The Stephen King Universe is a book that sets out to try and connect all of King's stories to a united universe. And let's face it; there is a lot of connection between King's stories but not all the stories are connected...

The book is divided into different chapters, which each contains a bunch of King's stories. The stories are collected in the same chapter if they are connected in some way. For every story that the book covers there is a short description of the plot and then there is a summary of the stories primary subjects (not for all stories though).

The book starts out great. It covers the universes of The Dark Tower & The Stand, Castle Rock and The Shop among other. Here the authors accomplish what they set out to do. They are pointing out connections between different stories and persons that appear in them. Most of the connections I can agree with and some are far fetched. That's OK though because the authors are motivating all the connections so that I can see how they are thinking. Even if I don't agree with them I understand them.

To give you an example the authors connect I am in the doorway with The Little Sisters of Eluria because Roland's friend Jamie DeCurry says that he "could shoot blindfolded because he had eyes in his fingers". This is to far fetched for me…

Later in the book the connection between the stories disappeared. Here, like in the chapter "Other prime reality tales" almost no connections between the stories are to be found. Here it's just a description of the stories plot and it's prime subjects. This is great for references but I don't think it's what the book sets out to be about. If the stories don't fit in the Stephen King universe they shouldn't have been included in the book and if they do I feel that the authors have failed to show it.

In some cases the author's seams to feel that two stories are connects just because they are about the same subject. I don't buy that. I feel that for the stories to be connected there should be some mention of a person, a place or an event from the other story.

At the end of the book the authors include a biography of King, a bibliography of King's work and some web pages to King sites. This is great for references.

The book is an easy read but I would like to warn you not to read this book if you haven't already read all the stories that is covered in it. The book reveals quite a lot about what happens in the stories and could spoil a good read for you if you haven't read the book already!

I feel this is a good book. In some cases to far from what's reasonable, in some cases there just isn't any connection to other King stories but in most cases I think they have a point and it's an enjoyable book.

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