Classifying the King

[[deleted user]]

i love reading Stephen King...i like his stories and his style. But i pose you this question...is he a horror writer, a fantasy writer, or a sf writer?

[Bobby]

D. All of the above.

[T.C.]

All of the above, and I for one don't see anything wrong with that. Not many seem to do it, though (and even he has used different names). There seems to be alot of conservatism around the idea of authors writing in more than one genre, which I think is a great shame, since most readers read in more than one genre!

Personally, I kind of wish he'd try his hand at a bit of straight up historical romance, just to prove that the real skill and talent is in the quality of the writing itself, not just in the constant invention of new and interesting ways to supernaturally frighten and amaze people!

[Bobby]

T. wrote: "All of the above, and I for one don't see anything wrong with that. Not many seem to do it, though (and even he has used different names). There seems to be alot of conservatism around the idea of ..."

Yeah, I don't know if he could write historical fiction simply because, by his own lights, I don't know that he's wired that way. I think it was in Danse Macabre (but it might have been something else) where he said that he and Louis Lamour can be out in nature looking at the same lake and Louis sees a cowboy watering his horse at the lake and King himself sees something dark and terrible rising out of the lake. And that's just the way his mind works. But "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", "The Body", "The Last Rung on the Ladder" and the entire Dark Tower series prove that King can pretty much go wherever he wants to -- as long as he wants to -- and succeed.