Stephen King’s Castle Rock: Ranking the novels before the series

Are you looking forward to the new Stephen King show Castle Rock exclusively on Hulu? Prepare for it with the best books set in the titular town.

By now everyone has seen the trailer for Hulu’s next Stephen King adaptation, Castle Rock. King’s constant readers know a lot of his early work was set in this fictional small town in Maine.

So before we take a trip to Castle Rock on Hulu, we’ll take a look back at the town through the novels. I should note that there are also short stories set in the town, but for brevity I’ll just focus on the books.

4. The Dead Zone

As a child Johnny Smith has a near death experience. Later on in life, Johnny is in a car accident that leaves him in a coma for five years. He awakens with precognition and clairvoyance. Everyone is skeptical at first, but Johnny tells them things he couldn’t possibly know about them. The meat of the story involves politics with the main antagonist George Stillson.

3. Cujo

A gentle giant of a Saint Bernard chases a rabbit into a hole where bats are slumbering. Disturbed by Cujo, the bat bites him giving him rabies. The once friendly dog goes mad, killing his owner and trapping poor Donna Trenton and her son Tad in their car with no air conditioning on one of the hottest days of the year.

Personally, I had trouble getting into the novel at first. There are no chapter breaks to give you an opportunity to stop at a convenient place and go to bed. However once I finished it I was glad I did. Stephen King has stated that he doesn’t remember writing Cujo as he was dealing with a drug and alcohol addiction at the time. He has said he would have written the ending differently.

2. Needful Things

Needful Things was supposed to be the last Castle Rock story, but the town has seen a resurgence lately. Though even a long time Stephen King fan like myself still isn’t sure how the town survived the events brought on by Leland Gaunt. Not to mention the denizens of the town itself.

There are some things I would love to have, but if something seems too good to be true it probably is. Some prices are too high, be they monetary or otherwise.  Needful Things could be seen as an allegory for Black Friday. After all, we get a little wild then. Ah, commerce. You gotta love it.

1. The Dark Half

Not long after Thad Beaumont “buries” the pseudonym he used to write more books under, he begins to have severe headaches. Even worse, people seem to wind up dead. The Dark Half is by far my favorite of the Castle Rock books.  At the time Stephen King had “killed” his own dark half/pseudonym, Richard Bachman. Constant readers know the Bachman books such as Thinner, The Long Walk, and most of all Rage are much darker than King’s usual work.  The message of The Dark Half is simple. We all have a dark half, it’s how we choose to channel it that truly matters.

Next: Top 5 Stephen King villains

In the trailer for Castle Rock the keen eyed viewer will notice references to Cujo and IT.  Who knows what other nods to the King Universe we will see? We have to wait until July 25 as Castle Rock premieres on Hulu.