-Stephen King
I’m a Stephen King fan. I’ve read most or all of the books at this point. I read the new ones as soon as they come out. I’ve read the novellas, too. And the short stories. And the stuff written under pseudonyms. And the collaborations. I am not the biggest fan of many of the screen adaptations, but I’m pretty sure I’ve watched most of them anyway. I haven’t listened to The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, but I own it and it’s waiting for me to have some free time to tackle it. I even watch or read most of the interviews with the man.
And recently, I decided that I was going to read all of the Stephen King books/novellas/stories in order. Why? Well, because. Because I like most of them. Because I can. Because I’ve never read them in exactly that way. Maybe because, in an extended global pandemic where nothing is normal and nothing has been normal for a year and a half and I have no idea when things will be normal again, I find Stephen King’s writing style – which has been a friend to me for decades now – comforting, even when the material is about monsters or killers.
What order, you might ask? Roughly in the order of publication. I think. It can be a little hard to tell, especially with earlier work that wasn’t necessarily published – or not mass published/published in a collected work – in the order in which it was written. I found a list on the internet. You could probably find one that gave a different order. It’s enough for me that I’m going in an order.
I’ve been doing this for a little while now… I started at Carrie and as I write this, I’m up to Roadwork. And it just occurred to me that while I’m reading, I should write about it too. Of course, that means I’m going to have to play catch up, writing posts on the books that I’ve already written. Or plan on going back to them at the end. Why? Well, again, because I can. Because writing is what I do. Certainly not because the world needs a Stephen King recap blog (I haven’t looked, but there are probably plenty already, and I currently listen to at least two or three podcasts on the subject.) I don’t even know for sure if I’ll make this public. I’m typing on a Word document, and if I decided to make a blog or website, I doubt I’d do it until I’d caught up to where I was writing about what I was currently reading. Which could take a while. I also don’t know if I have anything interesting to say about Stephen King works. I’m not the most critical Constant Reader out there, that’s for sure. Mostly, I want to do it for me. I think about these stories a lot. I re-read them a lot. Maybe if I write about them, it will be a good jumping off point for writing something else. Something that I have a more unique voice on? Right now, all I write is work-related stuff, but I’d like that to change. This may be a start to that.
I certainly don’t expect to be considered an authority on King’s works, or anything else. And if I do decide to make any of this public, I don’t even really expect readers. But reading the work means something to me, and I think writing about it might too. At least, it feels right. It feels like something I ought to try. So I’m going to – just don’t expect anything much beyond the observations of a lifelong fan.
Also, there are spoilers here. I have already read all of this, and one of the things I find most interesting and compelling about King’s works is how they tie together. I’m going to reference that from the start. Be warned now, because I’m just not going to remember to put up a new spoiler warning every time one comes up. If you hate spoilers, you probably don’t want to read this.
Uniquely Portable Magic 