As for King, there was a stretch late in the Dark Tower series where he inserted a character named Stephen King that almost totally paralleled his real life (it includes the van accident as part of the story and such). It struck me as rather overindulgent and I thought it might have been less distracting to make it another character.
King was able to turn his accident into a great story with "Misery"...but, for some reason....much of his later work appears to be a rehash of earlier themes done again again and again.
I could NEVER even touch the dark tower series...even when it first appeared as a serial in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction...my bible from the late'60's until the mid to late '80's when it deteriorated after Ed Ferman left as editor.
And then....there was Harlan Ellison who politely accused King of "unintentional plagiarism" with regard to several of his works...claiming that "Steve wouldn't do that on purpose...it must have been unconscious and not on purpose"....giving a friend a pass during a politically incorrect period of his work. IMO...it wasn't plagiarism...at least, not to the extent that James Cameron ripped off Ellison's two "Outer Limits" scripts to create "The Terminator" ("Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand"...pure rip offs for Ahhhnald's movie and paid dearly later on)...it was purely because Steve had run out of ideas and was just churning out old plot lines and ideas in "new" formats. Oh well...don't get me going on Steve King...I hate it when a formerly great writer ("The Stand" is one of my favorite stories ever) becomes mediocre. That said....I'll still recommend one of the more recent (but still, kinda remote based on his prodigious productivity) "Insomnia" which did have me captivated for about 400+ pages.
BTW...anyone else think that King is great for the first 400 pages or so...and then, just runs out of steam and the books simmers to a conclusion as opposed to reaching a real climax??
For those unfamiliar with Ellison...read the short story "I have no Mouth and I must Scream"....it will take less than an hour and convert you immediately.
For those unfamiliar with Philip Jose Farmer (RIP and my internet friend) start with "To your Scattered Bodies Go" and then revel in the story of how all of humanity that ever lived is resurrected along the banks of the great river....and the quest to find the reason for
why this has happened. Once you get that under your belt...you're ready for "Maker of Universes" which begins the "World of Tiers" series.
finally....for those unfamiliar with Philip K Dick...whose work, since his death has become the movies "Bladerunner", "Paycheck", "Imposter", "Total Recall", "A Scanner Darkly", "Screamers", "Minority Report" and "Next" to name several....begin with "The Man in the High Castle" and you'll get your first taste of his concept of alternative realities and the prevailing theme of "What is real, and what is not reality". After all..for two months in 1974 he had an ongoing relationship with his "counterpart" from AD 100 or so....leading to his multi-thousand page work "Exigenesis" which attempted to explain why we are not really here at all....but rather under the reality created by a malevolent deity circa 2000 years ago. Pretty intriguing stuff.
Edit...now that I think if it..."Misery" may have actually preceded his Van accident, and may have actually been a portent of things to come.
