Episode 11 - Stephen King - Afterthoughts

Stephen King has fascinated and captured the imagination of millions of readers throughout five different decades. His macabre storytelling seldom duplicates subjects from any of his previous efforts and continues to fly off of the shelves. Even the cover artwork on his novels are engaging due to the wide range of themes.. I can remember as a child, so many hours spent marveling at the covers of his books before I was allowed to read them. The hand through the sewer grate, the metallic  lettering of Christine, the foaming mouth of Cujo, and many others. Those collected covers were like a picture book of ghost stories to me. Without even reading a page of one I could not wane the interest. Here's the best part, since then it has only gotten better. Once I began to see the film adaptations of so many of these, my interest soared. The previous imaginative wonder of seeing but not enjoying these books were brought to life on screen. Seeing Salem's Lot or The Shining for the first time was fantastic. Which only confirmed my certainty of these being great, and they sure were, weren't they?

Stephen King is creating a prolific legacy right in front of us. We spend copious amounts of time learning about Lovecraft or  Poe and their works and rightfully so. However, Poe was a man who was destitute, lonely, and not appreciated like he is today.  Quite the opposite though, we have King, another master of dark storytelling, doing it right in front of us while we celebrate him. He has remained a huge success for almost 40 years since Carrie hit the shelves in April of 1974. During that time, he has been immensely successful and adored by his fans; so it is easy to take his greatness for granted after so many years of sustained success.

King's writing itself has both a strongest and weakest point in my eyes. The weakness is that he does not always finish his books strong. So many books he has written are completely captivating for half the book or more, and then just nosedives into an over-the-top forced ending that does not even fit the mood of the book. The strongest point is that he makes his characters rich and relatable. Readers are invested in the stories because they develop care for the character, and relate to many of them. He spends time crafting these characters, and subsequently it makes the horror inflicted on them that much more effective. This to me, is what has made him what he is over the years. There have been plenty of exceptional genre authors during this time but they seldom make you invest like King will.

Excitingly these days, King seems to be hungry again. Recent works of 11/22/63, Under The Dome, Joyland, and the recently released followup to the beloved The Shining (Doctor Sleep) all demonstrate that Stephen King is far from exhausted, bored, or ready to walk away anytime soon. I know many of you agree when I say, I sure hope that's the case.

                                

Thanks again for listening and reading afterwards. The support in recent weeks has been humbling and exciting. We are having an absolute blast with you! Until next time..

Beware of the moon.....
The Professor