Stephen King Notes
Notes
Link: http://www.trcb.com/onlinebooks/leisure/horror-literature--life-after-stephen-king-1317.htm
It's common knowledge that Stephen King took a literary subgenre in the early eighties and turned it into a mainstream literary genre
Bestsellers like Shinning, Carrie, Blood and Smoke and even Bag of Bones (which was the first book in the genre to be given in depth analysis by literary critics worldwide) propelled horror literature to a class of its own, away from the scorned subgenre that it used to be.
In the trail of those masterpieces, a lot of young and talented writers found a new market to their work and a new acceptance by the public. Writers like Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, among many others, all of them excellent storytellers in their own right, were able to expand and thrive in a field first braved by Stephen King
And how will that affect the genre that he propelled to the spotlight of mainstream literature. Every newcomer in horror fiction tries to be the "next Stephen King", even going to great lengths to get that written in the back of their books.
In the end maybe "life after Stephen King" means exactly that. That he took a subgenre and brought it to life in the spotlight of mainstream literature and now that it's an established genre, no more figureheads are needed and no more revolutions are called for.
Link:
Link: http://www.trcb.com/onlinebooks/leisure/horror-literature--life-after-stephen-king-1317.htm
It's common knowledge that Stephen King took a literary subgenre in the early eighties and turned it into a mainstream literary genre
Bestsellers like Shinning, Carrie, Blood and Smoke and even Bag of Bones (which was the first book in the genre to be given in depth analysis by literary critics worldwide) propelled horror literature to a class of its own, away from the scorned subgenre that it used to be.
In the trail of those masterpieces, a lot of young and talented writers found a new market to their work and a new acceptance by the public. Writers like Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, among many others, all of them excellent storytellers in their own right, were able to expand and thrive in a field first braved by Stephen King
And how will that affect the genre that he propelled to the spotlight of mainstream literature. Every newcomer in horror fiction tries to be the "next Stephen King", even going to great lengths to get that written in the back of their books.
In the end maybe "life after Stephen King" means exactly that. That he took a subgenre and brought it to life in the spotlight of mainstream literature and now that it's an established genre, no more figureheads are needed and no more revolutions are called for.
Link: