Written by Jon Williams
A new novel from Stephen King is on its way. Fairy Tale, due out September 6, promises a tale of dark
fantasy, and will be King’s first solo novel since last year’s Billy Summers. But those constant readers (or listeners)
looking for something else set in the land of King’s fertile imagination need
look only for a recent collaborative release flying somewhat under the radar. Released in February, Gwendy’s Final Task, written with Richard Chizmar, concludes
the tale that began with Gwendy’s Button Box, released in
2017. Set in King’s famous fictional town of Castle Rock, it details the series
of events that ensue when young Gwendy Peterson is approached by a mysterious
stranger and entrusted with a powerful magical device.
While King collaborated with Richard Chizmar for the first
and third installment in the saga, the second, 2019’s Gwendy’s Magic Feather, was written solely by Chizmar. Well
known in horror circles as the publisher of Cemetery
Dance magazine, he has also edited and contributed to a number of horror
anthologies. In 2021, he released the well-received fictional “true crime”
novel Chasing the Boogeyman.
King, of course, is no stranger to collaborations. His first
was 1984’s The Talisman, written with fellow
horror author Peter
Straub. They teamed up again for a sequel, Black House, in 2001. He has also written with each of his
sons. He and Joe Hill got together for the novellas Throttle, an homage to Richard Matheson, and In the Tall Grass, both published in Hill’s collection Full Throttle. And in 2017, King collaborated with his son Owen
for the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties.
And because longtime King fans will want to know: yes, the
Gwendy books do have the connections to his other works that he loves to
include. Stories set in Castle Rock include The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Body, The Dark Half, The Sun Dog, Needful Things, and
Elevation, as well
as numerous short stories found in Skeleton Crew, Nightmares &
Dreamscapes, and The Bazaar of Bad Dreams.
The Gwendy stories also tie into his magnum opus, the eight-volume Dark Tower
series (which begins with The Gunslinger).
Even with these connections, it’s not necessary to read
these stories in any particular order, so readers and listeners can feel free
to jump in at any point. The stories on your shelves are sure to provide hours
of entertainment for fans old and new—use the links above, or browse around on
our website to find other novels and collections, available in physical formats
and digitally on hoopla Flex.
Written by Jon Williams
As The Dark Tower opens in theaters this
week, casual observers could be forgiven for thinking it’s nothing more than another
Stephen King adaptation; there are certainly quite
a few of those happening right now. More devoted King fans will tell you
that The Dark Tower is more than just
a book, more than just the seven-book series it eventually turned out to be. It
is, in fact, King’s magnum opus, spreading its tendrils to touch, in one way or
another, perhaps every book he has ever written.
The series
begins with the simple yet elegant line that has become one of King’s most
famous: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
He wrote those words in 1970, as a senior at the University of Maine. He was
inspired by a poem, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning,
which itself comes from a line in Shakespeare’s King
Lear. He wedded that in his imagination with elements of Tolkien’s Lord
of the Rings, Clint Eastwood’s Man
with No Name, and the Arthurian
legends, among other influences, for a dark fantasy quest that was unlike
any other.
He began
writing in 1970 and labored for twelve years before the first volume, The
Gunslinger, was published in 1982. This established a pattern that
would persist for much of the series, with several years elapsing between the publications
of the individual volumes. The second book, The
Drawing of the Three, came out in 1987; the third, The
Waste Lands (also inspired by a poem, this one by T.S.
Eliot), in 1991. One of the longest gaps, six years, came before Wizard
and Glass appeared, with its many Wizard
of Oz references, in 1997. This exploration of the gunslinger’s
fundamental backstory will be the basis for an upcoming TV series that will
feature Idris
Elba in a reprisal of his role from the movie.
It was
another six years before another Dark Tower book would be published. In 1999,
King was hit by a minivan while out for a walk, an incident that threatened his
life and drastically altered his writing career when he was finally able to get
back to it. Seeing the Dark Tower series as his life’s work and now feeling his
own mortality, King set to work with a will. Wolves
of the Calla was released in November of 2003; the sixth and seventh
books, Song
of Susannah and The Dark Tower
(currently unavailable on audiobook) came out three months apart in 2004.
The Dark Tower brought the series to a
conclusion, but that wasn’t quite the end of the story. In 2012, King returned
with The
Wind Through the Keyhole, another framed story of Roland’s backstory
that fits in between Wizard and Glass
and Wolves of the Calla. There’s also
a bit of backstory to be found in “The Little Sisters of Eluria,” a short story
written in 1998 and included in the collection Everything’s
Eventual.
Of course,
the full tale of the Dark Tower isn’t contained solely in these books and
stories. Readers and listeners will notice connections throughout King’s entire
oeuvre, some more pronounced than others. For instance, near the beginning of Wizard and Glass, the gunslinger and his
band of travelers pass through a world that has been ravaged by Captain Trips,
the weaponized flu strand from The
Stand. The man in black that Roland pursues throughout the first book
of the series (played in the movie by Matthew
McConaughey) appears, in different forms, in both The Stand and The
Eyes of the Dragon. The character Father Callahan from ‘Salem’s
Lot joins Roland’s crew for a time beginning in Wolves of the Calla, and Dinky Earnshaw (from the title story of Everything’s Eventual) and Ted Brautigan
(from Hearts
in Atlantis) show up with roles to play as well. The 1994 novel Insomnia
becomes a plot point of its own in the final book of the series.
While the
Dark Tower books are popular in their own right, they are somewhat less well
known than King’s other works. With the movie in theaters and a TV show in the
works, though, the series is about to come to the forefront in a big way.
Patrons who are stepping into this world for the first time have a rich,
rewarding journey ahead of them, and others will want to relive Roland’s
adventures again and again. Make sure you have the series and its related works
on your shelves for them to explore and enjoy.
Written by Jon Williams
Call it a
hunch, but we’re guessing that a lot of your patrons are Stephen King fans.
Luckily for those patrons, there’s plenty of recent and upcoming King material
to keep them quivering in fear for quite some time.
To start, we
need to go back almost to the very beginning. Now, of course, King is a
well-known, bestselling author with more than fifty books to his credit, but that
wasn’t always the case. The Dead Zone
was just the fourth novel King published under his own name. Released in 1979, it
deals with a young man both gifted and cursed with psychic abilities after a
catastrophic car accident. The novel spawned both a 1983 movie and a 2002 TV
series that ran for six seasons, but it has never been available in
audiobook format until
now. This classic is narrated by actor James Franco.
There’s also
plenty of new material from King. His latest release, out this week, is Gwendy’s Button Box, a novella
written with help from publisher, editor, and fellow horror writer Richard
Chizmar. The story takes place in Castle Rock, Maine, a familiar setting for
King fans. The Dead Zone was set in
Castle Rock, as were Cujo, The Dark Half, and a number of
novellas and short stories scattered throughout his collections. The 1991 novel
Needful Things was originally billed
as “the last Castle Rock story,” but apparently he wasn’t done with the little
town after all.
And that’s
not the only collaboration King has on his docket. Coming this September is Sleeping Beauties, a new novel
written in tandem with his son Owen King. It details a dystopian future in
which all women (except one!) fall prey to a strange cocooned state while they
sleep, and men are left to their own devices. Of course, King is no stranger to
this type of collaboration, having teamed up with his other son, author Joe
Hill, for the short stories “Throttle”
and “In
the Tall Grass.”
As popular
as his books are, when it comes to Stephen King, they’re only part of the
story. Another part is all the adaptations that have taken his work from the
page to screens both big and small. In that regard, there’s a pretty full slate
on the horizon. First up is The Mist,
a ten-episode series premiering on Spike on June 22. The novella, available on
its own or collected with other short stories in Skeleton Crew, was previously made
into a movie in 2007. Then, on August 9, Mr.
Mercedes comes to the Audience Network, based on the first
book of a trilogy
King wrote about a retired detective facing off against a twisted killer.
In addition
to regular TV, fans can also look to the streaming services for some upcoming
adaptations. Coming to Netflix later this year is Gerald’s Game, the story of a woman
who is trapped handcuffed to a bed after her husband dies suddenly. Much of the novel
takes place within main character Jessie Burlingame’s head, so it will be
interesting to see how it translates to the screen. Also coming to Netflix in
2017 is 1922, about a man who is convinced his murdered wife is haunting him.
It’s based on a novella in Full Dark, No Stars, which also
contains the story that was the basis for the movie A Good Marriage. Then, beginning
production later this year with no set debut date, is the Hulu series Castle Rock. Not much is known about it
other than the setting, the small Maine town mentioned above, but the first
teaser contained elements of King classics like Misery and plenty of others.
And speaking
of King classics, one of the biggest (both literally and figuratively) is
coming to theaters on September 8. It, the epic novel about a
shape-shifting creature that feeds on children and the gang of outcast kids
that decide enough is enough, has engendered a fear of clowns in readers since
its release in 1986. It’s a whopper: the print edition comes in at over 1,000
pages, and the audiobook narration takes up 35 discs. A previous adaptation
came in the form of a 3-hour
miniseries in 1990, and this time around will be split into two feature
films, with the second installment coming in 2018.
And then
there’s The Dark Tower…but we’ll have
more to say about that soon. In the meantime, make sure you have plenty of
Stephen King material on your shelves for patrons to explore and enjoy as these
new works and adaptations come along. And don’t be surprised if some of them
ask you if they can check out a nightlight, too.
Written by Jon Williams
When you see a photo of writer Joe Hill, it’s easy to note
the resemblance he bears to another novelist famous in the horror genre. It’s
no secret now that Stephen
King is Joe’s father, but that wasn’t always the case. When he was starting
out, Joe wanted to make sure any success he achieved was on the merits of his
work rather than as a result of a famous name, particularly as he knew his work
would be in a similar orbit, genre-wise. Therefore, he dropped the last name of
“King” and shortened his middle name (Hillstrom) to create his pseudonym.
A fact like that can only remain a secret for so long,
though (a fact King learned himself with his own pen name, Richard
Bachman). The news of Hill’s parentage broke around the same time his first
novel was published in 2007. That novel, Heart-Shaped Box, is a seriously
creepy story of aging rock star Judas Coyne, who buys a dead man’s suit—and the
ghost that comes with it—over the Internet. The novel won both the Locus and
Bram Stoker Awards for Best First Novel, proving definitively that Hill’s work
was capable of standing on its own under any name he chose.
His second novel came three years later, in 2010. Horns is a haunting, tragic love
story of a young man accused of his girlfriend’s murder, and the bizarre
transformation his rage brings upon him. It has since been adapted into a
film starring Daniel Radcliffe as the man in question, Ignatius Perrish. Hill’s
third novel, and most widely acclaimed so far, NOS4A2 (a vanity plate spelling of Nosferatu) came out in 2013, about a
woman desperate to save her son from the clutches of a soul vampire.
While these gaps between books may seem abnormally long for
a popular novelist, the multitalented Hill is far from idle during those times.
Starting in 2008, he teamed up with artist Gabriel Rodriguez for Locke & Key, a dark fantasy comics series revolving around
an old house and the mysterious, powerful keys that open the doors there. The
last issue was published in 2013, and in 2015, it was adapted into a full-cast
audio drama, and recently it was announced that a second attempt will be
made to develop it into a television series as well. In 2013-14, Hill wrote the
comics miniseries Wraith, which ties
into NOS4A2 but also works as a
standalone. Additionally, his short story
“The Cape” was
adapted into a comic by Jason Ciaramella.
And now comes Hill’s fourth novel, The
Fireman, published earlier this week. In it, the world has been
decimated by a spore that causes people’s skin to break out in markings known
as Dragonscale…until they eventually spontaneously combust. Into this world
steps a man known as the Fireman, who has learned not only to manage the
condition, but to use it. With this novel, Hill fully embraces his heritage,
calling to mind the post-apocalyptic world his dad brought to the page in The
Stand. Of course, that’s not to suggest that he’s rejected that
heritage before—the two of them have fun with it, and have actually
collaborated. Throttle
is a tribute to classic horror writer Richard Matheson, while In
the Tall Grass is an original novella the two wrote together.
The Fireman has
drawn rave reviews, and will no doubt be one of the hits of the summer. Make
sure you have plenty of copies for your patrons, as well as his past work for
those who have yet to discover this relatively new talent.
Written by Jon Williams
As we wait
for spring to kick into full gear, it’s never too early to start thinking about
summer beach reading and audiobooks for long trips. There is a wonderful slate of
books scheduled for release later this spring and into the summer, but June
looks to be a monster, with highly anticipated new titles coming from two
juggernauts of the literary world.
It was
recently announced that June 24 would bring The
Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. This will be the second crime novel
featuring private detective Cormoran Strike. The first Strike novel was last
year’s The
Cuckoo’s Calling, in which Strike investigated the death of supermodel
Lula Landry, the adopted sister of his childhood friend. That book, of course,
made news (and jumped to the top of the bestseller lists) when it was revealed
that Robert Galbraith was, in fact, the pen name of J.K. Rowling, the wildly
famous author of the Harry
Potter books. After that series concluded in 2007, she made her first
foray into writing for adults with 2012’s The
Casual Vacancy. When that book was an automatic bestseller, she decided
to use a pen name for her next book in order to see how it would perform on its
own merits. That plan was foiled shortly after The Cuckoo’s Calling was published; however, it was drawing rave
reviews even before the truth about its authorship was revealed. The Silkworm promises to pick up where
the first book left off, with Strike this time investigating the case of an
author gone missing before the publication of a devastating tell-all.
Before that
comes out, though, June 3 will bring a new novel from Stephen King. Like
Galbraith’s crime novels, King calls Mr.
Mercedes his first “hard-boiled” detective novel, with his own
signature macabre twist. The tale deals with a killer who operates by driving a
stolen car into crowds of people, and the retired police officer on the trail
to track him down before he can strike again. This is King’s first novel since
last year’s Doctor
Sleep, the long-awaited sequel to his early classic The Shining, and it kicks off a busy month
for the horror master. On June 30, Under
the Dome returns to CBS, a show based on King’s 2009
tome about a small town mysteriously trapped under an invisible force field
that completely seals them off from the outside world. The second season’s
premiere episode was written by King himself. In addition, later this year (November
11) King will publish Revival,
a story more typical to his roots in the horror genre.
And of
course, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of great stories coming
out this spring and summer. Are there any titles you or your patrons are
particularly excited about? Let us know in the comments section below.
Written by Jon Williams
Fans of
horror TV, rejoice! Although it’s too late for Halloween, word came down last
night that a team has been assembled to reboot the classic macabre 1980s series
Tales from the Darkside. The update
will air on the CW network as a half-hour series beginning in the summer of
2014.
The original
series was created by horror legend George A. Romero, who directed and
co-wrote the seminal zombie film Night
of the Living Dead in 1968. In 1982 he teamed up with Stephen King for the film Creepshow,
which was an anthology film made up of several horror stories. The success of
that film led to the idea of a horror-themed TV series, which became Tales from the Darkside.
The show
debuted in 1984 and ran for four seasons, with each episode telling a new story.
With new characters each week, the show had quite a large cast, featuring such
stars as Phyllis Diller, John Heard, Carol Kane, Darren McGavin, Jerry Stiller,
Abe Vigoda, Seth Green, Marcia Cross, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Christian
Slater, to name just a few. After its four-season run on television, the show
spawned a feature
film of its own in 1990, which starred Slater along with Steve Buscemi,
Julianne Moore, and Debbie Harry.
Tales from the Darkside certainly wasn’t
the first or only show of its type. It owed a debt of gratitude to The
Twilight Zone, the pioneering show of strange tales which originally
ran from 1959 to 1964. The format became quite popular in the ‘80s, with Tales
from the Darkside being joined by Steven Spielberg’s Amazing
Stories and a Twilight Zone
revival in 1985, and then followed by HBO’s Tales
from the Crypt in 1989.
Set to write
the scripts for the new series is acclaimed author Joe Hill—son of Romero
collaborator and original Darkside
contributor Stephen King (who had his own horror anthology show with 2006’s Nightmares
& Dreamscapes). This isn’t the only film work Hill has on tap—his novel
Horns
has been adapted into a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple (which
premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and will
release theatrically in 2014), and his comic series Locke & Key is being
adapted into a film as well.
Written by Kyle Slagley
High school is arguably one of life’s most awkward times. Not only are you expected to get up at the crack of dawn to listen to Mr. Philips drone on about the coefficient of friction as it relates to the physics of gravity (or something like that), but you’re also supposed to discover who you are socially, physically, and professionally!
All of this can be torture to even the hardiest of teenagers, but in his usual – and brilliantly twisted – way, Stephen King made it even more difficult for Carrie White. Even those that have never read the novel are familiar with the basic premise of Carrie, the debut novel that launched King’s infamous career as horror-storyteller-extraordinaire.
Carrie is an awkward and unpopular teenager struggling against the incessant teasing and taunting of her classmates. Upon discovering her telekinetic powers, she gets even with her vicious classmates in a violent and bloody melee that leaves her small town in ruins.
When King wrote the novel while living in a trailer, he concluded that he had written a flop. He was pinching pennies so tightly that in 1974 his publisher had to send a telegram to tell him the book had been accepted because he’d had his phone line disconnected to save money. Carrie would go on to sell over 15 million copies and launch his career.
The film adaptation starred Sissy Spacek and would come out in 1976 to mostly positive reviews. The film is now widely regarded as one of the best classic horror movies ever made and is one of the few horror films to ever receive multiple Oscar nominations. King himself was quoted as saying Carrie was “a good movie.”
Even though Carrie is now 40 years old, the fascination with the story is still very prevalent. On September 25, Ghostlight Records released the studio album of Carrie: The Musical, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Broadway charts. The album is from the 2012 revival cast and is the first time the show has been released on CD; the Original Broadway Cast of 1988 never recorded a soundtrack.
The Off-Broadway revival of the musical ran for 34 previews and 46 performances earlier this year, closing on April 8. Despite the relatively short life of the revival, it fared much better than the original, which in 1988 cost over $7 million to produce and closed after 16 previews and 5 performances – the most expensive flop in Broadway history at the time.
As if all that weren’t enough, the film industry has decided that one film isn’t enough. Next year, a remake will be released starring Chloe Moretz as Carrie. Though the trailer ( http://youtu.be/RaHzUMq8iaM) reveals virtually no details about the film, it is said to be “a more faithful adaptation” than the 1976 version, which deviated from the book significantly.
Though the remake will obviously benefit King, after hearing about it he supposedly said “Why, when the movie was so good?” We’ll have to wait and see what his reaction is after the film releases on March 15, 2013.
Written by Kyle Slagley
Ask just about any group of patrons to name the most prolific author of horror novels they can think of, and more often than not the response you’ll receive is Stephen King. Like him or not, the Maine native has almost singlehandedly restructured the way the average reader thinks about the suspense novel.
King’s first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974; since then, both his bibliography and his film credits have grown at such an astounding rate it leaves you wondering if the man isn’t eerily supernatural, much like some of his stories. Indeed, King has over 50 novels, twice that many short stories, and numerous miniseries and films based on his writing.
King turns 65 today, and based on his official website he shows no sign of slowing any time soon. In fact, this week a release date (September 24, 2013) was announced for his upcoming novel Dr. Sleep, the much-anticipated sequel to The Shining.
Here are some of our favorite books and movies from the frighteningly masterful and masterfully frightening writer.
Carrie ( film: 1976): A high school girl with telekinetic powers takes revenge on her classmates after being humiliated at prom.
The Green Mile ( film: 1999): Tom Hanks and the late Michael Clarke Duncan tell the tale of a wrongfully convicted murderer on death row with an unusual gift for healing.
It ( novel: 1986, miniseries: 1990): Inhabitants of Derry, Maine, must face an evil clown that terrorizes the town by bringing fears to life. This work is quite possibly the reason that so many of us, to this day, have an irrational fear of clowns.
The Shawshank Redemption ( novella: 1982, film: 1994): An established banker is wrongfully sentenced to life in Shawshank prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. During his imprisonment he expands the prison library and navigates the corruption of the guards before escaping.
Hearts in Atlantis ( novella: 1999, film: 2001): Published in a collection of the same name, this story follows a boy who helps a friendly stranger with supernatural gifts escape the pursuit of the shady folks that follow him.
Carrie: The Musical ( soundtrack: 2012): Debuting on Broadway in 1988, Carrie: The Musical made its mark in theater history as the most expensive flop on Broadway at approximately $8 million to produce and closing after only five performances. On March 1 of this year, the Off-Broadway revival debuted at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, closing the following month on April 8 after 46 performances.
For a comprehensive look at King’s prolific career, SmartBrowse “Stephen King” on our website.
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