@No Name: There'll always be someone better. >__>; Yea, he's not the best author out there, and sure, there are better out there than him, but that's not to say his fame is undeserved (JKR gets the EXACT same thing told).
Now, this next quote isn't from me, but from some guy on a forum who shares the same opinion as me:
"I stopped reading after IT, but had read most of his stuff up till then. I say his strengths as a writer are...
By making the setting, background, and characters all ultra realistic and detailed he makes it easy to allow his readers to suspend belief and buy the supernatural element in his books.
Atmosphere, his books drip with this New England almost Amercian Gothic sense of place and mood and his writing builds this convincing sense of Evil existing as an Entity.
His secondary characters are great and often memorable.
His style is clean crisp and unpretentious.
He is very, very, very prolific.
He also has one very twisted imagination which helps when you're a horror writer.
I'd recomend Salem's Lot, The Shinning or IT for anyone who wants to see Horror writing at it's best. I'd also recomend The Bachman Books and Different Seasons."
PenDragon (posted originally Feb 11/05)