RELEASED: Stephen King A Face Among The Masters

Release Date: Friday, May 2, 2014

Paperback: www.amazon.com
98 pages , $9.89

Kindle, $7.50
The Kindle edition should be out  Monday.  There were issues with the "keywords" since they contained the name "Stephen King" and other  authors in them.  So -- the ebook is back in Amazon's hands.  Here's the deal, if you buy the paperback version, you'll be able to buy the Kindle edition for .99 cents.

Official Table Of Contents:
1. The Long Shadow Of Stephen King
2. The Ghost Of Edger Allen Poe
3. A Modern Charles Dickens
4. Which Book Would Hitchcock Film?
5. Shivering Through The Twilight Zone
6. The man who scared Stephen King
7. Dark Theologian
8. Navigating The World’s Of Stephen King
Afterword, Seven Reasons We Read Stephen King

DESCRIPTION

With dozens of bestsellers and internationally praised novels, Stephen King has become a household name and well-known author worldwide. His novels such as Carrie and The Dark Tower series have captured audiences, catapulting the author to stardom. His “constant reader” base continues to grow and hang on the author’s every published word. However, King isn’t alone in the elite group of writers—authors from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Charles Dickens have also penned novels that captured the world.

Upon closer look, King’s stories and characters share striking resemblances to those of the great authors of the past. But, like the works of Poe, Lovecraft, and Dickens, can King’s novels stand the test of time?

Filled with examples from King’s bestsellers, Stephen King: A Face among the Masters examines the author’s inspirations and what makes his books so captivating. Why is Carrie still so relevant, decades after its publication? What makes 11/22/63’s Jake Epping so memorable? How does King master creating such complex worlds in The Stand and The Dark Tower? These are the worlds only a master writer can create.

Author Richard Matheson Dies

MSN posted news that Richard Matheson had died today.  "Author and screenwriter Richard Matheson, an undisputed giant in the genres of science fiction, horror and fantasy, passed away on Sunday (June 23) at the age of 87."  (msn.com/movies)

Stephen King dedicated his novel Cell to Matheson.  Clark Collins at EW quotes King, "Without Richard Matheson I wouldn’t be around.”

I first became familiar with Matheson for his work on the original Twilight Zone series (which was in reruns when I saw them).

Famous for several novels and stories, I enjoyed  The Incredible Shrinking Man most.  When the film version was first released, Matheson didn't like it, feeling the movie drifted too far from his novel.

He  told Clark Collins at Entertainment Weekly,

“I wrote about real people and real circumstances and real neighborhoods,” Matheson told me. “There was no crypt or castles or H.P. Lovecraft-type environments. They were just about normal people who had something bizarre happening to them in the neighborhood. I could never write about strange kingdoms. I could never do Harry Potter or anything like that. Even when I did science-fiction I didn’t write about foreign planets and distant futures. I certainly never did fantasies about trolls living under bridges. I had to write about realistic circumstances. That’s the way my brain works. And I think that gave me a sort of place in the field.”

Authors Who Hated The Movie Versions Of Their Book

Stacy Conradt has a really cool article titled, "11 Authors Who Hated  The Movie Versions Of Their Book."  (www.mentalfloss.com)

Did you know there is a reason Catcher in the Rye is not a movie?  Actually -- I hadn't noticed until Conradt mentioned it!  But, sure enough, it's not on screen!  Turns out J.D. Salinger was big time ticked at the way his short story Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut was translated to film, and never again allowed his books to go to Hollywood!  The same is true of the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  (Kind of like Stephen King refusing to allow his stories to be recorded as abridgments after Thinner.)

I love this line Conradt quotes from Gump and Co, "“Don’t never let nobody make a movie of your life’s story,” and “Whether they get it right or wrong, it don’t matter.” Turns out Groom had  reason to resent Hollywood. . . they cheated him out of his royalties!

Of course, we all know Stephen King was not overly fond of The Shining -- and that puts him at #2 on Conradt's list. . . right after Mary Poppins.  What could be wrong with Mary Poppins?  That's like someone asking a King fan, "what's wrong with The Shining?"  (Nothing, if you ask most of us!)  But for King, the movie failed to tell his story.

About Mary Poppins, Conradt writes, "Despite having script approval, Travers’ edits were largely disregarded. Travers loathed the movie’s animated sequences and was perturbed that Mary Poppins’ strict side was downplayed. After some heated meetings, Travers reluctantly approved. She would have been shunned from the star-studded premiere had she not shamed a Disney exec into an invite. The 65-year-old Travers spent most of the movie crying and ultimately refused to let Disney touch the rest of the series."

And then about The Shining, Condrat says,

Stephen King probably made movie buffs cringe when he said he hated what Stanley Kubrick did to The Shining.“I’d admired Kubrick for a long time and had great expectations for the project, but I was deeply disappointed in the end result. … Kubrick just couldn’t grasp the sheer inhuman evil of The Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn’t believe, he couldn’t make the film believable to others.” He was also unhappy with Jack Nicholson’s performance – King wanted it to be clear that Jack Torrance wasn’t crazy until he got to the hotel and felt that Nicholson made the character crazy from the start. With director Mick Garris, King ended up working on another version of The Shining that aired on ABC in 1997.

Here's the raw list, but check out the article:

1. Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers.
2. The Shining, Stephen King.
3. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
4. Forrest Gump, Winston Groom
5. Sahara, Clive Cussler
6.Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut, J.D. Salinger
7. A Clockword Orange, Anthony Burgess
8. American Psycho, Bred Easton Ellis
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Facotry, Roald Dahl
10. One Flew Over  The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey.
11. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson

The full article is delightful.  Check it out here: mentalfloss.com