Reaction from literary critics? Reaction from the target audience? Financial success?
It seems to me that by two of those standards Stephenie Meyer knocked the ball out of the park. It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.
Analogously, pg's essays being very popular with a number of people in no way translates to other standards of quality :-) They may resonate with people, but without solid grounding in reality, they may be no better than "pop philosophy".
Personally, I agree with some of his essays, but on some others he's way off the mark. For instance, his writings on anything Hollywood or copyright-related betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what artists sell. Yet those essays were extremely popular simply because they confirmed people's biases (hence "pop philosophy"). However, if you check the so-called "blogosphere", you can find many others who have posted well-reasoned criticisms of those (and other) essays.
Reaction from literary critics? Reaction from the target audience? Financial success?
It seems to me that by two of those standards Stephenie Meyer knocked the ball out of the park. It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.