Stephenie Meyer dreamed up Edward Cullen, a vegetarian vampire who sports a beige jacket and poloneck, while Stephen King gave us Kurt Barlow, the ancient master vampire who wreaks havoc on the town of 'Salem's Lot. The two bestselling authors were never going to see eye to eye over their portrayal of bloodsuckers, but this week King went so far as to rubbish Meyer's writing abilities in an interview.

King compared the Mormon author to JK Rowling, saying that both authors were "speaking directly to young people". "The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good," he told an interviewer from USA Weekend.

King also drew a comparison between Meyer and Perry Mason mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner. "He was a terrible writer, too, but he was very successful," he said, going on to criticise prolific thriller author James Patterson - "a terrible writer but he's very successful" - and fellow horror author Dean Koontz, who although he "can write like hell", is sometimes "just awful".

Meyer's quartet of books - Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn - trace the love story between ordinary girl Bella and vampire Edward, throwing in a pack of werewolves, a coven of vampire royalty and a vampire baby for good measure. They have sold millions of copies worldwide, with sales receiving a huge boost from the film of the first book, Twilight, which was released late last year.

King went on to say that it was "very clear" Meyer was "opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books". He told USA Weekend: "It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they're not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."

Meyer's fans have rushed to her defence. "Steven [sic] King doesn't know what a real book was if it hit him in the face. He's just a bloody guy who is jealous of Edward's good looks," wrote poster Kiki Alice Cullen. "King is no Gabriel Garcia Marquez so I don't understand why he gets to say who is a good writer and who is not," agreed another, while a third, who wished she could "just hit this guy", suggested that "we twilighters should send him tons of hate mail ... just to show him how many twilight fans he just pissed off."