Said death will doubtless provoke a Michael Jackson-esque frenzy of King criticism, posthumous awards, and his formal admittance into academia and 'the canon.' King's stories, chock full of working-class characters, speak the language of these people (us!) in a way that will probably only be acknowledged fully after his death. This critical neglect is partly because King's carrying on unique communion with mass numbers of people. He's passed over for serious awards like the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and critics love taking digs at his inimitable, highly accessible, and highly flexible writing style.

Guilty pleasure? Pop sensation? Genius? Hack? He's been nominated for some awards, and even won a few, but remains a literary outlaw, producing mass quantities of work at breakneck speed – churning it out for the voracious fans. To this day, critics don't know what to make of King, though they all, like most people on the planet, know his name. In 1977 King was an uncertainty, a rising star on the bestseller scene, but yet to reveal the extent of his powers. It presents an interesting counterpoint to Stanley Kubrick's wildly popular 1980 adaptation, which diverges from the novel on many important points. If you can't make it to the Stanley, check out King's own 1997 TV adaptation of his novel, filmed on location, for the next best thing. Pop into Room 217 (King's room when he stayed there) and say hi to the naked lady in the bathtub for us. If you're ever in that neck of the woods, be sure to take the hotel's tour. The novel began in a real-life haunted hotel, the Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park Colorado. In The Shining, King pushes the supernatural envelope, while interrogating the nature of family, love, abuse, and father-son relationships. It details their tragic experience at an isolated and haunted hotel, the now famous Overlook. This supernatural and psychological thriller stars the Torrance family, Jack, Wendy, and five-year-old Danny. The Shining, first published in 1977, is American author Stephen King's third novel.

The shining king