One, it would make for an entirely different list.

Let’s see how they stack up.

That accident happened on June 19, 1999, and his recovery was grueling and long.

The cover of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman on a background of a man and bird in silhouette

Still, through the first five years, it’s off to a pretty strong and interesting start.

And that’s fair.

But it’s exactly that experimentation that made me bump it higher up on the list.

A collage of the covers of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher & The Tommyknockers

And he wrote his seminalOn Writing,which was half-how-to and half-memoir.

It’s just that strong.

That’s an astonishing run, let alone for a writer who was still early in his career.

Stephen King sitting in front of his novels

Stephen King on a background of his books

Custom image by Ana Nieves

Headshot Of Stephen King

Stephen King