Your last two sentences really hit home. I've been a fan for over 30 years and read the Tower series about once a year. That was his best writing in his time of recovery, in my opinion. Everything else had the flavor, but, yet....the man wasn't fully there. Read The Shining and then read anything from that period and you'll see what I mean. Not dissin the man at all! Just that, he needed to write, but his body was busy healing at the time. His mind was not fully engaged. How could it be?