Dhruv is a senior editor in Screen Rant’s New TV division. He has been a regular contributor to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles on streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
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After high school, he was on his way to becoming a civil engineer. However, he soon realized that writing was his true calling. As a result, he took the plunge and never looked back.
Stephen KingIt is The shiny is often touted as one of the greatest horror novels ever written, and it rightly deserves that title. However, few books in the horror genre are arguably better than Stephen King’s masterpiece. While the definition of “better” in literature can always be subjective, the books in question have some merits that make them more compelling than The shiny.
Even before The shiny was adapted for the big screen, it found its place among the best offerings in the horror genre. However, Stanley Kubrick’s film The adaptation gave the book a more concrete legacy, which seems to have shown no signs of disappearing. Stephen King himself had his share of complaints regarding Stanley Kubrick’s film.
Despite this, the film’s cultural impact played a key role in cementing The shiny as one of the greatest horror stories. Apart from The shinyhowever, there are a handful brilliant horror books which undoubtedly equaled, or even exceeded, the Book by Stephen KingThe ability to create fear and unease in readers. Not all of these books are as common as that of Stephen King The shinybut they are worth reading for every horror fan.
The Fisherman by John Langan
That of John Langan The fisherman is not as popular as Stephen King’s The shiny. It has also not been the subject of any major television or film adaptations to date. However, what gives it a significant advantage over Stephen King’s novel is its ability to expand its deeply human narrative on a massive cosmic scale. The shinyfor the most part, riffs on existing horror tropes and tells a contained story about the domestic tragedy of a father’s descent into madness.
It remains a ghost story locked within the confines of a hotel. The fishermanin contrast, begins as the story of a man’s grief after the death of his wife, but gradually grows until it reaches a terrifying Lovecraftian scale. From The shiny And The fisherman belong to very different brands of horror, it seems a little unfair to compare them.
However, that of John Langan The fisherman arguably manages to provide more surreal imagery and cosmic terror by transforming a meditation on grief into something ancient and unknowable.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Dracula And The shiny can both be considered the founding texts of two distinct types of horror. While The shiny is easily among the most influential”haunted house“horror stories, by Bram Stoker Dracula practically defined the modern vampire mythos and laid the foundation for countless gothic horror stories.
What gives Dracula A significant advantage over many classic horror stories, however, is its incredibly immersive epistolary format. The book presents its story through a series of diaries, letters, telegrams and ship’s logs, giving it a level of found-footage realism. It also cleverly avoids giving readers the titular character’s direct perspective, ensuring that he is seen less as a character and more as a looming force.
Even in terms of scope, Dracula presents itself as the story of a vast invasion, stretching from the castles of Transylvania to the bustling streets of Victorian London. Unlike Stephen King’s story, which remains mostly confined to the Overlook Hotel, Dracula presents higher stakes and a much broader sense of danger.
Something Wicked This Way Happens by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury’s poetic prose, which combines nostalgia and terror, in Something bad happens this way is enough to elevate the book above most classic literary works in the horror genre. Because of the book’s philosophical depth and Bradbury’s ability to transform the simplest descriptions into hauntingly beautiful reflections on youth, aging, and desire, it is not an easy book to read as The shiny.
However, the creative genius with which Bradbury presents the book’s terrors, such as “Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show“and the”Autumn people,” makes it a dark reflection of humanity’s deepest fears and temptations. Because of how unconventional and poetic its story seems, it is also almost impossible to adapt. Something bad happens this way for the screen.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House was one of the biggest influences on Stephen King. King not only explicitly cited the book as a major influence and praised its brilliant opening sentence, but traces of the novel’s tropes and story beats can often be found in his works. In fact, even The shiny seems to borrow a lot from The Haunting of Hill House.
Interestingly, The shiny even has a direct meta-reference to the holding parameter of The Haunting of Hill House:
“There was a little boy to terrorize, a man and a woman to pit against each other, and if they played their cards right they might end up slinking through the lobby of the Overlook like insignificant shadows in a Shirley Jackson novel, everything that walked in Hill House walked alone, but you couldn’t be alone in the Overlook, oh no, there would be plenty of company here.”
Like Stephen King’s The shinythat of Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House has also been adapted for the screen several times, the best being Mike Flanagan’s modern television iteration on Netflix. Stephen King even dedicated his book, Fire starterto Shirley Jackson with an opening line that read: “In memory of Shirley Jackson, who never needed to raise her voice.“
Given that Shirley Jackson had a considerable influence on some of Stephen King’s best works, it seems fair to conclude that his greatest novel is better than The shiny in more than one way.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Call House of Leaves better than The Shining may be a bit controversial, given that Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel is widely known to be a difficult read. House of Leaves also adopts the haunted house trope as The shiny. However, unlike The shinyit almost presents a meta-horror story that breaks the fourth wall and feels haunted.
that of Stephen King The shiny is awesome. However, compared to House of Leaves, The shiny feels safe and linear as Danielewski’s novel constantly unsettles the reader with fragmented narration and typographic experiments. The book can even be incredibly exhausting for a reader, which adds to the terrors it intends to arouse.
Due to the ambiguities of its history and the unconventional telling of its story, House of Leaves is another brilliant horror novel that cannot be adapted for screens. Even if it manages to get an adaptation, its translation to the screen would likely struggle to recreate the feeling of disorientation that the book leaves in its readers.
Pet Seminar by Stephen King
Pet Sematist has received multiple adaptations. Unfortunately, unlike The shinynone of its adaptations have been able to capture the feeling of helplessness and unease that the original book instills in the reader. THE original Pet Sematist bookThe story is divided into two parts. While the first part gradually introduces readers to the story of the titular cemetery and its history, the second half raises the stakes to gruesome levels.
Stephen King himself was so terrified while writing Pet Sematist that he had abandoned the novel. He only retrieved and completed it to fulfill his contractual obligations (via Ultimate Classic Rock). After reading the novel, we understand why the king of horror had difficulty finishing it.
The book presents a kind of almost ancient, cosmic terror as it introduces the central cemetery and anchors it brilliantly in a human story about grief and acceptance of death.
It also brings a disturbing new twist to the “be careful what you wish for“trope drawing parallels with that of WW Jacob The monkey’s paw while painting its own disturbing picture of how despair and grief can push ordinary people toward unimaginable choices. Stephen KingIt is The shiny is undoubtedly one of the best horror novels, but Pet Sematist arguably ranks higher on the list.
