Stephen King

 As a young teenager in the late 80s and the early 90s I went through my Stephen King phase.  I was always aware of Stephen King, even when I was younger than that but I was led to believe that the books were 'too scary' for a wee kid and to be fair, they probably would have been.

I can't remember which ones I started with but I did read almost everything that was available and fast.  I remember buy and loving the paperback of "The Dark Half'.  I'm sure I had a copy of Carrie and a few of his other early books.  I did have the hardback of the revised version of 'The Stand' with the Bernie Wrightson pictures.  Most of them I borrowed from the East Kilbride library.

More recently I've taken the time to catch up on some of his newer books.  11.22.63 is pretty good, The Outsider is enjoyable with some great characters, I finally managed to read the Gunslinger (book 1 of The Dark Tower) and I'm finally reading Doctor Sleep, the follow-up to The Shining. I'm glad I'm taking the time to read these books.

I can remember reading the Bachman Books collection when I was young and I was a bit surprised that King had withdrawn one of the Bachman novels (Rage) from print.  I think he had good reasons to do it but it is a bit weird to think that a book I remember reading 30 years ago has now disappeared from the shelves.

King writes with comfortable rhythms and that has been good over the past month while I've been recovering from minor surgery.  Looking at him now, I think he is a decent bloke.  I think his heart is in the right place so I'm glad that the young me spent so much time reading his work.  I don't think I'll ever read it all but some of it is good.  I wonder if my son will like his stuff when he grows up.