Below is a round-up of my Stephen King related answers on Quora.
No, it’s not a demon in the traditional Christian sense. Olga Akselrad has a well-founded answer. IT came through the space between dimensions. This is a huge nod to Lovecraft.
The concept of IT is more of an interdimensional horror, which one could call a demon if they wanted, but inaccurately so.
Some universities do include King in contemporary literature. UVM had a class in 1996 called “Poe’s Children” which included works of Lovecraft, Joyce Carol Oates, and Stephen King. As far as I know that class is still available.
I think it won’t scare me at all. Setting it up like that raises my expectations too much.
But I think it will be an interesting series nonetheless!
It’s impossible to know. He’s not a young man but his exact age isn’t knowable. Not even Roland knows.
His appearance seems to be that of an older man who is well weathered, but there are no specifics given to reveal his actual biological age.
When I first read Joe Hill, I had no idea he was Stephen King’s son. But I thought he was heavily influenced by him.
I was three chapters into Heart Shaped Box when my spouse mentioned the relation. I said, “well no wonder he’s a good writer, he had a great mentor in-house.”
But Joe is his own brand. He doesn’t meander, and there’s pretty much a payoff on every page. I like his work a lot.
No. Clowns have managed to scare people long before King was even born.
The reason he wrote it was because he knew people found clowns scary.
Art imitates life.
Racism and prejudice. The Rom are neither scary nor terrifying, but people stereotype them into being dirty and yet mysterious.
King used these stereotypes to create a story that simultaneously reinforced those biases while attempting to demonstrate the corruption and collusion among white people in a small town.
Not particularly his best but certainly one of the better ones. I’m not going to bash it in any way. I just found other works if his to be superior in holding my attention and interest.
I loved Desperation by Stephen King. Loved it far more than The Regulators. I think that with Desperation, King captured the essence of suspense and kept me “leaning in” to the story to find out more. He very much built a world here in one book, and it hits the classic point of good versus evil. I like the choice to introduce outsiders to tell the story as well. That way you have the sense of being with them and not knowing what the hell is going on in this little Nevada town rather than being thrown directly into the town itself and being overwhelmed with an information dump.
Great question. What fun—this has to be my favorite kind of hypothetical. Thank you for the Ask to Answer!
Okay, enough stalling.
I would most fear Flagg coming for me, because of the nod to Nyarlathotep. He’s the embodiment of evil chaos that commits his evil acts for fun. Also I love evil characters so if he was horrible to me I’d be a bit disappointed, too. Ha ha. But seriously, he is by far the most dangerous out of any of King’s characters because he lives for chaos and only evildoing. He is unpredictable in some ways, but his biggest downfall is his pride. So the only way to defeat him is to try to use that against him. I’m pretty good at that, sure, but it’d still be a pants-wetting experience.
The runner up is Annie Wilkes. She’s at least one of the reasons I don’t write in the romance genre. I like my feet intact and I really don’t want to be the target of some cock-a-doodie erotomaniac. She’s pretty frightening in terms of stalkers, but at least a shotgun would take her out. I’m pretty sure I could take her out in a fight, too. I’m little, but mean.
Naturally, hands down, I’d want Roland Deschain defending me. Not necessarily against Flagg (because I don’t want to be in the way of that fight), but if I needed a bodyguard and my only choices were among King characters, Roland’s my man.
The completely underrated film 1408. It’s based on the eponymous short story by Stephen King.
1408 of course adds up to the number 13. I don’t have triskaidekaphobia but I know by the title that it will take the form of a horror story.
And it does.
John Cusack’s performance is wonderful in it. So much so I forget I’m watching him. He really gets into character. But it’s more than that. Oftentimes books and stories don’t translate well onto film (for a variety of reasons), but 1408 hardly misses.
If you enjoy hauntings that go beyond an average ghost story, watch 1408.