Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947. He has written more than thirty-six novels and many short stories, forty-nine of which have been made into movies. King has manipulated the genre of horror and suspense like no other author and has turned the simply gory into a shocking possibility.
Time and again, King has asked the question, What if? The answers--often bizarre and outlandish--have been what most people wouldn't have dreamed in their worst nightmares. What if telekinesis could be harnessed to kill others? Carrie. What if a super flu hit the earth and the few remaining survivors came to a face off of good and evil? The Stand. What if a husband handcuffs his wife to the bed during foreplay and then has a heart attack and dies? Gerald's Game. What if an annual national race was established where the winner could have whatever he wanted while the losers were shot? The Long Walk. What if an automobile had a mind of its own and the capability to kill? Christine. What if you could bring pets (or people) back from the dead? Pet Semetary.
King's unique, spine-chilling tales draw increasingly massive numbers of readers each year. His dialogue and tension are well-sculpted, his vocabulary is top notch, and his settings and characters become a reader's reality within a few sentences of introduction.
I believe "Stand by Me", The Stand, and The Shining have the greatest likelihood of being read in one hundred years, but there is no telling what King's imagination will bring to the table in the next decade or beyond.
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