ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY The Ultimate Guide to Stephen King

Brilliant magazine!! Full of my favourite author 😊

Amazing

Loved this.

Well put together tribute to Stephen King.

First things first: I ordered this from Amazon, because it was "print on demand," which implied that it wasn't available elsewhere. However, this one-shot magazine tribute, however, is available at Barnes & Noble, because that's where I purchased a copy today, printed by lithography. (In comparing the two copies, the litho version's reproduction is better; the print-on-demand is somewhat grainier in resolution, though close enough for government work.)Second, on page 95, the "legal" page indicates that "This book is not endorsed, sponsored, licensed by, or affiliated with Warner Bros. Studio, Stephen King, Simon & Schuster, or any other entity owning or using Warner Bros. Studio or Simon & Schuster's family of trademarks." In other words, this is an unofficial publication, though it does have an excerpt from the Kings' SLEEPING BEAUTIES (pub date: Sept 26).So, you ask, is it worth your time and money?It depends.This is largely a look at King's best movie adaptations.Otherwise, the hardcore fan will not find anything new; in fact, the interview with King dates back to 2013, when DOCTOR SLEEP was published. But this isn't for the hardcore fan--it's for the newbie. More specifically, it's for King's film fans, presumably those who haven't bought one of the film books about King, all of which are currently out of print.As hardcore King fans know, the film/tv adaptations have been a mixed bag, ranging from the execrable to the luminous. The editors at ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY wisely chose to focus on his best adaptations, though mostly the coverage is skewed toward the remake of IT, because that's the most current movie. (Mark my words: It will be considered one of his best adaptations. This time, they did it right. It'll scare the pants off of you!)Besides the excerpt and the interview, the magazine-sized publication spends the bulk of its space on movie adaptations. Oddly, there's not much about the BOOKS, which is not surprising considering that EW puts their skimpy book section in the back of the bus, so to speak, in their weekly magazine: movies and TV shows, and movie/TV stars, get the bulk of the attention from EW, which is owned by Time, Inc. So it's not surprising that in this one-shot, EW focuses on the movies, with books (once again) taking a back seat.It is certainly hyperbole for EW to claim that this is "The Ultimate Guide to Stephen King," because that just isn't so. For that, you're better off looking at some of the hefty tomes written about King's oeuvre, some authorized and most of them not. Moreover, at this point in King's career--and this is directed specifically to the media--can we PLEASE stop trying to be cute with words and try to marry up King with horror? I've always seen him as a suspense writer and a regional writer, but not necessarily as a horror writer: In many of his books, people, not critters that come out of the dark, are the real monsters.Bottom line: If I were you, would I buy this magazine? Disregarding its hyperbole about being an ultimate guide, and keeping in mind that it skims over King's best movies, but ignores the bulk of them, and wholly ignores the books on which they are based, this is a generic publication principally designed to capitalize on the tie-in to the movie version of IT, which explains why this is such a movie-centric publication. Hardcore fans can safely give this a pass, though completists will want it; and the general public, more likely to go to the movies than read his books, will find this of moderate interest.Perhaps, though, in the future, Time Inc., with its considerable resources, will actually take their time and put out an "Ultimate Guide to Stephen King," but this ain't it.