To Owen King, 28, this reflects a desire to cut his own path and see his work accepted or rejected on its merits. But an even stronger motive, he said, is to dispel any assumption that he is writing in the same genre as his father.

"I don’t think it’s fair for Stephen King fans to be deceived, and I know I’m a Stephen King fan," he said in an interview outside the Bangor Public Library. "The last thing I want to do is to present something as ‘Stephen King, Part II,’ and have it be something that’s a big disappointment."

He considered using a pen name, but was put off by the idea of going by an alias when meeting people or having a go-between handle details of his professional life. The prospect seemed too complex and too weird. ....King acknowledged that his book is grabbing more attention than would a first-time effort by a writer without comparable lineage, but he seems to have made a conscious effort not to capitalize on his father’s fame.

"I think the model that I look at is someone like Jakob Dylan, whose dad is obviously every bit if not more famous than mine," King said. "He’s a guy who sought to build a career on his own, doing something that’s a little bit different than what his father does."