I defend [Stephen King as a SF writer] now because I have a good excuse: The Dead Zone. (p. 164)

Technology doesn't enter into this tale. The occult does, however, for Johnny's talent is occult. It is of the light, though, not the dark; and he uses it to fight for the good. And here is the key to King's choice of themes. He writes of good versus evil, putting a usually shaded white up against the blackest black. He uses the occult, I suspect, solely because it lends itself to tales of horror, and perhaps because it makes good and evil seem more akin. Yet he treats it as rationally as he can, given its nature. It is a source of power, but one with limits that restrict his heroes. And, at least in The Dead Zone, it is not quite the sort of occult beloved of the masses. On that silliness [King] heaps scorn. Johnny's mother goes all out for flying saucers, interstellar and subpolar True Christians, and all the other goodies in the cosmic fruitcake. An occult-oriented tabloid seeks Johnny as a "house psychic" and gets the bum's rush. Fans are avoided like the ten plagues of Israel.

Does Steve King write science fiction? It's a fair question, for to most people he is a horror writer, a fantasist. But his premises that the occult (especially ESP) is real and evil can be personified are hardly foreign to our field. And he is as much a rationalist, free-will advocate, and moral reactionary ("absolutist," as opposed to "relativist"; he does not believe that society makes evil, even though he does use background to flesh out his evil characters) as that demigod of SF, Robert A. Heinlein.

King's works have their fantasy components, sometimes more strongly than others, but at least his latest are indeed SF. The Stand and The Dead Zone are both examples. And they are both ripping good stories. For all their length, I enjoyed both tremendously…. (p. 165)