The Year of King

Justin and Kayla catch up to King’s latest novel, Billy Summers. King takes on the hitman’s “one last job” genre with his usual flair for characters and suspense. First half of this episode is spoiler-free!

Justin and Kayla loop in Stephen King’s latest novel … Later. This is his third novel published with Hard Case Crimes, and in our opinion, the best one so far. Since this is King’s most recent novel, we tried to keep it spoiler-free, but you should read the book!

Justin and Kayla discuss the last Bachman book, Blaze. This book was based on one of King’s earliest writings, and the release was teased over several decades until it was finally released in 2007. The book follows a tragic man named Blaze as he plans and executes a plot to kidnap a baby.

Justin and Kayla tackles Richard Bachman’s partner novel to Desperation. We discuss the brilliance of the idea and the novel’s successes and failures. If anything else, this book is WILD.

Justin and Kayla talk about Thinner, a Bachman book that revealed to the world that Bachman = King! The book is full of bad men, gypsy curses, and nasty punishments! Perfect for a book of its time! How does it hold up?

We’re on our way through the Bachman books, and we stumble across our favorite so far! We discuss the dystopian setting and themes of this book, how the book is nothing like the movie (which we also love), and Justin’s idea for a Games Network made for our era.

Justin and Kayla make it to the third Bachman book, 1981’s Roadwork. The book follows a man as he blows up his own life literally and figuratively. Does King succeed in plumbing the depths of human pain?

Justin and Kayla take on the second Bachman book, the bleak The Long Walk.

The Year of King continues with Phase 2, the Bachman books. King wrote several books under this pseudonym over the years, including the controversial Rage. Rage is the only King book that is out of print, per the author himself. Find out why in this episode!

We’re done with Phase One, the novels! We take some time to wrap up with some fun questions and reflection on our year-ish of reading all of King’s novels. We’ll also let you know what we’re up to next!

We made it! Phase one of the challenge ends here, with King revisiting his favorite kinds of kids, the telepathic and telekinetic.

Justin and Kayla breeze through King’s novella about a man experiencing a mysterious weight loss. It’s a nice little book but straddles the line of being way too sentimental.

Justin and Kayla discuss King’s moody police procedural that we all know will take a turn into something weirder. The Outsider turns out to be one of our favorite books of the reading journey.

What happens if all the women in the world fell asleep and didn’t wake up? That’s the central question of the collaboration of Stephen King and his youngest son Owen King. Fascinating premise, but does the story hold together over 700 pages?

The Bill Hodges trilogy wraps up with the rematch between the Finders Keepers gang and Brady Hartsfield, Mr. Mercedes. Justin and Kayla have really enjoyed King’s detective series, though King throws in a supernatural twist. How do we like that?

Justin and Kayla are reunited with Bill Hodges and the rest of the gang. They’ve formalized their work into a company called Finders Keepers. This book gives us a bit of a break from the Brady Hartsfield story but throws a loop at the end. Meanwhile, we get to hear all about antique and rare book dealing and prison life.

Kayla and Justin dive into Revival, King’s ode to Shelley’s Frankenstein, Machen’s The Great God Pan, and Lovecraftian cosmic horror. This book starts off as a classic coming-of-age story, but it’s King so you know to expect a twist. Turns out, our world is just a cover for the horrifying chaos universe beyond! Plus, Kayla can’t resist a chance to talk about a chapter of her thesis!

Justin and Kayla start Stephen King’s detective series, the Bill Hodges trilogy. King hasn’t written too many series, so we were excited to start this change of pace for King.

The awesome pulpy cover is a bit tricky! We thought we were in for an exciting murder mystery, but then we got an emotional coming-of-age story with a pinch of murder, a spoon of psychic kid, and a dollop of sentimental old guy reflection. But it’s still a pretty likable story!

King gives us a look into the adult life of Danny Torrance, the kid who was menaced by his father and some ghosts at the Overlook Hotel. Dan teams up with a powerful kid named Abra to defeat a group of psychic vampires called the True Knot. Sounds cool, but it’s not.