The Lost Work of Stephen King: A Guide to Unpublished Manuscripts, Story Fragments, Alternative Versions and Oddities

Rating:
Summary: Kingly Treat
Review: A very interesting book. I am rereading now actually

Rating:
Summary: Well, it's for fans, innit
Review: SHORT: Fans only, I'd say. For them it may be essential, although the writing style is probably offputting for some. LONG: I found this book quite entertaining due to its contents. (Remember that the "complete" SK encyclopedia by the same author a couple of years back was largely confined to fiction.) Spignesi traces many items in the King universe that are obscure and difficult (impossible in some cases) to obtain. If you want to read about rare newspaper appearances, juvenilia, crosswords, and the like (i.e., if you're a die-hard King fanatic like me), you'll probably want to buy this book - although Tyson Blue covered a fair amount of the rare stuff until 1989 in his UNSEEN KING (starmont). I have to say, though, that I find Spignesi's style of writing, like that of Blue earlier, a little off-putting. It is clear that he is enthusiastic about King and his work, ephemeral as some of the pieces discussed in this book may sometimes be. But there is a line, I think, between unobtrusive and still informative prose (like that of Winter and Collings, who write a carefully measured prose but are still fun to read) and a style that may at best be described as chatty and informal, at worst as annoying fannish hyperbole. The more's the pity since this book could have been so much more - if you're looking for critical discussions that go beyond the superficial, I guess you better stick with the many works of Collings. With a subject matter like this it's inevitable that some customers may be disappointed not to actually get to read some of these "oddities," but with the help of the internet it is possible to collect rare King texts, at least, on a beer budget. And then there is, of course, the BOMC collection SECRET WINDOWS, where you might start to gather a couple of rare pieces. All in all, I'd rank it 3 out of 5.

Rating:
Summary: Well, it's for fans, innit
Review: SHORT: Fans only, I'd say. For them it may be essential, although the writing style is probably offputting for some. LONG: I found this book quite entertaining due to its contents. (Remember that the "complete" SK encyclopedia by the same author a couple of years back was largely confined to fiction.) Spignesi traces many items in the King universe that are obscure and difficult (impossible in some cases) to obtain. If you want to read about rare newspaper appearances, juvenilia, crosswords, and the like (i.e., if you're a die-hard King fanatic like me), you'll probably want to buy this book - although Tyson Blue covered a fair amount of the rare stuff until 1989 in his UNSEEN KING (starmont). I have to say, though, that I find Spignesi's style of writing, like that of Blue earlier, a little off-putting. It is clear that he is enthusiastic about King and his work, ephemeral as some of the pieces discussed in this book may sometimes be. But there is a line, I think, between unobtrusive and still informative prose (like that of Winter and Collings, who write a carefully measured prose but are still fun to read) and a style that may at best be described as chatty and informal, at worst as annoying fannish hyperbole. The more's the pity since this book could have been so much more - if you're looking for critical discussions that go beyond the superficial, I guess you better stick with the many works of Collings. With a subject matter like this it's inevitable that some customers may be disappointed not to actually get to read some of these "oddities," but with the help of the internet it is possible to collect rare King texts, at least, on a beer budget. And then there is, of course, the BOMC collection SECRET WINDOWS, where you might start to gather a couple of rare pieces. All in all, I'd rank it 3 out of 5.

Rating:
Summary: take a peek at the boy king
Review: Stephen Spignesi worte the Stephen King Encylopedia, a book I still read a couple of times a month. He knows his subject and is rather talented as a writer himself. If you've seen the encyclopedia then you've read excerpts of King's immature work. This book concentrates on the lost works : the material King did as a raw kid (This isn't a put down. King's youthful stuff shows that even then he had gift)but don't forget that this is all material that he chose not to publsih or stuck in a drawer somewhere.

The Lost Work is really for totally devoted fans, the people who will buy anything that has King's name on it or in it. The rest of us probably won't be as enamored.

Rating:
Summary: A useful book about the working method of the Maestro
Review: This book does not contain any complete work by Stephen King, but it explores many texts or other works that are little known and that are at times difficult to find. It sums up the texts, works, stories, etc, gives the starting line and at times the punch line, analyzes these works and evaluates the chances one may have to get them. Some of these works are nowadays more readily available than said in the book. It is the case of « L.T.'s Theory of Pets » that has been published in an audio cassette version as read by Stephen King himself in London in 1998 (Stephen King Live !, 1999) or of « Lunch at the Gotham Café » read by the author and published in the form of a CD audiobook (Blood and Smoke, 2000). This book gives some insight on how Stephen King works by exemplifying working or alternative versions of some books we know, and by also covering some rare pieces that show how adventurous and compulsive a writer he may be. I particularly appreciate the column he has in The Maine Campus from february 1969 to may 1970. A must, in other words, for the students of Stephen King's works, the Stephen King literate and the Stephen King lovers. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.