We're your #1 fans: a Stephen King character guide

With a mind-boggling portfolio of 62 novels and more than 200 short stories (and counting!), Stephen King undeniably reigns supreme over literary horror. From Danny Torrance to the dreaded Pennywise, check out some of his most iconic characters below.

Liberty Hardy

12 August 2021

We're your #1 fans: a Stephen King character guide

If you watch today’s television shows or movies, listen to contemporary audiobooks, or skim through articles on the internet, you know that it's nearly impossible to go a week without seeing a reference to Stephen King or one of his novels. For instance, on the hit sitcom Friends, Joey Tribbiani kept his copy of The Shining in the freezer, because it was too scary to have around the house. On the animated comedy Rick and Morty, Summer gets a job working at a store called Needful Things. On the drama Lost, Juliet Burke chooses Carrie for the Others book club. In The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin, an entire display of Stephen King books is accidentally knocked to the floor. The list goes on and on, but it’s safe to say there are very few other creators who have left such an indelible mark on pop culture.

Since the April 1974 publication of his first novel, Carrie, King has released more than 60 novels and 200 stories. The legendary horror master has sold more than 350 million copies of his books, and almost all of his novels and many of his stories have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, audiobooks, and comic books. There have been more than 80 adaptations of his fiction to date, with many more in the works, including remakes of Firestarter and Christine. With a bibliography that long, it goes without saying that King has created thousands of characters in his almost 50-year-long career. (The Stand alone contains hundreds of Stephen King characters.) And the fact that people can name so many of them is a testament to his imagination and writing. Stephen King villains seem to really leave an impression on us: there's the scary evil clown, a rabid dog, a murderous car, ominous twin girls, and, of course, an author's number one fan.

You would think that with so many entries under his belt, King's books must include a ton of sequels and series. After all, fans are always looking to learn more about their favorite characters, and some writers prefer to build out their universes over sequels or lengthy series. Yet despite the overwhelming popularity and huge sales afforded to everything King releases, he has only revisited a few of his novels to continue the story. There's the Dark Tower series, which he has been continuing for decades, and more recently, the Bill Hodges trilogy. The Shining got a sequel, Doctor Sleep, more than 35 years after its original 1977 release. But for the most part, King has kept to writing standalone novels and short stories.

That isn't to say that his series don't reference each other—you could easily lose a night's sleep chasing all the Stephen King multiverse threads on the internet. For starters, many of his novels and stories are set in his home state of Maine. A few are set in the fictional town of Derry, which is based on the author's real hometown, Bangor, such as IT, Bag of Bones, Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, and 11/22/63. Several others are set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, such The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Dark Half, and Needful Things, and even more of King's works make reference to events and characters from Castle Rock. For instance, Pet Sematary mentions the events of Cujo in passing, Gerald's Game talks about the events at the end of Needful Things, and Dreamcatcher mentions the Castle Rock radio station. (In fact, Castle Rock is so well known that it got its own original television series, with new stories about its inhabitants.) But it isn't just works set in Maine that have repeat character visits—there are a lot of fascinating connections between Stephen King characters and different stories.

This post offers a comprehensive look at Stephen King characters who appear in more than one audiobook, as well as his most memorable characters, the greatest Stephen King monsters and villains, the biggest heroes, and more. So if you're looking for the best Stephen King characters, look no further—we've got you covered. (But beware: there are spoilers ahead! So, much like when you press play on a Stephen King audiobook, you should proceed with caution.)

Stephen King Characters Who Appear in Multiple Books

George Bannerman

Bannerman was the sheriff of Castle Rock, Maine, for eight years. In The Dead Zone, he reaches out to Johnny Smith, a man who has visions, for help in solving a series of murders in the town. Later, in Cujo, he is killed by a rabid dog. He is thought to be a descendant of Nehemiah Bannerman, the sheriff of Castle Rock from the early 1900s mentioned in Bag of Bones. George Bannerman is also referred to in Different Seasons, Needful Things, The Dark Half, Gwendy's Button Box, and Elevation. He was most memorably played by Tom Skerritt in The Dead Zone.

Ted Brautigan

Brautigan is a powerful psychic, whose gift is sought by the Crimson King of The Dark Tower, where Brautigan was imprisoned at Algul Siento for a time. Brautigan has his longest and most memorable appearance in "Low Men in Yellow Coats," which was adapted into the film Hearts in Atlantis with Anthony Hopkins. He rents an apartment above a young boy, Bobby Garfield, and his mother. He befriends Bobby and later confides in him that he is hiding out because powerful evil entities seek his powers. Brautigan is also mentioned in Black House, the sequel to The Talisman, both of which King coauthored with Peter Straub.

Father Callahan

A local Roman Catholic priest of the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot, Father Callahan first has the misfortune of presiding over the funerals of townsfolk who will later be found to have been killed by vampires in Salem's Lot. When forced to drink the blood of the head vampire, Kurt Barlow, the priest flees Jerusalem's Lot feeling unclean and winds up unhoused in New York City. He later makes appearances in Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and The Dark Tower, where he makes peace with his past and his faith is restored.

The Crimson King

The primary antagonist of King's eight-volume Dark Tower series, as well as the novels Insomnia and Black House, the Crimson King is a powerful immortal being. He is the controlling power behind other villains, such as Randall Flagg and Mr. Munshun. Over the course of the Dark Tower series, his powers morph and grow. He has telepathy, the ability to shapeshift and control the weather, and the power of mental suggestion. He also has the ability to travel and exist on different levels and dimensions throughout the multiverse—until the final book in the series, when he is banished and trapped for all time on the Dark Tower's balcony. In Insomnia, he learns of Patrick Danville, who will later play a hand in his downfall, and in Black House, where it is revealed that he is responsible for the events of the novel.

Randall Flagg

The most famous of The Stand characters, Randall Flagg is a powerful sorcerer and fan favorite King villain who has appeared in at least nine of his novels. He first appeared in The Stand as a human man of indeterminate age with no real background. In that novel, he plans to destroy the rival faction of survivors of the plague and take control of the land. He's also an evil wizard in King's one high fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon, and like the Crimson King, he makes appearances in Insomnia and Black House. Flagg is also thought to be the influence for other villains, or even a different version of himself, in several other books and stories, such as Richard Farris in Gwendy's Button Box.

Holly Gibney

Holly Gibney is a main character from the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of the Watch). She is a highly intelligent young woman who has obsessive compulsive disorder, synesthesia, sensory processing disorder, and is on the autism spectrum. She also helps out with unsolved murders in The Outsider and appears in the novella, If It Bleeds.

Dick Hallorann

In The Shining, Richard "Dick" Hallorann was the cook at the Overlook Hotel who helped the Torrance family get settled in. He had the gift of "the shining," the ability to communicate without talking out loud. When the young Torrance boy, Danny, discovers he has that gift as well, the two have an entire conversation without moving their mouths. Later in the novel, Danny reaches out to Dick when he and his mother are in trouble. Hallorann returns in the sequel, Doctor Sleep, to help Danny deal with the events of The Shining. He is also mentioned as a cook in IT and makes a brief appearance in the novel Pearl by Tabitha King, Stephen King's wife.

Mike Hanlon

Hanlon was the last member to join the Losers' Club in IT. After their frightening encounter with Pennywise the clown as children, Hanlon is the only one of his friends to remain in Derry, where he becomes the town librarian, and is the only member of the Losers' Club to remember the events of their childhood. He also appears as the Derry librarian in Insomnia, and is mentioned in 11/22/63 and Dreamcatcher.

Beverly Marsh

The only girl member of the Losers' Club in IT, Beverly murders her abusive father, Alvin Marsh. As an adult, she falls in love with Ben Hanscom, another member of the club. She and fellow club member Richie Tozier make a brief appearance in 11.22.63, where they are seen practicing dance moves for a talent show.

Ace Merrill

Ace Merrill is the main antagonist in "The Body," a story from the collection Different Seasons that was adapted into the film, Stand By Me. Merrill leads the gang of bullies that torments a group of young boys as both set out to find a missing dead body. He is also a villain in Needful Things, where he spends time in the famed Shawshank Prison and is ultimately shot and killed by the sheriff.

Alan Pangborn

Pangborn is the sheriff of Castle Rock, Maine, for a decade, after George Bannerman from The Dead Zone and Cujo. He first appears in The Dark Half, where he winds up explaining the demise of Thad Beaumont, the main character, to listeners. In Needful Things, he fights the antagonist Leland Gaunt. He is also mentioned in Bag of Bones and Gerald's Game, and has a big role in the first season of the show Castle Rock, where he is portrayed by Scott Glenn.

Pennywise

Perhaps the most unforgettable of all of Stephen King's characters, Pennywise is the titular "IT" in the horror classic, an ancient alien/eldritch monster who appears as a scary clown and murders a LOT of folks in the town of Derry, Maine. He is defeated by the Losers' Club, a group of young teens, in the first half of the book, but returns 30 years later. While an iconic literary villain, Pennywise is really a character only in IT, though he is also mentioned in Dreamcatcher, The Tommyknockers, 11/22/63, Insomnia, and Elevation. He was chillingly portrayed by Tim Curry in the 1990 ABC miniseries and by Bill Skarsgård in the 2017 and 2019 feature film adaptations.

Cynthia Smith

Smith has a supporting role in Rose Madder, about a woman who runs from her abusive husband and starts over in a new town, and also appears in the Stephen King/Richard Bachman crossover novels, Desperation and The Regulators.

Ralph Roberts

Roberts is the main character of the 1994 novel Insomnia, about a man who finds he can no longer sleep after the death of his wife. He also appears in a diner in a scene in Bag of Bones, where he has a conversation with the main character, novelist Mike Noonan, and gives him some advice.

Richie Tozier

Richie Tozier is the geekiest member of the Losers' Club in IT. He wears Buddy Holly glasses and talks a lot. (His friends say "beep beep" to him when they want him to stop talking.) As an adult, he became a famous radio DJ. He and fellow club member Beverly Marsh make a brief appearance in 11.22.63, where they are seen practicing dance moves for a talent show.

Stephen King's Best Heroes

While there are many memorable villains in Stephen King's stories, there are even more people performing amazing feats of heroics. Here are a few of the most famous and bravest.

Jessie Burlingame in Gerald's Game

Jesse Burlingame and her husband, Gerald, visit a secluded cabin in western Maine for a romantic getaway. But Gerald dies while the couple is having sex, leaving Jesse handcuffed to the bed all alone with no way to call for help. She fights her way to freedom while also fighting the demons of her past who come to visit, as well as some very real intruders in the cabin.

Chris Chambers in "The Body"

Chambers is one of the four young protagonists in "The Body," and is best friends with Gordie LaChance. Chambers has a rough upbringing with an abusive father, but is an upstanding young man with strong morals. He helps guide his friends through their trip to find a missing dead body and grows up to become a lawyer. He's portrayed by the late River Phoenix in Stand By Me, Rob Reiner's 1986 film adaptation of the story.

Roland Deschain in the Dark Tower series

The hero of the Dark Tower series, the "gunslinger" himself, Deschain is the last human of his line, and thought to be immortal. King based him on the "Man with No Name" from Sergio Leone's westerns. After many years and many battles, Deschain succeeds in imprisoning the Crimson King for eternity.

Andy Dufresne in "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption"

Wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, Dufresne is an accountant serving a life sentence in Shawshank Prison. Despite all the horrors and violence he is subjected to, on top of being an innocent man behind bars, he remains peaceful and mostly keeps to himself. He becomes best friends with fellow inmate Red, gets a job working in the warden's office, and takes up rock polishing—before finally escaping the prison through a tunnel he dug over many years, kept hidden by a poster on his cell wall. Dufresne was memorably portrayed by Tim Robbins in the 1994 film, The Shawshank Redemption.

Stuart Redman in The Stand

Stuart "Stu" Richard Redman is one of the central characters of The Stand. He is among a handful of survivors of the superflu known as "Captain Trips." He becomes one of the leaders of the Boulder Free Zone, which takes a stand against its evil counterpart, led by Randall Flagg. At one point, he is also rescued by two other great heroes from The Stand, Tom Cullen and the ghost of Nick Andros.

Jack Sawyer in The Talisman and its sequel, Black House

In The Talisman, Jack Sawyer is a brave 12-year-old boy on a quest to find the talisman, which he thinks will cure his mother of cancer. After the events of The Talisman. as later revealed in The Tommyknockers, his mother dies in a car accident. Sawyer performs heroics once again in Black House, where he is a retired Los Angeles Police detective in Wisconsin, hunting for a killer called "The Fisherman."

Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone

Johnny Smith suffers two accidents, one as a young boy and the other as an adult that leaves him in a coma. After five years, he awakens with the power to see into the future by touching people. Through a handshake, he clearly sees that a man with political aspirations is evil and knows he must be stopped. Physically draining, his power leaves him with limited time to live, which he uses unselfishly and ends up sacrificing his life to protect others. Johnny Smith was portrayed by Christopher Walken in the 1983 film adaptation and by Anthony Michael Hall in the TV series that ran from 2002 to 2007.

Stephen King's Best Monsters and Villains

Stephen King has a gift for villains—they're often the most fun, imaginative parts of his stories. Whether they're demons, aliens, or just really, really bad humans, these fearsome figures have cost fans millions of hours of sleep over the years, and have made many of them check under their beds and in their closets too. Here are some you won't forget.

Kurt Barlow in Salem's Lot

Barlow is a Dracula-like vampire figure who was shipped to Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, from overseas. He and his assistant, Richard Straker, begin transforming people into vampires and murdering their way through town. In the end, he is killed in the basement of a rooming house. The 1979 television miniseries Salem's Lot differed quite a bit from its source material. Most noticeably, Barlow appears like a normal human in the novel, while in the TV series, he looks like the offspring of Nosferatu and a Smurf: he's a blue vampire! (The '70s were a crazy time.)

Christine in Christine

A killer car with a mind of her own! That was something that hadn't been seen before the novel Christine came out in 1983. Christine was a 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury. Arnie Cunningham thinks he's getting a classic at a steal when he buys the car for $250, but she comes with a long, tragic past, and Christine isn't done claiming victims. First it's a gang of bullies who vandalize Christine. Then it's several more people who cross Arnie in any way. She may be a murderous vehicle, but she has her loyalties. In the end, Arnie is killed in a car accident with his mother, and Christine's time is up when she's destroyed by Arnie's friends using a septic truck and then fed into a metal crusher.

Gage Creed in Pet Sematary

Some people believe that children make the scariest villains, and this novel certainly proves this point. Admittedly, it is quite sad when Gage Creed is killed by a truck in front of his house. And it isn't his fault when his father decides to bury him in the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where children have buried their pets for centuries, all because he heard things might come back. But everything that happens after is 100% Gage rage. He's now hell on Big Wheels with a scalpel...and he wants somebody to play with. As Jud Crandall—the neighbor who was a late victim to Gage's blood lust—says, "Sometimes, dead is better." Gage Creed was played with vicious delight by Miko Hughes in the 1989 movie adaptation. In the 2019 remake, it’s Gage’s older sister, Ellie, who tragically dies and is reanimated.

Cujo in Cujo

Like Gage Creed, Cujo, the enormous St. Bernard owned by the Camber family, didn't start off bad. But sadly, he was bitten by a rabid bat. Even after that, the poor dog doesn't want to hurt anyone. But then, the rabies takes over his mind, and Cujo goes on to maul and murder several people, including Sheriff George Bannerman. Finally, he is put down by a mother protecting her son, after days of being trapped in a car together and terrorized by the mad canine. While Cujo is one of Stephen King's scariest characters, he's also one of his most tragic figures.

Randall Flagg in The Stand, The Eyes of The Dragon, The Dark Tower series, and more

Either Stephen King loves the character of Randall Flagg, or his fans' delight over the screechy, scary villain drove him to include him in more than nine books. Whether he's trying to best the Gunslinger at the behest of the Crimson King in the Dark Tower series, or coming for Peter in his tower prison in The Eyes of the Dragon, or perhaps working some evil under the guise of a different character, Randall Flagg is hands down the fan favorite villain of the Stephen King universe. He's like King's Moriarty. We probably haven't seen the last of him yet.

Leland Gaunt in Needful Things

Leland Gaunt is a seemingly normal middle-aged man, although his eyes change color depending on who he's talking to, and if you look closely, his hands have no lines. He arrives in the town of Castle Rock and opens a curiosity shop called Needful Things. At first, it's a place where people find exactly what they're looking for, the objects of their dreams. But soon, what people will do to get what they covet, and the actions these items provoke, turn Castle Rock into a placed marked by violence and murder. Leland is later revealed to be a demon and driven out of town. But don't worry about Leland: he just sets up shop again in a different town. Leland was brilliantly and gleefully portrayed by the amazing late Max von Sydow in the 1993 film adaptation.

Rose the Hat in Doctor Sleep

Rose the Hat, named so for the infamous top hat she always wears that seems to stay on her head as if by magic, is the big bad in the sequel to The Shining. She is the leader of The True Knot, a group of semi-immortal vampires who feed off the life force of people gifted with the shining, such as Danny Torrance. They live around the area of the Overlook Hotel and own several establishments in order to seem like a legitimate group. Rose the Hat is killed at the end of Doctor Sleep when she is pushed off an observation platform. Her body is burned to ashes, just to be sure.

Tak in Desperation and The Regulators

Even though Desperation and The Regulators are set in parallel worlds where very different things happen, they have something very bad in common: Tak. A multidimensional demon who loves chaos, Tak is the main antagonist of both books. This demon is hard to pin down. Unable to take a corporeal form, he possesses the bodies of humans to do his dirty work. Tak was released into the world through the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft in Nevada. His contempt for humans causes him to underestimate them, and that's what leads to his undoing. In The Regulators, Tak is outsmarted by the host body he inhabits through almost the whole book. In Desperation, he is bested by none other than God himself, who directs the people to capture and re-entomb Tak in his mineshaft prison.

Jack Torrance in The Shining

Like Gage Creed and Cujo, Jack Torrance is a victim of his environment. A writer who accepts a winter caretaker position at a hotel in Colorado during the off-season, he hopes this is just the peace and quiet he needs in order to write his next novel. But the hotel has other ideas. Jack is not the only Torrance family member to see the ghosts and creepy visions in the hotel, but he is the only one that they turn into a raving lunatic. At the end of The Shining, Jack attempts to murder his family with an axe, chasing them around the hotel. Torrance dies when the hotel explodes, just after Dick Hallorann helps Wendy and Danny escape. And that is the end of Jack Torrance. (But not his ghost, who helps out in the sequel, Doctor Sleep.) Though different from the source material in a number of ways, Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of The Shining is one of Jack Nicholson's most famous performances. In the movie, he meets his end by freezing to death in a snowstorm.

Percy Wetmore in The Green Mile

Percy Wetmore is a particular kind of villain: he's a coward and a sadist. He got his job working as a guard on death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary because he is the nephew of the governor's wife, and most likely because no one else would want to work with him. He enjoys abusing and tormenting the prisoners, breaking fingers and purposefully neglecting to wet the sponges when an inmate goes to the electric chair. Later, he gets his comeuppance. After John Coffey takes over his body to kill another inmate, Wetmore never recovers and spends the rest of his life locked up in an institution.

William “Wild Bill” Wharton in The Green Mile

While Percy Wetmore is a corrosive poison that eats away at the goings on at Cold Mountain Penitentiary, Wild Bill Wharton is the straight-up villain-villain of The Green Mile. Wharton is locked away, awaiting execution for a triple homicide. He spends his remaining days terrorizing his fellow inmates and the guards. Eventually, it is revealed that Wharton actually committed the crime that got fellow inmate John Coffey convicted: the murder of two young girls. Upon learning this horrible truth when Wharton grabs his arm and transfers his memories, Coffey takes over the body of terrible prison guard Wetmore and uses him as a proxy to shoot and kill Wharton.

Margaret White in Carrie

While Carrie White's high school classmates who bully and torment her are certainly villains in this story, it is Carrie's mother, Margaret, who is the scariest character in the book. It was most likely an untreated mental illness and trauma that led Margaret White to be emotionally and physically abusive to her only daughter. A zealot who thought everything was a sin, Margaret forced Carrie to pray with her and punished her for what she viewed to be the slightest transgressions. At the end of Carrie (SPOILER), Margaret meets her maker. When Margaret confronts her daughter in the middle of her homicidal after-prom rampage, Carrie telekinetically slows her mother's heart rate until her heart stops beating. But not before Margaret stabs her daughter with a butcher knife to try and stop her.

The Most Memorable Stephen King Characters of All Time

John Coffey in The Green Mile

John Coffey is one of the most tragic figures in Stephen King's universe. He's a large Black man, a gentle giant, who is wrongly imprisoned for the murder of two young girls. But he also has supernatural powers. Coffey has the ability to see the past when he touches someone, and he can also use that gift to absorb another person's pain or illness. It's heartbreaking that one of God's most amazing specimens is on death row, awaiting execution. Coffey seems resigned to his fate, and changes the lives of many people around him before he's executed.

Most memorable quote: "My name is John Coffey, like the drink, except not spelled the same."

Tom Cullen in The Stand

Tom Cullen is one of the gentle hearts of The Stand. He's an intellectually disabled man with a childlike personality who thinks everything is spelled "M-O-O-N." ("M-O-O-N spells Tom Cullen!") Cullen winds up being the only person to survive the plague in his hometown in Oklahoma. He meets another plague survivor in Arkansas, a Deaf man named Nick Andros, and the two become fast friends for the rest of the book, even after Nick dies saving everyone else around him from an explosive device. (Tom is also one of the only characters in this section to live to the end of the book; Danny Torrance is the other.)

Most memorable quote: "M-O-O-N."

Pennywise in IT

Pennywise the Dancing Clown is a murderous ancient alien/eldritch monster who is arguably Stephen King's most iconic character. He is most definitely the most famous of Stephen King's IT characters. Pennywise is evil through and through, and has lived for hundreds of years, murdering adults and children. He also has the ability to appear in other terrifying forms, including Bill Denbrough's dead little brother, Georgie (who gets pulled down into the drain and eaten by Pennywise at the beginning of the book); several famous movie monsters (Dracula and Frankenstein, for starters); a giant spider; and various other dead Derry townspeople. But the clown is his preferred default form: sometimes he looks like a happy clown, sometimes he looks like a monster clown. But Pennywise is always evil.

Most memorable quote: "BEEP BEEP, Richie! They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!"

Danny Torrance in The Shining

Shortly after arriving at the Overlook Hotel, the enormous establishment in Colorado that his father has agreed to watch over during the off-season, Danny learns from the hotel chef Dick Halloran that he has the gift of "the shining," the ability to communicate with other people like him using his mind. They have a conversation without moving their mouths. Danny is able to call for help this way later when his father goes around the bend and tries to murder him and his mother. Part of what makes Danny a memorable character comes from his famous scenes in the 1980 adaptation of The Shining, which included such lines as "REDRUM, REDRUM" and "Danny isn't here, Mrs. Torrance.”

Most memorable quote: "It wants me the most, but it will take all of us."

Carrie White in Carrie

Unfortunately for Carrie White, what makes her so memorable is not what she does in the novel, but what happens to her. When her classmates conspire to make her prom queen and then dump pig's blood on her while she's on stage, they ignite her telekinetic rage, which ends up leveling the whole town and killing a lot of people. That prom disaster is one of the most memorable scenes not just in literature but in cinematic history too. Carrie White is also memorable because she is the main character in Stephen King's first published novel, making her debut in 1975.

Most memorable quote: "“Please let it be a happy ending.”

Annie Wilkes in Misery

Poor Annie Wilkes. She just wants to live a quiet life as a nurse and read her favorite books, the Paul Sheldon novels featuring her favorite character, Misery Chastain. So what are the odds that Annie manages to find and rescue her favorite author in a snowstorm in Colorado after Paul's car goes off the road near her house? At first, she claims she is nursing the injured Paul back to health, but when she finds out that Paul is killing Misery off in his latest novel, she flips her lid and forces him to write a new ending. Annie is the epitome of the scary super-fan, and she introduced "I'm your number one fan" into our lexicon. She will forever be pictured in our minds as Kathy Bates, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes in the 1990 adaptation of Misery. More recently, Annie got a backstory in the second season of Hulu’s Castle Rock.

Most memorable quote: “I thought you were good, but you are not good. You are just a lying old dirty birdie.”

Stephen King's Favorite Characters

According to the author himself, revealed in an interview in 2014, his favorites among the characters in all of his works are the boys in "The Body" from Different Seasons, Lisey Landon from Lisey's Story (who is based on his wife Tabitha), Richie Tozier in IT, and Annie Wilkes in Misery.

A tale of two tales: Desperation and The Regulators

These two books have many of the same characters, not because they are a series, but because they are mirror novels—they take place in parallel universes! Desperation was published in 1996 at the same time as The Regulators, which was published under the pen name Richard Bachman, King's most famous pseudonym. Desperation is set in Nevada and The Regulators is set in Ohio, but the main antagonist of both novels is Tak, a non-corporeal multidimensional demon who achieves his evil by inhabiting the bodies of humans.