Stephen King skill lets Alexa recommend your next horror read
Google Assistant can also suggest spine-tingling titles once you answer a series of questions about your literary preferences.
It's hard to keep up with prolific writer Stephen King, but you don't have to do the hard work of sorting through all his titles to pick your next book. Let Amazon Alexa or Google Home handle the horror for you.
The Stephen King Library skill from publisher Scribner, Simon & Schuster offers recommendations culled from 56 King books. The skill works on Alexa and Google Assistant devices. (Disclosure: CNET parent company CBS also owns Simon & Schuster.)
Stephen King Library doesn't just spit out a random recommendation. You start by asking your smart speaker to open the Stephen King Library. It then asks you a series of questions and your answers will guide the results.
I tested the skill on my Google Home Mini and ran a gauntlet of seven questions, each with three possible answers. I had to choose whether to align myself with magicians, mentalists or scientists (I chose magicians) and whether to visit a paranormal museum, explorers' museum or lost-cities museum (lost cities all the way), among other scenarios.
Audio book narrator Jeremy Bobb lends his atmospheric voice to the experience, which includes a subtly creepy underlay of music and sound effects.
My answers added up to a recommended reading list of Revival, Needful Things, Gwendy's Button Box and Everything's Eventual. The skill also delivers audio excerpts from some titles to give you a taste of the content.
My recommendations seem to be pretty spot-on. I already read and enjoyed Needful Things, but I'm now eyeing Gwendy's Button Box for my next King adventure.