10 Best Stephen King Books That Aren't Supernatural

Image via Charles Scribner's Sons Published Aug 3, 2026, 3:41 PM EDT Jeremy has more than 2700 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows. His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings). When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account. He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas. Sign in to your Collider account It’s easy to summarize Stephen King’s body of work as being one very much tied to the horror genre, but that’s also not unreasonable, considering he’s been behind the likes of IT, Carrie, The Shining, and The Stand, among many, many others. Further, he’s particularly fond of supernatural horror, with some kind of otherworldly phenomenon often being a factor in the plot, but not always the main thing, or not necessarily the driver of all the conflict. There are some non-horror books Stephen King’s written that contain references to the supernatural, too, and so you're not going to find them below. Like, for example, The Eyes of the Dragon has magic used for evil, but it’s not too scary, while 11/22/63 is mostly sci-fi, but there are references to the supernatural horror of IT and some hard-to-explain forces out there that fight back against the future being changed. What follows are the best books Stephen King’s written that lack supernatural elements, with some of them being more thriller or sci-fi heavy than horror, and others belonging to the horror genre, but not being supernatural horror books specifically. 10 'Billy Summers' (2021) Image via Charles Scribner's Sons The titular character of Billy Summers is an aspiring writer, the same way plenty of Stephen King’s protagonists are, but he differs from them because he’s also an assassin, rather than someone who finds themselves having to battle some kind of demon, monster, or ghost. He takes on a job and then starts to feel worried about his safety, which prompts him to go on the run after pulling off the job in question. That might sound a little familiar, as far as stories about hitmen go, but it’s Stephen King doing that kind of story, and also making it a book about writing, so it’s got quite a bit to offer that feels exciting and unexpected. It’s a crime/thriller book through and through, with the closest it gets to horror being a point in the story when the Overlook Hotel from The Shining is mentioned… so, if a location with ghosts in it makes Billy Summers have some ties to the supernatural, uh, then ignore the fact it’s been mentioned here. Treat this ranking like a top 9 instead of a top 10 or something. 9 'Danse Macabre' (1981) Image via Hodder & Stoughton Danse Macabre has Stephen King commenting on the horror genre, with different parts of the book looking at the different sorts of horror (movies, books, television, etc.), but there’s no horror to speak of within the writing here. If anything, Danse Macabre might make some of the stories King talks about less scary, since he doesn’t seem to mind the idea of exploring how so many of the relevant books, movies, and TV shows end. If you're well-versed in horror, though, there probably won’t be too many spoilers, or you might just be so in sync with the horror genre that you'll be like, “Yeah, okay, I never watched/read that one, but I kind of figured it’d end that way.” It’s not King’s best non-fiction book, but it is an engaging read if you like his style, and also if you're generally fond of the horror genre (and people talking about the horror genre and its appeal/strengths). 8 'Under the Dome' (2009) Image via Charles Scribner's Sons The titular dome in Under the Dome is clearly something out of the ordinary, but without giving too much away, it’s not really a supernatural phenomenon. It’s something else, and that something else is a bit controversial, once it is revealed, but it’s also not really the focus of the story. Under the Dome is most concerned with what the people underneath said dome do while they're indeed under it. It’s like a post-apocalyptic story on a small scale, with the town of Chester's Mill having very few people in it, but there’s so much conflict between those people that things get very bad very fast (truth be told, there was already misery and violence in the town before the dome came down). Beyond the inciting incident, the terror here is fairly grounded, with the characters who are the deadliest and most villainous ultimately being deadly and villainous in fairly mundane/realistic ways. 7 'Mr. Mercedes' (2014) Image via Hodder & Stoughton This is a bit of an interesting example, since Mr. Mercedes kicks off a trilogy that does eventually get supernatural. It feels a bit like Stephen King falling back on reliable elements as he nears the end of the Bill Hodges saga, but at least it stays readable. And then the subsequent books that continue to follow Holly Gibney get supernatural at some points (see The Outsider) while feeling a bit more grounded at other points (like in Never Flinch). With Mr. Mercedes, though, it’s about a retired detective being haunted by one of his cases that he never solved while on the job, so he keeps pursuing it post-retirement, being further motivated to do so because the killer has contacted – and taunted – him. It’s a very compelling thriller, and one of the best-paced books Stephen King has ever written. 6 'The Body' (1982) Image via Simon & Schuster While Stand by Me was the better title for the kind of adaptation it was, The Body (as in the original novella) had an appropriate title for the kind of read it was. It’s a bit heavier than the movie, which is saying a lot, considering the movie’s also quite devastating, with one element of The Body being almost supernatural, in that there is a greater sense of the characters being cursed. Or, there’s just bad luck. It could be mundane, the sorts of tragedies alluded to here, and nothing feels certain enough to say that some sort of supernatural entity affected the four boys at the center of the story because of their whole morbid quest to see a dead body. It’s a little unsettling, sure, but at its core, The Body is still a coming-of-age story and a character-focused drama, with any horror elements being subdued… and that’s something that can be said about another novella from Different Seasons, but more on that one in a bit. 5 'Cujo' (1981) Image via Viking Press Cujo has one of the most straightforward plots of any Stephen King novel, as it’s about a dog that gets infected with rabies and then rampages around the small town of Castle Rock (which is about as unlucky and cursed as Derry). There isn't any kind of ghost or demon possessing the dog, which makes things feel sadder and arguably more terrifying. At least it’s the latter if you're someone not particularly unsettled by supernatural horror. Of all the early Stephen King books, Cujo is probably the most grounded. The likes of Christine and Firestarter are also character-focused and quite emotional, but you’ve got a possessed car in the former and pyrokinetic powers in the latter, so there are some supernatural elements, at least. Cujo is comparatively realistic, and much of it does inevitably succeed in hitting quite hard and feeling very emotionally brutal. 4 'The Long Walk' (1979) Image via Signet Books Before Cujo and Different Seasons, you had to read Richard Bachman if you wanted to see Stephen King really tackling non-supernatural horror, and this was before it was officially known that King was Bachman. Some of the books written under the Bachman pseudonym were works of horror, though, just with more of an emphasis on realistic (and non-supernatural) horror. Enter The Long Walk, which is a dystopian horror novel that’s psychologically devastating, and also devoid of any extreme sci-fi elements (no extra-terrestrial stuff) and anything ghost-related. It’s about a competition that involves teenage boys walking continually until only one of them is left standing and walking. Rage, Roadwork, and (especially) The Running Man also have things to offer, as early Bachman books, but The Long Walk is the best of them, and also the most disturbing. 3 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' (1982) Image via Scribner Book Company There are references to Shawshank State Prison throughout various Stephen King stories, including some of his supernatural ones, but the novella that has that prison as its main setting, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, is free of supernatural horror. It’s another novella from Different Seasons that, like The Body, saw Stephen King stepping away from horror, even if the other two novellas in that collection, Apt Pupil and The Breathing Method, certainly have some tense/horrific elements. As for Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, it’s about two men getting by in the prison referred to in the title, with one resigned to his fate there, and the other determined to prove his innocence or, failing that, break out somehow. It’s a remarkably engaging and moving story, absolutely being one of King’s very best stories, and, yes, also being the basis for the excellent The Shawshank Redemption (1994), too. 2 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft' (2000) Image via Scribner Since Danse Macabre was cheekily included earlier, so too can On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. This one’s probably even less about horror and the supernatural, because King does cover some of his own horror books, sure, but it’s not as extensive an exploration of the entire genre in the same way that Danse Macabre was. On Writing works as something of a guide to writing, all the while being entertaining in its own right, and of interest for anyone who wants to learn more about Stephen King. It’s also a better book than Danse Macabre, or at least a more interesting one, with Stephen King going into his personal history and upbringing a little, outlining the difficulties with becoming a published author during his early years, and then also looking at the state of the reading world at the turn of the 21st century. On Writing works as something of a guide to writing, all the while being entertaining in its own right, and of interest for anyone who wants to learn more about Stephen King generally speaking. 1 'Misery' (1987) Image via Viking Press The sort of realistic terror found in Cujo was made arguably more unbearable (and potent) in Misery, which is the ultimate horror novel by King that doesn’t have horror of a supernatural kind. It’s not the only horror novel of King’s that has a confined setting and a limited premise, since Gerald’s Game is arguably even more minimalist, but some of the horror there toes the line between psychological and supernatural. With Misery, though, it’s about an author who gets kidnapped by an obsessed fan, and he’s held captive and kept alive – and then, eventually, tormented – in ways that are surprisingly grounded. Annie Wilkes is a monstrous villain, but not actually/literally a monster, and that’s a big reason why she’s so memorable an antagonist, all the while driving so much tension and outright terror throughout the entirety of Misery. Misery Release Date November 30, 1990 Runtime 107 minutes