Bachman vs. King

First he was retiring from writing. Then, not so much from writing, just retiring from publishing. Now, three books later, Stephen King is not only still writing and publishing, but he's publishing books he wrote back in the early 70s.

Not that I'm complaining. Look, I like a good King book as much as the next fella. A good King book. Like The Shining, Salem's Lot or The Dead Zone. Even once he became a Brand Name in the mid- to late-80s, the stuff he was putting out (It, Misery, The Tommyknockers) wasn't markedly different from his early work, but it was different enough to let you know he'd turned a corner, creatively. Lately, though, it seems he's not only turned another corner, but gone completely 'round the bend.

Ever since Insomnia. That's where I first started noticing it, and to date it's the only King book I've never been able to finish. It was the introduction of the Crimson King, and the first book in the Dark Tower cycle that wasn't lumped in retroactively. ("The Talisman? Sure, that's a Dark Tower story. Crouch End? Er, um... yep, that one too!") Instead, King confronted us with the "Crimson King" in various novels, poor second-cousins to the Dark Tower series, for the next decade, until finally wrapping "everything" up in the lame-ass final DT book.

This new one, Blaze, was written in late 1972 and early 1973, which gives me some hope. As King explains in the introduction, it was the last book written in the 66-73 period, when he was publishing under the name Richard Bachman, and so Blaze, too, carries this name.

Personally, I don't care if he wanted to publish under the name John Swithen again - early King is always going to be better than latter day King, no matter whose name is on the cover.