George Beahm

This is a great book for anyone with the slightest interest in Stephen King. Of course, you will find writeups of all of his works, up to that point, which include synopses, commentary, and back stories. But, that takes up only 150 or so pages of the 365. The rest of the book is filled with what you might expect, or hope to find, in a book of this sort: a brief history of his road to success; articles by others about him, including one by Clive Barker; a tour of the Victorian mansion that is his winter home; writeups about the conventions and newsletters dedicated to King; and much more.

Included is the transcript of the talk he gave for the benefit of the Virginia Beach Friends of the Library, in which he spoke about banned books and censorship, to which several of his own fell victim. My favorite parts are the interviews reprinted here, including the full Playboy Magazine interview from 1983, where the interviewer, Eric Norden, spent 2 weeks with King. Taking up 27 pages, this interview delves deep into Stephen King the man, and Stephen King the writer.

Another excellent interview included here is one with writer Harlan Ellison, conducted in 1989, by George Beahm and Howard Wornom (specifically for inclusion in this book, I’m guessing). Anyone familiar with Ellison knows he is one tough critic. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, and though he praises King heavily, he readily identifies what he feels are King’s weak points, including the one complaint I hear most, from other readers, that he pads his books with a lot of unnecessary verbiage. Ellison says, “. . . I can’t think of any King novels, with the possible exception of “It,” or the two “Dark Tower” books, that could not have been told just as well as a novella.”

I am in no manner a Stephen King fanatic. While I eagerly devoured every new release up until “The Tommyknockers,” after that klunker, I picked up his books only sporadically. Still, even if I find some of his books a chore to complete, I continue to appreciate his talent and what he has accomplished over the past 40-odd years.

This edition the first one from 1989. I would like to get a current edition, and read all the later material that has been added.… (more)

Nowhere near as good as I'd hoped it would be. You get an overview of King the man and author in very broad strokes, and a cursory mention of every book he's written up to 2015, but some do little more than give you the title and publication date, so, really who cares?

The book is also in serious need of editing, because on multiple occasions, the same information is delivered multiple times. Sometimes within a few pages of each other. There's absolutely no need for that, and it becomes quite irritating to read after a while.

Finally, there's very little critical review of King's work. Even stuff that King admittedly doesn't like himself, the author seems to fawn over and make excuses for.

I love Stephen King. I love his writing. But I don't like every single thing he's put out. Every once in a while, it'd be nice to see someone be a little more critical of his failures, instead of slavish devotion to the so-called King of Horror. It got a little too sweet for me, and by the end, I pretty much had a toothache and diabetes.

An okay overview, but overlong.… (more)

3.5 stars

This book is part-biography of Stephen King and partly looks at the places where King grew up, lived, spent time... and where he modelled some of the settings for his books. It includes photos of many of the places.

I liked it. It was published in 1999, so there is probably a lot more current stuff that could be added if it was updated. The book also looked at some of the movies that were made from King’s books. I particularly enjoyed the section on “The Shining” (Stephen and Tabitha lived in Colorado for a short time). I also love that they are both so supportive of libraries, to the tune of gifting a couple of local libraries a lot of money to help them out.… (more)