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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: re: Stephen King (pseudonym)
Message-ID: <1802@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 08:45:37 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1802
Posted: Wed Apr 24 08:45:37 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Apr-85 05:25:38 EST
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> From:	gitpyr!stenger

>    I remember reading somewhere that Stephen King has been writing
> more books than his agent thinks will sell, and has been publishing
> some books under a pseudonym. Does anyone know this alias?

You've got the story slightly wrong. King used his pseudonym because
he didn't want to glut the market with "Stephen King" novels. As it is,
he's all booked up (if you'll excuse the expression) till 1988 or so.
Like Isaac Asimov, he's a compulsive writer, and cranks them out faster
than his publishers can publish them. Secondly, all but the last book
were very early novels, written before or just after he wrote CARRIE.
As such, they are not primo King novels. The recently-written novel was
done under the pseudonym supposedly as an experiment to see if the book
could sell without King's name on it. It sold reasonably well, but not
overwhelmingly. Of course, once it was found out that King wrote it, it
hit the bestseller list.

But enough beating around the bush. The pseudonym is "Richard Bachman".
He wrote five novels under this name: (1) RAGE [1977], (2) THE LONG
WALK [1979], (3) ROADWORK [1981], (4) THE RUNNING MAN [1982], and (5)
THINNER [1984]. Only THINNER is horror-fantasy. THE LONG WALK and THE
RUNNING MAN are science fiction, and the other two are suspense. All
but THINNER were paperback originals from New American Library, and they
are damn difficult to find. But take heart, because NAL is going to
reissue all four in a trade paperback omnibus edition sometime soon. As
for THINNER, it's still in print in hardcover.

Two things you should note: (1) Up until early February, King vehemently
denied that he was Bachman; and (2) the author photo on the THINNER dust
jacket is *not* of King. It's of a friend of King's agent.

--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)

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