King and Carpenter: A Match Made in Hell?

King and Carpenter: A Match Made in Hell?
by Brandon Engel

The most compelling monsters are the ones who illicit our deepest sympathies. John Carpenter’s The Thing, however, elicits sympathy in a surprisingly pathetic way: he got his ass handed to him by E.T.! The fearsome shape-shifter of Carpenter’s misanthropic visions just couldn’t hold his own in the box-office against Hollywood’s favorite doe-eyed, feeble weakling (no, not Spielberg, but the alien).

And it’s really too bad that the film didn’t enjoy a more dignified theatrical run, because a.) it deserved to and b.) the rumor is that if Carpenter’s film hadn’t tanked, he was going to be brought into direct a big-budget film adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter. And it’s really too bad, in a way, because the Firestarter film that ultimately was released was an enormous let down.

It didn’t prevent Carpenter and King from teaming up, however. Not long after the release of The Thing, Carpenter was recruited to direct a feature length adaptation of King’s Christine (1983), which tells the story of a bloodthirsty 1957 Plymouth Fury. This was perhaps, the most appropriate King story for a collaboration between the two men, and I say this for a couple of reasons. For one, King’s stories can become so involved, with so many characters introduced, that, in many situations, it would be impractical and distracting to compress all of them into a single film. One of the things that distinguishes Carpenter’s work on the whole is that he’s capable of telling captivating stories with very few principal actors (think Halloween, Dark Star, Starman, The Thing). Christine is a story with relatively few characters, and with much of the narrative tension borne out of the intensity of a few key relationships. For another thing, Carpenter is versatile in that he has shown a facility for both visually driven narratives (The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape From New York) and narratives that downplay the importance of intense visuals and make economic use of what is not seen (Halloween especially). King has an extremely colorful imagination, and while there are certain images that he evokes successfully through his writing, attempts to translate these images directly to screen have in some instances, fallen short.

One of the things that becomes clear looking at the work of both men, is that Carpenter and King spoke the same language, and had many of the same cultural reference points. Both men drew liberally from the influences of EC Comics. Both men, in fact have spoken in interviews about the significance of those horror comics, and both men have paid tribute to them: King with Creepshow (1983) and Carpenter most directly with John Carpenter’s Body Bags (1993). Both men were also huge admirers of Ray Bradbury, who might have, in some way,s provided the seedling for the idea that would blossom into Christine. Ray Bradbury was a pre-eminent purveyor of cold-war era technophobia. Themes of rapidly evolving technology (amplified by the arms race between the states and the former U.S.S.R.) are prevalent in his work, and King and Carpenter have integrated elements of this into their work also.

While critical response to Christine was mixed up its initial release, the film has aged pretty well in many ways. After all, we live in an age of cars that can drive themselves, and wireless home security monitoring systems that control everything. One of the things that has perhaps kept it relevant to modern audiences is the fact that technology is still creepy. It’s creepier now than it’s ever been.

With Halloween season upon us here again, let’s toast to two masters of menace! And here’s to hoping that King will manage to pull Carpenter out of semi-retirement and provide him with a decent script to work off of (something that Carpenter, sadly, has been lacking for a few decades now)

................................

Brandon Engel is a Chicago-based blogger with a keen interest in all things horror. Among his favorite Stephen King novels are: Firestarter, Cujo, The Shining, Carrie, Hearts in Atlantis, and Misery. Follow him: @BrandonEngel2

Will Errickson: Danse Macabre by Stephen King (1981): Oh, Baby, Do Ya Wanna Dance?

This is from Will Errickson's blog, toomuchhorrorfiction. Of course, there can never REALLY be too much horror fiction, right Will?  Reposted with permission. Check out his blog!

Danse Macabre by Stephen King (1981): Oh, Baby, Do Ya Wanna Dance?

He may not be Harold Bloom, Leslie Fiedler, or Michiko Kakutani, but Stephen King once wrote what I consider one of the most perfectly devastating criticisms of bad writing ever. Comparing a now mostly-forgotten novel by an unknown writer that he felt was "written pretty good" to the then-current rulers of the bestseller lists, King wrote this author was no Saul Bellow, no Bernard Malamud, but at least not down there in the steerage with people like Harold Robbins or Sidney Sheldon, who apparently wouldn't know the difference between a balanced line of prose and a shit-and-anchovy pizza.

Down there in the steerage. A shit-and-anchovy pizza. Holy living fuck, do I love that. Inelegant, crude, and yet right on the money. In fact, I love nearly everything about King's Danse Macabre, which is where you'll find that immortal dismissal. Written after he'd just made a name for himself with the hardcover success of The Shining (1977), it's a very personal and informal rumination on horror entertainment in the latter half of the 20th century, coinciding mostly with King's life specifically and baby boomers in general (he was born in 1947 - which means he was nearly 10 years younger than I am now when he wrote this book. Sigh). I first read it as a young teenager, and it also served well in introducing me to various cultural touchstones I wasn't learning about in high school: the uneasiness Americans felt after Sputnik (a pivotal event in a young King's life), the Charles Whitman and Kent State shootings, Charles Manson, the Vietnam War, Black Panthers, and Erica Jong's charming concept of the "zipless fuck."

Almost effortlessly (the genesis of the book was his college lectures teaching a course on supernatural literature), King relates background info on horror in all media: he fondly recalls the Cold War "bug-eyed monster" horror films of the '50s and '60s but heaps scorns on Plan 9 from Outer Space and Robot Monster. Then there's old-time horror radio star Arch Oboler and his "Lights Out" series, as well as TV shows like "Thriller," "Night Gallery," and "The Outer Limits." He muses about changing tastes and sophistication in audiences as well as root causes for our fascination with the macabre (or "mcbare" as he pronounced the word as a youngster). Tying all this together are autobiographical sketches about his youth as an American kid brought up by a single working mother, moving from one town to another and engaging with some of the odder members of his extended family. And then one day he discovers a box of old pulp fiction paperbacks that had once belonged to his now long-departed father, read his first H.P. Lovecraft tales, and a fate was sealed (Lovecraft; as it ever was, as it ever shall be).

As you can probably guess, this is no academic tome filled with references to "hermeneutics" or "metatextualism" or anything like that; Danse Macabre is digressive, insightful, funny, unpolished, wide-ranging, wrong in some places and oh-so-right in others. King's background as a one-time English teacher and lifelong committed reader with catholic tastes allows him to expound, if only briefly, not simply on the horror fiction we all know and love but also commonly venerated writers like Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Theroux, James M. Cain, Joan Didion, and Jim Thompson. And ever the rock'n'roller, King references late '70s punk rock kings the Ramones and the Sex Pistols - at a time when few music fans in America had any inkling who they were - noting a similarity between their gleeful noise-making and anti-establishment rabble-rousing and the seemingly antisocial aims of many horror movies. He admits he kinda likes The Prophecy, a much-hyped film failure in the late '70s but says his favorite horror movie of that day is the little-seen Tourist Trap. King is one of those guys that just soaks up whatever's out there; it is as if he is quite literally no snob.

As one might expect, he devotes an entire long and thorough chapter on horror fiction in which he covers a handful of modern works that he feels define various aspects of the genre: Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Anne Rivers Siddons' The House Next Door, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's collection Strange Wine, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, and Ramsey Campbell's first novel The Doll Who Ate His Mother. While expressing disdain for the lifeless aridity of grad-school student theorizing King does some of his own, but it's a livelier, chummier, albeit just as informed approach he takes, sometimes graceless and glib, but often apt and unpretentious.

Whether it's breaking down the famous opening paragraph of Jackson's novel, or marveling at the "ominous jocularity" of Ellison's stories, or discussing how the Gothic tradition is twisted around in Straub's early novels, King really just likes kicking back and talking about what he loves and knows. He lets the authors speak for their own works by quoting at length their letters to him, although acknowledging that sometimes authors are not the best critics of their own work.

A few of King's ideas in Danse Macabre have become pretty well-known as part of horror criticism: the horror genre is "as conservative as an Illinois Republican in a three-piece pinstriped suit" because it wants us to reject the maniacal and monstrous outsider, to see the taboo and avoid it and celebrate our healthy selves (this was some years before Clive Barker, remember). He posits that when a horror movie builds up suspense and then shows the audience a 10-foot tall insect, they sigh, "I can handle a 10-foot tall insect; at least it wasn't 100 feet tall, that would've been pretty bad" (I don't think that one holds up well today in the CGI age; modern audiences are more likely to complain "A 10-foot tall insect? Why wasn't it 100 feet tall?"). But most famous of all is this honest admission, which seems to sum up Stephen King and much - but absolutely not all - of his fiction:

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.

Two appendices complete Danse Macabre: one on essential horror film and one on essential horror fiction since the 1950s or so; I've mentioned here before that I've used the latter list as general guide over the years. This is a book I have dipped into over and over again over many years with a deep and abiding pleasure and which inspired in me the desire to look at horror in a larger and more thoughtful way, rather than just taking in the latest movie or novel everybody's talking about. All serious, and burgeoning, horror fans should own a copy. Functioning like a kind of alternative education in art high and low as well as in 20th century Americana, Danse Macabre is an absolutely unmissable and essential piece of horror entertainment itself, from the one and only King.

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Under The Influence

At his goodreads page, Stephen King lists the following writers as his inspiration: Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft, John D. MacDonald, Richard Matheson, J.R.R. Tolkien

My book, Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, discusses King and 5 of these writers and their connection to Stephen King:

• Ray Bradbury in chapter 6, The Man Who Scared Stephen King.
• Charles Dickens in chapter 3, Stephen King, A Modern Charles Dickens
• H.P. Lovecraft in chapter 1, The Long Shadow Of Stephen King
• Richard Matheson in chapter 5, Shivering Through The Twilight Zone
• and J.R.R. Tolkien (briefly) in chapter 7, Dark Theologian.

I am surprised King did not list: Poe.

King and Bradbury: Fear and Technology

image credit: elive.com.ua

by Brandon Engel

Although some critics dismiss the work as low-brow and sensationalist, horror and science-fiction literature can have socially redeeming value, if only insofar as that both lend themselves to identifying common sources of anxiety and dread. Horror typically deals with primal, visceral fears - isolation, bodily harm, or other more abstract neurosies. Science fiction typically has something factual as its basis, and offers grim speculations about issues pertaining to science and industry, such as the implications of space travel, or widespread fear of rapidly advancing technology itself becoming an instrument of oppression.

Even more disturbing than the notion of technology being used as an instrument of oppression is the idea of machines functioning with some level of autonomy, perhaps acting as instruments of oppression by their own volition. This is a theme familiar to genre fans. It was a concept addressed in several episodes of The Twilight Zone, and it is also a theme which Stephen King has embraced himself, notably in the novel Christine (which was later made into a film directed by John Carpenter), about a 1957 Plymouth Fury with a mind of its own and a lust for human blood. King also explored the concept more ambitiously in the horrendous, cocaine fueled script for the film Maximum Overdrive, wherein all electronic appliances are trying to kill people.

Years before King was a professional writer, his hero, Ray Bradbury, had explored similar concepts himself. You may recall Bradbury’s short-story August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains, which tells the story of an eerily vacant, fully automated suburban home. In keeping with all of the advances in domestic technology that were abundant in the United States in the years after World War II, the house Bradbury envisioned was capable of speaking to the home’s occupants, preparing meals, and even lighting cigars. We come to learn that the family who owned the house was vaporized by an atomic blast; we catch glimpses of silhouettes permanently burned into the sides of buildings, and baseballs that have become forever embedded in the side of house. The house inevitably burns itself to the ground - reinforcing the notion that technology, if left unchecked, could be our undoing as a civilization. Bradbury had also toyed with this concept in some of the stories he contributed to E.C. horror comics in the fifties, most notably the story entitled The Coffin, which tells the story of an elaborate, fully automated coffin which entraps a man, and buries itself deep into the earth. These stories challenge romantic, egalitarian notions of technology as something that has bettered society wholesale and they also provoke speculation as to what degree technology is a potential liability for humanity.

Bradbury’s writing address anxieties that were rampant in the cold war era. The United States had demonstrated its nuclear capabilities by obliterating Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and at the height of the cold war, anxieties ran high. Children of the cold war era may recall going through the drills in school where the entire class would crouch underneath desks. Mock villages were constructed for the sole purpose of being decimated by test bombs. There was also intense friction between the western empire and the former U.S.S.R., and the unspoken truth behind the space race was that both superpowers were demonstrating their potential military capabilities. For instance, it was horrifying to the American public when Sputnik was first launched in 1957.

What’s alarming about the present day is that it often feels like real world technology is, in effect, manifesting some of the anxieties. With all of the paranoia in recent months surrounding the NSA scandal. and stories about Google acquiring the home automation company Nest, it’s more than a little disconcerting to read about things like the ADT Pulse home automation system that controls multiple household functions (kitchen appliances, heating and cooling, etc.) from a single smartphone app. What happens when someone hacks into our mobile phone when we leave it in the back of a cab? Or worse, what happens when the tech giants who manage these systems (who may or may not be working in tandem with the government) gain even more insight into our day to day lives - so much so that our smartphones might essentially function as the “telescreens” predicted by George Orwell in 1984?

Technology plays an increasingly large role in society, and for every advantage and convenience this affords, it also opens up new and elaborate means for people to harm one another. It’s for this reason that science fiction and horror should not be outright disregarded as trivial or unsophisticated - but rather, as a vehicle for discussing wide scale problems.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Brandon Engel is a blogger in Chicago who loves vintage horror and classic speculative fiction. Among his favorite authors are Arthur Machen, H.P Lovecraft, and of course, Stephen King. Follow Brandon’s zany adventures (and misadventures) on Twitter: @BrandonEngel2

Stephen King Compared To Classics

reposted from March, 2012


Ever notice how certain books remind you of other books or writers.  Sometimes a storyline in a King book will remind me of another book -- a classic.  So, just for fun . . . let's line King up with some classic authors.

I'll go ahead and put my answers, but I really look forward to reading yours.

1. What King books is most like David Copperfield.

My Answer: The Shining, because it is the most autobiographical.

2. What King short story most reminds you of O'Henry?

Dunno. . . look forward to looking at everyone else's paper on that one.

3. King is often compared to Poe.  What King book is most like something Poe would write -- either in style or plot?

I choose The Stand, because there are sections where King is actually playing with the text from the Raven.  (I believe it is in the section with The Judge.)  But I also think Dolan's Cadillac is a prime example of King linking to Poe.  Wow, I better move on, I could go for a while on this subject!  OH!  1922 is very much at Tell Tale Heart.

4. Years ago the King of mystery was Arthur Conan Doyle.  What King book most represents something like a Conan Doyle book?

Humm. . . I can't think of one!  I don't think Conan Doyle would leave a mystery open, so I'm not sure about The Colorado Kid.  I guess I would have to offer up Umley's Last Case -- but it is really more science fiction!  But such fun.

5. Probably the most famous monster book is Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.  Dean Koontz has taken the lore on most directly, but what King book has hints of Frankenstein?

Don't laugh at me -- I nominate Christine.  Though Arnie does not build Christine, or breath life into her -- he does rebuild her.  And though he loves his creation, like Dr. Frankenstein did the monster, the creation is pure evil.

6. What book is most like Dracula?

Easy -- why did I put that there?  Salem's Lot.  I think Dracula was the direct influence on Salem's Lot.

7. What King work is most like Th Phantom of the Opera?

. . . I can't think of one.

8. What King book is most like the work of Shirley Jackson?

Once again I would point to The Shining.

9. Okay, this is a little more modern -- but let's compare the King to Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.  

Once again, I'm stumped.

10. How about Les Miserables?  

A wonderful book!  I would compare it to The Green Mile.  Though Hugo's work was much longer, both are stories of redemption.

11. Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men ?

Blaze and The Stand, because both deal with the struggles of the mentally handicap.  Blaze in particular, though.

12. Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath.

I would suggest 11.22.63, since both are historical novels.  Though, 11.22.63 is a romance is disguise!  

13. To change things up a little: What classic character is Carrie most like?

Don't know.

. . . and here's the bottom line: No one really writes like King!

Okay friends -- your turn.  

Elizabeth Chadwick Includes King In BOOKS OF A LIFETIME

I enjoyed author Elizabeth Chadwick's post, "The Books of a Lifetime." She discusses books that stood out at various stages of her life.  A fun road trip probably all of us should  take.  I'm afraid that before Mr. King, I didn't actually finish many books!

Chadwick explains, "I have chosen five favourite books each from my childhood, my adolescence, young adulthood and maturity (if you can call it that)."

Naturally, Chadwick's choices are a mixture of classics and modern hits.  Stuff I'm familiar with, and some I didn't know existed.

Under the heading of Young Adult, Chadwick gives a short discussion of The Shining.  Here's what she wrote:

The Shining by Stephen King. This book is one of the very few where I have almost been too scared to turn the pages. Stephen King is a very powerful writer indeed and this story of a family falling apart and closed up for the winter in the haunted (and maliciously so) Overlook Hotel is a claustrophobic triumph. I re-read it at least once a year.

Wow!  That's pretty good.  I've read it through once, and just started re-reading in prep for Doctor Sleep.  She re-read's it "at least once a year."

Under the heading, Mature Adult, she includes The Green Mile.

The Green Mile by Stephen King. The second Stephen King on my list. I could carry on reading his work my life long. The Green Mile, I think, achieves absolute greatness for Stephen King. If the subject matter didn't involve horror and the supernatural, and if wasn't so mainstream and readable, this one would have been on The Booker list for sure. I'd certainly put it on my alternative Booker shortlist. There are lines in that book of such profound power that they bring tears to my eyes.

Chadwick's  full article is at historicaltapestry.blogspot.com

MY ANSWERS:

Okay, I have to clarify that I am discussing NOVELS and not religious works, The Bible, commentaries, devotionals and books that have given my life greater perspective, like The Purpose Driven Life.  Just fiction:

childhood: Fatal Vision.  I'm not kidding.  I read the whole thing when I was about 11 after seeing the mini-series.  It is the story of Dr. Jeffery MacDonald who is accused of killing his family.  

Also, Run Silent -- Run Deep, Star Wars (the novel by Lucas), V.

adolescence: 1984, by George Orwell.  I was first introduced to it as a radio play, then got the book abridged on tape. I found Orwell's world quite scary.  1984 is a precursor to The Hunger Games. 

Also, under adolescence, I  would include: The Martian Chronicles, The Stand, The War of the Worlds, IT, Night of the Moonbow, Sherlock Holmes and Swan Song. 

young adulthood: The Grapes of Wrath, which is absolutely wonderful!  A journey through America during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.  We travel with the Judd  family from Oklahoma to California.  Steinbeck is such an effective writer that the reader suffers with the Judd's, burning with anger as they are delivered set back after set back at the hands of a very cruel world.

Also under young adulthood: Pillars of the Earth, Of Mice and Men, David Copperfield (though I'm still not sure what that book was actually about), The Pelican Brief, Cold Sassy Tree, This Present Darkness.

maturity: . . . riiight.

Your Turn! using the same setup Chadwick did, copy and paste in the comments section your answers:

childhood 

adolescence

young adulthood 

maturity

What Authors Would You Invite To Dinner?

I liked Karen Tae's article, "Which authors would you invite to dinner?" (HERE)

Tae makes the interesting observational that people can be disappointed when they meet the author of their favorite book -- because the author is not the same person who wrote the book; that person has moved one!

Books are like time capsules of a certain stage of a writer's thought process, creative energy and emotional space. Generally, once the story has been told, the author goes on to the next project and by the time the long, painful process of publishing has been endured and the reader gets their hot little hands on a copy, it will have been years since the completion of those early drafts. People can change a lot within the space of months, let alone over two or three or four years.

I never thought about that, but it's certainly true!  King does pretty good reflecting on the person he was when he wrote various books.  Robert Mccammon got frustrated with people only wanting to discuss Swan Song, and at least for a while refused to talk about the novel!  Imagine that -- you could sit in a library and talk with friends or reading groups about the book, but the author did not want to discuss it. It seems King has always been quite willing to talk about his work.

So who would you invite to dinner?  On Tae's list is Stephen King, with a strange notation about Tabitha that I don't quite understand.  (Wouldn't she also count as an author?)  About King, Tae writes:

Who wouldn't want to have Stephen and Tabitha King over for dinner?! He could regale me with horror stories while I drain the spaghetti and stir the sauce. Tabitha would naturally be in charge of dessert. And I could discuss post-apocalyptic fiction with King and when exactly he thinks they might turn the Dark Tower series into movies.

Why is Tabitha "naturally in charge of dessert"?  Is that a reference to a book or an inside joke?  I don't get it.  Ben Stein voice. . . anyone, anyone, anyone. . .

Thinking of dinner with a writer, I ate dinner one night with my wife and her family at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  My wife excitedly told everyone not to bother with spaghetti sauce, but to instead get the mizithira cheese because the menu said Homer lived on it when he wrote the Odyssey.  We followed this direction, and all wished we had some sauce.

MY CHOICES FICTION:

1. Stephen King
2. Charles Dickens
3. Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Ray Bradbury
5. Ken Follett

And to each  meal, I would invite Ed Wood to be my sidekick to keep the conversation flowing.  (Or Woody Allen) 

MY CHOICES NonFICTION:

1. Rick Warren (Pirpose Driven Life)
2. Gary Thomas (Sacred marriage)
3. Aaron Eby (Boundary Stones)
4. Errol Morris (A Wilderness Of Error)
5. Carl Sandburg (Lincoln series)

YOUR TURN!

Remainders Last Show On THE LATE SHOW

CBS has posted the August 6 episode of The Late Show with Craig Ferguson.  The Rock Bottom Remainders played their last gig on the show, and Ferguson interviewed King.

Ferguson expressed confusion about the cover of the Wind Through the Keyhole.  He also noted that on the jacket cover, King seems like an "angry lookin' man."  They also discussed writing.  Ferguson said King is a "genre of his own."  I like that!  King says he read a lot of Poe and Lovecraft, but was impacted most by California writers like Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury.

King emphasizes he is a regular guy -- his wife is not scared of him.  His job is to drag the trash. . . write a book.  Funny -- you sorta gotta see it.

King says that print interviews like to ask when he was like as a kid, with the real question being what happened to him as a kid that messed him up so bad.

Funny, King notes that he does not know how popular he'll be after he dies, but then says, "I'm not sure I'll care!  I don't think I'll be hanging around libraries as a ghost 'reeeeed my booook'."

They also discuss things that scare us all. . . like clowns!  "That clown figure is the same in a lot of cultures, societies.  Children have the same reaction to them everywhere."

The show is great.  CBS  online is a little. . . commercial intensive.  I can't complain, I am watching their show for free!  Check it out.

The episode is at  www.cbs.com

Stephen King On The Death Of Ray Bradbury

"Ray Bradbury wrote three great novels and three hundred great stories. One of the latter was called 'A Sound of Thunder.' The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty."

Stephen King
stephenking.com

Ray Bradbury Dies

AP reported that Ray Bardbury died in Los Angeles Tuesday night at the age of 91.

Bradbury is best known for his novel “Fahrenheit 451", which a lot of us had to read in school.  He also wrote short stories and poetry.  His show, The Ray Bradbury Theater, was a blast!  I loved it.

According to the AP article, he was active into his 90s, writing everyday in the basement office of his home.  His wife Maggie died in 2003; they were married in 1947.  Together they had four daughters and eight grandchildren.  It takes a real man to raise girls!

His website described his office:

Ray's office is in his basement, a fascinating warren of rooms beneath his Los Angeles home. In the main room, you can see Ray's desk and typewriter where he works every day. The room is lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, but as you can see, the shelves hold much more than books. There are toys, stuffed animals, masks from around the world, gifts from fans, and souvenirs picked up over the years having to do with books, theater, television, and film. 

He scripted the 1956 film version of Moby Dick and wrote “I sing the body electric” for the Twilight Zone.  Plans were in hand to use Bradbury more for Twilight zone, but never materialized.  He also wrote for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

HERE is a listing of all his work in chronological order.

Bradbury designed Spaceship Earth for  Disney's Epcot.  A crater on the moon was named after one of his stories "Dandelion Crater" as part of the 1971 Apollo 15 moon landing.  (HERE)

According to Raybradbury.com, Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an the National Medal of Arts in 2004.

Yahoo News cites  Texas A&M Commerce English Professor Robin Ann Reid, "The universe is a little emptier right now . . . There's less of that sense of joy and exulation that he was writing in his works all the way to the end."

The Yahoo article also notes:

Bradbury recently wrote a short essay responding to his favorite Snoopy comic strip about how much rejection he faced when he first began writing. "Starting when I was fifteen I began to send short stories to magazines like Esquire, and they, very promptly, sent them back two days before they got them! I have several walls in several rooms of my house covered with the snowstorm of rejections, but they didn't realize what a strong person I was; I persevered and wrote a thousand more dreadful short stories, which were rejected in turn," he wrote.

Bradbury said on his 80th birthday,

"The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you'll come along." 

Stephen King and Ray Bradbury:

Stephen King was born in 1947, the same year Bradbury’s first book was published.

Both King and Bradbury  have had close connections to  Hollywood, often writing scripts for their own works.

Crumley at Bradbury’s message board noted this:

There is no doubt that King is an admirer of Ray - even if his work is not really in the same vein. DANSE MACABRE makes many praising references to Ray. "My first experience of real horror came at the hands of Ray Bradbury," King writes, and describes how as a boy he listened with delightful terror to a radio play of 'Mars is Heaven'. King also comments on how Bradbury is peerless: "But for me, Bradbury lives and works alone in his own country, and his remarkable, iconoclastic style has never been successfully imitated. Vulgarly put, when God made Ray Bradbury, He broke the mold."

Elements of Bradbury's work (especially of the earlier, darker stories) can be seen in King's work - sometimes in theme (eg. the dark flipside of human nature, the way that evil is sometimes the victor), and sometimes in style (eg. black humour, eerie & surreal landsapes). To anyone who reads both authors, the influence is clear.”

Check out the 2:50 mark of Bradbury's biographer, Sam  Weller, as he discuses Bradbury's influence on Stephen King. "He told me, that it was his first encounter at the hands of fear was because of Ray Bradbury."

TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE BRADBURY STORY

I have three favorites.  First, I loved the short novel The Martian Chronicles.  Originally, Bradbury said he had a bunch of short stories about Mars, but when he came to Los Angeles, no one wanted to publish short stories.  So he wove them into a single story.  It is delightful; both novel and poetry, the writing is awesome.  For just a taste of it, check out the section titled “Rocket Summer.”

I also loved the book of short stories, The Illustrated Man.  These short stories are bound together by a mans tattoos, which are alive and moving as they tell stories.  The Velt is pretty good in that set.

And, I enjoyed his 1962 collection, R is for Rocket.  (Along the same lines as S is for Space.)  Bradbury short stories are just fun.  That’s how all his work is – delightful and fun.

The joy spills off the page and touches the reader.  He never spends (spent) long explaining how things work, he just leapt through the story itself.  I loved it!  He was very much a “don’t bother me with the details” type author.  How can a spacship do that, Mr. Bradbury?  No worries. . . he just writes on.

The magic of Famous Monsters

photo credit: tgdaily.com

I really enjoyed David Konow's article, "The Magic of Famous Monsters" at tgdaily.com. 

Konow explores the first issue of Famous Monsters.  This is a magazine that King has said qite a lot about, and seems to ahve influenced him deeply as a young man.

The article cites King's book On Writing, in which King recalls the "bright memories" associated with this magazine.
Konow quotes King:

King wrote the introduction to Mr. Monster's Movie Gold, one of the many books Forry had penned over the years, and in it he recalled the first time he ever picked up the magazine at a local newsstand. "I didn't just read my first issue of Famous Monsters," King wrote. "I inhaled it... I poured over it... I damn near memorized that magazine and it seemed eons until the next one."

It wasn't long after King discovered the wonderful world of Famous Monsters that he sent Forry a story he wrote in 1960. It was the very first time King ever sent anything out in the hopes of being published. Ackerman was also a literary agent, he represented Ray Bradbury, L. Ron Hubbard and Ed Wood, and he could have added King to his roster, but unfortunately he rejected the story.



I guess King survived being rejected by Ed Wood's agent! -- Haha.

The article recalls a touching scene in which Ackerman met Kingat a book signing in L.A. and had him sign the original copy of a story King submitted in the early sities!
Go read the entire article.  I've actually linked to the second part, but both are a great read.

My Interview With Bob LeDrew



Photo Credit: Dan Roy

Bob LeDrew is the host of a wonderful website titled the Kingcast. A lot of King sites require a lot of reading. . . which is fine, since most of us read Stephen King! However, Kingcast also offers loads of audio interviews and is a very unique experience.  Bob, as he shares below, is also a music lover and also a fan of Ray Bradbury.

Talk Stephen King: Hi Bob! Tell me a little about yourself.

Bob LeDrew: Well... I have the heart of a small boy... on my desk. Wait, I just stole that from SK. More accurately, I'm a 45-year-old guy who lives in Ottawa, Ontario, which is Canada's capital city. I work for myself, on a variety of things, from working on launching a concert series in 2012 to doing promotions for musicians to starting to teach for a local community college in public relations and social media. I live in a great neighbourhood with a lovely woman who tolerates my eccentricities with the help of our two cats.

My other great passion is music, mostly of the folky-rootsy variety, but I am also a huge fan of bands like The Who and The Kinks.


Talk Stephen King: I really like The Stephen King Cast – it is very unique. I’m sure it’s a lot of work, because each episode requires you to hit the pavement and get the interviews. What was your motivation in starting this site?

Bob LeDrew: I don't do interviews EVERY episode. From time to time I blather on solo. But lately, there have been a lot of interviews. I guess there were a couple of motivations in starting the Kingcast. I've always had a finger or two in the radio / audio pie, so the freedom that podcasting provides to "make your own radio" is very appealing. I've been a huge King fan for decades, and I like to think I understand a bit about his work. So rather than bore my friends with it, I thought I'd spread the boredom over a much larger potential listenership.


Photo Credit: Dan Roy

Funny, the easiest part of the interview shows has been actually getting the interviews. I've only been turned down flat once, by the psychologist in New Zealand who said Stephen King books were causing mental illness in her patients. She refused the request because I am a "fan" of King. Shame, really. I spend more time once I've gotten the interview booked trying to prepare myself. I want to make sure that if someone like Shawn Piller or Annabeth Gish is giving me a half-hour of their time -- that's a lot -- I want to give them good questions that engage them -- and the listeners too.

The other thing that motivated me to do the podcast is that I went online to find Stephen King podcasts, and those that were there had suffered "podfade." That's a phenomenon when people start out a podcast going gangbusters and rapidly lose their motivation. So I thought there was a niche there, and I suspected there was an audience.


Talk Stephen King: What are some unique things you’ve learned doing this? (Any new insights into Stephen King, the fans or the world of Stephen King?)

Bob LeDrew: I think I appreciate more the breadth of what King has done and is doing. He's continuing to challenge himself artistically, which I admire for someone of his age and experience. I thought Full Dark No Stars was amazing. I don't know that this is unique to me, but I am more convinced than ever that King will be seen as the Dickens of our part of history - a socially minded, immensely popular, sometimes soft-hearted, sometimes maudlin writer who believes in the power of "the little people."

Another thing that has struck me over the time I've been doing this is the passion and protectiveness that King fans have towards his writing. The most obvious example of this is the movies. Writers or directors who change things from the book really open themselves up to some vicious criticism from fans. I try to be open to those changes and judge them on whether they help make the movie or TV property usable (with a certain degree of success), but man, there are some people who will tolerate no change from the book.


Talk Stephen King: I really enjoyed your interview with Ms. Mod and her discussion about the work at the Haven foundation. You’ve interviewed some pretty interesting people from the King-realm. Any favorites stand out?

Bob LeDrew: Oh man. I feel that if I point out one someone else might feel left out. Matt Frewer was a superbly nice guy. But so were Mick Garris and Annabeth Gish. But I also really enjoyed talking to Brad Ricca about violence and moral panics. The best part of interviews to me is that you get to talk to people who know more than you do and learn from them.


Talk Stephen King: How long have you been reading Stephen King? What’s the draw for you? (And what do your friends and family think of your interest in the Stephen King universe?)

Bob LeDrew: I don't know how long. A LOOOOONG time. Probably around my early teens, which would make it more than 30 years. I think the draw has changed over the years. I suspect my younger self enjoyed the visceral thrills that King provided. I was also a huge HP Lovecraft reader back in the day. But as I've aged, and kept reading him -- and trust me, I read stuff repeatedly -- I feel like I've come to appreciate what King has been able to teach himself and the reader about human nature and the human character. Lovecraft has not aged anywhere near as well as King has for me.

Most of my "real-life" friends have very little appreciation for King. In fact, my partner has grudgingly read a few things, and she watched Bag of Bones, but nothing much beyond that. I think (hope!) they appreciate my passion for King, and accept that I'm just a little offbase -- which is no surprise to most people who know me.

Talk Stephen King: Bag Of Bones recently aired on A&E – with very mixed reviews. What did you think of it? Do you have a favorite King movie?

Bob LeDrew: I have mixed feelings about the miniseries. On one side, I think Garris gets a very rough ride from fans. And I think there are some set pieces in Bag of Bones that are genuinely affecting and chilling. Mike's grief, at times, is painful to watch. The end of Sara Tidwell was done much better than I expected. I wasn't sure how they would deal with that, and I thought they did a great job. The strong erotic current that runs through the book like a through-line from Sara to Jo to Mattie was well executed.

On the other hand, there were weaknesses. I think the ability of a malign presence to influence the entire TR (or Dark Score, as they call it in the series) was diluted in the script. And the climax didn't work for me. And the last scene really bothered me. Overall, I think it was a solid effort, but not the best adaptation.

I think my favorite King adaptation is Misery. The film kinda reminds me of Hitchcock as a self-imposed challenge to the director: "Okay, two characters, one room. Make it work." So tense. I also am a fan of Dolores Claiborne, mostly because I think Kathy Bates is just a superb actor. She is so wonderful as both Annie and Dolores.


Talk Stephen King: Okay, let’s turn the tables on Bob. . . "suppose the house is burning down, what Stephen King piece from your collection would you save?"

Bob LeDrew: You know, I don't have a lot of King memorabilia or things of particular material value. I have most of his books, but none signed, none first editions, and most are well-thumbed over. If I had to pick one King piece, it would be the paperback of Salem's Lot with the totally beaten-up cover and pages falling out. But I'd leave all the King and grab my note from Ray Bradbury, to be honest. That could likely never be replaced.

(Talk Stephen King: A note from Ray Bradbury! That is totally rockin' out there cool! He is awesome!)


Talk Stephen King: Do you do any writing? If so, what kinds of things have you written?

Bob LeDrew: I do a LOT of writing. I've been a journalist and a PR / social media guy for nearly 30 years, so I've written a lot of stuff. News releases, communication plans, newsletters, magazine articles, radio scripts, speeches.
I have dabbled in fiction as well, but never published anything. I have a couple of quarter-to-half-finished novels in the virtual desk drawer, but I have no idea if I will ever finish them, or for that matter if they deserve it.


Talk Stephen King: You seem pretty familiar with the Stephen King online presence. What are some of your favorite Stephen King haunts on the web?

Bob LeDrew: I spend WAY too much time on the Stephen King Message Board. Quite a lovely community there, and that garden of King fans is very well tended by Ms. Mod. Lilja's Library is one that needs to be regularly visited. I was pretty excited to see the folks behind Dark Score Stories put a little shoutout to his site in their site.

Your site, of course. And Bryant Burnette's Ramblings of a Honk Mahfah is a great site. His self-interview / review of Bag of Bones is HILARIOUS. He really disliked the miniseries, but he expresses his dislike VERY wittily.

Matt Jacobs is generating huge piles of stuff on his various SK Fancast sites and podcasts.

Beyond that, I have some Google alerts set up that I try to keep on top of to get the latest SK news. 


Talk Stephen King: Thank you for taking time to do this. I really enjoy your site, keep up the good work. Happy New Year!

Bob LeDrew: Thanks! Happy New Year.