OK, it’s time for the third edition of The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King by Rocky Wood, David Rawsthorne and Norma Blackburn. Since I have already reviewed both the first and second edition I plan to do this one a bit different. If you have read the two first reviews you already know what I think about this CD-ROM and if you haven’t read those reviews, please do that now, I’ll wait…….OK, your back? Good.

This time I would like to give some suggestions to additions that I would like to see in the forth edition.

1) I would like to see the original cover art for all the books listed on the CD-ROM. I’m not sure if this would be a very complicated thing to do. I mean you have, on one hand, the legal aspect. I’m not sure you can just publish a cover without permission. On the other hand you have the technical aspect. That I think could be over won though. Anyhow, it would be cool to see all the original covers. And who knows King might be willing to add some refused ones as well?

2) I would like to see a list of all the languages that King has been translated into. I have a list here on my site but I still think that it would be good to have it in here as well. If not for anything else it would be fun to see where on the planet they read King’s work.

3) Don’t know if this is a good idea or not but wouldn’t it be nice if The Guide was done as a software that could be updated. My guess is that those that have already bought edition one or two think it feels a bit irritating to have to get a new one every now and then. Well, since it’s the hard cold fact that there will be new items as long as King still publish things it’s nothing you can do about it but could it be done in a different way. Maybe you could get one edition and the buy updates to it? What do you think about that?

4) Create a search function. Now we’re talking about technical solutions again even though I know it wouldn’t be easy to do I would love to have the possibility to search for a title and then get a list off all the listings for that title. Possible? I don’t know.

Well, that’s my thoughts and even though I guess they have given the authors of The Guide the big shivers maybe they have also given them some good ideas for the next edition? I guess I’ll have to wait and see if they send me a copy of edition four as well…

The third edition has been updated so that it contains everything King has done up till October 2004 and the layout on Book 2 (which I have complained about this in my reviews of both the first and second editions) now looks better. And as I have said before; this is the best reference work I have seen so far so if you want to know all there is about King’s work you should definitely get it. Even if you have an earlier copy. As I said before, as long as King is publishing you will have to get a new edition every once a while if you want to be 100% up to date.

If you want to comment or discuss this review, please mail me.