Many years ago, Stephen King decided he wanted to start his career again. He was also chomping at the bit because his publishers were limiting him to one book per year. So he decided that he would start a new career (while keeping his old one) and write books under a pseudonym. These are collectively known as The Bachman Books. King felt he could write additional books and build a second career. This would give King an additional outlet and keep his publishers happy by not over saturating the Stephen King brand. So, how does Bachman compare to King?

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In the afterword for Different Seasons, Stephen King talks about why these four stories hadn’t been published before. He riffs about the decline of the long story (also known as novellas). Stories that are too long to be short story, but not long enough to be a novel used to be a part of the literary scene. But the markets have dried up. So when King found himself with four novellas and no place to to put them, he decided to put them together in a book and see what happened. Little did he know that half the stories would become classic movies (and probably the two best movies ever made from Stephen King stories). So, what makes this collection of novellas so special?

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It by Stephen King is probably King’s finest piece of work and a grave disappointment…depending on how you look at it. Back when it came out, it was the talk of everyone. King had outdone himself and created a whole city with a history and believable characters and a scary monster clown. As the years go by, you hear less and less of It and that’s a shame. Because while I feel it’s a grave disappointment, it is only a disappointment because of how good the first 90 percent of the book is. The ending is poorly done and just ruins the book. But up until that point, it’s an amazing journey. So what went wrong?

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