I’ve liked some of the King novels that I’ve read but have generally preferred his short stories. I do think that horror is better suited to the short story format, and as much as I enjoy the genre, horror novels are almost always a disappointment.

The Ciardi translation is still my favorite, but the one by Robert and Jean Hollander is also quite good, and it has the best critical apparatus of any English edition that I’ve come across. It’s worth it for the annotations alone.