Win a copy of Stephen King’s new epic – Under the Dome
The competition is now closed. Our two winners are… Shawn A. Meriano and Neil. Congratulations! We’ll email you directly for your addresses so we can get your copies craned to you (it is a seriously heavy duty hardback!)
We had a fur-raising time reading through all your scariest Stephen King moments – thanks for giving us the chills! We really hope you enjoyed reading everyone else’s comments.
Don’t forget to check out our Stephen King author profile and there will be a review of Under the Dome on the site shortly. Please add a review if you’ve already read it.
And you’ve still got time to enter our New Moon competition!
Happy Reading BookRabbiters!
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Great excitement here at BookRabbit HQ this morning when a massive box arrived from Hodder & Stoughton, and we mean massive. Our first thoughts were… a year’s supply of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, GET IN! Sadly, it’s still carrots on the menu for us, as there wasn’t a glazed, powdered or custard-filled offering in sight.
But even though we would have loved an edible present from those delightful publishers (send us the festive dozen… send us the festive dozen… you’re feeling very sleepy… you want to send us doughnuts as well as nice big books) we were equally, if not far more hoppingly excited to find instead, when we lifted the lid of the magical box… two behemoth copies of Stephen King’s latest book Under the Dome!
And we mean behemoth… a whopping 877 pages. Which btw has a really satisfying THUD when you drop it on the desk from a great height (Sorry about the fingers Dan. Ouch).
Anyway, what do we decide to do… give them away to you lot of course!
For a chance to win one of two copies of Stephen King’s finest epic since The Stand, simply leave a comment on the blog with your scariest Stephen King book, character, scene from one of his films… whatever has spooked you the most… try and make our fur stand on end!
We’ll pick a winner next Tuesday at 12 noon. So you have a week to do your research.
Good luck and don’t have nightmares!
The BookRabbit Team
Those books look so nice… precious… my precious…
I hope I get one of them, being the first to comment (unless someone else is commenting while I’m writing this)
I’ve been a Stephen King for since my early teens. Starting with Shining, Cujo and Christine, I think I read most of his older work. Even thought it’s not his scariest book, I had to stop reading and to start taking deep breaths when Annie Wilkes broke Paul Sheldon’s ankles in Mysery…
I’ve read good reviews about Under The Dome. I hope I’ll win a copy so that I can have a chance to review it on my blog too.
Thanks,
*blush* Please don’t mind the typos above… It must be the excitement…
Even thought -> Even though
Stephen King for -> Stephen King fan
Thanks,
Love Stephen King! I have read most of his books. One of the scariest scenes to me was in Pet Semetary when the little boy came back and started killing.
Now that I’m older, one of King’s scariest books to me is Cujo. As a parent, almost the entire book (esp. once Donna and Tad get out to the Camber place) scares the living daylights out of me. It’s the more realistic bits of King’s fiction (i.e. being trapped and fighting for the life of your child) that raise the gooseflesh and get the hairs on end. And if you know the end of the book, you know that not all of King’s books (or characters) get happy endings.
I’ve read all of Stephen King’s novels and the one that truly got beneath my skin and had a lot of ‘what the hell?!’ moments was Gerald’s Game. Unbelievably twisted and adult in it’s nature. I didn’t know King could write like this but Gerald’s game managed to scare and sicken me at the same time(in the truly best fashion possible). No wonder theres never been a movie of this book!
The scariest part in one of his books was in It when the clown pulled in the little kid into the sewer and said “We all float down here!”
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
The Shining
Has got to be the scariest book/film I have read by stephen king.
In the film the family are in an isolated house with no contact to the outside, great for the father who is a writer, the boy has psychic powers and can see various scarey parts of the hotels history, murders.
The best part is after a few months the wife looks to see what her husband has been writing and all it says page after page
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”
That makes you think about how insane people can become.
Beware you never really know the people you think you know!
A very psycological film, these are what scare me the most.
For some reason for me it’s scene in (the novella, not the movie) Secret Window, Secret Garden where the writer find his friend dead in the truck with his own screwdriver in the guy’s temple. I’m not sure if it’s the description or the fact I read it alone in my basement at night when I was about 13; but to this day it still scares the pants off me.
Thanks for a fun contest!
The scariest moment has most definitely got to be from his book ‘On Writing’ when he was mowed down on the road while jogging.
While reading the intense scene in Black House where the door knob rattles, mine started rattling! It was the cat, but oh man…that did it!
-Justin
It was a scene of beautiful subtlety. One that featured no evident gore or marauding monsters. And it was for this reason that this scene was the one that sticks in my mind above all others. The very end of The Green Mile, many years after John Coffey has been horrifically put to death on the electric chair, taking with him a magical gift of healing. Paul Edgecombe, has lived for years with the knowledge of what he has done. He is sitting besides his beloved wife on a coach, when it’s involved in a terrible crash. Under the falling rain, amid the wreckage, he holds his dying wife, and looks on out at a nearby bridge. From under the bridge, he sees the vision of Coffey, who, had he lived, would have saved his wife. But the vision soon fades, and all is lost. A haunting scene. A scary scene. A beautiful scene.
In the forward to the book Night Shift, King writes: “The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn’t real. I know that, and I also know that if I’m careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.” Thats just a creepy statement!
I’d have to say though that the scariest scene, for me, in any of Kings books is in Bag Of Bones when the letter magnets on the fridge start moving on their own.
The short story 1408 from Everything’s Eventual gave me nightmares way before the movie came out. It may seem like an obscure story, but I’ve had this recurring dream where I cant move and the world is melting away, but there is nothing I can do about it. Kinda like my body is drunk, but my mind is sober… anyway when I read 1408, and Mr. King describes almost the same situation, it gave me the creeps!
The scariest scene for me was when the cat came back to life in Pet Sematary. I was about 15 when I read that scene and we had a black cat at home. I kept a careful watch on old Midnight after reading that scene.
There is one Stephen King book I have only read once and I will never read it again.
I was eighteen years old when I read Salem’s Lot. I had started it and got to around fifty pages or so and stopped, thinking: Meh. Boring. I thought this was supposed to be a vampire novel…
I was on the bus later that week reading The Guardian by John Saul. A man sitting next to me motioned to the book. “Good book.” He said. “Stephen King is better.”
“I know.” I said. I stumbled upon Stephen King after getting a box of old books from my cousin Cassie. When I picked up Skeleton Crew I was entranced. The creepy monkey on the front of the book just creeped me right out; and made me want to dive into the book.
Since that book I had read every Stephen King book I could find. But Salem’s Lot was the first time I hadn’t been satisfied or hooked early on.
The man nodded, agreeing. “He’s an incredible writer, Stephen King.” He paused. “Have you read Salem’s Lot?”
I nodded. “Read fifty pages, stopped.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Because it was boring.” I thought this should be obvious. I got up to get off at my stop but the man grabbed my hand. “Wait,” he said.
I remember he looking at me then and there was a brightness in his blue eyes. The brightness almost frightened me and I was going to pull my hand away; but I froze. “Keep reading Salems Lot,” he said. “It gets better.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. When I got off the bus and looked back, the man was gone.
When I got home, I went to find my copy of Salem’s Lot. I opened it up to where I had left off and started reading. When I got to the part where Susan is turned into a vampire, I had to put the book down. My heart was beating quickly and I had been clutching the book in a white knuckled grip.
I was incredibly, terribly frightened. For some reason, it occurred to me that the man with the blue eyes might have followed me home. Salem’s Lot had me so frightened that I pictured the man coming in through the front door. I could still hear his voice. “Read Salem’s Lot…It gets better.”
Panicking, I went around the house and made sure that all the doors were locked. It still wasn’t enough. I turned on all the lights in the house. I still didn’t feel safe. I looked out and saw the dark night glaring at me. I closed all the blinds.
Heart beating, breath coming out in short gasps, I forced myself to finish, to finish the book. I knew that once I finished Salem’s Lot, I could stop being afraid; if I finished, the fear would end.
I was wrong.
I tried reading the book several times after that first time, but I can’t. Every time I turn the book to the first page, I keep thinking about how frightened the book made me, how much it scared me. I remember the darkness outside my windows, the brightness of all those lights burning at once.
I remember the man on the bus with the blue eyes.
Stephen King showed me true fear. And I am still afraid of what lies in Salem’s Lot.
I an going to see Stephen King in Toronto tomorrow. He is my all time fav. writer. I just read all of his books in chronological order , ending it off with the Dark Tower series and now Under The Dome. It’s taken me just under 3 years.
The only time I had a nightmare is when I was reading Misery. Annie jumping up from behind my couch. I woke up sweating. The part in the book that spooked me the most is when Annie was running the sherriff over with a lawnmower. What a horrible bloody death!!!
Long live Stephen King!!!
p.s. betweentwobooks
It was in the movie that Annie broke Paul’s ankles with a sledgehammer. In the book Annie cut off his foot with an axe and stopped the bleeding with a blowtorch. Way scarier. I also freaked at the part in the book where Annie cut off Paul’s thumb with a carving knife!!! Awesome stuff!!
Shawn
The scariest thing King ever wrote, without a doubt, are the hedge animals from The Shining. That’s it. Hands down the spookiest thing I’ve read. I have never been freaked by a book.
When I was young I was very scared by “The Shining” =)
And now, when I remember this novel, I feel scared again.
Hello!
i Have read a lot of books of stephen king.
The scariest book of him for me is IT.
The scene of the kid in the sewer in wich Pennywise appears and kill him…. it was terrorific !!.
I have seen that movie when i was 12.
When Pennywise gets Georgie at the beginning of ‘It’.
“They float, Georgie and when you’re down here with me, you’ll float, too!”
I’m still nervous around Clowns AND storm drains.
I have read Stephen King books forever- from Carrie onwards. The only books I dont think I have read are his limited editons , and honestly I have never seen them anywhere! (least the pre 1970’s)
My favorite is most likely The Green Mile series. It isnt particularly scary as far as King novels go, but the characters are done well, and as I usually dont watch the books to movies, that one was very touching and did the book justice.
I also liked when he wrote under the Bachman name.
I would love to win Dome, I think I have looked everywhere, and am so far down the list at the library, by the time I get to read it, it will be a movie
Thanks in advance- I love King!
The scariest scene is the last scene from the short story “Graveyard Shift”: The main character Hall and several other men are EATEN ALIVE by giant rats in the subbasement of an old mill. Do you remember the cow-sized mother rat?… It still gives me creeps…
It has to be the Dark Tower books. There is a scene in one of them where they are standing on a beach surrounded by giant crabs. They have to get though the portal before the giant crabs get them and Roland ends up losing a finger. That scene has stayed with me, you can just picture it in your mind
For me, it was ‘THE DARK HALF’.
I skipped my college classes and read that 800+ page book in four days.
The scene where Thad learns George is in his house waiting for him kept me up reading until about 3:30 a.m.
The scariest scene: When Jake is pushed in the fifth avenue and the car rans over him. The description of how his body is damaged, including the testicles being crushed and the blood going out of his mouth is definitively too much!
But…we have to read Under the dome to see if there’s a scarier scene.
In Storm Of The Century, when Linoge is sitting in the jail cell with his hands resting on his knees, he mutters to himself in a troubling manner. Meanwhile, the townspeople begin committing suicide after writing give me what I want and I’ll go away many times.
hello
just a few word
it’s me…
the last phrase of pat cemetary
no comment
just emotions
sorry im french i dont speak good english
just my prefer novel ok SK
no too much words just the right
unbelievable !
thanks
jj
There are many, many scary moments in the works of SK. There is always a book that is worth to be reread and there’s always a scene or a quote in there that is catching your attention more than the previous times.
These days the scariest scene has to be the first scene in the novel which is considered by many as SK’s best: the uncut version of The Stand, where Charlie, Sally and little Baby LaVon leave in the middle of the night. Sally is woken up by Charlie and she has to dress up as quickly as she can, because Charlie has realized that there is something wrong in town and he wants to save his family… but he is already coughing continuously. The rest, as they say, is history.
There have been a few writers in the past, who have foreseen certain things, inventions or events… just think of H. G. Wells, Jules Verne or George Orwell. In my opinion SK is also such a gifted man.
The scene in Salems Lot the TV movie from the 70’s when Danny Glick floats to Marks window . I was 10 years old when I saw that movie for the first time I am 41 years old now and it still scares me.
There is a scene in Bag of Bones where Mike goes in his house and is not sure if there is someone there or not he is looking around when the refridgerator makes a noise it’s just the most simple creepiest scene .
I’ve always thought the scariest character was Cujo. I still always have to bit of trepidation when a St. Bernard comes into view.
My favorite is Misery. No character is as disturbing as Annie Wilkes. She won’t curse (“Effing pig feed”) but she doesn’t hesitate to amputate Paul’s foot with an ax or stake a Trooper in the back with a fence post and then run him over with a riding mower. Annie Wilkes is the most horrifying character because you know she’s out there somewhere, just waiting to be your private nurse . . .
I have seen the film version of Cujo when I was a child and I have found it really scarry. I have read the book years later. It was prettty scarry, but it didn’t come close to my previous experience, Reading ‘It’ gave me a few sleepless night though.
I would like to say: The Shining scared me. Or Salem’s Lot. Or even Needful Things. All certainly are creepy. . . but there is a book that truly scares me.
Under the Dome is freaking me out.
Here’s why: Under the Dome has left me almost unable to drive. And I’m the only driver in my family. I’ve been reading this book in little spurts as I drive, and in my minds eye, there is becoming a certain surity that there is an invisible barrier I am about to hit.
I’m a speed demon usually — but these days I am driving slower and slower. Hey, I don’t want to hit the barrier too hard.
The problem is complex:
1. I haven’t finished the book. So I don’t now what caused the dome. And so I can’t say, “Ah! That won’t happen to us!” Because I don’t now!
2. I live in a small town. I don’t drive far. So when I leave the town, I feel that a certain WHACK will come any moment.
3. In my mind, I have seen the Dome do some bad stuff. A new helocopter got smashed; a plane when smack-o like a bug on a windshield; and worst of all, cars! Not just one or two. No, we are given a front row seat to car accident after car accident.
I might never meet a Vampire, Cannibal (I hope) or enter a haunted house. But I drive every day. And the Dome is becoming a scary reality.
I need to check my insurance policy for Dome Insurance.
I believe that the most scariest for me is IT…
but my favorite is Misery, Annie is great.
Sometimes reality is far more horrifying than fiction. I think the scariest scene Steve has ever written is the last one in his Bachman-novel The Running Man, where Ben Richards crashes a hijacked Lockheed TriStar right into the Games Authority skyscraper.
Although I’m not American, I think that this scene scares everyone who reads it after the terrible events of 9/11. And makes one remember and maybe also cry.
And what is far more scary, is the fact that the novel was published in 1982!
One of the scenes that caused me the most “chills runinng up my spine” reaction was the foreword in Pet Semetery, I believe. Mr King related how he didn’t like to get out of bed once the lights had been extinguished. If he did get out, he would jump out of the bed because, if you put your foot out, the creature under your bed would grab your foot. I thought, “Wow! I thought I was the only one who thought that way.” Of course, he went on to tell the stories that such an imagination can bring to mind and I just went into the military and read all his books when I got a chance.
Hi and greetings from Spain! I’m a Stephen King constant reader
I think the best of King isn’t the scary parts but the deepness of the characters and the relationships between them. It’s amazing the way he “controls” a large number of people, like in “The Stand”, “Needful Things” or the new one, “Under the Dome” and also the stories with a few characters, e.g. “The Shining” or “Misery”. But, anyway, the most scary parts for me was the path between the pet sematary and the Indian cemetery under the moonlight… the long corridors of the Overlook hotel in The Shining and the twin sisters, but not the sisters of The Shining… I mean the sisters in Duma Key, and I thought.. mmm, two sisters again.. that cant be scary… but hey… that sand! and the stairs were wet! that gave me nightmares
One of the scariest scenes I’ve ever read in SK’s novels were by far the previous ones before the climatic moment of the destruction of the car Buick 8. The author achieved in a very brilliant way to make me be terrified at the idea of the car as a cruel entity. Not advisable to read it at night… (or perhaps yes?)
Apart from being creeped out beyond words by IT, I’d have to say that parts of Duma Key really got me. Edgar returning home knowing something had been there, his mysterious ships in his paintings and paying a trip to Elizabeths abandoned home. God I love Stephen King.
There are SO many. There are two that really stand out for me and my wild imagination….
Firstly in misery when Paul goes into Annie’s room (whilst she’s out at the store getting supplies for the book) and he moves some of her ornaments so when she comes back, she then knows that he’s been in there….and of course, she then hurts him really badly….gggggghhhhhhh
Secondly in Dreamcatcher when the alien host and can read minds…scary.
I started reading Stephen King from the very beginning (for me that is) with “Carrie”. I have loved every book he has written since! For me the scariest books (stories) was without a doubt “The Stand”. Just the thought that the next time I get a cold, could be the end of the world… Well lets just say, I HATE it when I get a cold! I just got over the N1H1 flu and I was plenty scared. I really was waiting to see if I’d dream of the dark man or a sweet little old lady or if I would even survive! Did I want to survive? What a scary thought. I was sicker than I have EVER been and the 1st book that comes to mind is “The Stand”. Now that I’m on the mend and know I’m not going to die, I still wonder who I am going to dream of.
Each book of Stephen Kings has it’s own merit on how it has effected my life. I swear that Stephen knows what is happening in my life before I do. I adore Stephen King!!!!
Stephen King’s short story The Boogeyman scared me quite a bit when I first read it years ago. It was very unnerving.
At the very last of the story Billings, the main character, reenters his shrink’s office to find out that the shrink is the boogeyman that had killed his kids. And the boogeyman gets him.
To this day I do not leave closet doors open.
In my opinion the scariest scene ever is in “The Shining” when Jack Torrance is walking around with the ax. Yes, for me the Kubrick -version with Jack Nicholson is the most scariest one (sorry Stephen).. the look in Nicholsons’ eyes is really mad!!