Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF.

I’ve been meaning to go see that movie where the guy from “Peaky Blinders” nukes Barbie, but it all sounds like a sticky, bubble-gum-colored mess of goo.

It’s nice to see people going to movies again, but since I don’t like people, I’ve really gotten back into reading.

I read all about Mr. Oppenheimer when I was a kid and my grandmother lent me her copy of “Enola Gay.” It was pretty awesome being in a private book club with my grandmother, who had great taste in books and grandsons.

I love all the stories coming out since “Oppenheimer” was released. We dropped two atomic bombs 78 years ago, and people are just now realizing it was actually dangerous (to be fair, I don’t think any of these people are from Japan).

I’ve seen articles quoting stunned people indignant over 1940s scientists believing there was a very slight chance the first atomic bomb could ignite the atmosphere and kill us all.

Hello … nuclear weapon and human beings, mixing together for the first time … you’re surprised we kind of didn’t know what we were doing?

Anyway, I’ve had to avoid movies and TV lately because I made the mistake of watching the final episode of “Secret Invasion,” and can’t stop feeling like someone put a handheld mixer through my ear and scrambled what’s left of my brain, shortly after mistakenly watching “Ant-Man: QuantaConfusingMania.”

Poor Emelia Clarke. At least she had “Game of Thrones” before getting thrown into all these once-proud franchises on their last legs. She looked so sad in “Secret Invasion,” like she knew it was bad.

I’m probably mourning Marvel, which I really loved until they killed Iron Man and decided to give some random hippy astrophysicist a wheelbarrow full of acid and let him write all their post-“Avengers” scripts.

So with all the nuclear bombs, everyone wearing pink, confusing time travel, and hidden (and possibly real) aliens on screens everywhere these days … I got scared and decided it’s safest to go back to reading. Seeking safety, a pleasant mindset and an overall lack of nightmares, I picked up my first Stephen King book.

Right, I suppose that’s kind of like going to a music festival, deciding there’s too much chaos and noise, and taking refuge in front of the stage where Slayer is playing.

But, like many of you, I enjoy walking around my room, gazing at my bookshelves to impress me with how incredibly literate I am. I find books I never read but bought 33 years ago by famous 19th century Russian authors whose name I can’t pronounce but once heard smart people discuss them.

Lots of people buy books they never read. I suppose we believe the mere purchase is what counts, as if the information seeps into our brain by osmosis and we can now go to parties and impress people with our knowledge of dead Russian writers.

But a couple weeks back I found a Stephen King book on my shelf. I kind of remembered buying it a few years ago and thinking “What the heck, this kid is an untested author and may need a break. I’ll give him a chance.”

I’d never read Stephen King because, I suppose, so many other people did, and I’m one of those people who thinks I’m better than you.

I expected doom and gloom and weirdness. But, wow … is that kid good. I mean, I already loved some of his stories, at least in movie form (I actually tried the newest ultra-deluxe unedited War and Peace version of “The Stand” during the pandemic. I got about 400 pages in, then decided I needed to find a job rather than read 1,100 pages of what we were all living at the time).

But I sailed through “Joyland” and am three stories into the “Different Seasons” compilation and, yeah, King has already joined the long list of writers I hate because they’re so much better than I will ever be.

Of course, I had to mention on social media I’d just finished my first Stephen King book and it was like posting a video of setting a puppy on fire (which I would never do because, unlike humans, I love puppies). I immediately took heaps of abuse from people with many exclamation points and rhetorical questions in all caps like “ARE SO SERIOUSLY SO STUPID NOT TO HAVE READ STEVEN KING BY NOW?” and so on. One friend was so outraged, she actually sent me one of his books (Thanks Laura Casey).

Sorry … I guess. I’ve been busy.

I don’t really care for the term “wordsmith,” but King certainly is one. The guy is a serious professional storyteller, along with his really big imaginative ideas. It’s really a rare combination to be so good at both.

Not that he needs my endorsement, but wow, have I been missing out. He’s definitely at least almost maybe as good as the dead Russian guy I never read.

And the best part is that StephenKing has written something like 170,000 books. So I won’t run out of material anytime soon. If you’re one of the three other people on planet Earth who hasn’t read King, I strongly suggest doing so. It’s a much better way to spend free time than watching Marvel these days.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.