by Matt St. Amand

Created on: December 28, 2009   Last Updated: December 30, 2009

There was a time when no one was a more ardent fan of Stephen King's fiction than I was.  During the first fifteen years of his career as a name-brand author, I couldn't get enough of his work.  I even held off reading The Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower series, like a survivalist squirreling away packs of Fig Newtons and RC Cola beneath the cot in a bomb shelter - I knew King couldn't write forever and I wanted some gems to look forward to.

No artist is without fault or flaw.  Some of Stephen King's novels that I enjoyed very much were overwritten and filled with flabby, should've-been-edited-out flourishes.  Much as King's critics hammered him for his endless product placements and dated pop culture name-dropping, my focus was always on the stories;   and so many of his stories were very entertaining.

King's novel The Dark Half was the first new-release hardcover I ever purchased.  I devoured it and wasn't disappointed.  It wasn't the greatest of Stephen King stories, but everything I enjoyed about King's style was present in that novel: his ability to sketch in full scenes and characters in a few deft lines; the interesting-genial-stranger narrative voice; his nearly seamless traversing of the boundary separating reality from the fantastic; and a story that was somehow telegraphed throughout the entire book, but somehow managed to present itself as a surprise.

The next indication that Stephen King was capable of poor publishing decisions was confirmed with the release of The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition.  Ask any long-time Stephen King fan what their favorite King novel is and they will tell you, "The Stand."  The original release was nothing short of brilliant.  Had it not been published by a young writer who, by 1978, had been pigeon-holed as a "horror writer," it would have won The National Book Award for Fiction that year.  The story is epic, endlessly engrossing, written with an eye for detail and humanity that would have shocked and amazed Charles Dickens.  The novel is enormous, but leaves most readers voracious for more.

The 1990 release of The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition was that more.  I dove into the novel and didn't look back.  Although I enjoyed it, I felt an almost guilty sense of disloyalty to my love for The Stand because, having received more, I realized unequivocally that the originally published, edited version published in 1978 was far superior. 

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