Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been a King fan since the 70s. That's right. I'm a fossil. I got hooked with his first novel, Carrie. Then had to wait for a couple of years for Salem's Lot to come out. And so it went...I would read novels and short stories as soon as they were published. My favorite King's works are: The Dead Zone; The Stand; Misery; Pet Sematary; The Green Mile; The Shawshank Redemption and of course THE SHINING! Some of his more recent works have lacked something...I don't know what exactly. Perhaps passion. Maybe he's tired - - who could blame him after all this time, really. ANYWAY, I truly wanted to like this sequel to The Shining, however, it lacked the same HORROR and originality. The character development was flimsy, in my option, and closely resembled a number of other characters from his former novels. The villains were laughable and cartoonish. The storyline was predictable and dragged horribly during the middle HALF of the book. It was hardly worthy of it's predecessor. Let's face it, THE SHINING was a stand-alone masterpiece. How could a sequel possibly live up to that?