4 Writers To Read After Stephen King
Easy to find read alikes for horror fans
When I was young, I would worry about what I’d do once I’d read every Stephen King book. The notion of re-reading hadn’t yet occurred to me, so I badly wanted to find authors who were like my favorite writer.
You can read listicles and scan Goodreads for answers to this, but that will most likely give you a list of authors somehow in his genre. That’s not the same as being like Stephen King.
To be specific: Anne Rice is not like Stephen King. Neither is Stephanie Meyer, Laurell K. Hamilton or Charlaine Harris. They all write peripherally in the same genre, but the similarities stop almost as soon as they begin. If you open a book by one of these or similar authors expecting them to be like King, you’ll likely feel disappointed.
None of the authors I’m about to discuss are exactly like Stephen King. King is his writer and so are the authors in this group. However, they come much closer to King in style, tone and reader experience.
1. Peter Straub
If you’ve read all (or most) of King’s work, you’ll be familiar with Peter Straub. He and King collaborated to write The Talisman (1984) and its sequel Black House (2001). When their initial collaboration was published, Straub’s was still a heavy-hitter, riding recent successes like Shadowland and Floating Dragon.
He published several novels in the late sixties and early 70s, including Marriages, Julia and If You Could See Me Now. His 1979 novel Ghost Story became his breakout novel.
Like every author listed here, Straub is his own writer, but he shares more common traits with King than differences. For example, he writes extensively about the nature of trauma. He takes his readers to dark places, which can sometimes feature the supernatural, but won’t include vampires.
Like King, Straub’s work is multi-layered, but still more complex than King. His work tends to be more subtle as well. When you read a Straub novel, or short story, you’ll read a very original piece of work.
King has dabbled in genres other than horror and sometimes genre-bends. Same deal with Peter Straub. You may also categorized some of his work with mystery and suspense, such as his Blue Rose trilogy. The Hellfire Club (1993) was mystery, not horror. Still, his most prominent works have landed firmly in the horror genre.
My first Straub novel was Julia. If I could do it all over again, I would read Ghost Story first. That one has always been my personal favorite because it deals so authentically with small towns and the demons and secrets that haunt people for decades.
2. Joe Hill
Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son. That’s become more common knowledge in recent years, and he’s used a pen name his entire career. ‘Hill’ comes from his middle name Hillstrom. In the introduction to his collection Full Throttle, Hill explains that he used a penname so he could be successful on his own merit.
Hill is similar to his father in several ways. Both are willing and able to write rather hefty novels and still engage the reader’s attention. Hill’s novel NOS4A2 is one such novel. Because it deals with vampires, you could call it his version of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Hill remains his own writer.
His 2016 novel The Fireman drew closer to his father’s work. It’s another hefty novel that could be considered his version of The Stand. Again, he’s hardly copying his father, but his work bears similarities concerning themes. You’ll even see names such as Derry and Castle Rock pop up from time to time. He has also paid homage to his mother Tabitha King’s Nodd’s Ridge.
Hill does differ from his father slightly. That difference rests chiefly in the dark fantasy themes you’re likely to find in his work. The elder King has touched on dark fantasy (think The Talisman and Eyes of the Dragon), but not to the same degree. Hill has also found more success in the comic and graphic novel form through his Locke and Key series
Like King, Hill excels at the short story, and has published several collections, including 20th Century Ghosts. He’s not nearly as prolific as his father, though. He points out in his Full Throttle introduction that he’s a slow writer. That’s not a bad thing, though. He doesn’t have his father’s sizeable backlist, but he won’t publish anything less than his best effort.
3. Robert McCammon
Robert McCammon will be familiar to the seasoned horror reader. Those just working their way through King’s backlist might never have heard of him, though. When I talk to horror writers at conferences, they often tell me McCammon is their favorite author, not King. I sometimes wonder what he does to set himself a cut about King in some people’s eyes.
I’ll start with the similarity that matters most: empathy.
King receives much-deserved credit for writing about realistic characters that the reader will care about. McCammon is every bit as much a master of that. This fact really jumped out at me while reading Going South. He writes most empathetically about the less fortunate members of society.
King has been known for his deep New England roots. He writes about them with a great deal of authenticity. Same deal for McCammon except that he often writes about the south. Personally, I love when a writer can show me a genuine slice of the place where they’re from and McCammon does exactly that.
Lastly, McCammon understands the experience of being a kid. His novel Boy’s Life illustrates this perfectly. Writing about childhood speaks to the vulnerability we face at a more tender age. While Boy’s Life falls less on the horror side, it will still be a welcome theme by any hardcore King fan.
4. Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Thomas Olde Heuvelt is by far the youngest author on this list, but he has produced solid work since his twenties. He is from the Netherlands, so his work is generally published in Dutch first and then translated into English for American editions.
His novel Hex, a yarn of a town haunted for generations by a witch, is likely his most acclaimed work. His similarities to King shine through here thanks to the folklore common to early works like Pet Sematary. Yes, it’s very different from King’s 1983 classic, but King readers will be sure to appreciate that.
Olde Heuvelt’s work leans toward dark fantasy as opposed to all out horror. In this way, he is much like Joe Hill. Both writers lean to the dark fantastic, but bear more than enough similarity to King to satisfy that reading audience.
Don’t expect a long backlist if you do pick up this author, though. King produces large volumes of fiction because he can. A second similarity to Hill is a slower production pace. That isn’t a bad thing. This author has yet to publish anything that hasn’t been well-received and pouring care into his work has helped that.
Finding out of print books
Stephen King is still the king of horror but the genre still produces worthy successors. Joe Hill and Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s work is more easily accessible than Straub and McCammon’s but all can be purchased through your local bookstores or Amazon.
Out of print titles can also be found online and used bookstores are always a treasure trove of hard-to-find and out-of-print titles. Sometimes library book sales turn up gems, too.
