One of my all-time favorite authors is Stephen King, a grand master of the horror genre. Ever since he published his first scary novel, Carrie, in 1974, I’ve gobbled up every one of the more than 50 books since and a significant number of his 200-plus short stories.
King has a way of making mundane things chilling in his books which are filled with horror, suspense, crime, magical realism, and realistic magic. Take Carrie for instance. At first glance, a story about a teenage girl and her angst at not being excepted by her peers seems tragic, but not scary—until you read it. He did the same with dogs in Cujo, a chilling story about a rabid dog that almost turned me off having a dog as a pet.
