The Killer (short story)
| "The Killer" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by Stephen King | |||
| Original title | I've Got to Get Away! | ||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | Horror short story | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Famous Monsters of Filmland | ||
| Publisher | Warren Publishing | ||
| Media type | |||
| Publication date | 1994 | ||
| Chronology | |||
| |||
"The Killer" is a short story by Stephen King. Written in the early 1960s, it was first published in issue #202 of Famous Monsters of Filmland in spring 1994.[1]
Plot summary
[edit]The protagonist of the story awakens in a munitions factory; he is unable to remember his name or anything else. Seizing a gun, he demands that another worker tell him who he is; after the worker ignores him, he clubs him with the gun. After a man on an overhead catwalk flees from the protagonist, he shoots him; the wounded man sounds an alarm. As the protagonist attempts to flee, he is intercepted by men wielding "energy guns"; he shoots one of them before being hit with "energy beams". The story ends with the protagonist being loaded into a truck. A watching man notes that "one of them turns killer every now and then", with another man musing that "they're making these robots too good", revealing that the protagonist was a malfunctioning robot.
Publication
[edit]King wrote "The Killer" as a young teenager; it is a rewrite of his story "I've Got to Get Away!", which was self-published as part of the collection People, Places and Things in 1960.[2] King submitted "The Killer" (as Steve King) to Forrest J Ackerman for the magazine Spacemen; it was the first story he submitted for publication.[3][4] While not accepted at the time, the story was later published in issue #202 of Famous Monsters of Filmland in spring 1994 with an introduction by Ackerman.[5][6] It has never been collected.[1] The reprint came about after Ackerman paid a visit to King's house and read him the story; after King failed to guess the author, Ackerman revealed that King himself had written the story.[7]
Reception
[edit]Rocky Wood describes "The Killer" as "derivative of pulp fiction" but "fairly well written for a probably 13 or 14 year old".[1] Stephen Spignesi describes the story as "an early example of King's frequent motif of out-of-control technology", comparing it to works such as "Trucks", "The Mangler", and "Obits".[7] Spignesi also states that, "in tone and technique it comes across as something that was probably written a short time after that eclectic potpourri of juvenilia".[8] Reflecting on the story, King wrote "I was still in the Ro-Man phase of my development, and this particular tale undoubtedly owed a great deal to the killer ape with the goldfish bowl on his head."[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Wood, Rocky; King, Stephen (2012). Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished. Overlook Connection Press. pp. 187–189. ISBN 978-1-892950-59-8.
- ^ Wood, Rocky (2014). Stephen King. Le opere segrete del Re (in Italian). Kipple Officina Libraria. p. 138. ISBN 978-88-98953-14-1.
- ^ a b King, Stephen (2020). On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Simon and Schuster. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-1-982159-37-5.
- ^ Beahm, George (1998). Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work. Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-8362-6914-7.
- ^ O'Brien, Christopher M. (2012). The Forrest J Ackerman Oeuvre: A Comprehensive Catalog of the Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Screenplays, Film Appearances, Speeches and Other Works, with a Concise Biography. McFarland & Company. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-7864-4984-2.
- ^ Vincent, Bev (2022). Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences. becker&mayer!. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-7603-7682-9.
- ^ a b Spignesi, Stephen J. (2018). Stephen King, American Master: A Creepy Corpus of Facts About Stephen King & His Work. Permuted Press+ORM. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-682616-07-9.
- ^ Spignesi, Stephen J. (1998). The Lost Work of Stephen King: A Guide to Unpublished Manuscripts, Story Fragments, Alternative Versions, and Oddities. Carol Publishing Group. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-55972-469-2.
See also
[edit]External links
[edit]- I've Got to Get Away! title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
