Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,511
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Oct 27, 2021 18:31:28 GMT -5
What do you think would be the state of horror fiction in the 80s and 90s if King had never come upon the scene?
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,471 
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Oct 27, 2021 20:09:57 GMT -5
Smaller but there was still so many authors putting out decent to damn good horror fiction. Richard Laymon,Koontz,Ketchum,Skip and SPector,Campbell and many others. Maybe Barker would have been the big name. That would have been a bit odd,but interesting.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Oct 27, 2021 20:12:04 GMT -5
It's an interesting question. He's one of a kind. There were other really great writers like Ramsey Campbell and David J. Schow I'd put on his level but I don't know if they would have gotten a bigger push in his absence. Horror fiction got a lot bloodier and more edgelord in the 80s, so without King it might have ended up a lot more obscure. He really is irreplaceable in the larger context of things.
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Post by knightrider2099 on Oct 27, 2021 20:22:37 GMT -5
No King? Then how are those kids goimg to have sex in that sewer.
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Post by Sir Woodrow on Oct 27, 2021 20:46:20 GMT -5
Hey, what was the name of the book about the haunted hotel that sends the dad insane?
I don't know, IT WAS NEVER WRITTEN
DUN DUN DUNNNNN!
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Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,125
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Post by Mozenrath on Oct 27, 2021 20:57:50 GMT -5
Smaller but there was still so many authors putting out decent to damn good horror fiction. Richard Laymon,Koontz,Ketchum,Skip and SPector,Campbell and many others. Maybe Barker would have been the big name. That would have been a bit odd,but interesting. Yeah, I feel like Barker may have been that much bigger than he otherwise was. |
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Post by Milkman Norm on Oct 27, 2021 21:00:53 GMT -5
That means a world without "The Shawshank Redemption" and that's not a world I want to live in.
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Post by wildojinx on Oct 27, 2021 21:04:33 GMT -5
How about a world where King is still around, but doesnt write horror fiction?
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,471
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Oct 27, 2021 22:27:32 GMT -5
Smaller but there was still so many authors putting out decent to damn good horror fiction. Richard Laymon,Koontz,Ketchum,Skip and SPector,Campbell and many others. Maybe Barker would have been the big name. That would have been a bit odd,but interesting. Yeah, I feel like Barker may have been that much bigger than he otherwise was. Maybe.Barker had stories and stuff that weren't gonna go over well with the mainstream audience. But I think he would have been bigger. I keep going back to Koontz maybe taking King's place. Koontz did middle of the road horror fiction. |
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Oct 28, 2021 13:56:05 GMT -5
Yeah, I feel like Barker may have been that much bigger than he otherwise was. Maybe.Barker had stories and stuff that weren't gonna go over well with the mainstream audience. But I think he would have been bigger. I keep going back to Koontz maybe taking King's place. Koontz did middle of the road horror fiction. I always thought of Dean Koontz as being Stephen King if he was really boring. |
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Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
Posts: 28,961
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Post by Sephiroth on Oct 28, 2021 14:09:47 GMT -5
No King? Then how are those kids goimg to have sex in that sewer. Well there is always TMNT |
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Post by Hit Girl on Oct 28, 2021 14:54:03 GMT -5
How about a world where King is still around, but doesnt write horror fiction? Fifty Shades of Grey by Stephen King. |
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pinja
Unicron
Posts: 3,010
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Post by pinja on Oct 28, 2021 15:40:24 GMT -5
Barker, I feel, really isn't that good. He's a Jack of all trades, but compared to the literary quality of King, he's more of a European pulp author. If Dan Simmons had similar output and stayed with horror, he would have easily filled the more cerebral void. Song of Kali is that excellent and Summer of Night is all around comparable to It. But King was bested by Sutter Cane anyway.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2021 15:42:42 GMT -5
There's a universe out there where Neil Gaiman ends up primarily as an S.F. writer like he thought he was going to be.
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Post by Biggtone23 on Oct 28, 2021 21:44:48 GMT -5
RL Stine goes with adult fiction instead of writing kids books.
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Post by Edge of Insanity on Oct 28, 2021 23:39:36 GMT -5
Maybe.Barker had stories and stuff that weren't gonna go over well with the mainstream audience. But I think he would have been bigger. I keep going back to Koontz maybe taking King's place. Koontz did middle of the road horror fiction. I always thought of Dean Koontz as being Stephen King if he was really boring. He's drug free Stephen King. |
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Post by Hobby Drifter on Oct 29, 2021 1:41:11 GMT -5
Richard Bachman would have filled the void. Very similar voice to King but just never quite made the same impact.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Oct 29, 2021 1:52:01 GMT -5
Anne Rice still woulda had her empire, and she left a bigger impact on books themselves.
King changed the business for sure, but I don't think he's been very influencial in terms of his writing, largely because his main strength is coming up with a katrillion original concepts. It's all too diverse to nail down.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Oct 29, 2021 4:02:59 GMT -5
My theory is that King's been dead for twenty years, most of his recent works are short stories based on words that appear on a haunted stack of napkins found beside this typewriter. He's the 2pac of horror, that's why there seem to be so many things based on short stories by Stephen King and why they're of variable quality.
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msc
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,460
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Post by msc on Oct 29, 2021 4:32:39 GMT -5
Smaller but there was still so many authors putting out decent to damn good horror fiction. Richard Laymon,Koontz,Ketchum,Skip and SPector,Campbell and many others. Maybe Barker would have been the big name. That would have been a bit odd,but interesting. Yeah, I feel like Barker may have been that much bigger than he otherwise was. Well, a key caveat to that one is, who gave Barker a huge push in the credibility and promotion stakes when he was starting off? Stephen King. Koontz and RL Stine are the two who have sold anywhere near King's levels, but I've never read Dean Koontz, and Stine was openly inspired by those who came before him. (Not knocking that, Stine is a childhood hero of mine.) In the UK, James Herbert's The Rats came out just before King's first novel, and he sold millions. Maybe he would have done better in a King-less world but I doubt it. Those inspired by M.R James and the other British ghost story writers (Benson, Hartley, my man Burrage, etc) would have still been working like Ramsey Campbell (nice chap btw) for example, but there's no doubt that King's supernova popularity has opened doors for horror that otherwise wouldn't have existed. |
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