Lilja’s Library:
The World of Stephen King
Hans-Åke Lilja
CEMETERY DANCE PUBLICATIONS
Baltimore
2010
Copyright © 2010 by Hans-Åke Lilja
Cemetery Dance Publications Edition 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1-58767-248-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, or his agent, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio or television.
Cover Art: © 2010 by Glenn Chadbourne
Cover Design: Gail Cross
Typesetting and Design: Bill Walker
Digital Formatting: DH Digital Editions
Cemetery Dance Publications
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First Digital Edition
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Contents
Foreword
Part 1—Introduction
Part 2—Interview with Lilja
Part 3—Interviews
Section 1—The King
Stephen King 2007 Interview, Part 1
Stephen King 2007 Interview, Part 2
Stephen King 2007 Interview, Part 3
Stephen King 2008 Interview, Part 1
Stephen King 2008 Interview, Part 2
Stephen King 2008 Interview, Part 3
Section 2—Other Interviews
Tyson Blue
James Cole
Jay Holben
James Gonis
Stephen Spignesi
Peter Straub
Michael Piller
Ridley Pearson
Mick Garris
Michael Collings
Kristen Dalton
George Guidall
Richard Dooling
Ed Begley, Jr.
Marsha DeFilippo
Michael Whelan
Stewart O’Nan
Glenn Chadbourne
Robin Furth
Mikael Håfström
Mick Garris
Brandon Kihl
Steven Weber
Mark Stutzman
Mikael Håfström
Frank Darabont
Joe Quesada
Ralph Macchio
Robin Furth
Richard Isanove
Peter David
Philippa Pride
Jae Lee
Gregory Nicotero
Frank Darabont
Frank Darabont
Marsha DeFilippo
Glenn Chadbourne
Part 4—Reviews—Books
Section 1—The Ones by King
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Dreamcatcher
Secret Window, Secret Garden (audio)
Pet Sematary (audio)
LT’s Theory of Pets (audio)
Black House
Everything’s Eventual
Everything’s Eventual (audio)
Riding the Bullet (audio)
The Wavedancer Benefit (audio)
From a Buick 8
From a Buick 8 (audio)
The Man in the Black Suit (audio)
’Salem’s Lot (audio)
The Devil’s Wine
Building Bridges (audio)
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (popup)
Faithful
McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories
’Salem’s Lot—Limited Edition
Carrie (audio)
The Things They Left Behind
The Shining (audio)
The Colorado Kid
’Salem’s Lot: Illustrated Edition
The Colorado Kid (audio)
Bag of Bones (audio)
Cell
Stationary Bike (audio)
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished
Lisey’s Story
The Secretary of Dreams, Volume 1
Graduation Afternoon
Blaze
The Gingerbread Girl
Ayana
Mute
Duma Key
Section 2—The Dark Tower
The Gunslinger—Revised Edition
The Dark Tower—Concordance, Volume 1
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (audio)
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (audio)
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (audio)
The Road to The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower—Concordance, Volume 2
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
The Gunslinger Born #1
The Gunslinger Born #2
The Gunslinger Born #3
The Gunslinger Born #4
The Gunslinger Born #5
The Gunslinger Born #6
The Gunslinger Born #7
The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
The Gunslinger Born (omnibus)
The Long Road Home #1
The Long Road Home #2
The Long Road Home #3
The Long Road Home #4
The Long Road Home #5
Dark Tower: End-World Almanac
Section 3—The Ones About King
The Essential Stephen King
Stephen King Universe
Revisiting Stephen King
Horror Plum’d
The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King
The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King (2nd Edition)
The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King (3rd Edition)
The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book
The Stephen King Collector’s Guide
Section 4—The Movies
Walking The Mile—The Making Of “The Green Mile”
Creepshow: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red
Dreamcatcher—The Shooting Script
Hollywood’s Stephen King
The Journals of Eleanor Druse
Section 5—The Almost
Walpuski’s Typewriter
The Night Country
lost boy, lost girl
Assassination Vacation
Blue November Storms
Masters of Horror 1-6
Masters of Horror 7-10
Masters of Horror 11-13
Heart-Shaped Box
Development Hell
Part 5—Reviews—Movies
Section 1—The TV
Rose Red
Carrie (remake)
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer
Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital—The Pilot
Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital—Death’s Kingdom
’Salem’s Lot (remake)
Riding the Bullet
Desperation
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Episodes 1 & 2
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Episodes 3 & 4
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Episodes 5 & 6
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Episodes 7 & 8
Section 2—The Dead Zone
The Dead Zone—Pilot
The Dead Zone—The 1st Half of Season 1
The Dead Zone—The 2nd Half of Season 1
The Dead Zone (DVD)
The Dead Zone—The 1st Half of Season 2
The Dead Zone—The 2nd Half of Season
2
The Dead Zone—Season 1 (DVD)
The Dead Zone—Season 2½
The Dead Zone—The Original Pilot
The Dead Zone—Season 3
The Dead Zone—Season 3 (DVD)
The Dead Zone—Season 4
A Very Dead Zone Christmas
The Dead Zone—Season 5 Premier
The Dead Zone—Season 5, Episode 2
The Dead Zone—Season 5, Episodes 3 - 5
The Dead Zone—Season 5, Episode 6
The Dead Zone—Season 4 (DVD)
The Dead Zone—Season 5, Episodes 7 - 9
The Dead Zone—Season 5, Episodes 10 - 11
The Dead Zone—Season 6
Section 3—The Movies/DVDs
Rose Red (DVD)
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (DVD)
Riding the Bullet (DVD)
Quicksilver Highway (DVD)
Children of the Corn / Creepshow 2 (DVD)
Desperation (DVD)
1408
1408 (DVD)
The Mist
The Mist (DVD)
Section 4—The “Dollar Babies”
The Last Rung on the Ladder
Paranoid
The Lawnmower Man
Strawberry Spring
Rainy Season
Autopsy Room Four
The Man in the Black Suit
The Road Virus Heads North
La Femme dans la Chamber
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away
Umney’s Last Case
Home Delivery
Popsy
I Know What You Need
El Sueño de Harvey
Suffer the Little Children
Section 5—The Scripts
Insane Clown Poppy
Hearts in Atlantis
Stud City
Section 6—The Rest
Territories (audio)
The Gunslinger (influenced by) (audio)
The Gunslinger / The Drawing of the Three (audio)
Christine—Collector Car
SCarrie: The Musical (audio)
Part 6—Reviews—The New Ones
Here There Be Tygers
I Am The Doorway
The Gunslinger
Luckey Quarter
Boogeyman
Walking Ghost
The Secret Transit Codes of America’s Highways
Night Surf
Stephen King’s Gotham Café
Sorry, Right Number
Srajenie
Llamadas
Suppr.
Night of the Living Dead
The Mist (The Script)
Black House (The Script)
From a Buick 8 (The Script)
Stephen King: A Primary Bibliography of the World’s Most Popular Author
Stephen King: The Non-Fiction
Part 7—Afterword
Lilja’s Last Words On Lilja
Foreword
Last year, Cemetery Dance released the book version of Lilja’s Library and let me tell you, it was nice—surreal, but nice—to hold a hardcopy version of the website I have worked on for 15 years in my hands. To be able to open it, smell it and flip through the pages… But now it’s time for the next step—to release Lilja’s Library as an eBook.
There are obviously huge differences between a printed book and an eBook, both having their respective advantages and disadvantages. But some of the things I like most about eBooks include that they are [physically small], easy to bring from place to place and that they are searchable. The last quality is something I think the eBook version of Lilja’s Library will benefit from; I realize it’s not a book everyone wants to read cover to cover and that many people might just want to pick it up to read it every now and then. Maybe you’re looking for something someone said in an interview? Doing so will be a lot easier to find in the eBook version.
I asked Cemetery Dance if I could write a foreword for this eBook edition and they told me to go right ahead, so that’s what I did! What I want to do is to thank each and every one of you for all the support you have given Lilja’s Library: The World of Stephen King. I have been running the site for more than a decade now and, I will admit, there have been many times I have considered closing it and starting something else. But my love for King’s work and the support from all my readers convinced me that the site has a purpose and that it’s not time to shut it down just yet. I doubt that it’ll be here for 15 more years but who knows…
So, thank you so much for all of your support. It has meant more than I can ever say and I hope you will enjoy the eBook version of Lilja’s Library: The World of Stephen King as many others have done with the printed version. Feel free to send me your comments about it, good or bad—I want to hear them all. You can reach me through the website, Facebook or Twitter.
Enjoy!
Lilja
January 21, 2011
www.Liljas-Library.com
Part 1—Introduction
Lilja’s Library: Introduction
By
Bev Vincent
I don’t know Hans-Åke Lilja. We’ve never met. We’ve never spoken on the phone. Though I have seen pictures of him, I probably couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup.
And yet we’ve corresponded for over a decade. I’m not sure when we first started e-mailing each other, but my archive contains messages that date back to 1997. I couldn’t possibly guess how many notes we’ve exchanged over the years. Thousands, certainly.
When you think about it, his website, Lilja’s Library, is an astonishing accomplishment. Started in the mid-90s during the internet boom, it was just one of a vast number of sites that gathered and posted news about Stephen King’s upcoming publications, films, interviews and reviews.
Who would have guessed that, all these years later, a website in Sweden would be the one that survived? More than survived—flourished. Its success is a tribute to its creator’s devotion to the subject.
The look of Lilja’s Library has evolved over time. Its top banner currently features a new mascot, Marv the Library Policeman, designed by Glenn Chadbourne, whose illustrations you will find within these pages—and an interview with him, too. At its core, though, the site has remained true to its original vision—as a place where fans can find out what’s going on in the Stephen King universe. Outside of stephenking.com, Lilja’s Library is the go-to place for up-to-date news.
Publishers, directors, and authors have come to respect Lilja’s Library. British publishers sending galleys to a reviewer in a foreign country—unheard of. American television publicists mailing advance screeners of highly anticipated projects to a fan in a country where they will never be aired—simply amazing. King himself has mentioned the site as a place he visits on the internet, and it was recently featured in a “cameo” in the Marvel adaptation of The Stand. These are all indicators of how Lilja Library’s reputation has grown.
Lilja (as most of us know him) has landed interviews with a dizzying array of people, including two lengthy interviews with King. Among his other conquests are interview-shy people like King’s personal assistant, Marsha DeFilippo, directors Frank Darabont and Mick Garris, authors Stewart O’Nan and Peter Straub, and actors from Ed Begley, Jr. to Steven Weber. He has interviewed the entire creative team behind the Marvel Dark Tower graphic novel series, one at a time.
Did I mention that he did all this from Sweden?
Lilja would be the first to admit that English isn’t his first language. For all I know it isn’t even his second or third, but his command of English is much better than he gives himself credit for, and it’s vastly superior to my Swedish, which is at about the same level as the chef from The Muppets. He has communicated with people like King, Darabont, and Straub over the telephone in a foreign language, across half a dozen time zones, and always come away with interesting and informative results.
These interviews, conducted over the past nine years, take up the first half of this volume. He never dilutes them
with commentary or context—he simply presents them as raw question and answer sessions, verbal tics and asides included. His zeal and fascination with his subject shines through in every transcript.
The rest of The Book of Lilja contains his reviews of books, movies, TV shows, and audio books. Lilja approaches reviewing from the fan’s perspective. He places himself front and center and writes in a conversational tone. He’s not interested in literary merit or overly concerned with cinematography. Does he like something and does he think fans will like it—those are the questions he tries to answer. If there’s anything about a work that he doesn’t care for, he makes no bones about it. (For the record, I would have preferred footnotes to endnotes in The Road to the Dark Tower, too, but I was outvoted.)
What lies ahead for the little website that could—and did? Who knows? In the meantime, enjoy your time exploring The Book of Lilja. I have no doubt that you will come away from this volume with a new respect for the accomplishments of the guy who single-handedly built the most popular Stephen King fan site on the internet.
In Sweden.
Amazing.
Part 2—Interview with Lilja
By Bev Vincent
Bev Vincent: When did you first start reading Stephen King’s work? Did you start reading him in English or in Swedish?
Lilja: I started to read King in the mid-80s when I got a copy of Carrie in Swedish. I think I actually got it as a Christmas gift. Then I read other books, but not that regularly. It took maybe a couple of years until I started to seek out his other books and read and collect them.
Bev Vincent: At what point did you decide to start a website?
Lilja: The main reason I started the site in 1996 was because I didn’t think there was a site that was good enough. There were some good sites out there, but none of them had as much information as I wanted from a good King site. Also, I thought it would be fun to work on the site and see it grow.
Bev Vincent: Did you start in Swedish only, and if so, when did you start translating it into English as well?
Lilja: The site has always been in English, but between 1996 and 2003 there was actually a section of the site dedicated to Swedish news (in Swedish). Unfortunately the news from Sweden decreased until it wasn’t even worth reporting. King had a down period here during that time, which didn’t help.
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