Is Stephen King Getting Worse or Better?

Stephen King's going to go down in history as THE novelist of the late twentieth century. More than Dean Koontz or John Green or Danielle Steele. They even made a horror movie about him. I'm not talking about a documentary or his directorial debut (and finale) Maximum Overdrive or a thinly veiled pastiche like in "In the Mouth of Madness". I mean he was the subject matter. He's ceased to be a person, but a brand. That's what I call being part of the public consciousness. Not even J.K. Rowling has that (yet).

But art changes over time. Simply because people change over time. Steven Spielberg doesn't make the same kinds of movies he used to. Metallica's first album Kill 'Em All has a different style than Load, which has a different style from Death Magnetic. And don't get me started about The Muppets.

It's not all internal (meaning experience and skill). It's mood, tone, technology, and situation. It's the outside world and the inside world. It's your mother dying or a civil war or a drug problem. Long story short, people change, so their art changes.

Stephen King's been a non-stop train, publishing 1-2 books a year and countless short stories. But he's not as "big" as he was in the eighties. Neither was he ever known for quality. He had a "People's Choice" sentiment going on. Most of that is due to the nature of the genre (as in, if you write in a genre, critics ignore you). People still talk about It and Cujo and The Shining. Nobody talks about Joyland or Cell. Even Under the Dome became a TV series, but you wouldn't know it unless you were paying attention.

While thinking about "On Writing," my foundation for "how to write", his advice seems to contradict his actions. And not just in his old books, which might contain rookie mistakes. I'm talking about now. There are so many of the same tropes and cliches in every book you can make a drinking game out of them. Harold Bloom accused him of "dumbing down America" when King won the 2003 National Book Foundation award. He's been accused of overwriting, inflating the word count to make his books into doorstops, and making the customer feel like he or she got more for their money. This article, taking a snippet of a 2014 book, does better justice to my thesis.

So here's my question: Is Stephen King getting worse?

You would think that the more experience you have, the better at something you get. However, the bigger you get, the more "yes-men" around you. They think your shit doesn't stink so they pass everything along because A) they know it'll make a buck or B) if they say no, they'll get fired. There's fewer gatekeepers, fewer filters. If I was given the task of editing Stephen King, I would be very hesitant on suggesting any corrections. The man must know what he's doing, he's published so many books.

So let's go to the data. Data never lies, right? I want to know if Stephen King's trending up or down. Does he have a place in the world of stories today, or is it simply that we remember his name?

YEAR	TITLE	GENRE	GOODREADS RATING	GOODREADS REVIEWS	LIBRARYTHING RATING	LIBRARYTHING MEMBERS	NOTES
1974	Carrie	Horror	3.93	382000	3.72	9500
1975	'Salem's Lot	Horror	3.99	248000	3.94	10000
1977	The Shining	Horror/Psychological Horror	4.18	836000	4.11	15000	King moves from ME to CO
1977	Rage*	Psychological Thriller	3.8	23000	3.38	747	King moves back to ME
1978	The Stand	Post Apocalyptic	4.34	474000	4.33	14000
1978	Night Shift+	SS	3.96	113000	3.8	6300
1979	The Long Walk*	Psychological Horror	4.11	80000	3.84	3400
1979	The Dead Zone	Supernatural Thriller	3.9	140000	3.77	7000
1980	Firestarter	Science fiction	3.85	149000	3.64	6600
1981	Roadwork*	Psychological Thriller	3.59	20000	3.84	1200
1981	Cujo	Horror	3.65	168000	3.43	6700	King's intervention
1982	The Running Man*	Science fiction	3.81	68000	3.63	2400
1982	The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger	Fantasy/Western	3.98	374000	3.86	15000	Was originally written from 1977-1981
1982	Different Seasons+	SS	4.34	139000	3.98	6500
1983	Christine	Horror	3.73	158000	3.53	6100
1983	Pet Sematary	Horror	3.91	296000	3.72	9100
1983	Cycle of the Werewolf	Horror	3.62	36000	3.39	2000
1984	The Talisman	Fantasy	4.12	87000	4.04	7200
1984	Thinner*	Horror	3.67	137000	3.41	5300	"Richard Bachman" is unveiled
1985	Skeleton Crew+	SS	3.93	88000	3.77	5900
1986	It	Horror	4.19	492000	4.08	13000
1987	The Eyes of the Dragon	Fantasy	3.92	82000	3.82	7500
1987	The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three	Fantasy/Western	4.23	160000	4.1	11000
1987	Misery	Psychological Horror	4.11	356000	3.94	9900
1987	The Tommyknockers	Science fiction	3.48	96000	3.33	6500	First book written after sobriety?
1989	The Dark Half	Psychological Horror	3.74	100000	3.56	6000
1990	Four Past Midnight+	SS	3.9	82000	3.71	5700
1991	The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands	Fantasy/Western	4.24	137000	4.08	10000
1991	Needful Things	Horror	3.87	162000	3.69	7500	First book written after sobriety?
1992	Gerald's Game	Suspense	3.47	106000	3.29	5700
1992	Dolores Claiborne	Psychological Thriller	3.81	99000	3.64	5700
1993	Nightmares & Dreamscapes+	SS	3.9	59000	3.69	4300
1994	Insomnia	Horror/fantasy	3.79	110000	3.67	7500
1995	Rose Madder	Fantasy	3.66	76000	3.48	5400
1996	The Green Mile	Fantasy	4.42	192000	4.23	8400
1996	Desperation	Horror	3.8	100000	3.59	6800
1996	The Regulators*	Science fiction/horror	3.64	54000	3.37	4600
1997	The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass	Fantasy/Western	4.24	122000	4.07	9400
1998	Bag of Bones	Gothic fiction	3.87	138000	3.71	7900
1999	The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon	Horror	3.56	103000	3.44	6500	King's car accident
1999	Hearts in Atlantis+	SS	3.8	71000	3.66	6000
2001	Dreamcatcher	Science fiction	3.59	123000	3.32	6600
2001	Black House	Horror	3.99	45000	3.78	5400
2002	From a Buick 8	Horror	3.42	50000	3.29	4800
2002	Everything's Eventual+	SS	3.94	68000	3.75	6900
2003	The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla	Fantasy/Western	4.17	110000	4.03	8300
2004	The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah	Fantasy/Western	3.98	97000	3.87	7800
2004	The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower	Fantasy/Western	4.27	105000	4.14	7800
2005	The Colorado Kid	Crime fiction	3.28	22000	3.2	2400
2006	Cell	Horror	3.64	154000	3.45	8600
2006	Lisey's Story	Horror	3.65	55000	3.6	5900
2007	Blaze*	Crime fiction	3.66	30000	3.46	2800
2008	Duma Key	Psychological Horror	3.93	80000	3.89	5800
2008	Just After Sunset+	SS	3.85	38000	3.71	3600
2009	Under the Dome	Science fiction	3.89	203000	3.84	7800
2010	Full Dark, No Stars+	SS	4.03	70000	3.96	3400
2011	11/22/63	Science fiction/alternate history	4.29	306000	4.2	7400
2012	The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole	Fantasy/Western	4.15	47000	4.07	2000
2013	Joyland	Crime fiction/mystery	3.9	83000	3.9	2400
2013	Doctor Sleep	Horror	4.1	117000	4.06	3300
2014	Mr. Mercedes	Crime fiction	3.92	151000	3.85	2700
2014	Revival	Crime fiction	3.75	69000	3.69	1700
2015	Finders Keepers	Crime fiction	4.03	66000	3.97	1600
2015	The Bazaar of Bad Dreams+	SS	3.92	29000	3.91	1000
2016	End of Watch	Crime fiction	4.09	47000	3.91	1000

* published under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman"
+ short story collection

Here's our base data. Genres were taken from Wikipedia, which is authoritative as anything else with regard to categorization of art. Now let's plot these data points.

Well, this certainly... doesn't answer any questions. The GoodReads ratings trend slightly down but the LibraryThing ratings trend slightly up. And neither in any significant slope. I'm comfortable saying the quality of his work (as rated by the people) has remained consistent through his career.

Again, this is not scientific. Some of these people voted for Trump. And, from this view, the spikes vary wildly. Note that not one goes higher than 4.4 and not one goes lower than 3.2. But as a writer, that's a comfortable wheelhouse to be in.

So we've determined no change in how his books are rated. Mr. Mercedes is about as good as Pet Sematary. But how about the number of people picking up his books?

Ah, we see some trends here. But the data skews downward for a reason. Forty years have passed since Carrie. That gives people more time for people to pick it up than Duma Key (2008). So the downward line doesn't necessarily mean people are dropping King from their reading lists.

Or does it? When was the last time you heard someone talk about him? Not in the "fine legacy of a horror writer" sense, but "what have you done for me lately?"

Here's a thing I want to point out. Somewhere between 1987 and 1991, King got sober. I'm not sure which was his first sober book (one source said The Tommyknockers, another said Needful Things) but note that point in time on the graph. No book except for The Dark Tower 7 (the final book in the series) and Under the Dome (which had a big marketing campaign behind it) reaches above 200,000 readers. So the quality didn't change, but the number of people who cared did. Did his content change with his sobriety? Was the bloom off the rose? I feel like something happened, but I don't know what.

Here's another interesting thing to note -- Stephen King's not really writing horror anymore. In the last ten years only three books (that weren' short story collections) were horror. More were categorized as crime fiction. Does that mean King's sick of horror? Or he's experimenting? I dunno. But I don't think we'll ever see another Misery or The Stand again.

Does King care? Probably not. I wouldn't care. I would consider it a blessing. He's made it. He still makes bestseller lists, for both old and new books (It is up there right now, thanks to the movie). And now he can write whatever he wants to. No deadlines, no pressure. Not even George R. R. Martin can say that.

Does any of this data-mining prove anything? I guess it proves that, contrary to what I said before, maybe a person's art doesn't change as much as we think.

Labels: books, GoodReads, quality, Stephen King