Again this is how we have grown apart, but I am not alone in thinking this author is at his best in short stories and novellas. I am never bored reading these pages I just think in the end much of that stuff could be done more concisely. I often sound like a broken record suggesting there is a good novel 200 pages in most cases with SK but I should explain. What worked in his favor was the shorter novel length. That wasn’t a guarantee as I am not a huge fan of first-person, although King is one of the best at it as he NEVER cheats the form. I loved every page of his last Hard Case Crime novel Later. That is not to say that have not enjoyed any of the recent output. The Dead Zone and Misery are prime examples. That is why my favorite King novels are the ones with fixed endings, where he had no choice but to drive to that moment. They know exactly the story they are telling and where they are going. I like to be in the hands of a storyteller completely in control. Uncle Steve likes the story to surprise him and in that sense, the books he starts and finishes often are very different. That said as we both grew older our tastes separated.

The early books are foundational story experiences for me. I am still a constant reader because of that respect even though our tastes in storytelling have changed a lot in our life-long author-reader relationship. I know he is the bestselling author on the planet and doesn’t need my validation and I would have to buy a metric ton of advertising to get five minutes of his sales for my books. I respect the hell out of the writer and the human being even more so. Let start by saying I always root for Stephen King.

Billy stephen king