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The Dark Half by Stephen King
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Dark Half (original 1989; edition 1989)

by Stephen King

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
4,77431880 (3.53)75
Member:youthfulzombie
Title:Dark Half
Authors:Stephen King
Info:Viking USA (1989), Edition: Reprint, Hardcover
Collections:Your library
Rating:**1/2
Tags:None

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The Dark Half by Stephen King (1989)

20th century (19) American (14) American literature (14) animals (10) Castle Rock (19) ebook (11) fantasy (46) fiction (521) first edition (20) hardcover (27) HC (10) horror (792) horror fiction (21) juvenile (11) King (45) Maine (14) novel (63) own (30) owned (15) paperback (25) read (95) Stephen King (113) supernatural (30) suspense (33) thriller (71) to-read (20) twins (15) unread (22) writers (19) writing (14)
  1. 20
    Dead City by Shane Stevens (jseger9000)
    jseger9000: In his afterward to The Dark Half, King explains that he took the character of Alexis Machine from Stevens' Dead City
  2. 10
    The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz (VictoriaPL)
    VictoriaPL: Another writer who has trouble figuring out if he's involved in a series of murders or not.
  3. 00
    A Soul to Steal by Rob Blackwell (Othemts)
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Showing 1-5 of 28 (next | show all)
Not one of my favourite books by Stephen King.

Back in the day it felt like all of a sudden there were so many books coming out with the same subject. Can't recall but did he write another one about a writer having problems? maybe even 2?
If I find out I will add it in this review. (which is not really a review because it has been too long go) ( )
  Marlene-NL | Apr 12, 2013 |
Mildly successful novel about writing under a psuedonym, made compelling by King's feel for character. Feels forced in places, but the cxoncept of twins at conception is still frightening 25 years later. ( )
  srboone | Apr 2, 2013 |
Part of a phase Stephen King went through when he was absolutely obsessed with analyzing himself as a writer. He wrote nothing good during that phase. ( )
  AlCracka | Apr 2, 2013 |
King dazzles again with his exciting examination of the duality of all writers. In this book he examines the dark side of the writer - a "shadow" writer named George Stark - Thad Beaumont. He shows how the dark side of this person comes to life and goes on a killing spree designed to bring himself back from the dead.

I wonder reading this how much the forced death of King's own alter ego - Richard Bachman - impacted his writing of this novel. I highly recommend this for King fans! ( )
  Meggiebeth | Jan 3, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 28 (next | show all)
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Stephen Kingprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Rekiaro, IlkkaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
"Cut him," Machine said, "Cut him while I stand here and watch. I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice."

-- Machine's Way

by George Stark
Dedication
This book is for Shirley Sonderegger, who helps me mind my business, and for her husband, Peter.
AUTHOR'S NOTE I'm indebted to the late Richard Bachman for his help and inspiration. This novel cound not have been written without him. S.K.
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People's lives -- their real lives, as opposed to their simple physical existences -- begin at different times.
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Book description
Thad Beaumont would like to say he is innocent. He'd like to say he has nothing to do with the series of monstrous murders that keep coming closer to his home. He'd like to say he has nothing to do with the twisted imagination that produced his bestselling novels. He'd like to say he has nothing to do with the voice on the phone uttering its obscene threats and demanding total surrender. But how can Thad disown the ultimate embodiment of evil that goes by the name he gave it - and signs its crimes with Thad's bloody fingerprints? (0-451-16731-7)
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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0451167317, Mass Market Paperback)

In 1985, 39-year-old Stephen King announced in public that his pseudonymous alter ego, Richard Bachman, was dead. (Never mind that he revived him years later to write The Regulators.) At the beginning of The Dark Half (1989), 39-year-old writer Thad Beaumont announces in public that his own pseudonym, George Stark, is dead.

Now, King didn't want to jettison the Bachman novel, titled Machine Dreams, that was he working on. So he incorporated it in The Dark Half as the crime oeuvre of George Stark, whose recurring hero/alter ego is an evil character named Alexis Machine.

Thad Beaumont's pseudonym is not so docile as Stephen King's, though, and George Stark bursts forth into reality. At that point, two stories kick into gear: a mystery-detective story about the crime spree of George Stark (or is it Alexis Machine?) and a horror story about Beaumont's struggle to catch up with his doppelganger and kill him dead.

This is not the first time that Stephen King has written a dark allegory about the fiction writer's situation. As the New York Times writes, "Misery (1987) is a parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his audience, which holds him prisoner and dictates what he writes, on pain of death. The Dark Half is a parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his creative genius, the vampire within him, the part of him that only awakes to raise Cain when he writes, the fratricidal twin who occupies 'the womblike dungeon' of his imagination." --Fiona Webster

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:19:49 -0500)

(see all 5 descriptions)

Thad Beaumont, a writer of brutally violent novels, becomes a murder suspect when his pseudonym is linked to the killings.

(summary from another edition)

» see all 3 descriptions

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