Stephen King/ Richard Bachman

[roll2tide]

The common thread in King's books is the Dark Tower series. It is an epic saga that does not fall under his normal 'horror' genre. It's a little horror, western, and sci-fi mixed into one. But, imo, here's the kicker:

His entire body of work revolves around it.

He wrote the first book in the series back before anyone knew who he was and right from the beginning he started using characters, words, ideologies, places, etc in other books. The common characters stand alone in their own books but also tie in to the DT series. If you look inside a DT book, you'll see a list of his other books and the ones in bold print have ties to the DT series. Its a pretty big % of them......maybe half or more. And it was these peripheral books that brought him fame and the freedom to eventually mass publish the 1st DT book. In other words, he tied his entire career into this series before anything from this series was ever really published. He also uses the DT series to reveal much about himself, his writing, his inspiration, etc--especially in the later books from the series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(series)#Connections_to_King.27s_other_works

Connections to King's other works
The series has become a linchpin that ties much of King's work together. The worlds of The Dark Tower are in part composed of locations, characters, events and other various elements from many of King's novels.

The following is a list of specific connections between books. Note that all Dark Tower books are connected to each other chronologically.[8]

The Gunslinger
Bag of Bones
The Stand
The Eyes of the Dragon
The Drawing of the Three
The Eyes of the Dragon
The Waste Lands
Rose Madder
The Stand (via Randall Flagg and superflu reference)'
Cell (via the mentioning of Charlie the Choo Choo)
It
Insomnia
Wizard and Glass
"The Mist" (from Skeleton Crew)
The Stand
The Eyes of the Dragon
Lisey's Story
Wolves of the Calla
Salem's Lot
Bag of Bones
Black House (via the term opopanax)
The Stand (via Randall Flagg)
Song of Susannah
The Eyes of the Dragon
Black House
The Talisman
The Little Sisters of Eluria
Desperation
The Regulators
Hearts in Atlantis
From a Buick 8 (via HiA; Officer Dieffenbacker)
Insomnia
It
The Shining
The Dark Tower
The Dead Zone
Everything's Eventual
Hearts in Atlantis
From a Buick 8 (via HiA; Officer Dieffenbacker)
Insomnia
It

 

[roll2tide]

I have read most of Stephen King's books, and my favorite was, and still remains, The Talisman. King colaborated with Peter Straub to write this book. Anyone else ever read it? I am about to begin reading The Black House, also written with Peter Straub. This is the sequel to The Talisman. I hope it will be just as good. Anyone read this one?

I just finished Black House and am now about 125 pages into The Talisman. I know I got the order backwards but I've also learned to read King in a different way since the DT series (above post). The crux of the idea being that all worlds (read, Kings novels) are always happening, at the same time, both independently and connected simultaneously.....anyways, point is that the order doesn't matter. Not really.

King has taken on the philosophy that it's not about the the destination, but instead it's more about the journey and that's the approach I take in reading him these days.

 

[edwd58]

I have been enjoying these old threads, lol. I too am a long time SK fan and have read almost everything (haven't gotten to Lisey's Story or Duma Key yet). I finished Just After Sunset a few days ago, a new collection of short stories.

My first SK book was Different Seasons and I got hooked on his writing style. It's like putting on your favorite pair of jeans, they fit just right even if you haven't worn them in a long while.

 

[mlh]

DMaguire--
I couldn't agree with you more about the workshopping issue--it can be very helpful or it can be nothing at all. I got tired of them after a while.
Well, I graduated from Bama in '80 with a Mass Comm. degree, then after I married (a boy who played for the Bear, no less), we moved to Richmond, VA.
But while at Bama I studied with Barry Hannah--he was there in the late 70's, and boy, was it wonderful! He inspired me so much.

HomesickforBama, I was there at the same time and also took a creative writing class taught by Barry Hannah. He was a hoot. I'm not sure if you can call what he did teaching... but I thoroughly enjoyed the class.

I've just recently discovered this forum and I'm enjoying going back and reading through some of the threads. I'll have more on King's novels later when I have more time.