ABrief Guide to Stephen King

PAUL SIMPSON has been writing professionally about horror and science fiction for the past two decades. As editor of Dreamwatch magazine and its web spin-off SciFiBulletin.com, which he still oversees from his home in a small Sussex village just north of Brighton, England, he has visited the sets of numerous TV shows, including The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, and interviewed the stars of many of the classic Hammer Horror films.

2014 marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Stephen King’s first novel Carrie in April 1974. Rescued from the rubbish by his wife Tabitha, the novel launched the Maine schoolteacher on a prolific and extraordinarily successful career. His name has become synonymous with horror and suspense through over fifty works, including The Dark Tower, a retelling of Byron’s Childe Harold to the Dark Tower Came.

Simpson traces the writer’s life from his difficult childhood – his father went out to the shops and never came back – through his initial books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman to the success of Carrie, Salem’s Lot and The Shining in the 1970s, and beyond. He examines how King’s writing was affected by the accident that nearly killed him in 1999 and how his battles with alcohol and addiction to medication have been reflected in his stories. The guide will also take a look at the very many adaptation’s of King’s work in movies, on television and radio, and in comic books.

All you wanted to know about Stephen King . . . but were too afraid to ask!

In 1974, a new talent burst onto the horror scene: Maine schoolteacher Stephen King. Over the next forty years, King’s name would become synonymous with horror and dark fantasy through over fifty bestselling books, including his magnum opus The Dark Tower.

Simpson traces the writer’s development through his difficult childhood and his early writing career to the success of Carrie, ’Salem’s Lot and The Shining in the 1970s and the outpouring of material over the following two decades, some published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. He shows how King’s writing was affected by the accident that nearly killed him in 1999, and the ways in which his battles with addiction to alcohol and medication are reflected in his stories. He also discusses the dozens of films, TV shows, plays and comic books that have been inspired by King’s works.


A recipient of the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, among many other fantasy and mystery awards, King is one of the most significant cultural figures of the recent past, whose work remains as relevant – and popular – today as when he began writing.

Contemporary master of suspense and horrorThe best book about King and his work I have ever readThere have been surveys of Stephen King's work before but none with the same mix of concision and erudition. Covering forty years of all things Kingian from Carrie to the present day, Paul Simpson combines breadth of knowledge with passion for his subject, and his judgments are as fair as they are well argued. If you think you know about King, you will finish this book knowing more, and if you are a relative newcomer to the Maine horror maestro's writing, you will be moved by this book to read further. A Brief Guide... is both scholarly and readable, a rare combination. It is also indispensable.he clearly knows his Kinga useful guide, in 19 chapters, to Stephen King’s writing and his life, from his troubled childhood to his current successA Brief Guide to Stephen King is a huge win for me, and I recommend it to anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of this amazingly talented author.