FWIW I think Stephen King is a really good writer - at least, his work up to his accident. And as I said on another thread, I'll argue 'til the cows come home that he's not a horror writer. He's a writer of people, with the horror element simply a vehicle. And I'm not sure about him being sexist - in IT, it's the girl in the group of friends that bonds the power they all have. Men are either portrayed in their worst light - misogynistic, hard-drinking, mean, to be feared - or if they are the protagonist, they have weak elements to them. They are not just simply heroes.
But it seems like some people have a really limited view of what makes a good writer. There's a wide scope for that - do they produce really beautiful prose, or do they have engaging stories, or do they have the ability to speed a thread along with really good pacing? Can they grip the reader so the reader can't put the book down? Or do they write in a way that makes you underline whole passages because it's just so beautiful?
All of these different elements are the product of a good writer - some authors have the ability for one or two, or all. The Hunger Games gripped me in such a way I read all three in four days, and judging by this thread, I'm not alone in that! There was a spiritual element towards the end that made me really sad in a bittersweet way - but that might be just because I'm pregnant and it touched too close to the bone! I wouldn't say the author writes great prose but what she did write held me in its sway. Is that not the sign of a good writer?
Again I offer the example of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Both in the hard-boiled detective fiction genre around the same time. Both had similar plot devices. Raymond Chandler fucking kills me with some of his writing - it's wild and savage and beautiful and so at odds with the story. Dashiell Hammett doesn't have the same skill in prose but his stories are better - better played out, better paced, better twists. One is not better than the other and I would never deny one over the other.
As for being derivative - again, why is this cast as such an enemy? I don't get it. There is a science fiction book that I absolutely covet, that had me in tears because it is just so sad and lonely. It's about farms of people who are made for the rich for spare parts, and the man who tries to free them. A few years later, Never Let Me Go was published. Almost identical premise, with a few difference in the sci-fi element. I didn't go on some half-bent diatribe about how NLMG is a rip off of a much loved earlier book.
Again I ask the OP - have you actually read the books?