Stephen King: 'Twilight' Author 'Not Very Good,' But 'Safe'

Zap2It.com | February 5, 2009

Stephen King

King prefers J.K. Rowling to Stephenie Meyer

Horror master Stephen King is neither on Team Edward nor Team Jacob.

The prolific author of "Pet Sematary," "It," "The Tommyknockers," "Cujo" and other frighteningly imaginative novels slammed "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer in a recent interview with USA Weekend, saying she's "not very good."

The comments came out when asked if his works have influenced a new generation of fantastical writers, including Meyer and "Harry Potter" creator J.K. Rowling.

"Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people," he says. "The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

MTV.com had uncovered more comments from the full interview, which will be published as the cover story of the magazine's March 6-8 issue. In it, King goes on to compare Meyer to "Perry Mason" creator Erle Stanley Gardner with this faint praise: "He was a terrible writer, too, but he was very successful."

King also thinks Meyer's appeal is to provide a safe way for young girls not yet ready for adult romance to examine these emotions:

"People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books,

"It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening, because they're not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."