His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). And fire starter was written slap bang in the middle of these genre defining epics, it just doesn't add anything new to the formula, King is arguable the worlds greatest writer, and this shines through in his characters here, but these brilliantly fleshed out and interesting people, just were not given anything of real significance to do.Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. The man who wrote IT, The Stand, Carrie, The shining, The Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Tower, Cujo and many other classics. Why did we make this before The Stand or The Dark Tower?Ī good book, if it was any other author it would be a 4 star overall. If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be? How he captures Rainbirds accent is particularly good. What does Dennis Boutsikaris bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book? I am not saying that every book king writes should have to have the scope and range of The Stand, however when we boil it down, not that much happens in Firestarter, and the book could easily be broken down to about 5 hours in length and I doubt much would be missed. If these characters were given a better overall story to reside in the book would have been much better. How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?Īs I mentioned, he creates a few great characters, Charlie and Andy as the lovable father and daughter, and the brutal and calculating John Rainbird are all really deep and interesting, however my main issue with this book is that they simply are not given enough to do. Charlie's powers when she really lets loose was teriffic to read about, reminded me of Carrie in many ways.

What did you like most about Firestarter?Īs usual, king creates a brilliant set of characters, the two main leads and a particularly great and ruthless villain.

A great book by anyone's standard other than Kings

Firestarter by Stephen King