By Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner | 320pgs
Release Date: April 24, 2012
Summary:
Fans of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series will rejoice with the release of the new book The Wind Through the Keyhole. Those who have been jonesing for more stories about the Gunslinger Roland Deschain and his adventures through Mid-World, will get the rush of plunging into the author’s incredibly detailed Western/Sci-Fi/Fantasy world for the eighth time. This book, considerably shorter than the last few novels of the series, is a detour that falls between the fourth book Wizard and Glass and the fifth book Wolves of the Calla, in the Dark Tower timeline. As Roland and his ka-tet (Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy) take refuge from a destructive storm, he recounts a story from his youth, the hunt for a vicious shape-shifting serial killer. The teenage Gunslinger investigates the murders, and befriends a young boy left bereft in the wake of the shape-shifter’s violence, comforting him with a mythical legend. Thus begins an intricate story within a story, crafted with King’s signature style and imagination. Read more…
Stephen King has been busy racking up accolades for his new novel 11/22/63 of late, but he has also made time to share some of his good fortune with fellow citizens of his home state of Maine. On Tuesday, the author announced that the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation is working to raise $140,000 to help provide heating fuel to poverty stricken Maine residents. “We’ll match up to $70,000 of the amount raised,” King told Bangor Daily News in a phone interview. “This economy is terrible and Tabitha and I both worry so much about Bangor because it truly is a working-class town and we are always looking for ways to help, and right now this is a great need.” The novelist owns three radio stations in the Bangor area, WKIT 100.3 FM, WZON 620 AM and The Pulse 103.1 FM, and he and his wife will work with the stations to get the word out and help raise funds. Read more…
By Stephen King
Scribner | 960pgs
Release Date: November 8, 2011
Stephen King’s new novel, the highly anticipated 11/22/63, arrives in stores today. The opus, which falls just short of the 1,000 page mark, follows English teacher Jake Epping through a time portal in his friend Al’s basement on a quest to prevent the assassination of JFK. Using the name George Amberson, Jake enters the past in the year 1958, and spends the next 5 years working towards changing the outcome of that fateful day, moving to a small town in Texas, falling in love with a sweet librarian and encountering a troubled young man named Lee Harvey Oswald along the way. Will Jake be able to change history? If so, will the future of the world better for this change? Read more…
Fans of The Walking Dead get a double dose of zombie mayhem with the premier of season two of the AMC television series last night and the recent release of The Walking Dead: Rise of The Governor (Thomas Dunne Books, 320pgs), a book written by story creator Robert Kirkman and horror writer Jay Bonansinga. This is the first novel for The Walking Dead franchise, which began as a series of comic books. “I always thought about branching out into prose and doing a Walking Dead novel,” Kirkman explains in a interview with USA Today. “With the hype around the second season and the comic book series doing so well, it seems like the perfect time to launch it.” Read more…
©2011 Simon & Schuster.
Stephen King set his fandom abuzz earlier this month with the announcement that his new novel 11/22/63 will be released on November 8th. The plot of the 1,000 page epic follows Jake Epping, a high school English teacher, through a portal in his friend Al’s storeroom into the year 1958. Al sends Jake on a mission to change history by preventing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As he settles into a culture of sock hops and Elvis under the name George Amberson, he falls for Sadie Dunhill, a lovely librarian, and encounters disturbed loner Lee Harvey Oswald. The premise of time travel in a novel is not new, but some fans question whether or not King can approach this device in an interesting, yet believable, way. “Time travel, though – even when it’s done brilliantly by Kim Stanley Robinson in Galileo’s Dream, even when it’s done humorously by Tim Powers in The Anubis Gates – sends me a bit mad. It Just Doesn’t Add Up and it messes with my mind,” writes Alison Flood in a post for The Guardian‘s Blog. Read more…
By Stephen King
Scribner | 144pgs
Release Date: May 25, 2010
Just in time for the lazy days of summer and baseball season, comes the release of Blockade Billy, the latest novella from Stephen King. In sharp contrast to the mammoth 1,000+ page Under the Dome released last fall, Blockade Billy is a slim volume centered around Major League Baseball circa 1957. An elderly George “Granny” Grantham, former third-base coach of the New Jersey Titans, recounts the fateful season that an unknown Iowa farm league catcher was called up to help his pro team hobbled by injuries. William Blakely is an odd young man, but boy can he play baseball. He quickly becomes a fan favorite, blowing out rookie batting records and guarding home plate with a fierceness that earns him the nickname “Blockade Billy”. As to be expected in a Stephen King story, the plot takes a dark twist as Billy’s oddness turns sinister and players start to get hurt. His short stint with the Titans is effectively erased from the baseball record books, and only “Granny” can reveal the dangerous truth.
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By Stephen King
Scribner | 1088pgs
Release Date: November 10, 2009
Stephen King’s latest opus hit stores on Tuesday, and rabid fans can finally discover what’s Under the Dome. The novel centers on the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, as its tranquility is shattered by an all-encompassing invisible dome. When the force field materializes, planes and cars explode on impact, and a few unsuspecting limbs are severed. No one can get in or out, and the cause of the dome is a complete mystery. Could it be little green men? A military experiment gone horribly wrong? An act of God? Hefting in at nearly 1,100 pages, Under the Dome approaches the epic scale of The Stand. And like The Stand, at the core of this story is a battle between the forces of good and evil. This time around the Baddie is town Selectman “Big Jim” Rennie, who sees the imprisoning dome as an opportunity to take control of Chester’s Mill and run the town as his own police state. Fighting against Rennie’s murderous corruption is a small group of townspeople led by Dale Barbara, local fry cook and guilt ridden Iraq War vet. The factions clash in a bloody battle, with heavy casualties on both sides. But do the good guys win? It is a Stephen King novel after all, so a happy ending is never guaranteed.
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Retail giants Walmart, Amazon and Target have come under fire recently for starting a price war on new hardcover titles, and pricing mom & pop bookstores out of the market. Walmart fired the first shot earlier in the month by offering online customers the chance to pre-order 10 of the holiday season’s hottest new books, including titles from Stephen King, John Grisham and Sarah Palin, for only $10. Amazon and Target then entered the fray and the pre-order price was whittled down to just $8.98. In the aftermath, The American Booksellers Association, which represents independent bookstores, wrote a letter to the Justice Department calling for an investigation of this “predatory pricing”. The ABA’s letter accused the mammoth retailers of selling the books at a loss in order to “win control of the market for hardcover best sellers.” Target, Amazon and Walmart are able to offset these losses, but independent booksellers operate on much slimmer profit margins and do not have this luxury. These price wars could not have come at a worse time for small bookstores, since the weakened economy and the rise in e-book popularity have steadily eaten away at their profits.
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Stephen King fans can’t wait to see what’s Under the Dome. Over the past couple weeks, the cover artwork for his new book Under the Dome has been revealed in stages at: stephenkingunderthedome.com. The final reveal will be on Monday, October 5. King conceived the idea for the cover, and Scribner art director Rex Bonomelli worked with artists in the U.S. and abroad to realize the vision. The artists used a combination of illustrations, 3D renderings and photographs to bring the cover to life.
©2009 Simon & Schuster
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