From Francis Paretto.

If you want the true measure of a man, count his enemies. Gauge as best you can the depth of their venom toward him. This is merely an old law of human nature in operation: No one attacks the inconsequential.

No storyteller has come in for more derision than Stephen King. He’s shrugged it off lifelong, producing one emotionally evocative, gracefully written novel after another, and in multiple genres, at that. If his work has become a bit patterned in these latter years, one must expect that of a writer as he grows old. We don’t get to keep our freshness or inventiveness lifelong. When I hear someone deride King, my rejoinder is usually, “So what have you written lately?”

The most hated columnist in America is the relentlessly genteel and witty Mark Steyn. It boggles the mind that he doesn’t have an armed guard around him at all times. It says even more about Mark Steyn, especially given his extraordinary productivity and the unflagging quality of his work. None of his detractors can approach him in either dimension.

To be half as effective a storyteller as King is all I could hope for as a writer of fiction. To be half as effective a commentator as Steyn is the outer limit of my aspirations as a commentator. That having been said, I’d greatly prefer it if I could get to those levels without accumulating the enemies. Are You listening, God? Christmas is coming, You know!

Francis, de gustibus non dispuntans and all that, but I have never liked Stephen King. But then, I don’t expect you to like Charles Stross.