Salem's Lot, for example, is a contemporary version of Bram Stoker's novel
Dracula set in an isolated New England town. In this work, a young writer and an intelligent youth combat a small group of vampires that turns out to include an increasing number of the town's residents. King's apocalyptic epic
The Stand is close in structure to J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings in its tale of a deadly virus and the resulting battle between the surviving forces of good and evil.
Pet Sematary, a version of W. W. Jacob's classic short story "The Monkey's Paw," tells of a physician who discovers a supernatural Indian burial ground where the dead return to life and succumbs to temptation after his child is killed.
The Talisman, written in collaboration with English horror writer Peter Straub, also recalls
The Lord of the Rings in its evocation of a fantasy world in which a boy searches for a cure for his mother's cancer.
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger and
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three are two in a series of episodes previously published in periodicals and inspired by Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." These books focus on a gunslinger who pursues a mysterious man in black toward the Dark Tower, "the linchpin that holds all of existence together."
King has admitted to writing five novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman to avoid over-publishing under his own name.
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