The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.

You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.

I don’t just want to read End of Watch; I need to know how it ends. The story Stephen King has written about these characters demands an ending. I have to see where it is going.

I think there is some part of Stephen King that fears or maybe at least laments than his most beloved works were written decades ago. It’s tough to top yourself when your early work has melded into popular culture for multiple generations. Even being a bestselling author in the present may not be enough to top that.

While others may fixate on the cultural milestones of King’s earliest work, I think there may be an objective argument that a handful of his most recent novels are, in fact, his best work, and at the very least, much better than much of what came before. And I’ve made that argument more than once myself recently.

Unlike the previous two Bill Hodges books with Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, there is a strong hint of supernatural elements in this third installment of the trilogy. The groundwork for this was set in the second book and is primed to pay off now.

I have high hopes for End of Watch and desperately root for King to reach and surpass that bar as I know he is capable of doing.

My next post in this series will be After End of Watch which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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