Dollar Deal and A Face Among The Masters SALE

Greetings gunslingers!

Thou art invited to dig a little deeper into the Stephen King graveyard this Thanksgiving.

Good news, I got word from Shawn Lealos that Amazon will be doing a countdown promotion of his book, Dollar Deal from Tuesday through Friday of this week. (No rush, but the best price is Tuesday, at $2.99.)

And inspired -- I decided to follow suit and offer a countdown deal on my book, Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters. My countdown deal goes from Wednesday November 25 -- November 29.

Here's what's cool: Both books look at a part of the Stephen King universe that's often overlooked. Dollar Deal focuses on oft unknown movies based on Stephen King's work. Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters looks at the literary works that infuse the Stephen King universe.

Each of the books has 4 amazon reviews, all giving them 5 stars.
(If you like the books, rate them.)

DOLLAR DEAL: amazon.com/Dollar-Deal

A FACE AMONG THE MASTERS: amazon.com/Stephen-King-Face-Among-Masters

Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters

This is my book:

Stephen King did something crazy; something brilliant – he interconnected his many books and stories. Characters appear in one story only to have their story completed in other books.  Worlds collide and genre’s crumble.  But King did more than just connect railroad tracks through his own stories, he built long, wonderful stretches that moved through the lands of Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe and even Alfred Hitchcock.

Ride the train long enough, and you might see a door coming toward you, because you are about to enter the Twilight Zone with Mr. King as your host. King’s stories are more than just a rich texture of classic works, they include long bridges over theologically deep waters.  What does Pet Sematary tell us about resurrection?  What is the real meaning of The Stand?  Is the Green Mile meant to be read on a spiritual level?

Pause long enough, and you will hear the not so distant voices of a generation ago as they pass their stories over the radio waves.  Perhaps the scariest medium ever invented, radio once drove a nation to sheer panic, and scared a little boy named Stephen King.

Brighton David Gardner has spent years researching the world of Stephen King.  He has interviewed Stephen King scholars, enthusiast and film makers.  Brighton has been interviewed by CNN on the subject of Stephen King.  He is a frequent contributor to talkstephenking.blogspot.com.

Is there more to Stephen King than just haunted cars, rabid dogs and cities trapped under a dome?  Will his work be lost in histories unforgiving shuffle, or has he created a lasting body of work?  In Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, Brighton Gardner discusses how King’s work compares to other outstanding artist.

Exploring not only King’s lasting legacy, Gardner takes a closer look at the novels themselves.  Did Stephen King write the father who abandoned his family into his novels?  What Stephen King movie did Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds inspire?

BUY IT HERE: www.amazon.com
KINDLE: $7.99
Paperback: $9.89

If you buy a new print edition of this book (or purchased one in the past), you can buy the Kindle edition for only $0.99 (Save 87%). Print edition purchase must be sold by Amazon.

Stephen King is mean

The Stephen King message board recently had a thread that was a discussion about my book, Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters.  (stephenking.com) The topic -- that I said Stephen King is "mean."  Of course, this lead to some heartfelt whining that Stephen King is a serious writer who shouldn't be called mean.

I say -- HA!  

He's mean.

Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean.

And you can't make me un-say it.

If you want nice authors, read Jane Austin.

If you want someone with the guts to kill off little Gage and send killer clowns after grade school kids, read Stephen King.

I echo, what I said in the book, "Most writers don’t have the guts to be mean."

Gardner, Brighton (2014-05-04). Stephen King A Face Among The Masters (Kindle Location 2364).  . Kindle Edition.

(The chapter was developed from this blog post: talkstephenking.blogspot.com: seven-reasons-we-read-stephen-king)

Kindle Edition Of A FACE AMONG THE MASTERS Free This Weekend

Good news for Kindle readers -- My book, Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, is FREE this weekend on Kindle through Amazon.com.

February 6, 2015 -- February 8, 2015 

Here's a link to the book: amazon.com/Stephen-King-Face-Among-Masters-ebook

" Gardner makes what could have been an ordinary book about a writer a true pleasure to read."
--Sandra Scholes, SF Site Reviews

"In short, readers both familiar and unfamiliar with Stephen King's novels will find a motherlode of interesting information inside the pages of Brighton David Gardner's insightful and illuminating treatise. I can't recommend it enough"
--Shawn Lawton

Why do authors give books away?
1. Because we believe that if you like the content, you'll give the book a positive review.
2. It gives us exposure to a wider audience through the Amazon publicity machine.
3. It's fun to give stuff away.  Really -- authors just want to be read.  (Though that check from Amazon is nice.)

"Gardner's book makes a persuasive case for why I should want a similar knowledge level about the rest, though.  That is not a minor achievement; I tend toward grumpiness when somebody is trying to convince me to be interested in something that I'm not already interested in.  Gardner pulls it off effortlessly.

Elsewhere, A Face Among the Masters also makes a case for reading King as a "dark theologian," and this section confirms what I already suspected: that a weighty book dealing with King's themes of Christianity (and religion/spirituality in general) is way overdue.  Gardner here catapults himself to the upper echelons of the list of people who seem well-suited to the writing of just such a book."
--Bryant Burnette

BOOM! So Stephen King is a MASTER!

See, I would never ever want to say, "I told you so."  Or suggest I was ahead of the curve.  But. . . now that Revival is out, people are starting to note that King makes a lot of connections to other masters of the craft.  In particular, H.P. Lovecraft.  Why does this matter to me?  Because I put a book out this Summer (before Revival came out) discussing King and the enduring nature of his work as serious literature.  I also discussed connections between King and Lovecraft.

Note this article posted at oregonlive.com.  Before diving in to King's use of Lovecraft in Revival, the writer says, "He seems to be trying to make sure his own pop fiction lasts by going even darker than he has before, into the realm of earlier horror masters Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft."

What Douglas Perry (the author of the article) totally misses is that King didn't just wake up and decide to start shadowing some of these people.  He didn't just decide to get more serious with Revival.  King's work has been consistently serious literature; it's just the critics who have been reading him wrong.  It's time they gave the Stephen King library another read.

Perry nicely summarizes some recent reviews of Revival:

The New Statesman calls "Revival," King's 58th novel, a "serious book by a major writer," insisting that it "reads like a populist sequel to Sinclair Lewis's evangelical satire 'Elmer Gantry.'" 

The New York Times calls it "a well-built book that unfolds on a big canvas." The paper adds, teasingly, scarily, that the novel "winds up with the idea that to be human, you must know what it is to be inhuman." 

That sounds like Shelley's influence, but The Guardian says "it is Lovecraft, and the quote 'That is not dead which can eternal lie, / And with strange aeons, even death may die,' that reverberate throughout the book." 

King, 67, happily admits he's been influenced by "everything" Lovecraft has ever written.

In chapter 1 of Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, I included a portion titled, "The eyes of H.P. Lovecraft."  I noted not only similarities in their writing, but biography as well.  I also looked at how the two are very different.  

  King’s Lovecraftian stories include such titles as Jerusalem’s Lot, I am the Doorway, Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut, N, and Crouch End. In the documentary, Fear of the Unknown, Peter Straub compared The Mist to Lovecraft. “Tentacle things break in from another dimension, that’s just pure Lovecraft.” 

Gardner, Brighton (2014-05-04). Stephen King A Face Among The Masters 

What I find in Revival  isn't a brand new Stephen King.  This King was with us in Full Dark, No Stars.  He was there in the pages of The Dark Half and especially Desperation.  The depressing tone of the book mirrors very much the narrative style of the novella 1922.  

So to put it simply, I'm excited.  I'm so glad that King's novel, Revival, is being taken as serious literature.  Because I think it will force some others to look back at the work of Stephen King.  All along King has been giving us serious literature; we were just having so much fun reading it, we didn't realize how great it was.  I believe someday, future generations will study Stephen King the way we study Lovecraft, Dickens, Poe, Twin and  Shelly.

Goodreads Interview With Stephen King

Freelance writer Catherine Elsworth posted an interview with Stephen King at Goodreads. It's a great interview because it includes a lot of questions from readers, not just Elsworth.

Elsworth reveals that Revival is dedicated to "some of the people who built my house," including Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and H.P. Lovecraft.

Of course, King spends some time in the interview smashing stupid sayings.  Remember his rant about how dumb an authors notebook is?  Well this time his gripe is with the advice, "Write what you know."  It's bad advice, King declares!  He then says it's good advice if you use it as a "foundation."

Also on the subject of writing, Elsworth cites a line from the book, "Writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memory that were previously capped." She asks King if this is true from him and his fiction. "Writing is like being in a dream state or under self-directed hypnosis. It induces a state of recall that—while not perfect—is pretty spooky."

King does reveal he's working on a project with son Owen, but he doesn't say what.

Asked what  his scariest monster is, King declares it a tie between Pennywise and Flagg.  (Really?)

And then, discussing the Stand and ebola, King said:

There's one Stand story that still needs to be told, although it's not a long one. I happen to know that when [Stand characters] Stu Redman and Frannie Goldsmith headed back to New England (with their baby), Frannie fell into a dry well. That's all I know. I'd have to write the story to find out what happens. 

When asked what books inspired him, King gives a list which includes, surprisingly to me the Dean Koontz novel Watcher.  Also Lord of the Flies, all things Lovecraft and several others.  File this under shameless self promotion -- Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters discusses King and the novel Lord of the Flies as well as giving some space to Lovecraft's influence on King.

King Runs With The Classic Masters Of Horror

 Ken Raymond at newsok.com posted an interesting list of books titled, "Don't read these at night: Oklahoman reviewers' picks for scariest books."

#2 on the list was The Shining.  Raymond writes about the novel:

If one name is synonymous with modern horror, it’s Stephen King, and “The Shining” is our pick for his scariest novel. The book centers on frustrated writer Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic who accepts a winter caretaker position at the sprawling Overlook Hotel in Colorado. The hotel is closed to visitors, so there’s no one there for months besides Jack, his wife and their son Danny. No one, that is, except the ghosts. As Jack’s madness grows, he turns on his wife, and the peaceful, snowy refuge becomes a claustophobic trap. Can Danny’s special gifts, known as “the shining,” save him and his mother? The entire book is a slow burn gradually building up the suspense until it’s nearly unbearable.

What interested me were the other books listed.
 3. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving.
4. “Dracula” by Bram Stoker.
5. “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe.
6. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.

#1 on the list was a book I've not heard of, "In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote.  But note the other four: Irving, Stoker, Poe.  All three are classic authors.  And who's right smack in the middle of them?  Stephen King!

This seems like a good place to point out that Stephen King really is a face among the masters.  That is, his work will have a lasting impact on generations to come; much the way Poe and Stoker do today.

What is the scariest NON King book you've read?

NONFICTION: For me it's the book I'm reading right now, "Haunted: The Incredible True Story of a Canadian Family's Experience Living in a Haunted House."  It reads like the Amityville Horror -- but no stupid pigs feet left in the snow.  There is a scene where the lady is laying in bed next to her husband, and sees a woman standing in the doorway looking at her.  It scared me!  So I'm supposed to be out running right now and listening to the book. . . but I'm scared.  Or lazy.  no, scared.  Anyway, the book is creepy.

I read Fatal Vision when I was a kid, about an army doctor who was accused of killing his family.  I thought it was terrifying, and the scenes from that book still haunt me. I saw the miniseries first, then read the book, so the images were already seared in my minds eye.  I have since come to believe that the doctor is innocent -- which leads to an scarier series of events.

FICTION: Swan Song was pretty scary. It may just be fresh on my mind because I just finished it.   But there were definitely scenes that I thought were over the top crazy.

A Face Among The Masters lands another positive reivew

WHOO HOOO!  My book, Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, was reviewwed at www.sfsite.com by Sandra Scholes.  She has previously reviewed other books about King, such as "A Brief Guide to Stephen King."

Scholes summerizes the book, noting unique features and offering her commentary along the way.  She notes that at the end of each chapter is a recommended book.  "After this chapter, Brighton David Gardner recommends Lord of the Flies by William Golding as the readers may like the book and notice its similarities. Gardner does this at the end of most of the chapters. I found it helpful to know that there are other books I would enjoy."

In particular, she seems to have liked the chapter on Alfred Hitchock.

One of the more interesting chapters is 4: Which Book Would Alfred Hitchcock Film? Hitchcock's movies are iconic; Psycho, North by Northwest and Vertigo stand out as popular ones. The meaning of this chapter is that if Hitchcock was alive today; there are certain novels by King he might like to turn into movies. Some of them, Cell, The Running Man, and Dolores Claiborne all have similarities to Hitchcock movies; therefore they are prime examples of the horror genre and ideal for his type of movie making. 

My favorite line, "Gardner makes what could have been an ordinary book about a writer a true pleasure to read."

amazon.com/Stephen-King-Face-Among-Masters

Why I Wrote "Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters"

I was at a book signing a few weeks ago at my church.  There was a table promoting books I'd written, and all the books were blown up huge. I was startled to see the Stephen King book in the mix.  (I hadn't expected the church to promote it.)  Not to mention, I hadn't written the book under my name.

That night, as I signed books, I got asked the question several times, "So why did you write a book about Stephen King?" 

Here's the short answer:

Because I don't think Stephen King has been taken as seriously as he should.  I think he's made a genuine, and lasting, contribution to American literature.  He as described through novels our era as much as Dickens gave us Victorian England.  Stephen King might be known for writing a bunch of scary stories, but really, his work is much more important.   I think future generations will study Stephen King the way I  studied Poe and Dickens.  He has left a huge cultural imprint."

There were other factors as well. As I blogged and researched,  I was slowly accumulating a mass of research material on subjects I didn't feel had been covered well in other books.  Why was no one talking about King's use of Poe in The Stand?  Did anyone notice King gave a nod to HP Lovecraft?  And why were there no chapters in the many books I had that discussed Stephen King and vintage radio?

It seemed to me that King was often asked, "Who influenced you?" But few people were looking directly at King's writing to examine independently what had impacted the writer and his style.

I do wish I'd written a chapter  on Mark Twain.  It seems Twain was a huge influence on King; and a lot of The Talisman is a nod back to  Twain.  But, I didn't think of it until the book went to print!  So It's a new area to study.  

Josh Boone Is Making Me Cringe

Does anyone get nervous anytime they see a headline about the upcoming movie, The Stand?  I do.  Because it seems like so many bad decisions have already laid a foundation that cannot support

Tommy Cook at Collider has an interview with director Josh Boone on The Stand.

• Here are the bullet points
• I finished writing the script maybe a month ago. 
• Stephen [King] absolutely loved it.  
• It’s, I think, the first script ever approved by him. (Seriously, Josh?  King WROTE the original screenplay for The Stand.  I doubt YOUR version is the first script he ever approved!)
• It might begin filming in Six to eight months.  Possibly in Spring 2015. 
• [It'll be] a single version movie of The Stand. Three hours. 
• It hews very closely to the novel.  

Wait a minute.  Hold the bullet points.  Three hours. . . close to the novel.  That's not possible.

When asked how he would trim down a story as big as the Stand, Boone gave this answer:

 I just focused on the things that I felt strongly about, that I have strong memories about, that are evocative to me even when I read it now . . . 

. . . I just focussed on the things that were more important to me and felt essential to me and were based in the characters.

So the movie is really, "Josh Boone's favorite parts of The Stand" -- not Stephen King's THE STAND.

Boone goes on to discuss the fact he's an atheist/agnostic.  Frustrating, since for many of us, The Stand is an intensely spiritual book.  We already had a rather flat rendition by Garris; but at least Garris gave the story the room it needed to breath.

Is The Stand a religious novel?  From Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters:

In 2008, King told novelist John Marks in Salon magazine that The Stand was his attempt to give God his due. “Too often, in novels that are speculative, God is a kind of kryptonite, and that’s about all that it is, and it goes back to Dracula, where someone dumps a crucifix in Count Dracula’s face, and he pulls away and runs back into his house. That’s not religion,” King told Marks. “That’s some kind of juju, like a talisman. I wanted to do more than that. I wanted to explore what that means to be able to rise above adversity by faith, because it’s something most of us do every day.” He then said that he wanted The Stand to “be a God trip.” (Stephen King A Face Among The Masters)

Is A Good Marriage Set To Scare?

Clark Collis Entertainment Weekly article proclaims, "'We went in fearlessly': Stephen King on adapting 'A Good Marriage' for film."

Based on a short novel in King's collection, Full Dark,  No Stars; A Good Marriage is one of my favorites.  Probably because it discusses something truly horrifying!  What if you discovered someone you love is actually a serial killer?

A Good Marriage stars Joan Allen, Anthony LaPaglia, Stephen Lang, and House of Cards actress Kristen Connolly.  Most important, the screenplay was written by none other than Stephen King.

King explained why he wanted to writ the script: “I’ve seen enough movies adapted from my work to know that the things that work the best are the things that aren’t too long and aren’t too short."

Revealing he was  never on set (so don't expect a cameo), King promised not to take the story in the "wrong direction." King said the script was about the length  of Shawshank Redemption.  Actually,  the  novel moved pretty quickly until the end, when the detective tried  to figure out what really happened.

This is from my book, "Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters":

Another tough woman appears in the short story, A Good Marriage, in which Darcy Anderson lays a clever trap of her own to knock off her serial killer husband. How does she kill a man who has made a habit of killing  women? And how does she accomplish it without getting caught herself? It is interesting to watch the change in Darcy. She goes from being a “normal” 1950s-ish housewife, to a woman ready to send her beloved husband to the pit.

Even  better, King notes that he likes it because the story is from a woman's point of view.

Shaun Lawton's Review Of "Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters."

This is a review by Shaun Lawton of my book, "Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters."  It is also posted at amazon.com

If you've read the book, tell me what you think.

Here's  Shaun's review:

The Face Behind The Mask Revealed

Stephen King: A Face Among The Masters, by Brighton David Gardner, published earlier this year (2014) is a quite useful analysis of King's writing which I highly recommend to any one who loves to read fiction, regardless of whether they are a Stephen King fan or not.

To the "constant readers" of King, this overview of the author's history is indispensable. Gardner breaks his book down into eight chapters which trace King's development as a horror writer from his sensational first novel Carrie right up through his latest books.

One of the things that makes A Face Among The Masters such a great read is the fact the author himself is a "constant reader," and therefore very familiar with King's raison d'être. I myself who have been reading King since Salem's Lot was published gained a tremendous amount of insight into King's writing methodologies, thanks to Gardner's detailed analysis.

Gardner begins the book by describing King's extensive list of influences, among them past masters such as H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and others. Gardner's keen insights really bring the reader into the shady realm that marks King's still evolving literary world. He also goes so far as to make a connection between King's novels and the films of Alfred Hitchcock by asking the reader to think about which Stephen King books would Hitchcock have loved to adapt. In this chapter, Gardner lists nine King books which would have made excellent Hitchcock movies; it's a compelling list and provides the reader with a lot of interesting insights.

Gardner goes on to associate King's writing style with the old television show The Twilight Zone, in Chapter 5. Once again the reader is guided by Gardner's deep knowledge of King towards understanding the integral connections the world's most famous horror author has with Rod Serling's classic TV series.

Chapter 6 guides the reader through the nearly forgotten world of radio plays, exemplified through the spooky narratives of Arch Oboler and Orson Welles. The various connections which Gardner makes between King's techniques and these old radio plays which held a nation in the grip of fear are wonderful and once again quite insightful.

Chapter 7: Dark Theologian is my favorite part of this book. In it, Gardner brings his extensive knowledge of theology to the table for what I consider to be the most enlightening chapter. He takes readers on a profound excursion focusing on the King novels The Green Mile, Pet Sematary, The Shining, Salem's Lot, The Stand, and The Dark Tower series. Brighton does a remarkable job of explaining to readers just how Stephen King has woven religious and spiritual themes into these narratives. The results are fascinating and represent one of the best reasons to read A Face Among The Masters.

In short, readers both familiar and unfamiliar with Stephen King's novels will find a motherlode of interesting information inside the pages of Brighton David Gardner's insightful and illuminating treatise. I can't recommend it enough, so be sure to get it either for your Kindle or e-Reader of choice, or buy the print version because it's easily worth twice the cover price.

If you're interested in learning more about Stephen King, be sure to visit Gardner's popular blog Talk Stephen King, you can Google it easily or just copy and paste the following url into your browser: http://talkstephenking.blogspot.com -- and maybe I'll see you there in the comments section. Gardner started this blog devoted to all things Stephen King five years ago, and he shows no signs of stopping or even slowing down. There is a plethora of interesting posts archived already, with more coming almost on a daily basis.

One of the reasons for this is the happy fact that the subject of mutual interest here is Stephen King, clearly the best-selling and most popular horror writer of all time. Brighton David Gardner's excellent book explains just why that is in an approachable and easygoing manner, and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Stephen King certainly does belong on the short list of the Grand Masters of literature, and may consider himself far more than just a mere horror writer or the "literary equivalent of a Big Mac." So don't hesitate to get your copy of Stephen King: A Face Among The Masters by Brighton David Gardner. I promise that you'll be glad you did.

Posted from: amazon.com/review

Judges: THE WILD WEST OF THE BIBLE

Hey, I got an early release on my book, Judges, The Wild West Of The Bible.  What's that have to do with Stephen King?  Probably nothing, except that there's a lot of gross stuff and horror in Judges, and Stephen King seems to like that kind of stuff.  But hey, it's MY BOOK -- so  be happy for me and buy lots of copies; I've got four girls to raise here.

Judges is one of the most difficult books of the Bible to deal with.  There is war, serious evil and all kinds of weirdness going on.  We're talking civil war, gang rape, murder; one guy stabs a fat king and loses his knife inside the king's belly.  More than once I've had someone say to me, "I was reading my Bible, and I came to some pretty weird stuff."  I always know, they have found the book of Judges.

$12.99 paperback
$9.99 kindle  (The kindle version is FREE if you buy the paperback.)
210 pages.

amazon.com/Judges

Howdy! It’s time to saddle up for a ride through some of the most rough and tumble portions of scripture; the book of Judges.

Judges is a critical bridge in the Biblical narrative, taking us from the early pioneers as they ride into the land to the wars with natives. Throughout Judges, God raised up a series of bold sheriffs who would deliver an old west style of justice.

Judges, The Wild West Of The Bible, is an energetic guided tour to one of the most exciting books of the Bible. Come ride with me as we meet some real heroes in history, and some of the cruelest villains ever to walk the face of planet earth.

Judges is both fun, and difficult. This is one book it's good to have someone saddled up beside you to show you the lay of the land. The horses are ready, your gear is packed, I got you a canteen and some jerky. Let's get riding, partner. And bring a six-shooter, there's some badlands ahead.

This guided tour, written an energetic flare, will address some issues Believers wrestle with today, such as:

1. Can I trust and love a God who ordered the Hebrews to kill all the people in the land?

2. Did Jephthah sacrifice his own daughter? Is God good with that? Would God ask the same of us?

3. Can God heal the pain of a broken family?

4. Is there a way back to God after I've messed up big time?

5. If I believe, why do I doubt?

Judges contains the best single chapter of the Bible devoted to raising Godly children.

Alright, Saddle up.

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

Check out my other books:

 Goliath's Head, The Real Story Of David and Goliath,

amazon.com/Goliaths-Head

Three thousand years ago a boy stood face to face with a giant and changed the world. It's time to find out what this story is really about. 

The account of David and Goliath is rich with details easily overlooked. Have you ever wondered why the Bible says that a man named Elhanan killed Goliath? What happened to Goliath’s sword? Yes, the giants sword does reappear in the Bible. 

• Why did Jesse send cheese with young David to a battle? 

• Why did David cut off Goliath’s head? 

• And what did David do with the giant’s head?

 In Goliath's Head, David Squyres directs us not only to the rich meanings in this account, but to its powerful application to our daily lives. Do you work for a jerk? So did David. Do you have a difficult family? So did David. Does anyone mock and ridicule your faith? David knew those hardships, too. Yet, despite frustrations, derision and insults, David not only defeated the enemy in front of him, he changed the world.

Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters,

amazon.com/Stephen-King-Face-Among-Masters

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.

 Check  out Bryant's review of Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, at thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.com 

Stephen King A Face Among The Msaters AMAZON COUNTDOWN

Kindle is running a countdown special for Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters.

Get it at www.amazon.com

Today you can get  the kindle version of my book, for 1.99.

Later, it will be 3.99.

Saturday it will be 4.99

The Kindle edition is usually runs for 7.50.  Unless you buy the print edition, in which case it is always .99cents.

PHOTO: Stephen King A Face Among The Masters

THANKS Michele Eggen!  I see the book as found a good home.

Burnette reviews "Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters."

Check out Bryant Burnette's review of my book, Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters at

thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.com  

(spend some time while you're over there -- I love his blog)

"It made me feel as if my King-ly horizons had been expanded a bit, which is more than I can say for most of the other about-King books I've read and reviewed lately."

What really pleases me is when people tell me I got them authors they had not previously considered.

King takes on Poe

The relationship between Poe and King is discussed in Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters.  Here are a couple of short quotes from the chapter, "The Ghost Of Edgar Allan Poe,"

Stephen King’s story, Dolan’s Cadillac, is a brilliant tale of revenge. And guess who’s lurking in the shadows; why, it’s none other than King’s twisted grandpa, Edgar Allan Poe. King’s story is quite reminiscent of The Cask of Amontillado. 

. . . 

The two stories are similar in plot, tone, perspective, and even dialogue. King does more than just update Poe’s story; he adds a layer of richness to plot itself. Why does Montresor despise Fortunato? We’re not told. Frustrating , isn’t it? King supplies a motive for Robinson to so carefully plan Dolan’s demise. Poe was interested in the straight plot of the story, how the revenge might be carried out. King understood that giving the reader an emotional reason to hate Dolan would make his death all the more delightful. And as Dolan dies, the reader is invited to celebrate with Robinson.

Gardner, Brighton (2014-05-04). Stephen King A Face Among The Masters (Kindle Locations 448-450).  . Kindle Edition. (www.amazon.com)

My Book About Stephen King

My copies of Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, came today.  Mostly copies to send for review -- and one for Annie. I dedicated the book to her, and the first copy came on what seemed like the worst day of her life.  (It wasn't trust me) But to see her name in print brought a huge smile to her face on a gloomy day.

You can buy it here: amazon.com/Stephen-King-Face-Among-Masters

90 pages

Kindle Edition  $7.50     

Paperback  $8.90 (if you buy the paperback, the Kindle is just $1.00)

The purpose of the book is not so much to tell you brand new things about Stephen King.  Did you know Stephen King wrote his own father into the pages of The Stand?  Yes, I discuss that -- but that kind of information isn't the thrust of  what I wanted to deal with.

Of the many emails I get, very few (none) are asking me questions about King himself.  Usually I get more literary questions.  Of interest to me was to compare King's work and life to the work of other great writers, artist and directors of the past.  Alfred Hitchcock's movies will be studied for years to come; will future generations regard King the same way?

So actually, the book is as much about OTHER artist as it is Stephen King.  It looks at those who inspired him and looks at direct connections between his work and theirs.

Why I wrote under a pen name:
Because I also write other things and did not want to confuse my authors page at Amazon.

I chose to self publish because it was actually the easiest avenue to offer exactly the content I wanted.

There are some things I discovered in the journey:

1. There are no public domain pictures of Stephen King.  

After sending my manuscript to my editor, Kristin, I wrote to a woman who does cover art.  "No  way!" She said at once.  "I can't do anything that has a picture of Stephen King."

I realized I would need someone who didn't just design covers, but who actually had the ability to draw.  That lead me to France (yeah, France) and a young woman named Misha.  She had a lot of ideas, but became a little panicked when she realized that there are indeed NO public domain pictures of Stephen King.  None.  Zip.  

Often cover art is done using stock photos, manipulated in such a way as to make them look original or unique.  So a lot of book covers are really collages.

You can get public domain pictures of Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Dickens, H.P. Lovecraft and even Mr. Poe.  But not Stephen King.  The artist shared that she felt she could draw freehand a picture of King that would be unique to the cover.  

"Are you sure this doesn't break copyright or something," I asked.
"Well, no way," she wrote back.  "I drew it with my own hand.  It's not a photograph, it's a drawing.  More important, it's my drawing."

I felt better.  Nah, actually, I felt really excited!

2. The name Stephen King cannot be used as a search word on Amazon.  

Really? . . . REALLY!  Amazon dinged the book upon review, indicating that  they do not allow authors names or references to other books to be used as keywords.

Wait a minute.  What if the book is actually about Stephen King?

This lead to an exchange of emails.  "What about books that are biographies?" I asked.  Ah, that seemed to raise an eyebrow.  The next day I got an email indicating my search words were A-Okay.  I wrote back, just to be sure exactly which search words were okay.  I got an email from Amazon indicating that they reviewed the book and decided that the name "Stephen King" was indeed an appropriate search term for the subject matter.  I felt like I'd won some kind of small victory.

3. Editing is important.

I didn't learn this -- I knew it; but I think it's worth sharing.  Everything we write needs editing.  Blogs need an editor -- but no one wants to pay someone to edit a blog!  I think it's funny when someone says, "I have an aunt who's  an English major, and she's editing my book."

I had my wife read through the book as I wrote, and then a second time once it was complete.  She caught a lot of things -- but it still had to go off to Kristen House.  I think it's important to find someone who is a professional at editing and who you don't know.  After all, people you know are a little more forgiving.  What's more, people who know you also know how you speak.  That means that when reading, they sometimes fill in words or sentences the way their mind remembers you speaking, not the way the words actually appear on the page.  That's also why you can't edit your own work; you don't see what's on the paper, you see what you remember writing.

A copy edit goes through the entire book, looking for not only spelling errors, but content and clarity of the manuscript.  It also identifies awkward sentences and works to restructure them.

The scary part is fact checking.  As a current post by Bryant Burnette will point out, even fans get facts wrong.  The process of fact checking was constant.  Also, when I sent the small book over to the editor, I had a list of words that were supposed to be spelled wrong.  "Mother Abigail is spelled ABAGAIL," one note read.  And, "Please do not correct Sematary in Pet Sematary."  

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.

The Shining Scared King

10,000 Magazines, #9993
People Weekly, March 7, 1977

Tame warp back to 1977.  People Magazine is where you would have to go to find out about celebrities; because there was no google.   Funny thing, the magazine pictures are in black and white -- except the ads.

Frank Sleeper's article about King was written just as the Shining was published, and a novel about "a flu" was being edited.  

"It's the first time I was actually scared as I was  writing," says Stephen King, 29, about his latest chiller, The Shining.  The novel set in the shuttered Colorado resort hotel filled with menacing spirits centers on the father who is unable  to control his rages."

The article discusses King's sudden wealth, and the trappings that go with it -- via 1977.  That would be an uh, color TV!

I like these old magazines with King articles because it gives us glimpses of things a little closer to when they happened.  So King discussing his work on The Shining is a little different in 1977 than it is in 2014.  It was still fresh. And, as you'll see in the quotes below, it was pretty raw.

HOSTILE AT THE STANLEY:

"I felt very hostile to my children there," says King.  "I wanted to grab them and hit them.  Even though I didn't do it, I had severe guilt feelings because of my brutal impulses."  

RAGS TO RICHES:

Four years ago King was earning 6,700 a year teaching English at the Hampden Academy in Hampden Maine.  He and his family were living in a trailer and his car was ready for the junk yard.  "We had taken our phone out, because we couldn't pay for it," says King. He was moonlighting in an industrial laundry.  "There was a woman whom I met at the laundry, very strange, always quoting the Bible," says King.  "I thought, if she has children, I wonder what they're like.  That's where I got my idea for Carrie."   

King got a $2,500 advance for it, and movie rights sold for $35,000 plus a percentage of the movie gross.  The paperback rights brought him another $200,000.  "Tabby cried," King recalls.  "We called all our relatives.  It took eight months for it to sink it."
In 1975 Salem's Lot, a nightmarish tale about vampires taking over a Maine community, achieved another hefty paperback sale and a movie price of $250,000. 

 The two books have sold over three million copies, and King now reigns as the book world prince of horror.  "Money actually makes you a little saner," says King.  "You don't have to do the things you don't want to do."  

LIFE:

His success has not slowed his productivity.  He writes for two hours each morning and has finished a fourth novel about a spooky flu epidemic.  "My wife reads everything," he says.  "I set a lot of store by her opinion.  I think Carrie is her favorite because once, when gave up on it, and threw it int he waste basket, she fished it out.  She told me it was terrific."   

Born in Portland Maine, King recalls a hardscrabble early life.  His father, a merchant mariner, left King's mother when the boy was two.  Steve, an English major, graduated from the University of Maine, where he met Tabitha, who was studying history.  Except for their $150,000 three bedroom house in Bridgton Maine, the King's live a fairly modest life. "But we certainly have more material things than before -- a Cadillac, a four year old color TV," says millionaire King.  "We go to the movies.  We swim in the summer.  We went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, and we went Florida."  

King likes to ski cross-country and play the guitar and a friendly game of poker. He takes pills to keep his high blood pressure under control.  He also munches on aspirin to ease his migraines.  "They are strictly a work symptom," he says.  

On a personal note -- I'm sitting in a hospital room with my wife, who is reading me this article.  She's here for high blood pressure.  She paused when she read that, raising an eyebrow.

For King writing horror fiction is like psycho analyzing yourself in public.  "I'm externalizing my own fears and those of many others," he says.  He admits a few of his literary predecessors -- like Poe and Bram Stoker -- were peculiar types.  But insists, "I'm the nicest sort of fellow you'd want to me."

Someone ought to write a book discussing King and Poe.