SOURCE: "Horror Fiction," in Stephen King's Danse Macabre, Berkley Books, 1981, pp. 241-360.

In the excerpt below, King places Bradbury's fantasy fiction in the tradition of American naturalism, adding that the early collection Dark Carnival contains the author's best horror stories.

It might be worth remembering that Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, was, like Bradbury, sometimes his own worst enemy . . . mostly because Dreiser never knew when to stop. "When you open your mouth, Stevie," my grandfather once said to me in despair, "all your guts fall out." I had no reply to that then, but I suppose if he were alive today, I would reply: That's 'cause I want to be Theodore Dreiser when I grow up. Well, Dreiser was a great writer, and Bradbury seems to be the fantasy genre's version of Dreiser, although Bradbury's line-by-line writing is better and his touch...