As Stephen King has continued to publish numerous works beyond one of the many high points of his career, in the 1980s, scholarship has not always kept up with his output. This volume presents 13 essays (12 brand new) on many of King's recent writings that have not received the critical attention of his earlier works. This collection is grouped into three categories--"King in the World Around Us," "Spotlight on The Dark Tower" and "Writing into the Millennium"; each examines an aspect of King's contemporary canon that has yet to be analyzed.
As Stephen King has continued to publish numerous works beyond one of the many high points of his career, in the 1980s, scholarship has not always kept up with his output. This volume presents 13 essays (12 brand new) on many of King's recent writings that have not received the critical attention of his earlier works. This collection is grouped into three categories--"King in the World Around Us," "Spotlight on The Dark Tower" and "Writing into the Millennium"; each examines an aspect of King's contemporary canon that has yet to be analyzed.
The house next door to the Kennedys appears to be haunted by an all-pervasive evil, and the couple watches as a succession of owners becomes engulfed by the sinister force, until the Kennedys set out to destroy the house themselves.
The Modern Stephen King Canon: Beyond Horror is a collection of essays focused on the more recent writings of Stephen King, including Revival, 11/22/63, and a selection of short stories by the “Master of the Macabre.” The authors write about King works that have received little critical attention and aim to open up doorways of analysis and insight that will help readers gain a stronger appreciation for the depth and detail within King’s fiction. Indeed, while King is often relegated to the role of a genre writer (horror), the essays in this collection consider the merits of King’s writing beyond the basics of horror for which he is primarily known. Recommended for scholars of literature, horror, and popular culture.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY MARGARET ATWOOD • Stephen King's legendary debut, the bestselling smash hit that put him on the map as one of America's favorite writers • In a world where bullies rule, one girl holds a secret power. Unpopular and tormented, Carrie White's life takes a terrifying turn when her hidden abilities become a weapon of horror. "Stephen King’s first novel changed the trajectory of horror fiction forever. Fifty years later, authors say it’s still challenging and guiding the genre." —Esquire “A master storyteller.” —The Los Angeles Times • “Guaranteed to chill you.” —The New York Times • "Gory and horrifying. . . . You can't put it down." —Chicago Tribune Unpopular at school and subjected to her mother's religious fanaticism at home, Carrie White does not have it easy. But while she may be picked on by her classmates, she has a gift she's kept secret since she was a little girl: she can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. Her ability has been both a power and a problem. And when she finds herself the recipient of a sudden act of kindness, Carrie feels like she's finally been given a chance to be normal. She hopes that the nightmare of her classmates' vicious taunts is over . . . but an unexpected and cruel prank turns her gift into a weapon of horror so destructive that the town may never recover.
The Functions of Unnatural Death in Stephen King: Murder, Sickness, and Plots examines over thirty of King’s works and looks at the character deaths within them, placing them first within the chronology of the plot and then assigning them a function. Death is horrific and perhaps the only universal horror because it comes to us all. Stephen King, known as the Master of Horror, rarely writes without including death in his works. However, he keeps death from being repetitious or fully expected because of the ways in which he plays with the subject, maintaining what he himself has called a childlike approach to death. Although character deaths are a constant, the narrative function of those deaths changes depending on their placement within the plot. By separating out the purposes of early deaths from those that come during the rising action or during the climax, this book examines the myriad ways character deaths in King can affect surviving characters and therefore the plot. Even though character deaths are frequent and hardly ever occur only once in a book, King’s varying approaches to, and uses of, these deaths show how he continues to play with both the subject and its facets of horror throughout his work.
A DNA experiment threatens to decay the minds of mankind unless the genius who began this experiment can find a cure before he becomes the next victim.
#1 BESTSELLER • The apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting—and eerily plausible—as when it was first published. • The tie-in edition of the nine-part CBS All Access series starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgard, and James Marsden. A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.
Stephen King frequently places his human characters in danger against a supernatural antagonist. These characters, being realists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, must first overcome their disbelief at what is happening to them, and then decide what to do about it. Both their explanations for the strange happenings and their attempts to deal with them can be divided into four main categories: cultural appropriation; Christianity, especially Catholic rites; attempts at utter destruction; and a resignation to simply live--or die--with the supernatural intact. This book examines over 30 of King's works, revealing that the overall success of the characters in removing the supernatural threat from their towns, or perhaps defeating it entirely, does not depend fully on which of these four paths of action they choose. It is possible for any attempt to destroy the supernatural threat to fail, and what works in one of King's books will not have the same outcome in another. For King, the most likely success comes when his characters can choose a course of action that allows them to stand and be true to themselves.
Offering an insightful examination of Stephen King’s fiction, this book utilises a psychoanalytical approach drawing on Freud’s theory of the uncanny. It demonstrates how entrenched King’s work is in a literary tradition influenced by psychoanalytic theory, as well as the ways that King evades and amends Freud. Such an approach positions King’s texts not simply as objects of interpretation that might yield latent meaning, but as producers of meaning. King can certainly be read through the lens of the uncanny, but this book also aims to consider the uncanny through the lens of King. Organised around specific elements of the uncanny that can be found in King’s fiction, this book explores the themes of death and the return of the dead, monstrosity, telepathy, inanimate objects becoming menacingly animate, and spooky children. Popular texts are considered, such as IT, The Shining, and Pet Sematary, as well as less discussed work, including The Institute, The Regulators and Desperation. The book’s central argument is that King’s uncanny motifs offer insightful commentary on what is repressed in contemporary culture and insist on the failure of scientific rationalism to explain the world. King’s uncanny imaginary rejects dualistic notions of an experiencing self in an inert physical world and insists that psychic experience is bound up with the environmental. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary and popular literature, gothic and horror studies, and cultural studies.
