While horror isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, it’s hard to think of a living writer who has had a bigger cultural impact than Stephen King. He is one of the most prolific writers of fiction in our time, and his work is destined to be talked about and adapted for decades if not centuries to come.
As a teenager, I was a constant reader of King. I was fascinated by the fact that one man could churn out page-turner after page-turner and I would wonder where his ideas came from. Then, at the age of 20, I moved to a small town in Maine outside of Portland. And I saw.
Like many of Stephen King’s characters, here I am many years later embarking to confront the evils of my past. Here is our definitive ranking of every Stephen King novel ranked by how close they come to conveying the horrors of everyday life in the godless, awful state that is Maine.
64. Lisey’s Story
King has said that this is his favorite of all the novels he’s written, which is why it ranks dead last. Nothing anyone is proud of belongs on a list about Maine.
63. Billy Summers
We haven’t read this one yet, but the jacket says it’s a story of redemption, so it has no place here.
62. Fairy Tale
A boy inherits a key to a magical world where he and his dog need to fight vague evil. Since the evils in question don’t consist of black flies, gas station pizza, and 8-month winters, this one misses the mark on capturing the horror of living in Maine.
61. Duma Key
Many of the books on this list do not take place in Maine, and that has no bearing on their ranking because it was still the trauma of living there that inspired them. This one, however, takes place in Florida, an entirely different place of evil.
60. Holly
This novel features Holly Gibny, a minor character in several other King novels, now as her fully realized best self trying to solve the case of a young girl. The prime suspect – and seemingly normal couple harboring a dark secret. While nothing is more Maine than people harboring dark secrets, no one there is their fully realized best self, so this one ranks low.
59. Rose Madder
A horror/fantasy that draws its fantastical elements from Greek mythology, King himself has described “Rose Madder’ as a “stiff, trying-too-hard” book, which is why it ranks low on our list. No one who chooses to live in Maine tries too hard. They just like, stand there.
58. BLAZE
Somehow laboring under the delusion that he just hadn’t published enough books, Stephen King dusted off a copy of this pre-Carrie manuscript, tightened it up, and published it in 2007. It centers around Clayton Blaisdell (get it?) and the bond he forms with a baby that he has kidnapped from its millionaire parents. Since it features an adult connecting with a child, it ranks very low on our list of horror found in Maine.
57. The Institute
A shadowy organization is kidnapping kids with psychic abilities, and keeping them imprisoned in a palace known as The Institute for nefarious purposes. It’s a scary premise, but not Maine scary because at least these kids are getting an education.
56. Sleeping Beauties
Stephen King teamed up with his son to spin this tale about a future where women cocoon at night and transport themselves to a better place. It ranks low on our list because it presupposes that sleep can offer an escape to someone living in a state where the number one pastime is Lyme disease.
55. Gwendy’s Button Box
A girl is given a mysterious button box by a stranger who warns her that if she presses any of the box’s buttons bad things will happen. It is here at 55 because unlike most people in Maine at least Gwendy can control something, anything.
54. The Talisman
12-year-old Jack Sawyer walks from New Hampshire to California on a quest to find a Talisman that can save his dying mother. Along the way, Jack finds himself in “The Territories,” a Medieval parallel universe that mirrors our own. While more fantasy than horror, it is clearly inspired by Maine, a place that refuses to acknowledge what year it is. Maine is similar to our world, but everywhere you go people are playing something called Def Leppard from something called a radio, and the Starbucks are all called Dunkin Donuts, and everyone who works there is an old sea captain.
53. Roadwork
A grieving man is pushed over the edge of sanity after a proposed interstate highway threatens to demolish his home. An unstable man with a gun standing his ground in the cold is very “Pine Tree Ttate,” but it ranks low on our list because Maine never updates its infrastructure.
52. If It Bleeds
If It Bleeds is a collection of four novellas. The titular story centers on a TV news anchor with a suspiciously uncanny nose for viewer-grabbing tragic events. Tragic events are bad, but the horrors of Maine are more bleak than newsworthy.
51. The Eyes of the Dragon
This one is more of a full-on fantasy lacking real horror elements. It shares a few threads with the Gunslinger series so everyone talks weird, but they’ve still heard of the letter “R” so the horrors of Maine are not accurately represented.
50. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
While not the scariest Stephen King novel or even the scariest entry in the Dark Tower series, it features a lot of junkies and racism, giving the reader a reasonably accurate picture of life in Portland.
49. The Dark Half
When a journalist threatens to expose a famous author’s pseudonym, the author decides to get ahead of the story and out himself, but it turns out the alter-persona won’t go out without a fight. It comes to life and commits a series of horrific crimes. This novel perfectly encapsulates Maine’s state slogan: “Keep your nose out of my dark secrets or I will fucking murder you.”
48. The Running Man
In the future of 2025, Ben Richards agrees to be on America’s favorite reality show, The Running Man. If he can elude capture and execution by police and bounty hunters for one month, he’ll get the money he needs to cure his daughter’s terminal illness. Published in 1982 the book is extremely prescient, and the game presented is barbaric, but it is still a form of entertainment so it doesn’t quite represent the horror of Maine.
47. Elevation
Stephen King tackles the divide tearing our nation apart with a good ole “Can’t we all just get along?” It may take place in Castle Rock but spiritually this book is about as far from Maine as you can get.
46. Needful Things
A new antiquities shop opens in Castle Rock that seems to have exactly what everyone desires, and the customers don’t pay with money, they pay with IRONIC TWISTS! Sort of like how when I moved to Maine I thought “At least the lobster rolls will be good” only to find out that their version of it is cold lobster meat and celery mixed with mayo served on stale bread with lettuce. Oh, except that shitty lobster roll cost a lot of money.
45. Gerald’s Game
After a night of kink gone wrong, Jessie Burlingame is left alone handcuffed to her bed. Trapped and alone with her thoughts she is consumed by the demons of her past. I think anyone who lives in a state where it’s almost always winter and everything closes at 9 p.m. can relate to Jessie.
44. Dolores Claiborne
A suspicious death in a Maine island community prompts suspect Dolores Claiborne to confess her life story, a tale of tragedy, injustice, and unspeakable family secrets. Throw in a plate of fiddleheads and you’ve got everything you need to know about New England’s most haunting state.
43. The Green Mile
There is, of course, no one living in Maine with basic compassion, let alone a Christ-like ability to heal people, but if there was they would for sure kill them.
42. Desperation
A group of travelers is lured to a small, dying town and must thwart an ancient evil unearthed by minors. This novel speaks to the deep, yearning desire in the heart of everyone with the misfortune of being born in Maine. For someone, anyone, to come and vanquish the repressive, miserable, intangible ether of misery that haunts the very air they breathe.
41. The Regulators
A terrifying story of a suburban Ohio neighborhood where suddenly all of the houses are transformed into log cabins and no one is allowed to leave their house. The Regulators explores what might happen if Maine were allowed to spread.
40. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
The humble beginnings of what would become The Dark Tower series finds Roland trekking through a wasteland where he tangles with mutants, horny church ladies, and people who talk really weird. It’s sort of a love letter to Bangor.
Despite Kanye West, the alt-right’s most critically-acclaimed soldier, listening to an exclusive advance of a Jewish man’s record, Say Anything’s 2016 LP “I Don’t Think It Is” is a twelve-track experiment that went alt-wrong. Say Anything songs often inspire repeated listens due to their many, many easter eggs, but this abrasive-in-a-meh-way album lacked ample replay value. To prove such, surprise albums from noteworthy acts often get a lot of PR, but buzz seemed to fade about this one shortly after its release. Even its album cover photo looks like an iPhone pic from someone stealing your mobile device at a bar during a quick White Claw piss break.
As evident with our “play it again” section below for “Anarchy, My Dear,” Say Anything’s debut LP for Equal Vision Records, we’re all about song sequels. “Admit It Again,” track four of 2012’s “Anarchy, My Dear,” was a then-modern inspired part-two to Say Anything’s perfect song “Admit It!” and it has some hot, thought-provoking hot takes, and many legit guffaws. Still, this full-length is inconsistent when one compares it to the band’s other six albums listed next.
Sometimes albums are way too long to effectively digest (more on that later), and other times records leave you thirsty as fuck in a non-creepy literal manner that would still likely get you canceled. The latter is certainly the case for 2019’s “Oliver Appropriate”, which at fourteen songs clocking in at just under thirty-five minutes, feels really, really short for a typically-verbose-in-the-best-way Say Anything LP. However, this potential swan song full-length opens up with and contains the band’s best song title, “The Band Fuel,” and we’re not taking any more shimmering questions on the matter.
2001’s “Baseball: An Album by Sayanything” is the band’s sole DIY-release LP before a well-deserved bidding war ensued and foreshadowed the band’s not-so-colorblind bright future. Get it? Regardless if you’re an OG fan or not, this is a hell of a debut, and gets further highlighted (sic; we’re clever, but not as clever as Max) on 2013’s three-plus-hour-long expansive compilation “All My Friends Are Enemies: Early Rarities,” also containing 2000’s “Junior Varsity” EP, 2002’s “Menorah/Majora” EP, the “Dormroom Demos,” and other SA rarities. Again, like we mentioned in the opening of this sterling piece, as staunch sticklers for accuracy and brilliance, none of the other EPs and compilations count as proper full-lengths. You’re shamelessly wrong if you attempt to poorly critique us for such and anything else in the comments.
This section of our soon-to-be-viral Say Anything album ranking piece, which starts again just after this article’s halfway point intermission, contains our second of two Kanye West references. We truly, truly wish that 2014’s “Hebrews’ was the one that Max played for Kanye in so many ways, namely for its seven-letter title, which would inspire Mr. West to write a disjointed but eventually-deleted social media post, and the many, many guest features which, like the next-to-be-mentioned LP, would put a scene band in hip-hop territory. The ambitious and incomparable guitar-less “Hebrews” may get lost in the shuffle of other amazing Say Anything LPs, but we implore you to give it another spin.
We know, we killed it for all of y’all, and this double album should be ranked differently in this here piece, but we are judging the LP objectively as an entity and without any semblance of emotion whatsoever. Honestly, if 2007’s “In Defense of the Genre” was cut by about 43, 46, or even 47%, it would likely be in the silver medal slot here, but we can’t change the past as much as our whiny pathetic emo hearts would like us to. For this recording and the following album placement listed, despite both being released on a major label, the first singles (respectively the-not-bad-but-middle-of-the-road Say Anything tunes “Baby Girl, I’m A Blur” and “Hate Everyone”) weren’t the best options to escape a sinking ship and successfully launch a record. Oh whale.
Full disclosure: We know that you purely look at these album lists out of an unhealthy combination of boredom and spite, and outside of the actual numerical rankings themselves, you don’t even read any of the piece’s actual text. Sad! We work hard on these so do better. Regardless, we know that we gaffed in a not-so-glorious-fashion regarding Say Anything’s 2009 self-titled record’s placement here, as it should be ranked fifth, seventh, or somewhere between the band’s hit LPs “Through Being Cool” or “On a Wire.” As we read on your blue checkmarked Twitter account, your list crushed ours anyway. Still, this #2 placement is undeniably the band’s catchiest effort and an overall enjoyable thirteen tracks front-to-back.
If you thought that a multi-layered and not-typically-mainstream aggressive rock song touching on a relationship torn apart by the Holocaust called “Alive with the Glory of Love” would successfully infiltrate the world in the mid-aughts you’re far, far more astute than most. If not, and you weren’t scoping absolutepunk.net on your T-Mobile Sidekick, Clive Davis’ J Records sure noticed its potential, and signed the band shortly after the band released its 2004 LP “…Is a Real Boy,” and re-released the record along with some extra songs known as “…Was a Real Boy.” Much lore has been told about this album’s dramatic creation, but regardless of the fact or fiction behind such harrowing tales, this album is a 10/10, and a 21st-century classic without a trampled flag on a city street. Please tell us that “Baseball: An Album by Sayanything” should be the winner here in this piece, we dare you to!
“Lock up the Wolves” has a case of the Mondays, likely from a mix of ‘80s burnout and a looming sense of doom for the coming decade. The omens were already bad for Dio thanks to changes in the band’s lineup and the public’s music taste. All that aside though, the worst thing a Dio album can be is not fun (and to a lesser extent have a shite snare sound). This album feels like a colonoscopy, so keep these wolves locked up because they suck!
The only real “hot take” you’ll see on this list is that “Angry Machines” isn’t the dumpster fire it’s marked as by the angry Reddit machines. Ronnie and the boys make an honest pass at some new ideas, but unfortunately everything still feels caught in purgatory. All of the hard rock numbers have energy, but none of the great direction seen in Dio’s early work. That said, do yourself a favor and stay (or skip) to the end for closer “This is Your Life.” The surprise piano ballad is a genuinely moving reminder of why RJD’s voice ruled the metal world and beyond.
Being an ‘80s metal holdover in the ‘90s must have been soul-crushing. The kids had dumped perms for flannels and metal songs about goblins for grunge songs about gobblin’ prescription medication. Much like that last joke, “Strange Highways” depends on your tolerance: in this case a tolerance for a decent but not electrifying mid-90s swings at reigniting Dio’s zhuzh.
Though well-clad in the same Tolkien-drunk sword and sorcery trappings as its two older brothers “Holy Diver” and “The Last In Line,” “Sacred Heart” fumbles the trilogy by playing it too safe. Dio is a bit too sacred with what’s worked on “Sacred Heart,” which can kind of feel like a collection of B-sides for its predecessors. Part of this could be owed to the loss of guitar virtuoso Cambell, who jumped ship to join Whitesnake after rising tensions within Dio. David Coverdale was likely too busy scoring with everything that moved to notice the new guitarist, though.
Ronnie James Dio’s hatred of dragons is nothing short of admirable. Don’t give us that ‘oh you don’t get it they’re a metaphor for personal adversity’ bullshit. Dio wanted to kill dragons so bad he wrote an album about. Like, the “If I Did It” for killing dragons. And the album’s pretty decent, too! The band’s ‘00s revival period was still in full swing, with several tours and one more solid LP still to come.
Dio’s last studio album caps off an exceptionally productive period that began with 2000’s “Magica.” Though projects like Heaven & Hell would keep Dio the man busy even up to his death in 2010, “Master of the Moon” would be the last studio album in line for Dio the band. It’s a strong sendoff with great moments like “The Eyes.” You can debate the quality of each album into oblivion, but it is incredible how consistently badass Dio’s voice is on every song and every album, even toward the end.
“Dream Evil” is a great Dio record all the way through, with perhaps one of Ronnie’s strongest album openers in “Night People.” It succeeds where “Sacred Heart” fails thanks to more precise songwriting and a tactful use of ‘80s production wizardry. It also has on the whole more energy than “Heart,” which felt like a doom-metal precursor in all the wrong ways. The album would also see the departure of Appice, Bain and keyboardist Claude Schnell, effectively ending the classic lineup. But none of them were named “Dio” so ultimately it was fine.
Everyone loves a comeback record, and 2000’s “Magica” is a great one. This album has everything; killer tracks, a spooky concept about interdimensional demons, a dumbass made-up word for the title, Dio’s ‘90s malaise was officially over. The return of Bain and Schnell helped the band resemble something closer to the classic lineup. It’s a shame the planned “Magica” trilogy never panned out, as it would have been great to hear “Magic 2: The Streets” and “Magica 3: Tokyo Drift.”
Brimming with ideas while still tightly focused, high concept yet fully accessible, goofy but still badass, “Holy Diver” defied all of the odds and tore the metal world a new asshole when it dropped like an atomic bomb in 1982. Dio seemed to forgo any of the standard growing pains a new band would normally feel, instead entering a wildly productive period right out of the gate. Videos for chart-toppers “Holy Diver” and “Rainbow In The Dark” played around the clock on MTV, further solidifying Dio’s metal world takeover. After years under the thumb of bigger egos, Ronnie James Dio was finally on top. Ride the tiger!
