The Science of Stephen King

Lois H. Gresh

Description

Advance Praise

"What a treasure house is this book! Robots, space aliens, Einstein, black holes, time travel--these themes, and much more, from Stephen King's amazing books are opened up like toy chests. It's tremendous fun, entirely educational, and a great tribute to King."--Peter Straub

"A fun, fun read."--F. Paul Wilson

"The Science of Stephen King appeals to both the scientist and the longtimereader of Stephen King in me. Gresh and Weinberg use concepts from King's fiction as launching pads for in-depth explorations of concepts as diverse as ESP, pyrokinesis, time travel, artificial intelligence, quantum chemistry, alternate realities, string theory, and the possibility that we'll be visited by aliens or that we'll face a global pandemic. Much of what Stephen King writes about in his novels is closer to reality than you might think."--Bev Vincent, Ph.D., author of The Road to the Dark Tower

"A superb overview of King's use of scientific concepts in his stories. And considering all the scary talk lately about pandemic flu, their chapter on The Stand is timely as hell."--Stephen Spignesi, author of The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia

"Just as Sagan and Asimov popularized science to the masses by making itentertaining and informative, so too do Gresh and Weinberg. Compulsively readable and thought-provoking."--George Beahm, author of The Stephen King Companion

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Lois H. Gresh
• Robert Weinberg
• American
• Carrie
• Stephen King

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 août 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781620459690
• Langue: English

Extrait

Books by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg
The Science of James Bond
The Science of Superheroes
The Science of Supervillains
The Science of Anime
The Termination Node
The Computers of Star Trek
Books by Lois H. Gresh
Chuck Farris and the Tower of Darkness
Chuck Farris and the Labyrinth of Doom
Chuck Farris and the Cosmic Storm
The Truth behind a Series of Unfortunate Events
Dragonball Z
TechnoLife 2020
The Ultimate Unauthorized Eragon Guide
The Fan s Guide to the Spiderwick Chronicles
Exploring Philip Pullman s His Dark Materials
Books by Robert Weinberg
Secrets of X-Men Revealed
A Logical Magician
A Calculated Magic
The Black Lodge
The Dead Man s Kiss
The Devil s Auction
The Armageddon Box
FROM CARRIE TO CELL , THE TERRIFYING TRUTH BEHIND THE HORROR MASTER S FICTION
Lois H. Gresh Robert Weinberg
Copyright 2007 by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].
ISBN 978-0-471-78247-6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
To Mark Bocko, Robert McCrory, and Arie Bodek, who enabled me to become immersed in science.
-Lois H. Gresh
To Dr. Nureen Suwan, Dr. Angela Silva, and Dr. Carrie Stisser for rescuing my feet!
-Robert Weinberg
CONTENTS

Introduction: Where Science and Fiction Intersect

1 From Proms to Cells: The Psychic World of Stephen King
Carrie Firestarter The Dead Zone Hearts in Atlantis Cell The Green Mile

2 On the Highway with Stephen King
Trucks

3 They Came from Outer Space
Dreamcatcher The Tommyknockers

4 The Fourth Horseman
The Stand

5 Up the Dimensions with Stephen King
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Insomnia

6 Traveling in Time with Stephen King
The Langoliers

7 Parallel Worlds
The Mist From a Buick 8 The Dark Tower The Talisman

8 Longevity and Genetic Research
The Golden Years

9 Evil, Obsession, and Fear
The Tommyknockers Carrie The Talisman It The Stand Danse Macabre The Shining Misery Night Surf

Notes

Index
INTRODUCTION
WHERE SCIENCE AND FICTION INTERSECT
I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.
-Stephen King, Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing
Some people are born to be writers. That s certainly true of Stephen King. According to King, as posted on his official Web site, www.stephenking.com , I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That s why I do it.
Stephen King started writing while attending grade school in Durham, Maine, and continued to do so throughout his years in Lisbon Falls High School. In 1960, when he was thirteen, he submitted his first story to a magazine; it was rejected. Around the same time, King discovered a box of old science-fiction and horror paperbacks in his aunt s house and was immediately hooked on both genres. He went on to edit the school newspaper, the Drum , and also wrote for the local newspaper, the Lisbon Weekly Enterprise . He sold his first short story, The Glass Floor, to Robert A. W. Lowndes s magazine Startling Mystery Stories in 1966. It appeared in the fall 1967 issue. Interestingly enough, the same poorly distributed, penny-a-word publication also printed the first short story by F. Paul Wilson, The Cleansing Machine, in its eighteenth issue, in March 1971. Bob Weinberg, who attended college in Hoboken, New Jersey, from 1964 through 1968, visited the offices of Startling Mystery Stories in New York City a number of times during that period and submitted several stories to editor Lowndes. None of them sold.
From 1966 to 1970, King studied English at the University of Maine at Orono, where he wrote a column called King s Garbage Truck for the university magazine. He met Tabitha Spruce when they were both working in the campus library. In 1970, King graduated with his bachelor of arts degree in English and obtained a certificate to teach high school. He married Tabitha in 1971 and got a job teaching English at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. During this period, he, his wife, and his two children lived in a trailer.
King wrote horror short stories that he sold to men s magazines such as Cavalier to help pay the bills. In spring 1973, he sold his novel Carrie to Doubleday Books for a modest advance. Later, on Mother s Day, King was informed by Bill Thompson, his editor at Doubleday, that paperback rights to the book had been sold for $400,000. King received $200,000 as his share of the sale, enabling him to stop teaching and become a full-time writer.
While Carrie was an entertaining thriller, King s second book, Salem s Lot , established him as a horror writer to watch. Salem s Lot was an important book in the history of modern horror fiction. In it, King blended the elements of typical mainstream fiction with the blandishments of horror literature. In so doing, he produced a hybrid, a mainstream horror novel that focused on character development and ordinary people while keeping the monsters offstage and mostly in the background.
After Salem s Lot , King wrote The Shining , and then, in 1978, came The Stand . All of these novels succeeded because they dealt mainly with human beings, not monsters.
King s greatest talent is his ability to mix the horrific with the ordinary. His novels, as well as his short stories, feature normal, everyday people who encounter the bizarre, the unworldly, and the monstrous. It s a marvelous way of engaging the reader. There are no superheroes in King s books, no men in capes or scientists with laser rays. Instead, he populates his stories with the people down the block, the woman at the supermarket, the kids playing basketball on the back lot.
The Stand was the first modern horror epic. It set the standard against which all horror epics published afterward were judged- books such as Swan Song, They Thirst, Carrion Comfort , and the entire Left Behind series. The Stand showed that horror novels could tell big stories, stories that dealt not merely with the lives and deaths of a few people, of a town, or even of a city, but of the world. And yet the lead characters were still very ordinary people who were forced to deal with the strange and the fantastic that came into their lives.
The Stand redefined horror, broke down the barriers that isolated horror in the genre ghetto, and placed horror solidly among the ranks of modern-day best sellers. Yet, for all its success, the novel was probably the most unoriginal of Stephen King s first four books. The story of civilization destroyed by a plague wasn t a new one. It just had never been described in such chilling detail.
From there, it was just a small step to The Mist, Misery, Tommyknockers, The Green Mile, Desperation, The Regulators , and many more. During the last thirty years, Stephen King has become an American institution. He ranks right up there with Grandma, the flag, and apple pie. King is one of the best-selling authors of the twentieth century, if not of all time, simply because he writes about ordinary people, and he does a better job of it than anyone else alive today.
It s this quality that makes stories like The Mist into classics. This short novel isn t told by scientists conducting the experiment; rather, it s told by the people across the lake who are affected by that experiment. As with most of King s stories, there s not even a positive statement that the mist was caused by the scientists. It could have just been some sort of cosmic accident. As in Trucks, where eighteen-wheelers and pickups take over, whatever brought the machines to life is never really made clear. The only fact that matters is that events are happening, and that s enough-thus, the people involved in those events are forced to act. They rarely have time to sit around and wonder what s going to happen next, what happened before, or even who s dead and who s alive. They re much too busy staying alive themselves. Despite the size of Stephen King s novels, there s barely time for the main characters to take a breath. Figuring out what s what is never a major priority. That s as true in