Wow...such unreasonable venom directed towards Stephen King.
Stephen King is a regular columnist for EW and so it was appropriate for him to comment on the passing of a literary legend.
The comparison to Britney Spears is quite demeaning...given the dark tone of his work and his considerable commercial and literary recognition, perhaps calling him Trent Reznor would have been more appropriate. You may not like Trent, but he has talent.
My take on it is that Mr. King was trying to express that it was a shame to lose such a distinctive voice. He was acknowledging that it was a shame that someone who had made such a mark on culture with such a small body of work had not chosen to share more of his work with the world (since there are suggestions that he did quite possibly continue to write after he withdrew from publishing).
King was also tipping his hat towards other authors whom we lost far younger, with a smaller body of work but who seemed destined for a tremendous legacy had we not lost them so young.
Not that Stephen King needs to be defended. He is one of the best-selling authors of the 20th and 21st centuries.
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