SF Luminaries: Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

As various fans have already pointed out, Stephen King's latest novel Fairy Tale (2022) - despite being overtly dedicated to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft, also contains a number of covert references to another distinguished predecessor in the horror/fantasy genre: Ray Bradbury.

For one thing, it takes place in a small town called Sentry's Rest, Illinois - which seems like a nod to the mythical Green Town, Illinois, setting for Bradbury's classic novel Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962). The alternate universe of Empis which King's protagonist, Charlie Reade [get it? "Read"] explores also contains a magic carousel, one of the central features of the travelling carnival in Bradbury's own book.

Ray Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)

Mind you, once you start looking for parallels with other fantasy writers, King's story threatens to fall apart under the sheer weight of allusion. Readers have postulated links with William Goldman's The Princess Bride; Lord Dunsany's realm of Elfland, "beyond the fields we know"; not to mention numerous echoes of King's own Dark Tower saga.

Bradbury is special for him, though. As he himself once put it: "without Ray Bradbury, there is no Stephen King." Or, as he wrote on hearing the news of Bradbury's death in 2012, at the age of 91:

Ray Bradbury wrote three great novels and three hundred great stories. One of the latter was called 'A Sound of Thunder.' The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty.

So who exactly was this starry-eyed visonary - this laureate of space and small-town life - and why has he left such a strangely equivocal and contradictory reputation behind him?

Library of America: The Ray Bradbury Collection (2022)

Novels & Story Cycles. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller. The Library of America, 347. [‘The Martian Chronicles’, 1950; ‘Fahrenheit 451’, 1953; ‘Dandelion Wine’, 1957; ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’, 1962]. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2021.

The Illustrated Man, The October Country & Other Stories. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller. The Library of America, 360. 1951, 1955. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2022.

You know that you've really arrived when they not only reprint your collected works in the canonical Library of America series, but even provide a specially designed slipcase to put them in!

Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles (1950)

You'll notice, though, that most of the work included in this set is comparatively early - dating roughly from the 1940s to the early 1960s. And even Stephen King claims only three great Bradbury novels among the dozen or so he actually published.

Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

There's little doubt that two of the three must be Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962). The third is more debatable: The Martian Chronicles (1950) would be most people's first choice for the honour, but it is technically a 'story-cycle' rather than a novel. That would leave us with Dandelion Wine (1957) - to me almost unbearably saccharine in its evocation of untroubled boyhood, but certainly a book which has its admirers.

Ray Bradbury: Dandelion Wine (1957)

Are there any other serious candidates? Not really. Ray Bradbury was a writer who peaked comparatively early, with a dazzling series of science fiction and horror short stories published throughout the 1940s and 50s, some of the strongest of which were reprinted in the early collection Dark Carnival, by H. P. Lovecraft's disciple and friend, August Derleth, at his legendary imprint Arkham House.

Ray Bradbury: Dark Carnival (1947)

Only 15 of the 27 stories in this unrelentingly dark and pitiless collection were reprinted, several in revised versions, in The October Country (1955). As Wikipedia tells it:

For many years, Bradbury did not permit Dark Carnival to be reprinted ... However, a limited edition ... with five extra stories and a new introduction by Bradbury, was printed by Gauntlet Press in 2001.

A new paperback edition of this seminal collection is promised for early 2024.

The fact is that it was horror stories such as "The Veldt" (in The Illustrated Man), "The Next in Line" (in Dark Carnival & The October Country), and "Mars is Heaven!" (in The Martian Chronicles) which were responsible for much of Bradbury's early vogue. Cannibalism, live burial, and homicidal children are just a few of his early themes.

So before you go writing him off as an old sentimentalist dreaming of some kind of Tom Sawyer-like childhood paradise in rural Illinois, never forget the dark, Lovecraftian roots behind much of his best work.

The Illustrated Man (2012)

A couple of his early Martian stories interested me particularly as I reread all the early collections reprinted in the Library of America boxset.

They're entitled (respectively) "Way in the Middle of the Air" [included in early editons of The Martian Chronicles, 1950] - which concerns a mass exodus of African American people to Mars; and "The Other Foot" [included in The Illustrated Man, 1951] - which tells us what happens when the news of the return to Mars of the last few white people left after their latest suicidal war reaches the now exclusively black population of the red planet.

By today's standards both stories sound rather naive and patronising. There's a lot of Huck Finn-style dialect, use of the "n"-word, and other now unacceptable linguistic usages. Both stories are also intensely well-meaning - it's worth noticing that they long predate such civil rights landmarks as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, let alone the compulsory integration of US schools.

And yet, both now read like museum exhibits: Liberal Northern White Attitudes (c.1950). By contrast, his more complex and haunting stories of the time: "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" (1949), for instance - about the gradual possession of an all-American family by the haunting (and haunted?) landscapes and mores of Mars - have a mysterious resonance as powerful now as it was then.

John Huston, dir. Moby Dick (1956)

Perhaps the true turning point for Bradbury was the year he spent working on John Huston's adaptation of Moby Dick. It's not a terrible screenplay - there's a bit too much poetic language in the voice-overs, maybe, but the two of them did a competent enough job at transferring an almost unfilmable novel to the screen.

But Huston's habit of belitting and insulting his collaborators - allegedly (he claimed) to get the best out of them, but actually (it would appear) to indulge his own petty sadism - had a particularly bad effect on the ebullient Bradbury. He wrote a fictionalised version of their encounter in the novel Green Shadows, White Whale, which made it clear that he'd been brooding on the matter for quite some time.

John Huston, dir. Green Shadows, White Whale (1992)

It's not that there aren't gems among the later stories - "The Parrot Who Met Papa" (1972), about the search for a legendary parrot alleged to have memorised Hemingway's last novel as a result of his endless rambling monologues in its presence, for instance - but they're pretty few and far between.

Some terrible lapse in self-confidence - or, perhaps, reluctance to indulge the dark side of his nature any further than he'd already done (one of the most prominent themes in Something Wicked This Way Comes) - seems to have kept him largely on the sunny side of the street thereafter. There's a relentless verbosity in his work from the 1970s onwards - occasionally, mercifully, spiked by humour, but mostly a turbid stream of two-bit words and phrases.

He leaves behind, then, a divided legacy: the dark mysteries of his early stories and novels, and the wordy bathos of his later work. As the Library of America has already signalled, there's little doubt which will prevail in the eyes of posterity.

It does leave you wondering, though, just what did Huston (and, for that matter, Herman Melville) do to him in that windy old castle in Ireland? The novel he wrote about it - after, he claimed, having read Katharine Hepburn's account of her own mistreatment at Huston's hands during the making of "The African Queen" (1951): How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind (1987) - is just that: a novel. What really happened to him there we'll never know.

Ray Bradbury Postage Stamp (2012)

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Charley Gallay: Ray Bradbury (2007)

Ray Douglas Bradbury
(1920-2012)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Novels:


1. The Martian Chronicles [aka The Silver Locusts] (1950)
   • The Silver Locusts. 1950. London: Corgi Books, 1969.
2. Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
   • Fahrenheit 451. 1953. London: Corgi Books, 1963.
3. Dandelion Wine (1957)
   • Dandelion Wine. 1957. London: Corgi Books, 1972.
4. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
   • Something Wicked This Way Comes. 1962. London: Corgi Books, 1969.
5. The Halloween Tree (1972)
   • The Halloween Tree. 1972. Illustrated by Joseph Mugnaini. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973.
6. The Novels of Ray Bradbury (1984)
   • The Novels of Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes. 1953, 1957, 1962. London: Book Club Associates, by arrangement with Granada Publishing Limited, 1984.
7. Death is a Lonely Business (1985)
8. A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990)
   • A Graveyard for Lunatics: Another Tale of Two Cities. Grafton Books. London: Collins Publishing Group, 1990.
9. Green Shadows, White Whale (1992)
10. From the Dust Returned (2001)
11. Let's All Kill Constance (2002)
12. Farewell Summer (2006)
13. Novels & Story Cycles. Library of America (2021)
    • Novels & Story Cycles. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller. The Library of America, 347. [‘The Martian Chronicles’, 1950; ‘Fahrenheit 451’, 1953; ‘Dandelion Wine’, 1957; ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’, 1962]. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2021.

Collections:


14. Dark Carnival (1947)
    1. The Homecoming
    2. Skeleton
    3. The Jar
    4. The Lake
    5. The Maiden
    6. The Tombstone
    7. The Smiling People
    8. The Emissary
    9. The Traveler
    10. The Small Assassin
    11. The Crowd
    12. Reunion
    13. The Handler
    14. The Coffin
    15. Interim
    16. Jack-in-the-Box
    17. The Scythe
    18. Let's Play 'Poison'
    19. Uncle Einar
    20. The Wind
    21. The Night
    22. There Was An Old Woman
    23. The Dead Man
    24. The Man Upstairs
    25. The Night Sets
    26. Cistern
    27. The Next In Line
15. The Illustrated Man (1951)
    1. The Veldt
    2. Kaleidoscope
    3. The Other Foot
    4. The Highway
    5. The Man
    6. The Long Rain
    7. The Rocket Man
    8. The Fire Balloons
    9. The Last Night of the World
    10. The Exiles
    11. No Particular Night or Morning
    12. The Fox and the Forest
    13. The Visitor
    14. The Concrete Mixer
    15. Marionettes, Inc.
    16. The City
    17. Zero Hour
    18. The Rocket
    • The Illustrated Man. 1951. Corgi SF Collector’s Library. London: Corgi Books, 1972.
16. The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)
    • The Golden Apples of the Sun. 1953. Corgi SF Collector’s Library. London: Corgi Books, 1973.
17. The October Country (1955)
    1. The Dwarf
    2. The Next in Line
    3. The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse
    4. Skeleton
    5. The Jar
    6. The Lake
    7. The Emissary
    8. Touched With Fire
    9. The Small Assassin
    10. The Crowd
    11. Jack-in-the-Box
    12. The Scythe
    13. Uncle Einar
    14. The Wind
    15. The Man Upstairs
    16. There Was an Old Woman
    17. The Cistern
    18. Homecoming
    19. The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone
    • The October Country. 1955. London: New English Library, 1973.
18. A Medicine for Melancholy (1959)
19. The Day It Rained Forever (1959)
    • The Day It Rained Forever. 1959. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
20. The Small Assassin (1962)
    • The Small Assassin. 1962. London: New English Library, 1970.
21. R is for Rocket (1962)
    • R is for Rocket. 1962. London: Pan Books, 1972.
22. The Machineries of Joy (1964)
    • The Machineries of Joy. 1964. London: Panther Books, 1977.
23. The Autumn People (1965)
24. The Vintage Bradbury (1965)
25. Tomorrow Midnight (1966)
26. S is for Space (1966)
    • S is for Space. 1966. New York: Bantam Books, 1978.
27. Twice 22 (1966)
28. I Sing The Body Electric (1969)
    • I Sing The Body Electric! 1969. London: Corgi Books, 1972.
29. Ray Bradbury (1975)
30. Long After Midnight (1976)
    • Long After Midnight. 1976. London: Panther Books, 1978.
31. The Mummies of Guanajuato (1978)
32. The Fog Horn & Other Stories (1979)
33. One Timeless Spring (1980)
34. The Last Circus and the Electrocution (1980)
35. The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980)
    1. The Night (1946)
    2. Homecoming (1946)
    3. Uncle Einar (1947)
    4. The Traveler (1946)
    5. The Lake (1944)
    6. The Coffin (1947)
    7. The Crowd (1943)
    8. The Scythe (1943)
    9. There Was an Old Woman (1944)
    10. There Will Come Soft Rains (1950)
    11. Mars Is Heaven! (1948)
    12. The Silent Towns (1949)
    13. The Earth Men (1948)
    14. The Off Season (1948)
    15. The Million-Year Picnic (1946)
    16. The Fox and the Forest (1950)
    17. Kaleidoscope (1949)
    18. The Rocket Man (1951)
    19. Marionettes, Inc. (1949)
    20. No Particular Night or Morning (1951)
    21. The City (1950)
    22. The Fire Balloons (1951)
    23. The Last Night of the World (1951)
    24. The Veldt (1950)
    25. The Long Rain (1950)
    26. The Great Fire (1949)
    27. The Wilderness (1952)
    28. A Sound of Thunder (1952)
    29. The Murderer (1953)
    30. The April Witch (1952)
    31. Invisible Boy (1945)
    32. The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind (1953)
    33. The Fog Horn (1951)
    34. The Big Black and White Game (1945)
    35. Embroidery (1951)
    36. The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)
    37. Powerhouse (1948)
    38. Hail and Farewell (1948)
    39. The Great Wide World over There (1952)
    40. The Playground (1953)
    41. Skeleton (1943)
    42. The Man Upstairs (1947)
    43. Touched by Fire (1954)
    44. The Emissary (1947)
    45. The Jar (1944)
    46. The Small Assassin (1946)
    47. The Next in Line (1947)
    48. Jack-in-the-Box (1947)
    49. The Leave-Taking (1957)
    50. Exorcism (1957)
    51. The Happiness Machine (1957)
    52. Calling Mexico (1950)
    53. The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1958)
    54. Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (1949)
    55. The Strawberry Window (1954)
    56. A Scent of Sarsaparilla (1953)
    57. The Picasso Summer (1957)
    58. The Day It Rained Forever (1957)
    59. A Medicine for Melancholy (1959)
    60. The Shoreline at Sunset (1959)
    61. Fever Dream (1959)
    62. The Town Where No One Got Off (1958)
    63. All Summer in a Day (1954)
    64. Frost and Fire (1946)
    65. The Anthem Sprinters (1963)
    66. And So Died Riabouchinska (1953)
    67. Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar! (1962)
    68. The Vacation (1963)
    69. The Illustrated Woman (1961)
    70. Some Live Like Lazarus (1960)
    71. The Best of All Possible Worlds (1960)
    72. The One Who Waits (1949)
    73. Tyrannosaurus Rex (1962)
    74. The Screaming Woman (1951)
    75. The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place (1969)
    76. Night Call, Collect (1949)
    77. The Tombling Day (1952)
    78. The Haunting of the New (1969)
    79. Tomorrow's Child (1948)
    80. I Sing the Body Electric! (1969)
    81. The Women (1948)
    82. The Inspired Chicken Motel (1969)
    83. Yes, We'll Gather at the River (1969)
    84. Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You! (1976)
    85. A Story of Love (1951)
    86. The Parrot Who Met Papa (1972)
    87. The October Game (1948)
    88. Punishment Without Crime (1950)
    89. A Piece of Wood (1952)
    90. The Blue Bottle (1950)
    91. Long After Midnight (1962)
    92. The Utterly Perfect Murder (1971)
    93. The Better Part of Wisdom (1976)
    94. Interval in Sunlight (1954)
    95. The Black Ferris (1948)
    96. Farewell Summer (1980)
    97. McGillahee's Brat (1970)
    98. The Aqueduct (1979)
    99. Gotcha! (1978)
    100. The End of the Beginning (1956)
    • The Stories of Ray Bradbury. London: Granada, 1981.
36. The Fog Horn and Other Stories (1981)
37. Dinosaur Tales (1983)
38. A Memory of Murder (1984)
39. The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone (1985)
40. The Toynbee Convector (1988)
41. Classic Stories 1 (1990)
42. Classic Stories 2 (1990)
43. The Parrot Who Met Papa (1991)
44. Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (1991)
45. Quicker Than The Eye (1996)
46. Driving Blind (1997)
47. Ray Bradbury Collected Short Stories (2001)
48. The Playground (2001)
49. Dark Carnival: Limited Edition with Supplemental Materials (2001)
50. One More for the Road (2002)
51. Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (2003)
    1. The Whole Town's Sleeping
    2. The Rocket
    3. Season of Disbelief
    4. And the Rock Cried Out
    5. The Drummer Boy of Shiloh
    6. The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge
    7. The Flying Machine
    8. Heavy-Set
    9. The First Night of Lent
    10. Lafayette, Farewell
    11. Remember Sascha?
    12. Junior
    13. That Woman on the Lawn
    14. February 1999: Ylla
    15. Banshee
    16. One for His Lordship, and One for the Road!
    17. The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair
    18. Unterderseaboat Doktor
    19. Another Fine Mess
    20. The Dwarf
    21. A Wild Night in Galway
    22. The Wind
    23. No News, or What Killed the Dog?
    24. A Little Journey
    25. Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's Is a Friend of Mine
    26. The Garbage Collector
    27. The Visitor
    28. The Man
    29. Henry the Ninth
    30. The Messiah
    31. Bang! You're Dead!
    32. Darling Adolf
    33. The Beautiful Shave
    34. Colonel Stonesteel's Genuine Home-made Truly Egyptian Mummy
    35. I See You Never
    36. The Exiles
    37. At Midnight, in the Month of June
    38. The Witch Door
    39. The Watchers
    40. 2004-05: The Naming of Names
    41. Hopscotch
    42. The Illustrated Man
    43. The Dead Man
    44. June 2001: And the Moon Be Still as Bright
    45. The Burning Man
    46. G.B.S.-Mark V
    47. A Blade of Grass
    48. The Sound of Summer Running
    49. And the Sailor, Home from the Sea
    50. The Lonely Ones
    51. The Finnegan
    52. On the Orient, North
    53. The Smiling People
    54. The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl
    55. Bug
    56. Downwind from Gettysburg
    57. Time in Thy Flight
    58. Changeling
    59. The Dragon
    60. Let's Play 'Poison'
    61. The Cold Wind and the Warm
    62. The Meadow
    63. The Kilimanjaro Device
    64. The Man in the Rorschach Shirt
    65. Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned
    66. The Pedestrian
    67. Trapdoor
    68. The Swan
    69. The Sea Shell
    70. Once More, Legato
    71. June 2003: Way in the Middle of the Air
    72. The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone
    73. By the Numbers!
    74. April 2005: Usher II
    75. The Square Pegs
    76. The Trolley
    77. The Smile
    78. The Miracles of Jamie
    79. A Far-away Guitar
    80. The Cistern
    81. The Machineries of Joy
    82. Bright Phoenix
    83. The Wish
    84. The Lifework of Juan Díaz
    85. Time Intervening/Interim
    86. Almost the End of the World
    87. The Great Collision of Monday Last
    88. The Poems
    89. April 2026: The Long Years
    90. Icarus Montgolfier Wright
    91. Death and the Maiden
    92. Zero Hour
    93. The Toynbee Convector
    94. Forever and the Earth
    95. The Handler
    96. Getting Through Sunday Somehow
    97. The Pumpernickel
    98. Last Rites
    99. The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse
    100. All on a Summer's day
52. Is That You, Herb? (2003)
53. The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004)
54. A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (2005)
55. The Dragon Who Ate His Tail (2007)
56. Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band Is Playing & Leviathan '99 (2007)
57. Somewhere a Band is Playing: Early Drafts and Final Novella (2007)
58. Summer Morning, Summer Night (2007)
59. Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2 (2009)
60. We'll Always Have Paris: Stories (2009)
61. A Pleasure To Burn (2010)
62. The Lost Bradbury: Forgotten Tales of Ray Bradbury (2010)
63. The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition – Volume 1, 1938–1943 (2011)
64. The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition – Volume 2, 1943–1944 (2014)
65. Killer, Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury (2020)
66. The Illustrated Man, The October Country & Other Stories. Library of America (2022)
    • The Illustrated Man, The October Country & Other Stories. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller. The Library of America, 360. 1951, 1955. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2022.

Edited:


67. Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow (1952)
68. The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories (1956)

Children's Books:


69. Switch on the Night (1955)
70. The Other Foot (1982)
71. The Veldt (1982)
72. The April Witch (1987)
73. The Fog Horn (1987)
74. Fever Dream (1987)
75. The Smile (1991)
76. The Toynbee Convector (1992)
77. With Cat for Comforter (1997)
78. Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas (1997)
79. Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines: A Fable (1998)
80. The Homecoming (2006)

Non-fiction:


81. No Man Is an Island (1952)
82. The Essence of Creative Writing: Letters to a Young Aspiring Author (1962)
83. Creative Man Among His Servant Machines (1967)
84. Mars and the Mind of Man (1971)
85. Zen in the Art of Writing (1973)
    • Zen in the Art of Writing. 1973. In The Capra Chapbook Anthology. Ed. Noel Young. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1979.
86. The God in Science Fiction (1978)
87. About Norman Corwin (1979)
88. There is Life on Mars (1981)
89. The Art of Playboy (1985)
90. Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity (1990)
91. Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Futures (1991)
92. Conversations with Ray Bradbury. Ed. Steven L. Aggelis) (2004)
93. Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars (2005)
94. Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451 (2007)

Poetry:


95. Where Robot Mice & Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns (1977)
96. To Sing Strange Songs (1979)
97. Beyond 1984: Remembrance of Things Future (1979)
98. The Ghosts of Forever (1980)
99. The Complete Poems of Ray Bradbury (1982)
100. The Love Affair (1982)
101. I Live By the Invisible: New & Selected Poems (2002)

Screenplays:


102. The Best of The Ray Bradbury Chronicles (2003)
103. It Came from Outer Space: Screenplay (2003)
104. The Halloween Tree: Screenplay (2005)

Miscellaneous:


105. Long After Ecclesiastes: New Biblical Texts (1985)
106. Christus Apollo: Cantata Celebrating the Eighth Day of Creation and the Promise of the Ninth (1998)
107. Witness and Celebrate (2000)
108. A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis and Ministers (2001)
109. The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel (2003)
110. Futuria Fantasia: SF Fanzine (2007)

Secondary:


111. Weller, Sam. The Bradbury Chronicles. Harper Perennial. 2005. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
112. Eller, Jonathan R. Becoming Ray Bradbury. Vol. 1 of 3. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2011.
113. Eller, Jonathan R. Ray Bradbury Unbound. Vol. 2 of 3. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2014.
114. Eller, Jonathan R. Bradbury Beyond Apollo. Vol. 3 of 3. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2020.

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Jonathan Eller: The Bradbury Trilogy (2011-2020)

Sam Weller: The Bradbury Chronicles (2005)

Stephen King: Fairy Tale (2022)

Stephen King: Fairy Tale (2022)

With the appearance of his latest, Fairy Tale, Stephen King has published no fewer than sixty-six novels - by my reckoning, at least. That's a lot of novels. Mind you, Wikipedia gives the grand total as 64, but then I've counted in the novel-length screenplay Storm of the Century (1999) and the incomplete online novel The Plant (2000), whereas they included those in different sections of their listings.

These novels include seven written under the pseudonym 'Richard Bachman'; five in collaboration (two with Peter Straub, two with Richard Chizmar, and one with his son Owen King); eight in the 'Dark Tower" fantasy series; three 'Hard Case Crime' paperbacks; and three which have been substantially revised and reissued in new forms since their first appearance: The Stand, The Gunslinger, and 'Salem's Lot.

There's also one, The Green Mile, which was originally published in monthly parts, presumably as an hommage to an earlier fictional entertainer, 'Mr Popular Sentiment' himself (in Anthony Trollope's sarcastic phrase), Charles Dickens.

Most (though by no means all) are set in King's native state, Maine - many in the imaginary towns of Castle Rock and Derry. Others, however, are set in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even the windy city, Chicago.

There are a couple of interesting cross-connected novel experiments in the King canon: Gerald's Game & Dolores Claiborne (1992), both of which centre around dark deeds done during a total eclipse of the sun in 1962; and Desperation & The Regulators (1996), which treat analogous acts performed by two sets of characters with the same names, but composed, respectively, in the manner of King and his alter ego Richard Bachman.

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Stephen King (Sept 21, 1947- )

But why provide so much detail here on Stephen King's bibliography? Well, a year or so ago I was talking to a colleague of mine at Massey Uni, Erin Mercer, and she mentioned a plan she'd devised of rereading all of his novels over summer.

All? I asked.

All.

Every single one? Including all the series and one-offs?

All of them.

I have to say that I had my doubts about the feasibility of this feat. I mean, it's taken me quite a long time to collect them, and it was hard to credit that anyone else could be quite so obsessive. It seems that she managed it, though, and that has inspired me to do the same. Hence the need for this post, to record some of my conclusions while they're still fresh in my mind.

First of all, though, a few listings to establish the precise parameters of the project:

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Stephen King: Carrie (1974)

Novels:
(Chronological)

1. Carrie (1974)
2. Salem's Lot (1975 / 2004)
3. The Shining (1977)
4. [as Richard Bachman] Rage (1977)
5. The Stand (1978 / 1990)
6. [as Richard Bachman] The Long Walk (1979)
7. The Dead Zone (1979)
8. Firestarter (1980)
9. [as Richard Bachman] Roadwork (1981)
10. Cujo (1981)
11. [as Richard Bachman] The Running Man (1982)
12. The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower 1 (1982 / 2003)
13. Christine (1983)
14. Pet Sematary (1983)
15. Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
16. [with Peter Straub] The Talisman (1984)
17. The Eyes of the Dragon (1984)
18. [as Richard Bachman] Thinner (1984)
19. It (1986)
20. The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower 2 (1987)
21. Misery (1987)
22. The Tommyknockers (1987)
23. The Dark Half (1989)
24. The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower 3 (1991)
25. Needful Things (1991)
26. Gerald's Game (1992)
27. Dolores Claiborne (1992)
28. Insomnia (1994)
29. Rose Madder (1995)
30. The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts (1996)
31. Desperation (1996)
32. [as Richard Bachman] The Regulators (1996)
33. Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower 4 (1997)
34. Bag of Bones (1998)
35. Storm of the Century (1999)
36. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
37. The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress (2000)
38. Dreamcatcher (2001)
39. [with Peter Straub] Black House (2001)
40. From a Buick 8 (2002)
41. Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower 5 (2003)
42. Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower 6 (2004)
43. The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower 7 (2004)
44. The Colorado Kid (2005)
45. Cell (2006)
46. Lisey's Story (2006)
47. [as Richard Bachman] Blaze (2007)
48. Duma Key (2008)
49. Under the Dome (2009)
50. 11/22/63 (2011)
51. The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel (2012)
52. Joyland (2013)
53. Doctor Sleep: A Novel (2013)
54. Mr Mercedes: A Novel (2014)
55. Revival (2014)
56. Finders Keepers: A Novel (2015)
57. End of Watch: A Novel (2016)
58. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Button Box. Gwendy Trilogy 1 (2017)
59. [with Owen King] Sleeping Beauties (2017)
60. The Outsider: A Novel (2018)
61. Elevation (2018)
62. The Institute (2019)
63. Later (2021)
64. Billy Summers (2021)
65. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task. Gwendy Trilogy 3 (2022)
66. Fairy Tale: A Novel (2022)
67. Holly: A Novel (2023)

So there you have it: the nature of the crime. Just imagine them all lined up in one bookcase, and you have some idea of what's at stake. I haven't counted the exact number of pages they contain, but it must be in the mid-tens of thousands, at least. "How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?" as a reviewer once remarked of J. R. R. Tolkien.

•

Stephen King: Fairy Tale (2022)

In order of preference:
(... extremely subjective, mind you)

[Title - date - setting - motifs - comments]:


1. The Stand (1978 / 1990) - set in Maine, Colorado, Las Vegas, etc. - plague / good vs. evil / Randall Flagg

   A wonderfully compelling book, constructed on an epic scale - King's War and Peace. There's no getting past it, really.

2. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) - set near Castle Rock, Maine - survival / psychotic bear

   A wonderful return to form for the Maine battler: a good tale well told with a compelling heroine. It's more like an over-length novella than one of his characteristically bloated tomes, but then the novella has always been one of his best modes.

3. [as Richard Bachman] The Long Walk (1979) - set in Maine - teen angst / endurance / survival

   My favourite of all the Bachman books, and actually - despite the confined and concentrated nature of the action - one of his very best novels (which is interesting, considering it was the first one he wrote, while he was still at High School!)

4. The Outsider: A Novel (2018) - set in Oklahoma & Texas - Holly Gibney / shapeshifters / detectives

   Excellent in all ways: an elegant combination of his later detective thrillers and his earlier occult masterpieces.

5. The Shining (1977) - set in Colorado - alcoholism / haunting / telepathy

   A quantum leap in King's work: still one of his best novels, well-constructed and haunting. I've often suspected that his dislike of Kubrick's epoch-making film comes down mostly to the story's immense autobiographical significance for King. There has to be hope for Jack Torrance, or else there's really none for his creator.

6. [with Peter Straub] The Talisman (1984) - set in New Hampshire, California, & places between - twinners / battle of good against evil / parallel fantasy world

   A grand attempt at a Huckleberry Finn-like Odyssey across America: compulsively readable. It's hard to tell where King stops and Straub begins, but the latter does seem to have a rather more orotund way of putting things.

7. Desperation (1996) - set in Nevada - possession / demonic creatures

   One of his strangest and most compelling novels: a kind of supernatural Western. Not to everyone's taste, but definitely to mine - very atmospheric. The washed-up, Mailer-like writer is well protrayed, also.

8. The Institute (2019) - set in Maine & South Carolina - telepathy, sinister Government agencies

   One of his very best novels, I think: a definite improvement on Firestarter, albeit occupying much the same thematic territory. The escape scenes are particularly well managed, but then, so is the picture of the institute itself.

9. It (1986) - set in Derry, Maine - aliens / killer clowns / childhood faith

   One of his longest and most ambitious works - perhaps not on the level of The Stand of The Shining, but certainly essential reading. Neither of its film treatments have really done it justice, but both have indisputable merits, too.

10. Under the Dome (2009) - set in Chester's Mill, Maine - megalomania / climate crime / childhood faith

    One of King's very best books: in it he solves the problem of combining fabular with realistic action first adumbrated in Needful Things: as it turns out, in the process he created an essential book for our times.

11. Lisey's Story (2006) - set in Maine & Boo'ya Moon - author's widow / parallel fantasy world

    A masterclass in the art of blending fantasy landscapes with a basic underlying realism: a very strong novel indeed. I haven't seen the adaptation, but if it has the effect of drawing attention to this largely unsung novel, then that's definitely a good thing.

12. Joyland (2013) - set in North Carolina - serial killer / carny folk / coming-of-age

    The best of King's 'Hard Case Crime' novels: well-written, well-plotted, and unforgettable. At heart he's always longed to be a pulp writer, and this is the perfect combo of pulp and King's perfect pitch when it comes to creating empathetic characters.

13. Mr Mercedes: A Novel (2014) - set in Ohio - serial killer / detectives / Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney

    Quite an amazing departure for King: a completely gripping Hitchcockian thriller, but written with heart. It certainly had the effect of bringing his career to life again - with a vengeance!

14. Insomnia (1994) - set in Derry, Maine - world of auras / abortion issue / the crimson king

    Underrated - the idea of producing hyperreality through insomnia is a fascinating one, as is the inclusion of a version of the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. He himself has described it as 'over-plotted' but I'd prefer to use the adjective 'rich'.

15. Misery (1987) - set in Colorado - psychotic fan / power of fiction / resourceful villain

    The first of King's beleaguered author books: and perhaps the most powerful. Some scenes are almost too gruesome for me to read, but the power of the situation drives all before it.

16. The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts (1996) - set in Cold Mountain, Georgia - prison / miracles

    A sentimentalised film treatment has handicapped this book: the original story is far better constructed, with a much harder edge. When you read it all the way through, and not in its monthly instalments, it works very well indeed as a connected novel.

17. Rose Madder (1995) - set in Chicago - fantasy world / sexual abuse

    Again, I fell this is a severely underrated novel. The transition from Roses's everyday terror to the equally threatening world of the temple and the labyrinth is very well handled. The incidental details about recording talking books are also fascinating.

18. From a Buick 8 (2002) - set in Western Pennsylvania - aliens / parallel worlds / mysterious artefact

    King channels Stanislaw Lem. It's clear proof of the skill of an author when they can make a compelling narrative with so little to hang it on: a real tour-de-force

19. The Colorado Kid (2005) - set on Moose-Lookit Island, Maine - detection / mystery / reporters

    Another tour-de-force: a novella-length meditation on the nature of evidence, if not of truth itself. Hard to fault it, really.

20. The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower 3 (1991) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    One of the best volumes in the Dark Tower saga, I think: Blaine the Mono is a finely drawn character, and it ends on the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers.

21. The Dark Half (1989) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - author protagonist / twinners / parallel fantasy world

    Continuing the author-in-crisis theme: again, this is almost too guesome to read in parts, but the underlying concept is frighteningly strong.

22. Fairy Tale: A Novel (2022) - set in Illinois - small town / parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil

    I'm not sure that the fantasy world, Empis, when we finally reach it, is quite magical enough to justify the preamble, but certainly King does a wonderful job of painting the dark world created by his anti-hero.

23. The Tommyknockers (1987) - set in Ludlow, Maine - flying saucer / alien invasion / telepathy

    This, I think, is a very underrated book: it's good SF and another fine portrait of a weird small town in crisis. The passages about alcoholism are among the most powerful King has ever written on the subject - which is saying something. It was filmed here in New Zealand - pretty well, I think.

24. Gerald's Game (1992) - set partly in Dark Score Lake, Maine - sexual abuse / imprisonment

    Some parts of this novel are so gruesome that I found myself almost physically unable to reread them. it's thematically as well as stylistically strong, though, and displays his genius for exploring the unthinkably horrible situation in all its gruesome details.

25. Billy Summers (2021) - set in 'Midwood' & in Colorado - crime / sexual abuse / revenge

    The life of a hitman is well portrayed, and there's a nice tip of the cap to the Overlook Hotel, too. It's not in the very front rank of his work, but there's little to fault in it, either.

26. Doctor Sleep: A Novel (2013) - set in Florida, Maine & Colorado - alcoholism / haunting / telepathy

    This sequel to The Shining may not be up to its predecessor, but it's still a good novel in its own right. It made a pretty good movie, too.

27. The Dead Zone (1979) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - haunting / telepathy / carny folk

    The first of the Castle Rock books: well-written and intriguing, even if not up to some of his subsequent works in this genre. The portrait it contains of a kind of proto-Trump has given King a possibly undeserved reputation for prophecy. American fascism was always bound to hit the mainstream sooner or later.

28. Salem's Lot (1975 / 2004) - set in Jerusalem's Lot, Maine - vampires / writer protagonist

    This is the first of King's microcosm stories: a well-portrayed small town in the grip of supernatural horrors beyond their comprehension. It's only in comparison with his later triumphs in this genre that it looks a bit limited now.

29. The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower 2 (1987) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    The clash of styles is one of the oddest features of the Dark Tower series as a whole: here it begins to switch from the Sergio Leone-style portentousness it began with into the frenetic melodrama it would become. It's a very readable book, though - perhaps the most immediately enjoyable of the whole series.

30. Dolores Claiborne (1992) - set in Little Tall Island, Maine - sexual abuse / murder

    This is, I think, his first use of a female protagonist speaking throughout in the first person - a device more familiar from his short fiction. To my ear, it's accomplished well - and the moment of the eclipse is captured perfectly.

31. The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel (2012) - set in Mid-World - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    A good fantasy novel, shoehorned very satisfactorily (in my view) into the Dark Tower series

32. Firestarter (1980) - set in New York & Longmont, Virginia - child in peril / telepathy / government agencies

    A pretty powerful novel - not one of his very best, but definitely well worth reading. I'm not quite sure why it's faded from readers' minds - perhaps because the competition is so stiff.

33. The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower 1 (1982 / 2003) - set in Mid-World - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    This is probably better in its original than in its rewritten form - it has little in common with the later books in the series, but that's in its favour, if anything. It does read more like a collection of linked stories than a bona-fide novel, though.

34. Carrie (1974) - set in Maine - teen angst / telepathy

    Not one of my favourites, but definitely a well-constructed thriller, strong on characterisation: the little snowball that started an avalanche ...

35. Dreamcatcher (2001) - set near Derry, Maine - aliens / Downs' Syndrome hero

    There's some great material here, but I'm not sure it succeeds as a whole - it's worth it for some of the incidental scenes, though. King is particularly keen on intellectually challenged characters: Tom Cullen in The Stand, Clayton Blaisdell in Blaze, and 'Duddits' Cavell in this novel

36. Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower 5 (2003) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    One of the best volumes in the series: mad, but interesting. I like his faux-Western flourishes here.

37. The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower 7 (2004) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    So much was left to the last volume, that the action can't help but feel a bit rushed at times - a very odd conclusion to a very odd series. I defy anyone who's read as far as this to put it down, though.

38. Later (2021) - set in Maine - telepathy / necromancy / the ritual of Chud

    This may be more of an occult thriller than a hard-boiled crime novel, but it's very well written.

39. Cujo (1981) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - feral animal / small town paranoia / child in peril

    Here King introduces one of his most powerful themes: what one might call the revolt of the Americana - in this case a beloved pet dog.

40. Elevation (2018) - set in Castle Rock - small-town paranoia / escape / death fantasies

    This is more of a novella than a novel, really, but it's very readable and quite intriguing. It's hard to know what to make of it, but need one really say more than that it's a good story, well told?

41. Cell (2006) - set in Maine & Massachusetts - terrorism / human flocks / zombie apocalypse

    I didn't really enjoy it much on first reading, but it has definitely improved on acquaintance: a good action thriller

42. Christine (1983) - set in Western Pennsylvania - evil car / haunting / Americana

    Another Americana meditation: this time constructed around the revolt of a cherished classic car. It's rather more melodramatic than Cujo, but very much in the same mode.

43. End of Watch: A Novel (2016) - set in Ohio - serial killer / detectives / Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney

    This is certainly a powerful piece of storytelling: it may not quite up to the first book in the series, but then what is? The omnipotent killer trope perhaps reaches its apotheosis here.

44. Pet Sematary (1983) - set in Ludlow, Maine - child in peril / necromancy / Americana

    If you could bring your beloved pet back to life, would you? And how far would you go before you stopped? Another grim piece of Americana. Too grim for me, but certainly a powerful concept.

45. [with Peter Straub] Black House (2001) - set in French Landing, Wisconsin - parallel fantasy world / serial killer / radio days

    This may not on the level of The Talisman (and with far too much about the so-called Sheikh of Shake, Uncle Henry), but it's a good solid thriller nevertheless. There may be a bit too much Dark Tower fallout here for those unacquainted with that series, but then that's true of much of King's mid-career output.

46. Duma Key (2008) - set in Minnesota & Florida - painting / haunting

    This has virtually the same plot as Bag of Bones, with the same problems as that novel: the Florida setting and the gallery descriptions are perhaps its best features, accordingly.

47. 11/22/63 (2011) - set in Lisbon Falls & Derry, Maine, as well as Dallas, Texas - time travel / alternate worlds / Americana

    I certainly enjoyed it, but I wouldn't see it in the front rank of his work: a good solid piece of classical SF, though. It makes an interesting - if not particularly novel - point.

48. [as Richard Bachman] Blaze (2007) - set in New England - kidnapping / abusive children's home / Americana

    Depressing, and not as poignant as perhaps it's meant to be, it seems in retrospect like a kind of trial run for Billy Summers. It's only because the other books are so good that this one can be relegated to the Bush Leagues like this, though.

49. [as Richard Bachman] Thinner (1984) - Maine Coast - carny folk / gypsy curse / weight loss

    Bachman takes on more of the trappings of King in this late novel, just before the pseudonym was discovered. It's almost as if he wanted to be found out ...

50. Finders Keepers: A Novel (2015) - set in Ohio - author's manuscripts / detectives / Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney

    I found the eventual destruction of the dead, Salinger-like writer's notebooks depressingly predictable (could not the boy have xeroxed them in his spare time?) Again, King's villains do have a way of seeming unstoppable against all odds. The weakest link in a very strong series.

51. Needful Things (1991) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - good vs. evil / materialist fable

    It's never been quite clear to me if this was intended as a purely fabular narrative or a piece of Kingian realism: it doesn't quite work for me, but it's certainly very readable.

52. [as Richard Bachman] The Regulators (1996) - set in Wentworth, Ohio - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / childhood faith

    The Bachman version is more of a curiosity than a real rival to its plot-double, Desperation: it's certainly very readable, though. Hard to know what to make of it, really.

53. The Eyes of the Dragon (1984) - set in Delain, In-World - good vs. evil / Randall Flagg / fantasy world

    This is more of a pure fantasy novel than anything that preceded it in King's work: it's not especially remarkable beyond that except that it shows his first attempts to find the right tone for his work in that genre.

54. Bag of Bones (1998) - Derry & Dark Score Lake, Maine - writer's block / haunting

    This is an exceptionally grim tale, with a sting in the tail: I think at this point some readers may have felt that King had shot his bolt as a writer. Little did they know!

55. Holly (2023) - Bridgton, Ohio - cannibalism / detection

    This is another grim tale, with a hugely loathsome pair of well-heeled cannibal killers. Holly Gibney is indeed a great character, and any power the story has certainly stems from her involvement. It's possible that she may have reached her limits as a plot catalyst now, however. The jury will have to remain out on that one.

56. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task (2022) - set in space - averting global catastrophe / dementia

    Here the twin authors try to crank up their 'Gwendy' plot to reach a climax in outer space. the result is definitely impressive, even if not in the front rank of King's other work.

57. Storm of the Century (1999) - set in Little Tall Island, Maine - vampires / small town paranoia

    I've never read a screenplay-novel before, and I did enjoy it: the mini-series itself (when I finally got to see it) was actually less interesting, I thought.

58. [as Richard Bachman] Rage (1977) - set in Maine - teen angst / gun violence

    A nicely paced thriller, subsequently repudiated by its author in the wake of claims that it inspired a slew of other school shooters. The raw talent of its youthful author is immediately apparent, though.

59. [as Richard Bachman] The Running Man (1982) - Co-Op City, Boston, New Hampshire - game shows / Americana / dystopian future

    This is very much in the mode of SF writers such as A. E. Van Vogt and other action-addicted storytellers. It's not really on the level of most of the other 'Bachman' work, though it did make a good vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

60. Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower 6 (2004) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    This is a very strange novel: perhaps the least 'standalone' narrative in the entire Dark Tower series. It's certainly readable, though.

61. Revival (2014) - set in Maine - necromancy / child in peril / dead wife

    One of my least favourite books by King. The powerful episodes he creates do not really cohere, and the idea of 'fifth business' is a bit too dominant, but his speculations on 'the secret electricity' are certainly interesting.

62. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Button Box (2017) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - materialist fable / childhood faith

    This is rather a slight premise, but well carried out by the two authors: a novella rather than a novel, really.

63. Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) - set in Tarker's Mills, Maine - werewolves / good vs. evil / calendar

    This is a strangely circumscribed work which seems to exist more for the illustrations that the plot: once again, a novella rather than a novel.

64. The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress (2000) - set in New York - magical curse / nature's revenge

    This was fun to track down: I can see why King has never been in much of a hurry to finish it, but it is entertaining to read the parts of it he managed to complete. Perhaps one day ...

65. Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower 4 (1997) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    For me, this is the lowest point of the Dark Tower series. The romance is drawn out to inordinate length, and I found myself actually counting the pages remaining to be read: the direct opposite of my usual experience with King's long books.

66. [with Owen King] Sleeping Beauties (2017) - set in Dooling, Appalachia - parallel fantasy world / men vs. women

    This is interesting in some ways, extremely problematic in others. Overall, I think that it illustrates the difficulty of maintaining a clear balance between the real and the fantastic. Why Dooling? Who is Eve? Why does she get herself locked up at the beginning of the book and sit behind bars the whole time? The characters lack the usual precision of King people, too.

67. [as Richard Bachman] Roadwork (1981) - set in the Midwest - governmental interference / marital instability / morbid psychology

    This is probably my least favourite King novel pf all: his protagonist is far too self-indulgent and irrational for me, and the action drags as a result. Something had to come in last, and this one represents a path which I'm very pleased that he didn't pursue further.

This is the most controversial (and subjective) part of my project. I have my strong preferences among King's novels - many of them, it seems, at odds with other readers - but the great thing about his oeuvre is that it seems to be able to accommodate virtually all tastes. I've shuffled and reshuffled quite a lot to achieve this list, and I suspect that it's only in a temporary state of equilibrium even so.

•
Stephen King: Fairy Tale. Signed Limited UK Edition (2022)

(Very) Partial Motif index:

• Art as haunting (rather than stressing any aesthetic functions it might have):
  • Examples: the novelist in Bag of Bones (1998) / the painter in Duma Key (2008).

    Query: Is this an actual belief of King's, or simply sleight-of-hand to put us off the trail of his own addiction to his art?



• Omnipotent killers (particularly effective against unwary policemen):
  • Examples: George Stark in The Dark Half (1989) / Norman Daniels in Rose Madder (1995) / The Mercedes Killer in the Bill Hodges trilogy (2014-16).

    One can see how dramatically effective this is in context, but it's a very striking trope. King's books certainly celebrate the 'divinity that shapes our ends', but he allows rather more than equal play to its adversary.



• Parallel fantasy worlds (with a symbolic link to your own circumstances):
  • Examples: The temple of the Bull in Rose Madder (1995) / Boo'ya Moon in Lisey's Story (2006) / Eslin in Fairy Tale (2022) / Midworld in the Dark Tower series (1982-2012).

    For the most part, this is one of the richest veins in King's fiction. At times, as in Needful Things (1991), the fabular can intrude too far on his basically realistic vision. Doubling the focus enables him to avoid this.



• Recovering alcoholics (generally self-deluded but basically sympathetic):
  • Examples: Jack Torrance in The Shining (1977); Gardiner in The Tommyknockers (1987); Danny Torrance in Doctor Sleep (2013).

    This is perhaps the most avowedly autobiographical aspect of King's fiction. What larger significance it has beyond this I leave others to speculate on. I suspect, myself, that it's a bit like his obsession with reenacting his near-fatal automotive accident in his work around the turn of the millennium. 'When will you stop talking about it?" his wife is quoted as asking. 'When I can," he replied.



• A complex web of recurring characters (from other novels or stories):
  • Examples: the punk girl in Rose Madder (1995) reappears in Desperation (1996) with a quick update on events at the women's shelter devastated in the previous novel / Bag of Bones (1998) perhaps sets a record for the number of allusions to characters and locations from other books: Ralph Roberts and Joe Wyzer from Insomnia (1994), Thad Beaumont from The Dark Half (1989), Bill Denbrough from It (1986), and so on.

    This motif (of course) includes the protagonists of such formal series as the Dark Tower books or the Bill Hodges trilogy, but it goes far beyond them. I imagine it's a nod to such pioneers of the regional novel as Thomas Hardy or William Faulkner. At a certain point, your imaginary world begins to become realer than the real one to your readers as well as yourself.



• Small Town microcosms (as metaphors of larger vehicles of destruction):
  • Examples: 'Salem's Lot (1975) / Castle Rock in Needful Things (1991) / Derry in It (1986) / Under the Dome (2009).

    This he does beautifully, and with the authority of long experience. Se non è vero, è ben trovato, to (mis)quote Giordano Bruno - if it's not really true in all cases, it certainly sounds true.



• Telepathy: (definitely King's pyschic ability of choice)
  • Examples: Carrie (1974) / The Dead Zone (1979) / Firestarter (1980) / The Institute (2019).

    I guess when it comes to writing in the field of the occult and fantastic, authors have to concentrate on those aspects of it they're actually able to believe in without too much difficulty. For King, this is clearly telepathy and psychokinesis and the whole battery of Rhine-tested skills from Duke University. He manages to extend it to almost unprecedented lengths, however.

I've tried to be concise rather than comprehensive here. In the course of my reading, certain motifs have leapt out at me as particularly revealing. Another reader would make a quite different list. I'd hate anyone to conclude that I think that any King novel can be reduced to a mere assemblage of familiar motifs, however.

•


Stephen King: Billy Summers (2021)

Novels:
(By Category)

[Editions owned by me are marked in bold]:

Stand-alone Novels:


1. Carrie (1974)
   • Carrie. London: New English Library, 1974.
   • Carrie. 1974. New York: Doubleday, 1974.
2. Salem's Lot (1975 / 2004)
   • Salem's Lot. 1975. London: New English Library, 1976.
   • Salem's Lot: Illustrated Edition. 1975. Photographs by Jerry N. Uelsmann. 2004. Introduction by the Author. 2005. Hodder & Stoughton. London: Hodder Headline, 2008.
3. The Shining (1977)
   • The Shining. 1977. London: New English Library, 1982.
4. The Stand (1978 / 1990)
   • The Stand. 1978. London: New English Library, 1979.
   • The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.
5. The Dead Zone (1979)
   • The Dead Zone. 1979. London: Futura, 1986.
6. Firestarter (1980)
   • Firestarter. 1980. London: Futura, 1981.
7. Cujo (1981)
   • Cujo. 1981. London: Futura, 1982.
8. Christine (1983)
   • Christine. 1983. London: New English Library, 1984.
9. Pet Sematary (1983)
   • Pet Sematary. 1983. London: New English Library, 1985.
10. Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
    • Cycle of the Werewolf. Illustrated by Berni Wrightson. 1983. London: New English Library, 1985.
11. The Eyes of the Dragon (1984)
    • The Eyes of the Dragon. Illustrated by David Palladini. 1984. London: Guild Publishing, 1987.
12. It (1986)
    • It. 1986. London: New English Library, 1987.
13. Misery (1987)
    • Misery. 1987. London: New English Library, 1988.
14. The Tommyknockers (1987)
    • The Tommyknockers. 1987. London: Guild Publishing, 1988.
15. The Dark Half (1989)
    • The Dark Half. 1989. London: New English Library, 1990.
16. Needful Things (1991)
    • Needful Things. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991.
17. Gerald's Game (1992)
    • Gerald's Game. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992.
18. Dolores Claiborne (1992)
    • Dolores Claiborne. London: BCA, 1992.
19. Insomnia (1994)
    • Insomnia. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994.
20. Rose Madder (1995)
    • Rose Madder. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995.
21. The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts (1996)
    • The Green Mile.
      • The Two Dead Girls. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • The Mouse on the Mile. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • Coffey's Hands. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • Night Journey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • Coffey on the Mile. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
    • The Green Mile. 6 vols. A Signet Giftpack:
      • The Two Dead Girls. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • The Mouse on the Mile. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • Coffey's Hands. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • Night Journey. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • Coffey on the Mile. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
    • The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts. 1996. A Plume Book. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1997.
22. Desperation (1996)
    • Desperation. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996.
23. Bag of Bones (1998)
    • Bag of Bones. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1998.
24. Storm of the Century (1999)
    • Storm of the Century. [Screenplay]. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.
25. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
    • The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999.
26. The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress (2000)
    • [The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress. Bangor, Maine: Philtrum Press, 2000.]
27. Dreamcatcher (2001)
    • Dreamcatcher. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001.
28. From a Buick 8 (2002)
    • From a Buick 8. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.
29. Cell (2006)
    • Cell. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
30. Lisey's Story (2006)
    • Lisey's Story. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
31. Duma Key (2008)
    • Duma Key. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2008.
32. Under the Dome (2009)
    • Under the Dome. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2009.
33. 11/22/63 (2011)
    • 11/22/63. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2011.
34. Doctor Sleep (2013)
    • Doctor Sleep: A Novel. [Sequel to 'The Shining', 1977]. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2013.
35. Revival (2014)
    • Revival. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014.
36. Elevation (2018)
    • Elevation. Illustrated by Mark Edward Geyer. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2018.
37. The Institute (2019)
    • The Institute. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.
38. Billy Summers (2021)
    • Billy Summers. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021.
39. Fairy Tale (2022)
    • Fairy Tale: A Novel. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022.

as Richard Bachman:


40. Rage (1977)
41. The Long Walk (1979)
42. Roadwork (1981)
43. The Running Man (1982)
    • The Bachman Books: Rage; The Long Walk; Roadwork; The Running Man. 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985. London: Guild Publishing, 1986.
    • The Bachman Books: Rage; The Long Walk; Roadwork; The Running Man. 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985. London: New English Library, 1987.
44. Thinner (1984)
    • Thinner. 1984. London: New English Library, 1986.
45. The Regulators (1996)
    • The Regulators. 1996. London: New English Library, 1997.
46. Blaze (2007)
    • Blaze. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007.

The Dark Tower:


47. The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower 1 (1982 / 2003)
    • The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower, 1. 1982. Illustrated by Michael Whelan. London: Sphere Books, 1988.
    • The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower, 1. 1982. Rev. ed. New English Library. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.
48. The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower 2 (1987)
    • The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower, 2. 1987. Illustrated by Phil Hale. London: Sphere Books, 1989.
49. The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower 3 (1991)
    • The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower, 3. Illustrated by Ned Dameron. London: Sphere Books, 1991.
50. Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower 4 (1997)
    • Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower, 4. Illustrated by Dave McKean. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997.
51. Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower 5 (2003)
    • Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower, 5. Illustrated by Bernie Wrightson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.
52. Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower 6 (2004)
    • Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower, 6. Illustrated by Darrel Anderson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004.
53. The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower 7 (2004)
    • The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower, 7. Illustrated by Michael Whelan. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004.
54. The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel (2012)
    • The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel. Illustrated by Jae Lee. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2012.

Hard Case Crime:


55. The Colorado Kid (2005)
    • The Colorado Kid. A Hard Case Crime Book. New York: Dorchester Publishing Co., 2005.
56. Joyland (2013)
    • Joyland. A Hard Case Crime Book. London: Titan Books, 2013.
57. Later (2021)
    • Later. A Hard Case Crime Book. London: Titan Books, 2021.

Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney books:


58. Mr Mercedes: A Novel (2014)
    • Mr Mercedes: A Novel. Bill Hodges Trilogy, 1. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014.
59. Finders Keepers: A Novel (2015)
    • Finders Keepers: A Novel. Bill Hodges Trilogy, 2. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015.
60. End of Watch: A Novel (2016)
    • End of Watch: A Novel. Bill Hodges Trilogy, 3. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2016.
61. The Outsider: A Novel (2018)
    • The Outsider: A Novel. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2018.
62. Holly (2023)
    • Holly: A Novel. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2023.

Collaborations:


63. [with Peter Straub] The Talisman (1984)
    • The Talisman. Talisman, 1. Viking. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.
    • The Talisman. Talisman, 1. 1984. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
64. [with Peter Straub] Black House (2001)
    • Black House. Talisman, 2. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001.
65. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Button Box (2017)
    • Gwendy's Button Box. Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy, 1. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.
[Richard Chizmar: Gwendy's Magic Feather (2019)]
• 'Foreword: How Gwendy Escaped Oblivion.' In Richard Chizmar: Gwendy's Magic Feather. 2019. Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy, 2. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021.
66. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task (2022)
    • [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task. Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy, 3. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022.
67. Sleeping Beauties (2017)
    • [with Owen King] Sleeping Beauties. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.

I thought it might be useful to provide this third list of King's novels sorted by categories, with details of the actual copies I've read - for fellow King-maniacs, that is, and it's hard to imagine that anyone else would have read this far in my post ...

•

Stephen King: If It Bleeds: Four Novellas (2020)

Other Works
(By Category)

[Editions owned by me are marked in bold]:

Stories & Novellas:


1. Night Shift (1978)
   • Night Shift. Introduction by John D. MacDonald. 1978. London: New English Library, 1979.
   • Night Shift. Introduction by John D. MacDonald. 1978. London: BCA, 1991.
2. Different Seasons (1982)
   • Different Seasons. 1982. London: Book Club Associates, 1983.
   • Different Seasons. 1982. London: Futura, 1984.
3. Skeleton Crew (1986)
   • Skeleton Crew. 1985. London: Futura, 1986.
4. Four Past Midnight (1990)
   • Four Past Midnight. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.
5. Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993)
   • Nightmares and Dreamscapes. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993.
6. Hearts in Atlantis (1999)
   • Hearts in Atlantis. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999.
7. Everything's Eventual (2002)
   • Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.
8. Just After Sunset (2008)
   • Just After Sunset. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2008.
9. Stephen King Goes to the Movies (2009)
   • Stephen King Goes to the Movies. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2009.
10. Full Dark, No Stars (2010)
    • Full Dark, No Stars. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010.
11. Blockade Billy / Morality (2010)
    • Blockade Billy / Morality. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010.
12. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015)
    • The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015.
13. If It Bleeds (2020)
    • If It Bleeds. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2020.

Non-fiction:


14. Danse Macabre (1981)
    • Danse Macabre. London: Macdonald Futura Publishers, 1981.
    • Danse Macabre. 1981. New York: Berkley Books, 1984.
15. Nightmares in the Sky (1988)
    • Nightmares in the Sky: Gargoyles and Grotesques. Photographs by F-stop Fitzgerald. Viking Studio Books. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1988.
16. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
    • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000.
17. Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing (2000)
    • Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing. Introduction by Peter Straub. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 2000.
18. [with Stewart O'Nan] Faithful (2004)
    • Faithful: Two Die-Hard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. 2004. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
19. Hearts in Suspension, ed. Jim Bishop (2016)
    • Hearts in Suspension: Essay and Novella by Stephen King; Personal Narratives by Michael Alpert, Jim Bishop, David Bright, Keith Carreiro, Harold Crosby, Sherry Dec, Bruce Holsapple, Frank Kadi, Daina McPherson, Lary Moscowitz, Jim H. Smith & Philip Thompson. Ed. Jim Bishop. Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press, 2016.

Edited:


20. [with Bev Vincent] Flight or Fright. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2018.

I've concluded with a list of King's other works - those in my possession, that is. There's an immense penumbra of ephemera: chapbooks, web publications, and special limited editions which are not precisely my bag but which constitute the main locus of interest for booktraders and the more or less specialised investors who are their principal audience.

There's also a huge amount of secondary material which I haven't (yet) started seriously collecting - though I do wonder at times if I should invest in some of the secondary works surrounding The Dark Tower, in particular. In any case, this is where I am at present, and I hope that at least some of these thoughts (and listings) may be of use to other readers.

•

George Beahm: The Stephen King Companion (1989)

Secondary

• Tim Underwood & Chuck Miller. Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King. 1988. London: New English Library, 1990.
• George Beahm, ed. The Stephen King Companion. 1989. London: Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd., 1990.
• Lisa Rogak. Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King. London: JR Books, 2009.

Lisa Rogak: Haunted Heart (2009)

•