The King Chronicles: Master Post
- Lori
- Nov 19
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 10
I’ve briefly mentioned in a few posts that I have an outstanding Stephen King goal, but I feel it’s high time I formally introduce and document my progress here on the blog. This post will serve as “home base” for the goal, and will function as a pseudo springboard to send you to reviews and wrap ups. I’ll update this post as I read through King’s backlist or whenever a new book is released. The juicy bits will be found in the hyperlinks below.
The Goal?
Read every Stephen King book in publication order by November 1st, 2028.
Why?
This is not an easy question to answer. Was I an avid King fan before embarking on this journey? Not necessarily. I’ve always been in a love affair with horror and the macabre. I grew up on Vincent Price and Boris Karloff movies, so I had an innate interest in King’s work as long as I had been aware of him. I had read a handful of King’s books and enjoyed them overall, but I wasn’t drawn to read absolutely everything he’s ever written.
Primarily, I craved a long-term goal. I wanted to complete something that would take me on a long journey. I wanted to test my accountability and dedication. While in this headspace, I passed the paperback section of my grocery store and locked eyes with ‘Salem’s Lot. I bought it on the spot (I had already read Carrie), and the project was born.
Fast forward a couple more books into the project, I realized there were a lot of nods to other King books within each story. Some Reddit searching confirmed my suspicions. I was looking down the barrel of an incredibly intricately woven multiverse spanning decades of cocaine-induced fiction. My early attempts at mapping out the connections very quickly spiraled into my own spoof of “Who is Pepe Silvia?”. If there’s one thing I love, it’s a deep rabbit hole. The project became more than a long-term reading goal, it became a literary Rubix cube I desperately wished to solve. The deeper I wind through the maze, the more astounded I am by the breadth of the planning and cunning it takes to weave together so many threads.
It’s no longer about how each book stands on its own for me. To be perfectly frank, the man uses the same 6 sentences each chapter, leans too heavily on the Oedipus complex, and would honestly benefit from not including diversity in his books as he fails spectacularly at writing BIPOC in a respectful way. If someone wanted to give King a go, I’d tell them to pick the five they are most interested in and read only those. Between the five, the reader has likely experienced all the novelty one can actually glean from the man’s work. I’m personally here for the multiverse. I’m so invested in how it all fits together. There are stories that don’t meet their conclusion for a decade in a teensy blip of a paragraph within a seemingly unrelated book. What probably sounds exhausting for most, is a thrilling Friday night of reading for me.
How?
All this to say, I don’t feel a full review of each book will be particularly captivating or necessary. My intention is to give you bite size chunks in the form of mini-reviews as I work through King’s bibliography. Below is a list of all King’s works and the publication year. (updated as new books are published) As I write reviews, I’ll hyperlink to the post correlating with the book. The books I have finished will be in black type. Yet to be read books will be gray.
The purists are going to come for my throat because several short stories have been released or rereleased in their own standalone editions outside of the bindups listed. The Stand has technically been published twice. If you’re combing through this list to type up an “aha! Gotcha!” comment, go fuck yourself. This list is written to make sense of how I intend to complete this goal. If I own the short story bindups, that is how I will read them and how I will notate them below. Go make your own damn list.
Side note: I will not be including Midlife Confidential or Faithful because frankly I don’t give a damn. I have not included any works, like Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing, that were released in extremely limited quantities and would cost a fortune of time and money to acquire. If these books happen to find their way to my library, I will add them when they become feasible for my reading. Again, list purists can go to hell.
Stephen King Complete Works
Carrie - 1974
‘Salem’s Lot - 1975
The Shining - 1977
The Night Shift - 1977
The Stand - 1978
The Dead Zone - 1979
Firestarter - 1980
Danse Macabre - 1980
Cujo - 1981
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - 1981
Different Seasons - 1982
The Plant Vol 1-3 - 1982
Christine - 1982
Cycle of the Werewolf - 1982
Pet Sematary - 1983
The Eyes of the Dragon - 1983
The Talisman - 1983
Skeleton Crew - 1984
It - 1986
Dark Tower: Drawing of the Three - 1986
Misery - 1987
The Tommyknockers - 1987
Nightmares in the Sky - 1987
The Dark Half - 1989
Four Past Midnight - 1990
Dark Tower: Waste Lands - 1990
Needful Things - 1991
Nightmares and Dreamscapes - 1993
Insomnia - 1994
Desperation - 1995
The Regulators - 1995
The Green Mile - 1996
Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass - 1996
Six Stories - 1996
Bag of Bones - 1998
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - 1999
Hearts in Atlantis - 1999
On Writing - 1999
Dreamcatcher - 2001
Black House - 2001
From a Buick 8 - 2001
Everything’s Eventual - 2002
Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla - 2002
Dark Tower: Song of Susannah - 2003
The Dark Tower - 2004
The Colorado Kid - 2005
Cell - 2006
Lisey’s Story - 2006
Blaze - 2006
Duma Key - 2008
Just After Sunset - 2008
Under the Dome - 2009
Full Dark, No Stars - 2010
11/22/63 - 2011
Dark Tower: Wind Through a Keyhole - 2012
Joyland - 2013
Doctor Sleep - 2013
Mr. Mercedes - 2014
Revival - 2014
Finders Keepers - 2015
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - 2015
End of Watch - 2016
Charlie the Choo Choo - 2016
Gwendy’s Button Box - 2017
Sleeping Beauties - 2017
The Outsider - 2018
Elevation - 2018
The Institute - 2019
If it Bleeds - 2020
Later - 2021
Billy Summers - 2021
Gwendy’s Final Task - 2022
Fairy Tale - 2022
Holly - 2023
You Like it Darker - 2024
Never Flinch - 2025
Hansel and Gretel - 2025
Comments