I am a Stephen King fanatic! I just love how he makes his characters so real. I always miss them when I am done reading. I thought this book was great, loved the mysterious story line! It was sad, suspensful, intense and kept me hooked until the last page!

Lit people can say whatever they like about King, but I LOVE his stories!

I remember when, after the final installment of the Dark Tower series came out, Stephen King announced that he was retiring from writing — or at least he wasn’t going to be publishing as prolifically. Of course, I was sad to hear this; King had been one of my favorite writers since I was a pre-teen, and the only one I have consistently collected. But it’s good to go out on a high note, and the Dark Tower was definitely a high note.

Of course, King has not retired. He has kept publishing one or two new books a year, just as he’s always done, and by and large, they have not been up to standard. Some he admitted were (or I suspected they were) trunk novels. It’s natural to want to keep laying those golden eggs, and suckers like me will keep buying them, but I’m finding these latest efforts to be rather sad. King can rest on his laurels now. He’s super-famous, he’s got plenty of money, and he’s made a significant contribution. Why keep turning out shlock?

Duma Key is a case in point. There is absolutely nothing going on in this novel that King hasn’t already explored several times before, often more effectively. To be honest, parts of the story didn’t even make good sense — another badly edited trunk novel, perhaps? This was a poorer version of Lisey’s Story, which was in turn a poorer version of Bag of Bones. It wasn’t even scary or really all that suspenseful. I just didn’t care so much — been there, done that, you see.

I’m asking Mr. King to please not let his fans down in this way. We’ve stuck with you through it all, even The Tommyknockers (the flying Coke machine was really cool, though). We gobbled up all seven mammoth tomes in the Dark Tower series and didn’t even complain too much when the plot got somewhat ridiculous toward the end. What I think we’d like to see now is you stretching yourself more, taking risks — you can afford to do that. And if you don’t have it in you, then retire with our blessing. But please, please, don’t keep disappointing us this way. Deal?

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