Stephen's Lot

The end is the beginning

Hi. My name is Adam. I’m 32, and I’m a writer. I don’t write horror, specifically, but I do write “genre” - steampunk, superheroes, space opera, and so on. Some horror, but not a lot. You can find my regular blog, where I talk about writing and stuff, over at adamchristopher.co.uk.

For most of my life, I’ve been hard on Stephen King. I’ve always written, and have been a fan of science fiction forever. But I never really got along with the master of horror and, until recently, the world’s best-selling author. My dad used to buy his new releases, back in the eighties, and I can remember looking over the big bookshelf at home as a child, despairing of all the spines that said KING in those big, block capitals. Later, I dismissed King as a mainstream hack, assuming an inverse correlation between popularity and quality. But while this is often the truth, it isn’t always the truth. As I was to discover.

A few years ago I started taking writing seriously. Part of that was realising that while writing is an art, it’s also a business, and that to make a living out of writing, you have to sell books. If there is one thing that Stephen King has shown a particular knack for, it’s shifting units. It’s that old argument applied to anything you don’t like but which is successful or popular - whatever he’s doing, he’s doing something right. I also started getting in touch with and making friends with other writers, and to my surprise, most of them name-dropped King as an influence.

Something clicked. People like him. Writers like him. He sells a lot of books. Maybe he is doing something right.

Last year I grabbed the audiobook of King’s autobiographical advice book, On Writing. Eight hours of King himself reading to me finally convinced me. I’d been wrong. Very, very wrong. As wrong as I probably had ever been. King was a big seller and, importantly, a great writer. So I began counting the days until his latest novel, Under The Dome, was released in November 2009. Over in the US, the monster-sized novel got an amazing, amazing cover (sorry, UK fans - the British cover doesn’t cut it!), and with Amazon and Wall-Mart locked in a book price war, I snagged the US hardcover for practically nothing, including postage.

It arrived. I read all 1,100 pages in about two weeks (this is fast for me). I was hooked. In fact, it was a very peculiar experience - despite the vast size and the immense physical weight of the thing, I just had to keep turning the pages. It was compulsive, addictive. It was also beautifully written. There was something indefinable about the prose. I suddenly understood.

So having started at the end, I’ve decided to go back to the beginning and experience Stephen King’s books in the same order that someone wandering into a bookstore in 1974 might have. From Carrie to Under The Dome, King has written 56 books - 39 novels as himself, 7 as Richard Bachman, 7 short story collections, and 3 non-fiction titles. I’m going to read them all, in publication order. Along the way I’ll try and watch as many film or television adaptions as I can. I don’t really want to review everything, but I will post quotes, thoughts, and notes as I go. I am aware that his short stories appeared before Carrie, but to make it easier on myself I’m sticking with published book books (which collect the shorts anyway).

I should point out that charting my progress via this blog is something of an afterthought. I’ve actually already read Carrie and Salem’s Lot, and am currently working through Rage. To keep it in the right order, I’ll be going back to those first two books initially, then picking up where I currently am.

This may be quite a ride. I hope you enjoy the journey with me!