Taking off from here, I pose this question to the Constant Readers out there: What if SK up and retired today? What would be your reaction? I for one would wish him well and while I would miss having a new book or two from him each year, I feel once the initial "shock" was over I would be fine. His body of work is so much more than I ever thought it would be back on that day in 1976 when I as a young man walked into the corner drugstore and picked up that paperback copy of Carrie and started on this long strange ride.
I'm always reminded that anything from
Dreamcatcher onwards are really bonus items, so not to take any of them - or anything new - for granted. We could all have been King-less for about 17 years by this point, and from everything I've heard and read about that accident, it's not much short of a blind miracle that we weren't.
So if he were to say, right now, that that was it, he was done, there would be no more (though I believe he'll carry on writing until his last day, and in fact he may have said as much himself), my reaction would be to thank him for all the wonderful (and some not so wonderful) stories and the hours spent enjoying them, then to wish him a long and happy retirement.
It'd come as a shock, of course, and there'd be a sadness, but...man, what a body of work!