Time Warp

If you just want to read Stephen King, paperbacks from used bookstores will do just fine. If you want to collect Stephen King, first editions are a must. Now, if you want to super-collect Stephen King, you have to look for special first editions, signed items, and so on.

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Know what I like? Well, like everyone, I like first edition hardcovers. But I also like to get stories in their original format. How cool is it to thumb through the magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as you read an entry to the original Gunslinger. I like stuff that has King's work printed in it, but also has other things that mark the times. The entire thing becomes something of a timewarp. From ads to other writers, politics and so much more transports you back to -- the 70's, 80's and 90's.

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So, I'm going to do a series of short posts that relate various stories by King, and the time warp reading them in their original publication will put you in.

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One of the reasons for King's success, I think, is that he writes about our time. NOt a lot of heavy historical fiction in a King novel. Now sometimes he'll drop back a decade or two, but I can't even think of a World War Two novel, or a Civil War novel. His work is usually set in the now. Thus, the stories themselves preserve a bit of America in the time they are written. Add to that the story in its orignal publication, and you have a taste of another era.