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King Stephen: Dark Half (Signet) [Mass Market Paperback]

Stephen King (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: 23 Feb 1995
Creating George Stark was easy. Getting rid of him won't be . . .

The sparrows are flying again. The idea - unbidden, inexplicable - haunts the edge of Thad Beaumont's mind.

Thad should be happy. For years now it is his secret persona 'George Stark', author of super-violent pulp thrillers, who has paid the family bills. But now, Thad is writing seriously again under his own name, and his menacing pseudonym has been buried forever.

And yet . . . the sparrows are flying again, and something is terribly wrong in Thad Beaumont's world.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; Reissue edition (23 Feb 1995)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0451167317
  • ISBN-13: 978-0451167316
  • Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 10.7 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,590,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon Review

In 1985, 39-year-old Stephen King announced in public that his pseudonymous alter ego, Richard Bachman, was dead. (Never mind that he revived him years later to write The Regulators.) At the beginning of The Dark Half, 39-year-old writer Thad Beaumont announces in public that his own pseudonym, George Stark, is dead.

Now, King didn't want to jettison the Bachman novel, titled Machine Dreams, that was he working on. So he incorporated it in The Dark Half as the crime oeuvre of George Stark, whose recurring hero/alter ego is an evil character named Alexis Machine.

Thad Beaumont's pseudonym is not so docile as Stephen King's, though, and George Stark bursts forth into reality. At that point, two stories kick into gear: a mystery-detective story about the crime spree of George Stark (or is it Alexis Machine?) and a horror story about Beaumont's struggle to catch up with his doppelganger and kill him dead.

This is not the first time that Stephen King has written a dark allegory about the fiction writer's situation. As the New York Times writes, Misery (1987) is a parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his audience, which holds him prisoner and dictates what he writes, on pain of death. The Dark Half is a parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his creative genius, the vampire within him, the part of him that only awakes to raise Cain when he writes, the fratricidal twin who occupies "the womblike dungeon" of his imagination." --Fiona Webster --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'America's greatest living novelist' (Lee Child ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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People's lives-their real lives, as opposed to their simple physical existences-begin at different times. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Stephen King...very gory!!! 22 Feb 2004
By Sue Lewendon VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
I read this a few years ago and the story has managed to stay pretty well intact in my mind. That shows that this is a good story.

It's about an author who, as a child, suffered with bad headaches. On examination, the doctors find that he has a growth in his brain. When they go in to operate, they discover the growth is actually body parts of what can only have been his twin. Somehow they have started growing and so they are removed.

Years later, Thad Beaumont becomes a very successful writer. But the books he writes are beginning to get him down as they all tell tales of a pretty nasty character. As well received as these are, Thad decides to retire the character and move on to other, nicer stories.

The character, George Stark, isn't happy about this and decides to stop Thad. How is this possible you might well ask? Anything is possible in the safe hands of King.

Then begins a truly horrifying tale of good vs evil as Thad comes to realise that George isn't just a figment of his imagination. He will do anything to protect his wife and twins, and George will do anything to stay a part of this world....

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great story from King 25 Aug 2010
By A. Nelson
Format:Paperback
I like Stephen King. He does what a popular writer is supposed to do: he writes gripping stories so well you just have to keep reading. And I like the fact that he deals with contemporary America in a mythologising but totally realistic way - he is the Spielberg of the novel. More than that, the plot of this book is tight, simple, and memorable. Any sub-plots are kept that way - just sub-plots - so there are no silly diversions. I found the ending a little obvious as it approached, but even so, I wanted to be there to see it happen! A great story from one of the best living writers.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars King uses his own life as a basis for one of his best books! 29 Nov 1999
By Mr. C. Barker
Format:Paperback
Written shortly after Stephen King revealed his own alter-ego, The Dark-Half takes the pseudonym author idea to the worst possible case scenario! What would you do if your alter-ego came to life and started killing everyone close to you in a desperate bid to make you write the book which would save his soul. A great yarn and a wonderfully abstract view of the heart of schizophrenia. Read it and see for yourself.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldnt put it down
I got this book based on a recommendation and I have to say I was very pleased with it. My attention was grabbed from the beginning and I wasn't disappointed with what... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Stephen Daly
5.0 out of 5 stars George Stark. Not A Very Nice Guy.
Oh how right Thad Beaumont was, if he had known how right he was maybe he would have helped himself and the people who helped Stark's writing career end. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Miss R. S. Chapman
5.0 out of 5 stars King at his best
I have read a lot of Stephen king books and have either found them brilliant or have hated them. In my opinion, this is king at his best. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
I have to say that this is one of the better books that SK has written, and I have read many of them. (Don't understand how some reviewers couldn't 'get into it'. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Joy
1.0 out of 5 stars NOT WORTH READING
yet another SK awful book - i gave up after 50 pages . The stand and the dome are the only SK books worth reading . Read more
Published 13 months ago by pemsbooks
5.0 out of 5 stars Very dark and gruesome
There is plenty of violence and gore in this book, so if you like that kind of stuff in a book then this wont disappoint you! Read more
Published on 29 July 2010 by Sian
5.0 out of 5 stars Dark indeed
This was originally publishes under Kings pen name. It is indeed dark stuff. I have re read it several times but still find it slightly disturbing rather than just plain scary. Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2009 by Marie Brice
5.0 out of 5 stars The cover of my edition is right: HIS MASTERPIECE,
My favourite King novel of all time, a small but significant inch above "Misery". Like "Misery", this is the story of a writer, a close-to-home topic through which King's genius... Read more
Published on 1 Aug 2009 by BookJumper
5.0 out of 5 stars 100% Blown Away!
When I picked this book up, I did not expect what I got. I picked the book up and I could not put it down until I finished it! Superbly written like all of his other books. Read more
Published on 1 Oct 2008 by Michael David O'Neill
4.0 out of 5 stars good - but not the usual
good but strange King novel.
feels like he wanted to write two different stories (one about evil and sparrows and one about writing) but ended up mushing them together... Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2008 by Toby Andersen
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