 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to Top 5 Friday. We're in front of the Stephen King show, so you know what that means. This is a Stephen King themed episode or more aptly a Richard Bachman themed episode. So today we're going to be talking about my top five picks for Stephen King books that I think should have been, could have been, would have been Richard Bachman books in a let's say another turn of the wheel. Right off the bat we're going to do an honorable mention just because I don't like cheating. And we're going to say Misery is at the number six position because it was actually was supposed to be a Bachman book, but King was outed right after thinner and he decided to publish it under the Stephen King name. Even though he would go on to publish the regulators and blaze under the Bachman name, he still chose to put this one under his name after he was outed, which I think is interesting because had he, now a lot of people say the success of this book is thanks to the movie that it you know boosted Stephen King to that next level of untouchable celebrity and he hasn't fallen below that sense because the movie was so good. What do you think? Do you think this would have boosted Bachman's name up to the level that King got to without the movie? Or do you think the movie still would have been made by Rob Reiner? Let me know down there in the comments below. But that's number six. That's the honorable mention. Now into the ones that no one knows if they would have, could have, should have any of that. First one. Number five is Dolores Claiborne. I put this here for the second half of, well not really the second half of the book, but the second half of Dolores Claiborne's life where like nothing will go right for her. And there's going to be spoilers in this list for each book mentioned. I will try and stick to just the books mentioned, okay? So Dolores Claiborne, she actually, she gets away with a crime she committed and then she is settled with, not settled, but stapled with a crime she didn't commit, which everybody just assumes she did because everybody knows she did the first one, but they couldn't prove it. But the second half of this book definitely feels like a Bachman, especially, well, you know, toward the halfway mark, the well seen feels like a Richard Bachman scene. Now if I were to go into even more the novellas and the short stories, I think 1922 would have been a Bachman novella. That might be another interesting one. If Bachman had written novellas, which one of Kings would have been his. Next up we have Cell. And the reason for this is twofold. First off, I don't like this book too much and I don't care too much for the Bachman books. They were books that were published in, well, the first four and three, first three were written by King when he was a young dude in his teenage years in the early 20s. And they just don't have the maturity of voice that King did. And as it goes on, road work and thinner, not road work, the running man, thinner, all that, you start to feel more King in the Bachman books. And that was King hitting, that was us getting to the actual meat of King's career when he sounded like himself. But Cell also has a Bachman ending. It's bleak, it just kind of stops. Now it's not as it's not as poignant as a Bachman book because usually there's some deep subtext in Bachman books. But in this one, you're kind of beaten over the head with the Islamophobia, the stuff at the beginning is definitely an illusion to the 9-11 happenings. And I don't care too much for the book for that because it is so heavy handed. And of course the ending just feels like, you know, he stopped writing. But I think all of that, all that social commentary and everything that heavy handedness definitely lends it to a Bachman feel. The number three spot, again because of the ending, is Kujo. This is one of those books where it almost feels the same tonal quality as books like, not rage, but road work. It feels like that same down home storytelling that you get with Bachman's smaller stories, like with road work. It has the same tone, it has the same bleak nature. It has really everything about this book feels like a Bachman book. And this is an early Stephen King book and that's one of the reasons why you get that tone. And I'd be interested to know if he was working on any of the Bachman books while he was writing this one, whether he was rewriting, editing, or whatever, during the same timeframe as this book. So Kujo is my number three. Now into the top two, which are two of my favorite Stephen King books of all time. First one is Pet Cemetery. Now this was, King said himself, this is a trunk novel, he put this joker away in a trunk because he didn't think anybody would want to read it. And of course what is another trunk novel from King is Blaze. Blaze ended up being a Bachman book and had King not found the popularity that he did, this might have ended up being a Bachman book. And then the number one spot is revival. Yeah. There's no way around this. The entire book feels like a Bachman book. It even has a subtext of the supernatural where it's not as heavy handed as some of King's other stuff, but the ending is super Bachman. I mean, Bachman at his absolute, I guess, worst, maybe best, some people might say. But the whole tone of the book is bleak. And that's one of the things like Pet Cemetery and Kujo and Sel and Dolores Claiborne and all that. It makes me feel like this should have been outside of the King name. And I'm wondering how long this book sat around before he decided to publish it. Because there was illusions early on that King said that it was a nasty book. It was an ugly book. Of course, definitely that would be Bachman's territory. And he didn't feel that people would want to read it. And he said the same thing about Pet Cemetery. Now, could it just be the hype train that he was trying to build up to try and sell the book? Of course. But I honestly believe it's one of his best works ever, I mean, since probably it. It is one of his most tonally mature. And it's one of those books that I wish we had a much bigger experience with. But at the same time, I love it for the length of it because it is about the fleeting nature of life and how quickly life goes by. And this little paperback version, I call them skinny paperbacks, it's 464 pages. But that's usually like a 350 page book, roughly, because the book is so much taller and narrower, skinny book. Anyways, so do you have any Bachman books that, do you have any Stephen King books that you think should be Bachman books? Leave them down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been another Top 5 Friday. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!