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Stephen King (1947)

MASTER OF HORROR & FANTASY

 

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of over 200 stories including over 50 bestselling horror and fantasy novels.

Carrie (1974) was Stephen King's first published novel. It's about a young girl with psychic powers. In the beginning, he grew discouraged and discarded it. His wife rescued it from the trash and encouraged him to finish it. After completing the novel, he sent it to Doubleday. He received a very small advance but the paperback rights eventually earned $400,000, with half going to the publisher. The novel was made into a movie two years later and is still a popular movie. Click Here

King's second published novel in 1975 was a vampire horror novel, Salem's Lot. The book was adapted into a 1979 TV mini-series by the same name. Click Here

The Shining (1977) was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller. It's a story about a man, a recovering alcoholic, his son and wife who become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where the son sees disturbing visions of the hotel's past using a telepathic gift known as "The Shining". The father is underway in a writing project when he starts drinking and slowly slips into insanity as a result of cabin fever and former ghostly guests of the hotel. After being convinced by a waiter's ghost to "correct" the family, the father goes completely insane. The only thing that can save the son and his mother is "The Shining". Click Here

During this time King was heavy into drugs and alcohol. After his family and friends confronted him about his addiction to drugs and alcohol, he sought help and quit all his addictions and has remained sober since.  He admitted later that he was the basis for The Shining's alcoholic father.

In 1980, a movie was made of this novel starring Jack Nickolson as the father.  Just when the audience was about the wet their pants if the father came around the corner again wheeling that bloody axe, Jack peers through an opening in a door that he had just made with the axe and sporting the famous Nickolson grin, says, "H-e-r-e's Johnny." The audience just cracked up with laughter.  For those of you who are too young to appreciate this remark, this is what Ed McMahon would say when he introduced the comedian, Johnny Carson who hosted "The Tonight Show" from 1962 to 1992.

Here are some of Stephen King's famous and horrifying novels:

• The Stand (1978)

• The Dead Zone (1979)

• Firestarter (1980)

• Cujo (1981)

• Pet Sematary (1983)

• Christine (1983)

• The Talisman (1984)

• It (1986)

• The Eyes of the Dragon (1987)

• The Tommyknockers (1987)

• Misery (1987)

• The Dark Half (1989)

• Needful Things (1991)

• Dolores Claiborne (1992)

  

• Gerald's Game (1992)

• Insomnia (1994)

• Rose Madder (1995)

• The Green Mile: Serial Novel - 6 Volumes (1996)

• Desperation (1996)

• Bag of Bones (1998)

• Black House (2001)

• Dreamcatcher (2001)

• From a Buick 8 (2002)

• The Colorado Kid (2005)

• Lisey's Story (2006)

• Cell (2006)

• The Mist (2007) Story about a group of ordinary townspeople trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious fogbank. Click Here

• Duma Key (2008) New novel about a character named Edgar Freemantle who loses an arm in an accident and has paranormal phantom limb sensations. Click Here

• Blaze (2008) A story about a mentally challenged behemoth who falls into a life of crime and kidnaps a baby as a path to easy money. He is guided by the ghost of his former sidekick, George, who was a social deviant with a knack for cons. Click Here

For more information on Stephen King, click on this link Stephen King

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