to some extent, but trying to explain what happens here would ruin quite a lot by way of the narrative found in the first five books. It’s also the sort of thing that only makes some degree of sense if you’re caught up on the series. If Song of Susannah has any major flaws, it’s that so much of it feels like set-up for the seventh and final book, which is a true epic, and probably could’ve lent (so to speak) one of its big dramatic scenes to Song of Susannah, but this sixth entry in the series technically does its job, in any event. It’s a necessary step in the whole journey, and so even if the other steps are a bit more compelling when judged on their own, Song of Susannah remains worthwhile.
14
‘The Institute’ (2019)
With a story about kids who have unusual psychic powers, The Institute feels a little like Carrie, or, more accurately, like another early Stephen King novel, that one having been published in 1980 (about fires being started or something). It’s not as good as those absolute classics, but it’s one of the better Stephen King novels from the past decade or so, because even if he’s playing the hits, to some extent, they’re still being played pretty well.
The Institute is at its best when it’s about what’s going on in the titular institute, and there are some almost coming-of-age elements with those parts of the story that focus on the kids. There’s a bit more to it beyond just that, and The Institute does get a bit messy when it comes time to draw the threads together, yet even if it doesn’t wholly stick the landing, much of the journey there is engaging and generally well-told, as a story.
13
‘The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger’ (1982)
The first book in The Dark Tower series is almost definable as a novella collection, since it’s made up of five shorter stories (technically, three novellas and two short stories) that were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. This first book, though, titled The Gunslinger, was edited into a single novel, and then it also had a revised edition published in 2003 (it’s a bit like The Stand, with its two versions published in 1978 and 1990, in that regard).
Befitting its name, The Gunslinger is the book in the series that feels most like a Western, and it’s pretty light on sci-fi elements, too. There are concepts of a science fiction nature here, though, and such concepts are developed more in later books, so it’s another The Wind Through the Keyhole situation, where leaving out The Gunslinger might’ve felt a bit odd, when all the other Dark Tower books are here.
12
‘The Running Man’ (1982)
The Running Man is a much better Bachman book than The Regulators, and is probably the second-best one overall that King wrote under that pseudonym. It’s about a competition in the future that allows desperate people to take part in a televised event that basically sees them on the run, and hunted, with survival for a certain amount of time leading to a big reward.
The catch is that survival is kind of impossible, or pretty close to it, and it’s just one terrible thing in an overall terrible dystopian society. The Running Man is bleak, in that sense, but it is also a pretty entertaining read, owing to how fast-paced it is. It’s also on the shorter end of things, as far as Stephen King’s novels go, never really running the risk of overstaying its welcome, at approximately 200 pages (or just over).
11
‘The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass’ (1997)
Putting Wizard and Glass this low isn’t going to please everyone, because this one sometimes gets singled out as an all-time great Stephen King book. It was alluded to earlier as the book in The Dark Tower series that’s particularly flashback-heavy, since so much of Wizard and Glass (after a cliffhanger from the end of the third book is resolved) sees Roland telling a story about his past.
It is important. It goes on for a ridiculously long time, but it humanizes Roland and goes some way toward explaining why he was so ruthless when he was first introduced, in The Gunslinger. There’s some merit to seeing how far he’s come, because forming the ka-tet humanized him further, and then him being so open with them about his own past is significant. And parts of his backstory are engrossing… it just doesn’t feel like King had to have Roland spend quite this long telling that story (again, sorry, Wizard and Glass super-fans).
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Jeremy Urquhart
Almontather Rassoul
