and Dreamscapes(1993) collected most of his short
fiction from this period.
In 1996 King engaged in an interesting experi-
ment, publishing portions of his current novel as
paperbacks as they were written, so that the end-
ing had not been completed when the first chap-
ters were already in bookstores. The separate
portions were eventually republished in one vol-
ume as The Green Mile(1996), which proved to be
one of King’s very best novels and perhaps unsur-
prisingly became one of the most successful movies
based on his work. The setting is death row in a
mythical prison somewhere in the South. The
newest inmate is innocent but doomed and pos-
sesses an extraordinary healing power. Although
there are some horrifying events in the novel, it
could be called fantasy rather than horror with no
difficulty. It is possibly the single most genuinely
moving of King’s stories. The experiment was not
entirely original. Michael McDOWELLhad written
the Blackwater Saga in the early 1980s, a single
story published in multiple volumes. It was imi-
tated by John SAULin his Blackstone series a year
later, but each volume in Saul’s sequence was a
complete separate story within a general frame.
The novels that followed vary considerably in
quality. Bag of Bones(1998) is one of his best, and
the tensions involved in a bitter custody battle are
almost as gripping as the supernatural elements.
Hearts in Atlantis(1999) is uneven and perhaps
more science fiction than horror. Dreamcatcher
(2001) is even more so, an alien invasion story that
was marketed as horror fiction. From a Buick 8
(2002), the story of an automobile that is a conduit
to another universe, is bloated and disappointing, a
short story idea inflated to novel length. At the
same time, the short novel The Girl Who Loved
Tom Gordon(1999) is a very moving, low-key story
about a young girl stalked by a supernatural force.
His later short fiction, collected in Everything’s
Eventual (2002), is similarly uneven, although
“Riding the Bullet” is excellent.
King has also written straightforward fantasy,
including the conventional but comparatively
minor The Eyes of the Dragon(1984). Much more
important is the Dark Tower series, an idiosyn-
cratic episodic quest story that introduced the
Gunslinger in The Gunslinger(1982, originally ti-
tled The Dark Tower) and ended with volume
seven, The Dark Tower(2004). Although often
filled with horrific images, it is closer to the fantasy
tradition than horror. King himself appears as a
character, and there are loose ties to characters in
a number of his horror novels as well.
King has recently announced his intention to
retire from writing fiction. Even if he never pro-
duces another story, his impact on horror fiction—
and on best-selling fiction in general—has been
stupendous. He is certainly the most successful
writer of the late 20th century in terms of total
books sold, with a worldwide audience, and more
than two dozen major films have been generated
from his fiction. Some have attributed the advent
of horror fiction as a separate publishing category
to the sustained popularity of his books, and one
has only to walk into a bookstore to see that the
horror sections are dominated by King, with only
Dean R. KOONTZapproaching the same monopo-
lization of shelf space. His ability to speak to a wide
variety of readers and to engage them with his
characters and stories is unrivaled. King received
the Bram Stoker Award for Misery, Four Past Mid-
night, The Green Mile, Bag of Bones,and “Lunch at
the Gotham Cafe” and the World Fantasy Award
for “Do the Dead Sing?” (1981) and “The Man in
the Black Suit” (1995).The King in YellowRobert W. Chambers
(1895)
Although Robert Chambers was a prolific writer
who produced a considerable body of mainstream
fiction, he is remembered almost exclusively today
for his supernatural fiction, particularly this collec-
tion of interrelated stories. The underlying premise
is the existence of a book of arcane lore so power-
ful that those who read it are driven insane and of
a form of personified death who is the gatekeeper
to a mystical otherworld.
The most famous of the individual stories is
“The Yellow Sign,” in which the artist narrator is
confronted by the animate dead, who serve as a
kind of guide between the two realities. A series of
nightmarish visions and dreams follows, slowly es-
calating the level of tension. “The Demoiselle
D’Ys” describes the increasingly ardent love affair192 The King in Yellow