Early Adopters?

Are there any other "early adopters" of SK's body of work out there? What/when was your first experience? What do you remember about your first impressions?

I was about 14 when the 1975 "all black" paperback edition of Salem's Lot came out. I was waiting for some prescription allergy medication, saw the book, was intrigued by the packaging and took it home. Now, keep in mind that this had no huge marketing campaign - it had NO marketing campaign. This was just another occult paperback on a drug store rack. Anyway, all that night and the following day this strange beast - coupled with the medication - took me on the most fearsome ride! What a fever dream it was! I was hooked, sufficient to say, after having had one of the most vivid reading experiences of my life!

After that, books by this unique new writer continued to come out on a fairly regular basis. I remember reading The Stand in a weekend, just enthralled. There had simply been nothing like it before.

I feel lucky to have been immersed in these tales almost from the beginning. There was a sense of edginess and a more modern kind of fear that must be extremely hard for those new to SK these days to attain. Imagine reading King for the first time only after you've read umpteen King clones beforehand. Thank Cthulhu that I didn't have THAT obstacle to jump!

My first was Carrie which I think I read at 13, it was in junior high anyway and it really resonated.

I read Carrie when it first came out in paperback and thought it was a really dark and twisted Cinderella story. LOL while I was young I would have loved special powers to aim at anyone that was mean to me. It was right after The Exorcist these things happening to girls at my age? Wow. I was hooked on horror big time with SK being my hero.

My first King?

Either Insomnia or Desperation, around age 14,15. Since then I am hooked!

Beeg, good point about such awful things happening to fictional female teens in 70's horror novels. Include Gillian in THE FURY by John Farris!

LOL I was thinking The Fury too!!

I read Carrie when I was a young teenager. I was intrigued, my name is Carrie.

I tried to read Carrie when I was about ten or eleven and didn't take to it but picked it up a couple of years later and raced through it.

Eyes of the Dragon at age 11. A year later, I was reading the extended Stand for a book review in English class, and after I handed in my 17-page paper, my teacher put a cap on the length of later projects.

Early 80s I found a copy of Different Seasons while babysitting. I was there often, so I read it pretty quickly. I was 14 or so. It was an astonishing eye-opener to the adult world. After my diet of child and YA books, it was all new and I loved it. The next book was Pet Sematary and I was hooked.

i really can not say what first king book i read. It is as if he's been part of my life since Florida State days in early 1970s. I'm pretty sure SK invented the idea of putting in brand names as a common familiarizing for the reader. i remember being more shocked by that than anything. the main thing i liked about a king book is, withoiut exception so far ("cell" was close though), he's never let me down. Of course, I haven't read his "Eyes of a Dragon" nor his epic Childe Roland to a Dark Tower Cometh" try-for-classic-status thingie yet.

I was 11 when 'Salem's Lot the mini-series appeared on TV in 1979. I loved it so much I had to read the book, which was a hardcover edition from the library. From then, I went on to read all his other books and in 1981 I bought my first new hardcover when Cujo came out.

#11 - It's no try ;)

>>I'm pretty sure SK invented the idea of putting in >>brand names as a common familiarizing for the >>reader. i remember being more shocked by that >>than anything

Andyray - that's closer to what I was trying to get at with this thread - reminiscences by those who started reading King before he became an icon.
You're right about the uniqueness that his fiction had in using brand names! I think he may have been amongst the first popular writers to do so on such a scale, and as I recall, he did catch a lot of hell for it from the more highbrow critics!

I wasn't that young, but my first King book was the paperback of Carrie. It had just been published in p/b and I'd been waiting to get it ever since reading the review of the hardback in the women's mag She. I was 18, just married and couldn't afford hardbacks (some things never change!) I took it home, started reading and didn't speak to a living soul until I'd finished. As dramatic as it sounds, I think it actually did change my life - (not in any deep philosophical way, but by turning me into someone who spends their whole life hanging around bookshops, waiting for the next one to come along).

My first - It - when I was 14. It completely amazed me. Couldn't drop it. Made me a true fan.