Stephen King was always my mother's favorite and she used to tell me edited versions of his stories when I was just a wee tike. I remember her telling of the Dark Tower story and it capturing my imagination so much, I wrote my own watered down version of it for a school assignment. The good thing about a prolific writer like King is that he cranks out novels as fast as his short stories. I was reading his stuff as early as middle school...I think. Collections like Night Shift and Skeleton Crew were good gateway drugs.
A friend of mine was really into The Shining and that was the first King novel I read. Later, I got hooked into his so-called Castle Rock trilogy of The Dark Half, a short story called The Sun Dog and Needful Things. As someone who wanted to be a writer, I noticed he wrote about writers a lot. I guess write what you know. That became a bit of a self-parody when all his books after he was hit by a car were about hit and runs.
King also had his alter-ego, Richard Bachman. Under that name he wrote novellas like The Long Walk (a personal favorite), Thinner and The Running Man. Now that I think about it, Bachman's stuff sounds like diet books. He even did a weird crossover with himself where Bachman wrote a book that tied into a Stephen King story.
I think his major talent is creating believable characters in just a few broad strokes. His characters find themselves trapped in grotesque and horrible situations but you intrinsically know if they are good-natured, evil or just like the rest of us, a little of both. These thumbnail sketches make his fantastical situations work.
Like one of his idols, HP Lovecraft, King likes to get a little abstract with his endings. Especially if cosmic forces are acting up, the descriptions can get a touch...heady. This makes filming a lot of King's endings problematic and explains why his writing style doesn't always translate well to the big screen.
If you need a good solid spook story, go to King.
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