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.

The last, for now, Dark Tower book takes us back to visit Roland and the gang. This book’s events take place between books 4 and 5. King tries out a story-within-a-story structure to tell us more about Roland’s adventures. Did we like it, though? It’s complicated.

Justin and Kayla get to one of King’s most beloved tomes, his time travel epic. Jake Epping goes back in time to save JFK, but this book is all about the journey, not the destination. Just like real life, am I right?!

Feeling a little trapped lately? Neighbors acting weird? We all feel a little under the dome lately, and the book came about in our journey at the right time! Justin and Kayla discuss one of King’s longest books and touch on some of the themes. Turns out, these themes feel pretty fresh right now!

Justin and Kayla take on King’s Florida novel, Duma Key. King takes another shot at blending a more literary style with supernatural elements and revisits themes like the power of visual art. He also tosses in some surprise ghost pirates, in case we forgot that he writes horror.

Stephen King gives gothic romance another go with Lisey’s Story, another one of his more “literary” efforts. Justin and Kayla have thoughts on his writing style, the use of the “interior language of marriage,” and odd timeline structures.

After some cell issues, Justin and Kayla are able to discuss King’s book about cell issues. Written as cell phones were becoming more common, King’s book seems even more relevant now. But is the book good?

Justin and Kayla breeze through King’s blessedly short and sweet mystery book.

Justin and Kayla wrap up the final book in The Dark Tower series. Here, we say goodbye to our ka-tet and wrap up all the plot lines neatly. NOT! The Dark Tower series is King’s big fantasy series, and he definitely does it in his unique style.

Justin and Kayla dive into the penultimate book in the Dark Tower series. This book features vampires, split personalities/bodies, street preachers, magic turtle figurines, and Stephen King himself. It’s a weird book.

Kayla and Justin begin a stretch of three Dark Tower books with The Wolves of the Calla. In this book, small community faces off against a roving band of evil “wolves,” we see an old friend and get meta, Susannah gets another personality, and the team tries to buy a plot of land in New York City. Whew! This book is a doozy!

Justin and Kayla review one of King’s lesser known books, From a Buick 8. It’s also his second wicked car book. This slim book (for King anyway) sneaks in between two of King’s series and could be easy to miss. But we read it!

Justin and Kayla go back into the world of The Talisman as they reach the second collaboration of Peter Straub and Stephen King. Black House takes a darker turn in the Territories and a more intense connection with Dark Tower lore.

Yeah, yeah it’s year two of the Year of King, but we are going strong! In this special episode, we pause at our halfway point to discuss our favorites (and least favorites) of the last quarter. We also look to the year ahead and share what we’re most excited to read.

Justin and Kayla review Dreamcatcher (2001). This alien, body horror story is somehow insane and boring at the same time.

Justin and Kayla dive into one of King’s shorter and less-known works, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. The little book is a quite literary coming-of-age tale, something that King has done masterfully in the past. How does this one hold up?

Kayla and Justin rave about The Green Mile, a unique novel in King’s long writing career. King tackles magical realism in a beautiful and sentimental way. Justin and Kayla also talk about some of the critiques of the book and how the book was published serially.

Justin and Kayla discuss one of Stephen King’s less recognizable books. Bag of Bones got a lot of praise for being more “literary” than some of King’s other works. What did the Year of King team think?

Justin and Kayla are back with their review of Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in the Dark Tower series. Roland’s tale of his past love and losses really captured what we like most about the Dark Tower, and it’s our favorite installment so far.

Justin and Kayla follow the King journey to Desperation, Nevada, a dusty town full of dead residents and another of Kong’s interdimensional evil entities!

Justin and Kayla tackle Rose Madder, one of King’s less popular books. Does it deserve to be better regarded? Honestly, both hosts were thrilled to be out of Insomnia, but Rose Madder does have other positive qualities. Rose Madder is about a woman named Rose who runs away from her abusive husband. While she’s getting used to her new life, she buys a painting with some very strange properties. Rose will have to summon all her strength and anger to face the threat of her husband’s revenge.

Kayla and Justin riff on Insomnia, their least loved book so far on this reading journey. Hope you enjoy rants!

We’re doubling up this week with the two eclipse novels as King intended! An alternate title might be the “bitches get stuff done” episode as we dive into the very focused stories of two women in some tough spots, one physically and the other legally. While the two novels are related, our reviews of them were very different.

Justin and Kayla make it to the third book in the Dark Tower series, and the action starts to ramp up. The ka-tet gets Jake back and follow the Beam to the Tower. Their path is filled with sex demons, robot bears, evil Lud gangsters, and riddling trains.

Justin and Kayla are joined by Judson, friend and King book challenge completionist. All hail, Judson! We talk about Needful Things (“the last Castle Rock story”) in which the obviously demonic Leland Gaunt opens up his antique curiosities shop in town and proceeds to gleefully destroy everyone in town. We had a lot of fun in this episode, and we hope you enjoy our talk with our guest!

Justin and Kayla share their very different opinions about one of Stephen King’s least lauded and “goofiest” books.

Kayla and Justin throw out some opinions on The Tommyknockers, possibly one of King’s least loved books (and the source for an unlovable miniseries). How do we like King’s handling of alien horror and sci-fi? Is it an “awful book” as King says? Listen to find out!

Kayla and Justin talk about Misery, Stephen King’s novel about the writer who is held hostage by angel of death and his “number one fan.” We talk about the novel’s themes about fandom and addiction, Annie Wilkes’ scrapbook, and the pig/romance novel character named Misery.

Justin and Kayla enter back into the world of the Dark Tower to discuss The Drawing of the Three. We catch up with Roland as he puts together a motley crew of new friends who argue, fall in love, and kill mutant poisonous lobsters for food.

Kayla and Justin take a look at The Eyes of the Dragon, a fantasy novel by Stephen King that harkens to familiar places and foes.

Justin and Kayla discuss Stephen King’s beloved, four-pound masterpiece IT, which has terrified generations. Though IT’s standout image is Pennywise, the book is about so much more than just a child-eating clown. We dive into the big themes, characters, and controversies of the book. Kayla gets bold with her rating as well!