Now I know nobody reads my posts. He did write an exceptional piece of non-fiction besides "Danse Macabre", which was about the genre of horror. This book, one of my absolute favorite books, by the big K was a book on the craft of writing, aptly titled "On Writing". It is a great read, half biographical, half pure shop talk, which I appreciate greatly as a writer. So as soon as you finish not reading this post, you should drop everything and get a copy off amazon.com or go to the nearest bookstore to get a copy of it. If you teach writing, like I do, or want to improve your writing technique or skill, no matter what level writer you are, this book will help. K's my man no matter what!

Misery, Dolores Claiborne, The Regulators are only three. Stephen Kings' books are littered with characters, writers, artists, who hate what they do or regret that they can't do it well anymore. Which I find fascinating.

I thought I was all alone, but the instant she started grinning and winking on my TV screen, I thought to myself - all I can see ahead on her road is the Apocalypse. She has every character trait to bring it about. Religious nut. No compassion. Hates women. Denies global warming. Ignorant (though not stupid). Slack-jawed followers - mesmerized by the beehive? She could absolutely, postively bring on the destruction of the world, after McCain drops dead. Grinning and winking as she prepares to meet her good friend up in the sky.

"Dean Koontz writes an assload of stories too, but no one accuses him of having ghostwriters even though his first novels read like interchangeable boring nightmares."

I plead ignorance here--I think I've read two Koontz stories, and in my view they both pretty much sucked...but seriously, in reference to the ghostwriter accusation at King:

Does Koontz churn out 5000 pages a year?

There were times when the number of pages of books coming from King suggested that he was literally dashing off 20-30 pages a DAY, and that's...well, it borders on superhuman.

I'm sure it's been pointed out (I haven't had time to read the new posts) but I erroneously referred to Stephen King's recent movie, "The Mist" as "The Fog." Obviously, the fog was in my head and if it was a professional post, rather than a hastily dashed off bit of heartfelt praise, I would have checked my sources since I tend to interchange the two movie titles. "The Fog" is a tiresome bit of detritis not to be confused with "The Mist."

When I read the original The Stand in the mid-1980s, it was my first Stephen King book. I realized that - based on The Stand - King was the greatest narrative genius since Dickens. Many people knock King, but he astutely puts them in their place in It by showing his detractors as simply jealous and talentless snobs. There are very few books as enthralling and captivating as The Stand. Dracula is one, The Magus is another, and of course Great Expectations is another obvious nominee for greatest pure enjoyable reading experience. One of the many great things about King is that he is not hesitant to promote other writers. In Hearts in Atlantis, I got turned onto British sci-fi genius John Wyndham. And of course, King's praise of Richard Matheson is helping fuel a welcome revival for this 1950s writer who served as a major influence for King. Marks provides a valuable service in, hopefully, introducing new readers to King's masterpiece, The Stand.

My first book by Mr. King was Shining which was very scary when a teenager. The Stand did raise a lot of questions of morality, politics, good and evil. But the Dead Zone I like the most. Although W didn't start a nuclear war, to me he's Gregg Stillson. He still got 3 months in office, but he left a devastated world behind him, be it Iraq, Katrina, or now the Wall Street.

To mention King and Oates in the same sentence is heresy! I haven't enjoyed all of her work but she stands far and away a better novelist. "What I Live For", "Blonde" and "Niagara" are really fine reads... Compare these works to the tripe spilling forth from the great State of Maine for the last 20 years and I think you'll see my point.

Guess I'll have to be the Bad Guy...again.

I was a fan of King's in my early teenage years, but was lucky enough to have outstanding Eng. Lit. faculty at my high school. Through their good offices I was introduced to Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Steinbeck in a way that made me understand their value, that made them resonate. Great work resonates. With the possible exception of "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption", nothing that King has written resonates. "Insomnia" comes close, as do the first three "Dark Tower" novels. But you know that cliche about horseshoes and hand grenades.

I would agree that "The Shining" is his best book overall, and as a genre classic it deserves to last. So does "'Salems Lot", a truly creepy book, the kind that Lovecraft always tried and failed to write.

But that's it. Stephen King's success has been an example of America's cultural decline. That such a lousy writer - even of genre fiction - would one day be worth half a billion dollars says lots of sad things about our collective literacy. Which brings me back to high school.

When I was 16 I read "The Stand", and liked it. But something about the central metaphor of Book One struck me as facile, even as a teenager. The obviousness of Randall Flagg spreading "Captain Tripps" through the "bloodstream" of America's interstate highway system. This is undergrad stuff, folks. It's not a bad metaphor, just not a terribly good one. And yet it still hooks people almost thirty years later. Sad.

I got bored with King mid-way through college. As I was immersed in the literary canon his stuff just didn't hold up. How can "The Stand" hold a candle to "Moby Dick"? Or "The Sound and the Fury"? And as his later novels have become worse, as he has phoned it in again and again, it's become obvious that the only reason he keeps going is to provide product for Stephen King Incorporated. And of course such success has to indicate quality, does it not? Of course; so here come the critics, panting, to the party. Nothing more contemporarily American than that.