A Brief Guide to Stephen King

by Paul Simpson

  13

  THE DARK TOWER IN OTHER WORLDS

  The popularity of Roland of Gilead’s quest for the Dark Tower has extended across various media: Marvel Comics produced a long-running comic book, with varying degrees of involvement from Stephen King; and King’s own website has hosted a computer game, Discordia, to which levels continue to be added. The most important missing element has been a large or small screen adaptation – but there have been many people interested in transferring Roland’s adventures into that medium, in some cases combining elements of both cinema and television to tell the story to the best advantage.

  The Comic Book (2007–2013)

  Marvel produced two series of comic books based on ‘The Dark Tower’: the first ran for thirty issues chronicling Roland’s adventures between his trip to Mejis (as related by Roland to the ka-tet in Wizard and Glass) and the Battle of Jericho Hill, where the gunslingers were wiped out. The second batch of thirty, known as The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, picks up the story a dozen years later and runs through to the end of Stephen King’s first novel in the saga, with various additional side stories.

  The stories were plotted by Robin Furth, Stephen King’s assistant, with reference to King as appropriate: in a 2012 interview, King noted that he hadn’t taken note of how the comics handled the Battle of Jericho Hill since he knew that if he were to return to the ‘Dark Tower’ series at some point in the future, that was the story from Roland’s life that he wanted to tell. The scripts were mostly written by comics veteran Peter David.

  The comics also had a considerable amount of additional value material in their original printings – everything from new stories about the training of gunslingers to transcripts of panels from conventions discussing the saga. Some, but not all, of these were included in the trade compilation graphic novels.

  The series was meant to start in April 2006, according to the official press release in October 2005, with King commenting, ‘As a lifelong fan of Marvel comic books, and as an adult reader who’s seen comics “come of age” and take their rightful place in the world of fantasy and science fiction, I’m excited to be a part of Roland’s new incarnation.’ Within a couple of months, the launch had been pushed back to February 2007. ‘Given the size of the project and all the creative talent involved, I want to give the Marvel series all the room to breathe it needs and deserves,’ King explained. ‘The Marvel series is going to be a blast, and I want to have the time to enjoy it.’ A Dark Tower Sketchbook, with designs, pencilled pages and a primer for new visitors to Mid-world, was released free in December 2006.

  Marvel’s ‘Dark Tower’ proved the adage that Jake says in The Gunslinger – ‘there are more worlds than these’. Furth’s plotting altered some of the characters, giving some more space than they had received in the original storyline, reducing the roles of others, and in the case of Walter O’Dim, Marten Broadcloak and Randall Flagg, making them different aspects of the same being (which doesn’t always tally with the way they are portrayed in the books).

  ‘The Gunslinger Born’ (February–August 2007) adapts the flashback from Wizard and Glass as Roland and his ka-tet are sent to Mejis. ‘The Long Road Home’ expands the young gunslinger’s journey back to Gilead (March–July 2008). ‘Treachery’ (September 2008–February 2009) covers the period between their return home and Roland shooting his mother – including elements from ‘The Little Sisters of Eluria’ short story. After a single issue, written solely by Furth, focusing on ‘The Sorcerer’ (April 2009), the story continues with ‘Fall of Gilead’ (May–October 2009) (the continuity of which clashes with the later story The Wind Through the Keyhole) charting the deaths of Steven Deschain and Cort, as well as many others in the court. The series concludes with ‘Battle of Jericho Hill’ combining elements from many of the stories that Roland told his ka-tet about the deciding conflict across the saga.

  ‘The Gunslinger’ starts with ‘The Journey Begins’ (May–October 2010), using the famous opening line from the first book to begin an extended version of that tale, filling in some of Roland’s story after the Battle of Jericho Hill. ‘The Little Sisters of Eluria’ (December 2010–April 2011) is a faithful rendition of the short story. ‘The Battle of Tull’ (June 2011–October 2011) tells the story in a linear form, rather than as a flashback, as it is in The Gunslinger. ‘The Way Station’ (December 2011–April 2012) adapts that short story from the book, although incorporating some of the details as given in Wizard and Glass. ‘The Man in Black’ (June 2012–October 2012) completes the tale, with a few alterations to suit the graphic medium.

  The final five issues were the two-part ‘Sheemie’s Tale’ (January–February 2013; originally announced as coming in 2011); the two-part ‘Evil Ground’ (May–June 2013), which was a prequel to ‘The Little Sisters of Eluria’; and the final single-issue ‘So Fell Lord Perth’ (August 2013), which relates the story of young Arthur Eld and the giant Lord Perth.

  When ‘So Fell Lord Perth’ was solicited in May 2013, Marvel noted that the issue ‘concludes its epic Dark Tower saga’. When concerned fans took to the message board on Stephen King’s website to query this, the moderator announced that ‘There aren’t any plans for another publisher to do Dark Tower comics’. Writer Peter David confirmed in early August 2013 that he was unaware of any plans to continue the saga in comic book form.

  Discordia (2009/2013)

  Although Stephen King has made it clear that, as far as he is concerned, the end of Roland’s story has been told, there has been a semi-official continuation in the form of the interactive computer game Discordia, hosted on stephenking.com. According to Bev Vincent’s The Dark Tower Companion, the events during Phase II of the game happen contemporaneously with what occurs after The Dark Tower finishes.

  Discordia can be found via the Dark Tower page on www.stephenking.com, and is described ‘as an adjunct to the Dark Tower series as a whole’, with ‘an elaborate storyline authorized by Stephen’. The blurb on the site, combined with careful watching of the trailer, gives the backstory: the Tet Corporation was set up in 1977 (per The Dark Tower) to guard Stephen King, protect the rose and sabotage the Sombra Corporation. Following Richard Sayre’s disappearance, the Sombra Corporation hired former mobster Arina Yokova as CEO, after she believed she had discovered that King’s ‘Dark Tower’ books talked about a real place. She masterminds the corporation’s rise in the early twenty-first century by selling weapons of mass destruction brought through from Fedic Dogan on the black market, then she absconds with a large amount of funds which she hides in Mid-World.

  Chapter 1 of Discordia (subtitled ‘For Callahan’) sees Op19 investigating the Dixie Pig restaurant in New York in the aftermath of the battle at the start of The Dark Tower, and entering the tunnels beneath. Chapter 2, released in summer 2013, follows three years later in Mid-World as Arina Yokova reveals her true plans, and how they intersect with Roland’s quest.

  Designed for those who loved the ‘Dark Tower’ books by webmaster Brian Stark, working with King’s assistants Marsha DeFillipo and Robin Furth, as well as artist Michael Whelan (who illustrated the first and last volumes of the saga), Discordia is filled with ‘Easter eggs’ for Constant Readers. It is not really a good place to start if you don’t know the storyline.

  The Dark Tower on Screen

  The problem that has been faced by the various film-makers who have wanted to produce a screen version of the ‘Dark Tower’ series is that, unlike The Chronicles of Narnia, it doesn’t comprise discrete stories, which can stand alone. It’s one huge story, dwarfing even J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings.

  Over the years, many have expressed an interest, including Star Trek and Star Wars director J.J. Abrams. Abrams’ frequent collaborator Damon Lindelof admitted in an interview in May 2013 that once he began discussing details with Abrams, he ‘just became filled with, like, “Oh my god, I’m going to screw up this thing that I love. It’s so hard to do it exactly right, and I’m just going to say th
at I’m too busy on Lost.” ’ He had mentioned the difficulties he was experiencing to MTV in 2009: ‘My reverence for Stephen King is now getting in the way of what any good writer would do first when they’re adapting a book, which is take creative license in changing stuff’ and announced his decision in November 2009 to pull out of the project. ‘I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else,’ he told USA Today. ‘My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.’ (Abrams wasn’t as invested in the project: Lindelof claimed he had to explain the significance of the $19 fee that King charged to the director.)

  Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman’s suggestion of a combination of films, TV series and videogames appealed to King. (Full details of what they contemplated can be found in The Dark Tower Companion.) Javier Bardem, then best known for his role in the Western No Country for Old Men, but now recognized for his bewigged villain in the 007 film Skyfall, was in mind to play Roland. All seemed to be progressing steadily until August 2012, when Warner Bros. elected not to move forward with the project. Over the following year, Media Rights Capital offered financing for a single movie with Russell Crowe as Roland, although another ‘Silicon Valley investor’ was potentially interested in the original proposal.

  Speaking to Empire magazine in mid-September 2013, Ron Howard revealed that ‘We’ve all taken a vow of silence about the progress, the headway, what we think our timetable is, because I don’t think I realized how much media interest there was in the title and how much excitement there was.

  ‘It’s a fascinating, powerful possibility and even Stephen King acknowledges it’s a tricky adaptation, but to be honest, from a financing side, it’s not a straightforward, four-quadrant, sunny superhero story – it’s dark, it’s horror. That edge is what appeals to me, the complexities of those characters is what appeals to all of us . . . We’re not going to give it a timetable.’

  4. SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLA COLLECTIONS

  14

  ANTHOLOGIZING THE PAST

  Night Shift (Doubleday, February 1978)

  ‘Jerusalem’s Lot’* is an epistolary short story, set in Preacher’s Corners, Maine in 1850; it’s a prequel to ’Salem’s Lot, and a tale of witchcraft and sacrifice in the eponymous village. ‘Graveyard Shift’ pits rats against workers at a mill. ‘Night Shift’ concerns a group of teenagers who have survived the plague of Captain Trips (linking it loosely to The Stand). ‘I am the Doorway’ is a rare SF tale from King about a manned mission to Venus. ‘The Mangler’ is a nasty machine at an industrial Laundromat that demands sacrifices. ‘The Boogeyman’ is haunting Lester Billings, as he explains to his psychiatrist Dr Harper. ‘Gray Matter’ takes over the body of an injured man, while the ‘Battleground’ is where a professional hit man gets his comeuppance.

  ‘Trucks’ come to life and start killing everyone, and ‘Sometimes They Come Back’ to get revenge from beyond the grave. ‘Strawberry Spring’ marks the time when Springheel Jack will return, while Stan Norris tries to save his life from crime boss Cressner by walking around ‘The Ledge’. ‘The Lawnmower Man’ has a highly unusual way of cutting the grass – and anyone too near it – and ‘Quitters, Inc.’* has an equally unusual method of keeping people from starting to smoke again. ‘I Know What You Need’ is the claim of social outcast Ed Hamner, Jr. but how is he achieving that? Burt and Vicky meet the ‘Children of the Corn’ in rural Nebraska (and there are further links to The Stand here). ‘The Last Rung on the Ladder’* is a meditation on trust and sibling love. ‘The Man Who Loved Flowers’ is not someone you want to meet in a dark alley. ‘One for the Road’ is a brief sequel to ’Salem’s Lot, and the collection concludes with ‘The Woman in the Room’*, whose fate is at stake.

  Night Shift was Stephen King’s first collection of short stories, and included material that had previously appeared in Cavalier magazine between 1970 and 1975, as well as others from Cosmopolitan, Gallery, Maine and Penthouse. Many of them were rewritten for book publication, and the four tales asterisked above had never seen print previously. King’s foreword sets the scene for the tales, and marks the first time that he used the phrase ‘Constant Reader’ to describe his audience. The introduction came from John D. MacDonald, author of the Travis McGee series – after his death, King offered to write a new story for the character, but wasn’t granted permission by the estate, which he finally agreed was probably the right decision.

  Many of the themes present in these short stories would permeate King’s work in the years to come – the young couple getting caught in a situation out of their control (‘Children of the Corn’); the survivors of an apocalypse (‘Night Shift’); a fear of technology coming under other influences (‘The Mangler’ and ‘Trucks’).

  Nearly every story in Night Shift has turned up in some other medium. Many of them have been optioned for what King calls his ‘dollar babies’ – potential film-makers pay King one dollar for the privilege of filming the story, but there are very strict conditions regarding what they can do, and how the films can subsequently be seen. This means that very few of these are known to anyone outside their makers.

  In the late 1970s, King created a screenplay for Daylight Dead, an NBC TV version of three stories – ‘I Know What You Need’, ‘Battleground’, and ‘Strawberry Spring’ – for which the network’s Standards and Practices department requested multiple changes, eventually leading to the project’s demise. Lee Reynolds and George P. Erengis reworked King’s scripts in 1981 for a Nightshift (sic) movie, but this came to nothing. Amicus horror film producer Milton Subotsky originally optioned ‘The Lawnmower Man’, ‘The Mangler’ and ‘Trucks’ for a screenplay entitled The Machines, and ‘Quitters Inc.’, ‘The Ledge’ and ‘Sometimes They Come Back’ for one called Night Shift; he eventually sold the rights for most of these to Dino De Laurentiis.

  Of the publicly available movies that were produced, Graveyard Shift (1990) was directed by Ralph S. Singleton from a script by John Esposito, set, rather neatly, in the Bachman Mill. Tobe Hooper directed Nightmare on Elm Street’s Robert Englund in The Mangler, penning the script with Stephen Brooks and Peter Welbeck. Hooper claimed ‘Stephen is as happy’ with the film as the producers, but the author’s comments shortly after release seemed to indicate otherwise. It spawned two sequels (The Mangler 2 and The Mangler Reborn) both of which were designed to follow the events of the first. ‘Battleground’ was brought to TV as part of the Nightmares & Dreamscapes series in July 2006, with a teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson, directed by Brian Henson, and starring William Hurt as Renshaw – with no dialogue. A ten-minute Russian animated version, Srazhenie (‘Battle’) was also created in 1986, directed by Mikhail Titov.

  ‘Trucks’ has been the basis of two separate versions: the infamous 1986 movie Maximum Overdrive, Stephen King’s only time to date directing one of his own stories, and Trucks, a 1997 TV movie written by Brian Taggert and directed by Chris Thomson. Sometimes They Come Back was filmed in 1991, after the story originally formed part of the screenplay for the portmanteau movie Cat’s Eye; Superman IV’s Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal scripted the movie, which starred Tim Matheson and Brooke Adams. Two further sequels followed, . . . Again, and . . . For More, in 1996 and 1999, taking the same situation but transplanting it elsewhere. ‘The Ledge’ did make it into Cat’s Eye with Airplane’s Robert Hays trying to turn the tables on Kenneth McMillan (the ending is changed from the story).

  ‘The Lawnmower Man’ was supposedly adapted for a 1992 film, starring Pierce Brosnan, but it was so far from the short story that King successfully sued to have his name removed from publicity. A sequel followed. The story was faithfully adapted as a comic strip by Walt Simonson for Marvel’s Bizarre Adventures #29 in 1981. ‘Quitters Inc.’ also appeared in Cat’s Eye, featuring James Woods, and was the basis for the 2007 Bollywood film No Smoking, written and directed by Anurag Kashyap.

  ‘Children of the Corn’ has probably launched more King adaptations than any other story: so f
ar there have been eight films under that title, beginning in 1984 with a moderately faithful version of the short story, starring a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton. The US Syfy channel also aired their own adaptation of the original story in 2009. Bricker-Down Productions’ Justin Zimmerman has announced his own version of ‘The Man Who Loved Flowers’, currently in development limbo. ‘The Woman in the Room’ is perhaps the most famous of the dollar babies, as it was the first time that Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption/The Green Mile/The Mist) handled a King story.

  ‘The Boogeyman’ was adapted as a play at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005 by The Borgias’ David Oakes.

  ‘Gray Matter’, ‘Strawberry Spring’, and ‘One for the Road’ were adapted for comics by Glenn Chadbourne for the second volume of The Secretary of Dreams in 2010.

  Different Seasons (Viking Press, August 1982)

  In Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne has been sentenced to life imprisonment in the brutal Shawshank Prison. He befriends another prisoner, ‘Red’ Ellis, who is able to get him a rock hammer and a poster of movie star Rita Hayworth. As the years go by and the posters in his cell are gradually updated, Andy learns who framed him for the murder of his wife and her lover, but is unable to do anything about it. Many years later, Andy disappears: he has been carefully and slowly chipping away at the wall behind his poster and has made his escape. When Red is released, he goes to find his friend.

  The Apt Pupil is Todd Bowden, who insists that an elderly German, Arthur Denker, is really former SS officer Kurt Dussander. He forces Dussander to tell him about his crimes, but the German is able to turn the tables when Todd needs his help and they end up wanting the other dead, but each claims he has left a letter betraying the other should he die. Both begin to kill homeless vagrants, independently of each other, and Todd also shoots at cars on the freeway. When Dussander is hospitalized, an elderly Jew recognizes him, and the German eventually commits suicide. The police and Todd’s former counsellor are on Todd’s trail; Todd kills the counsellor, and goes to fire at cars – and is killed five hours later.