I listened to the audiobook version of this. Stephen King is not a bad writer at all--he is pretty inventive in his ideas and language. Sometimes he can be a bit distracting and gratuitous, though; I remember one sentence that went something like "he squeezed the accelerator like the breast of a much-loved woman." Ewwww. But overall, he is good with characterization, which can't be said for the Kubrick film with the same name. I was genuinely on edge towards the end. The actor who reads it aloud, Campbell Scott, is quite good as well at reading in an unaffected but understandable way, and at modulating his tone according to character believably.