Matthew:
I can't really blame you for thinking you wouldn't enjoy King based on the MANY bad TV shows and films of his work. I believe his dislike for the film of The Shining was not so much because he judged it a poor film, but because it changed several central aspects of the story and especially the main character, whom King has since admitted includes many aspects or elements of himself.
The Stand is a great read, and if you want to pursue more of King's work after that, you'll find no shortage of great books. Some of the mid-period work is of mixed quality, like The Tommyknockers and that kind of thing, but his early work is all great up through Christine or Cujo, and his later work improved a lot after he cleaned up his substance abuse problems. Later books like Bag of Bones and Lisey's Story and 11/22/63 are very worthwhile. Also, there's the massive Dark Tower series!
Dave:
Hope you'll enjoy Annihilation.. let me know what you think. I'm curious about Ancillary Justice, too. It just won the Nebula award for "best novel" yesterday. I've heard very good things about it and I love the idea of a writer tackling a big, traditional space opera with their first novel.