Blaze!

[elfs]

At the grocery store last night I passed by a display of books, one of which is Blaze, by Richard Bachman. The author's name is in a big size, probably 48 point, and at the bottom it reads "With an introduction by Stephen King," and King's name is somewhere around 42 point, nearly as big.

I laughed. Does anyone out there not know that Richard Bachman is Stephen King? That the book Different Season was basically an "outing" of King as Bachman? I have trouble understanding why they're trying to sell this book as anything other than a Stephen King novel. I'm not even a King fan and I know this whole relationship. (Then again, I seemed to know that A.N. Roquelare was Anne Rice almost five years before the Beauty series was republished under Rice's name; Rice had admitted it in an obscure erotica writer's magazine about the time Lestat was hitting the shelves but the mainstream press seems to have missed it.)

From the Stephen King FAQ: Why did you write books as Richard Bachman?

Comments

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I've seen something like "Nore Roberts writing as JD. Robb" on a UK edition. There's marketing value in retaining the name for a long-running series, and they're compentent books.

But I've seen Blazes and that labelling looks like rip-off marketing--Stephen King landing his name to hack writing. It doesn't make a bad book--Diane Duane has done fome wonderful writing for the Net Force brand--but the marketing approach makes me wonder why they aren't setting the book.