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Everything's Eventual: Five Dark Tales
Everything's Eventual: Five Dark Tales
Everything's Eventual: Five Dark Tales
Audiobook7 hours

Everything's Eventual: Five Dark Tales

Written by Stephen King

Narrated by Oliver Platt and Judith Ivey

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Includes the story “The Man in the Black Suit”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, the iconic, spine-tingling story collection that includes winners of an O. Henry Prize and other awards, and “Riding the Bullet,” which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade, as well as stories first published in The New Yorker, “1408,” made into a movie starring John Cusack.

“Riding the Bullet” is the story of Alan Parker, who’s hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In “Lunch at the Gotham Café,” a sparring couple’s contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maître d’ gets out of sorts. “1408,” the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards,” or “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses,” and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn’t kill him, he won’t be writing about ghosts anymore. And in “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French,” terror is déjà vu at 16,000 feet.

Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the fourteen “brilliantly creepy” (USA TODAY) tales assembled in Everything’s Eventual. Intense, eerie, and instantly compelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time.

Stories include:
-Autopsy Room Four
-The Man in the Black Suit
-All That You Love Will Be Carried Away
-The Death of Jack Hamilton
-In the Deathroom
-The Little Sisters of Eluria
-Everything's Eventual
-L.T.'s Theory of Pets
-The Road Virus Heads North
-Lunch at the Gotham Café
-That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French
-1408
-Riding the Bullet
-Luckey Quarter
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 1, 2002
ISBN9780743563321
Everything's Eventual: Five Dark Tales
Author

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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Rating: 4.096385542168675 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love Stephen King's short stories. There are few writers out there who have retained the craft of the short story, but King is definitely one of them. I gave the book a rating of 4/5 on the whole and enjoyed most of the stories in this collection. Below are short reviews of each story.Autopsy Room FourHow would you feel if everyone thought you were dead and you were seconds away from an autopsy? King explores this idea in true King fashion - inserting his ribald humor in a tale which is blackly horrifying. My problem wih this little story was its predictability. And because I am a King fan, I am spoiled by his previous work which is carried off with greater skill and suspense. (rating: 2.5/5)The Man in the Black SuitThis creepy short story won the 1996 O'Henry Award for best short story - and for good reason. It is classic Stephen King storytelling which gives just enough foreshadowing to make the reader's palms sweat. When a father warns his nine year old son "But don't you go too far in the woods..." we know despite the idyllic setting of warm sun-flecked, fir-smelling forest, that there is danger ahead. Excellent stories are speparated from the mdiocre by voice, setting and the author's ability to plunge the reader into the scene and experience the tale first hand. In The Man in the Black Suit, King steps over that fine line into excellence. (rating: 5/5)All That You Love Will Be Carried AwayAlfie Zimmerman is a frozen foods salesman, a lonely and despondent man, who looks for life's meaning in the scrawled graffitti of roadside rest areas. Sad, with more truth than fiction, this short story is about what separates the living from the dead, unaccomplished dreams, and finally the fine balance between hope and despair. Poignant and honest, King's third story in this collection touched my heart. (rating: 4.5/5)The Death Of Jack HamiltonBased on truth and myth surrounding the infamous Dillinger gang of the 1930's, King creates a compelling fictional short story about the death of the real life Jack Hamilton. Filled with wonderful dialogue and high drama, this tale delights as well as horrifies the reader. (rating: 5/5)In the DeathroomKing sets the fifth story of his collection in the dank, frightening room of a South American torture chamber. Told in the first person by the man who has been detained for interrogation, the story spins out of control and adds an extra (and satisfying) twist to an "old" story. (rating: 4/5)The Little Sisters of EluriaFans of King's Dark Tower series will love this short story. It is a prequel of sorts with gunslinger Roland arriving in the ominously silent town of Eluria on his quest for Walter the Magician. In true King fashion, Roland soon encounters the dark forces which have taken over the town. Filled with creepy characters like the "doctor bugs" and the green people (not to mention the little sisters themselves) and crafted for maximal suspense, this tale is entertaining and wonderful. Although I have avoided The Dark Tower series for years now (I didn't think I'd enjoy the sci-fi genre), I thoroughly enjoyed this short story. In fact, I have decided to read book one of the Dark Tower in 2008. (rating: 5/5)Everything's EventualEventual as Pug used to say. He was the one guy at the Supr Savr I liked. When he wanted to say something was really good, Pug'd never say it was awesome like most people do; he'd say it was eventual. How funny is that? - From Everything's Eventual, page 211-213-Richard Ellery Earnshaw (aka "Dinky") has a special gift - he can kill people simply by sending them encoded letters. When his unusual talent is recognized by a faceless corporation called TransCorp and Dinky meets the smooth talking Mr. Sharpton, it seems like Dinky's life has taken a turn for the better. But, sometimes luck is really a shadowy undercurrent of evil. King's title short story Everything's Eventual explores human greed and obsession; and the murky world of big business and government intrigue. One of King's best stories of the collection, this tale will haunt the reader. (rating: 4.5/5)L.T.'s Theory of PetsStephen King writes about this title: I had a marvelous time working on it, and whenever I'm called upon to read a story out loud, this is the one I choose, always assuming I have the required fifty minutes it takes.L.T.'s Theory of Pets is really a story within a story - and it's entertaining with a sad twist at the end. But, it is not my favorite tale of the collection. The end is a little too pat, too predictable. I thought King could have done better with the animal characters, although L.T. (the main character) is engaging as the story unfolds. It is one of the shorter tales in the book. A quick read. (rating: 3.5/5)The Road Virus Heads NorthRichard Kinnell, a grade B writer, takes a road trip and on the way home stops at a yard sale. The painting he buys (a water color of a scary kid with fangs for teeth driving a pumped up Grand Am) transforms Kinnell's relaxing drive into a horror only King could dream up. Capitalizing on the most basic of human fears - a boogey man who will not die - King succeeds in crafting a tale that will scare the reader silly. It is stories like this one that make Stephen King the lord of the horror genre. Readers will never look at yard sales the same again - and perhaps they will be re-checking the paintings that hang on their walls as well! (rating: 4/5)Lunch at the Gotham CafeHave you ever been kept awake by the incessant barking of a neighbor's dog? If so, you may relate to this gory and horrifying story. When Steven Davis and his wife meet in Gotham Cafe to discuss their divorce settlement, things go tragically awry. King does not hold back on the violence or gore, taking this short tale from melancholy to outrageous in a few short paragraphs. Not for the weak of stomach. (rating: 3.5/5)That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it Is In FrenchIn this tale of deja vu gone wrong, King says: I think this story is about Hell. A version of it where you are condemned to do the same thing over and over again.Artfully constructed and believable in a surreal sort of way, this is a brilliant story. I can't say more without giving away the premise. (rating: 4.5/5)1408I love ghost stories, and the 12th selection in King's collection is one terrifying ghost story with a twist. King's set up - a hotel with a room whose numbers add up to unlucky number thirteen, and which has not been used in twenty years because of the horrors it contains - is wonderful. The aging hotel manager, Mr. Olin, reminded me of the bartender in King's bestseller The Shining - he knows the truth, he counsels the main character, but things unravel anyway. This is the classic tale where the audience yells "Don't go into the house (in this case, the room)" but we all know the guy will go anyway and bad shit is going to happen. Knowing this just adds to the terror. Great story. (rating: 4.5/5)Riding the BulletThis wonderful tale was initially marketed as a down-loadable story ... and its success as such helped launch the e-book market. King picked a great story to make his mark in publishing history. Riding the Bullet is about mortality, and love. About saying good-bye even when we don't want to. About the pull of life no matter what.When a young college guy gets word his mother has had a stroke, he decides to hitchhike from his college back to his home town to see his mother that very night. The characters he encounters drive the adventure. With spot on dialogue and sharp characterizations, King gives the reader quite a ride and keeps her guessing right up until the end.This was the best of the bunch, in my opinion. (rating: 5/5)Luckey QuarterThe final story of the collection is one of introspection. What makes a person happy? Do we make our own luck, or is there something more to turning one's life around? Set in a run down hotel with a maid as the main character, Luckey Quarter is short and sweet. (rating: 3/5)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A thoroughly enjoyable collection of short fiction, King's fourth. There are some very strong offerings here, my favorites being the folkloreish 'The Man in the Black Suit' and the strangely evocative 'All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.' Also contains two Dark Tower-related stories- the title story itself and 'The Little Sisters of Eluria,' which sees Roland early on in his quest for the Tower.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After a long time, i finally managed to sit down and read through this book and well "it's eventual". Stephen King is definitely the master of story telling. The tales in this book amuse you, engage you and scare the living daylights out of you. An innocent incident takes a turn into the unknown and terrifies you enough that you start seeing things that are not even there-- your imagination running wild. Even reminding you of those stories you heard, as a kid from the elders in your family. You know- like the ghost wandering the road outside the graveyard, the haunted house or ghosts in a particular room, the lone rider in the night. For those who love horror- this one is just for you. Read it, love it and leave the lights on of your room tonight.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was my first book by Stephen King, and I was not disappointed. I am really not all for horror novels (or movies), but this book gave me just the right amount of creepiness. I enjoyed how the plots were just far fetched enough to make you believe that somelike like this could happen in real life. My favorite in the collection was "Autopsy Room Four," "The Man in the Black Suit", and "1408". I think the first story ("Autopsy") scares me the most, becuase that's one of my biggest fears! Very good read overall.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    14 stories that will keep you up at night.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I wanted a book I could easily pick up read for awhile and put down again, only to repeat the process during a recent quick trip. Putting down this book was not a problem...picking it back up was.In the preface to this book the author laments the changes taking place in publishing specifically the publishing of short stories. The book came out in 2002 and the author was concerned that short stories were dying due to the lack of places to publish and read those stories. Back then there was also the prediction that due to Ereaders paper books would soon disappear as well.It is now 2014 and thank god paper books are still around. But what about short stories? Well I have read a number of good short stories from many fine writers. I have read a number of short stories from Stephen King. The short stories contained in this book are garbage. They are boring, they are not, in any way, horror related, they usually either end abruptly or leave the reader wanting some resolve.Mr King doesn't need the money he says so in the beginning of the book so I ask,why as the reader, am I subjected to reading stories that should have just been deleted from his computer?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Never read King before, so I thought collection of short stories is just the thing for me. I wasn't wrong. I was pleasantly surprised to find not only scary stories but also creepy, funny, and quirky ones as well. It was quite multidimensional King I was reading and I liked it. Looking forward to reading more from him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've been reacquainting myself with Stephen King recently. Especially reading story after story in anthologies as well as his novels, certain things come through I like--and dislike about the author when I read these "14 dark tales." First, unsurprisingly, King's all about horror. And fine, you know what you're getting with King, but there were a couple of times in this anthology, especially with "L. T.'s Theory of Pets" that I think the automatic reach for the horror angle makes me feel cheated, as if this story really needed another resolution, but he shifted to horror because it was the only way he could think of ending it. (Stephen King by the way names "L. T.'s Theory of Pets" his favorite story in the collection, partly because of its shift in tone.)Another tick that annoyed me is his consistently negative portrayal of Republicans and conservatives. In the story "Everything's Eventual" with the stereotypical left-liberal villain of the EVIL right-wing corporation, the "conservative view of life" is described as, "they don't come right out and recommend electrocuting welfare recipients after three years and still no job, but they do hint it's always an option." I could see this as a valid characterization of a kid that sees people of an opposing world view this way, but it's so consistent with King as to seem a kind of bigotry all its own. There's never a good person who is right of center--unless he sees the error of his ways and does a 180 like one character in the story. Certainly other authors display a bias in the other direction--Tom Clancy springs to mind. I guess it's just I expect better of King, who despite writing horror is not usually black and white in other aspects of his characterizations. Also, I think this particular story suffers from this take in another way--I think it would have been a more nuanced, more powerful story if the dark means were in service of a "light" cause--from the narrator's point of view at least. If he had been forced to see the humanity in those whose views he despised, rather than recognize reflections of his own.Moreover, having now recently read four collections of his shorts, it strikes me how rarely King writes from a female point of view (maybe one time in 20), or that he writes strong, sympathetic female characters. "In the Death Room" the female character is irredeemably evil and described as looking like the Bride of Frankenstein. The women in "The Little Sisters of Eluria" are...well, you'll see. Lulubelle in "L. T.'s Theory of Pets" is described as someone who could easily fall into becoming a prostitute. Diane in "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," like Lulubelle a woman who walks out on her husband, made me want to slap her even before the protagonist finally does. A friend tells me King does better with his female characters in his later books, that weak female characters was something he suffered from in the 70s and 80s. However, the stories in this collection were published from 1994 to 2001. Two of his shorts here out of 14 do have female point-of-views, "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" and "Luckey Quarter." However, both of those protagonists seem more victims then heroines when compared to characters such as the gunslinger in "Little Sisters of Eluria" or Fletcher in "The Death Room," and neither story is one I'd consider a standout. (I haven't read Dolores Claiborne, Gerald's Game or Rose Madder, which I'm told do have strong female protagonists.) I suppose it's natural for a male writer to usually write in a male voice, just as many, if not most, female authors write from an almost exclusively female perspective. King's protagonists aren't just almost always male, but is almost always White, often a married family man and certainly heterosexual, of a liberal sensibility (see, above) and almost always from Maine, and often writing is their profession or aspiration, so gender isn't the only autobiographic aspect evident. I guess it's just that gender aspect of King is so noticeable to me because I've read so much of him lately, mostly his earlier work, as well as reading male authors recently that in contrast did have strong female heroines such as Dean Koontz and Philip Pullman. Goodness knows lots of King's monsters are male, and several of his males monstrous.All that is not to say this collection doesn't have its pleasures. I enjoy King's style--he's a wonderful storyteller who can make you disappear into a story. "Autopsy Room Four" and its resolution struck me as rather cheesy--but it also tapped into a primal fear that made it almost unbearably suspenseful. "The Man in the Black Suit" reminded me of Nathaniel Hawthorne even before reading in the afterward it was inspired by his classic short "Goodman Brown" "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" is the most literary in feel of the stories, one of the few without a supernatural element. "The Death of Jack Hamilton" shows King's talent for dead-on period voices, even if I suspect he's romanticized the gangster John Dillinger and his cronies beyond recognition. "The Death Room" is a cracking adventure yarn of the how-does-he-get-out-of-this? variety. I've never read King's post-apocalyptic Dark Tower fantasy series, but that didn't stop me from considering "The Little Sisters of Eluria," set in that universe, with it's hero "gunslinger" a highlight of the book. And even if aspects of "Everything's Eventual" irked me and seemed predictable, I still rather loved the voice and arc of Dinky, the story's narrator. "The Road Virus Heads North," "1408" and "Riding the Bullet" are vintage King horror stories, suspenseful and creepy. My favorite of the three was "1408", about a haunted room at a New York City Fifth Avenue Hotel. The title is the number of that "room on the thirteenth floor, whose very numerals add up to thirteen." These are enjoyable, well-crafted tales and more skilled then his earliest stories. However none of them standout to me the way several of those early stories did in Night Shift or "Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" in Skeleton Crew or the novellas in Different Seasons. It's the kind of book King fans shouldn't pass by, but not the kind that would make a reader a fan in the first place.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As usual, Stephen King makes another great book. However, this book that he made was a short-story book. The stories in themselves were amazing, and I think that his use of detailed vocabulary is wonderful to readers of any age. In many of the short stories, he introduces few characters, but they have a huge role in developing the plot of the short story. Also, he might only have one character, but at the last moment, he might make a sudden killing scene, or a sudden arrest scene. But whatever the scene might be, it adds to the excitement of the 30 page thriller. Originally, I thought that his short-stories were going to be too long, almost reaching the page count of a novella of sorts. But I was wrong. He might be a novel writer, but he is able to write these short stories so quickly, fitting all of the information in 30 pages. But anyhow, I thought this was a great book, and that Stephen King should write more of these short story books in the future.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My all-time favorite Stephen King book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Deliberately not marking this as horror since King isn't all horror and this collection of short stories is definitely not horror. This was in the Red Cross box and while I didn't reread all of them, I reread some favourites especially the Little Sisters of Eluria and Everything's Eventual.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As usual, a good read from Stephen King that keeps you turning the pages.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was my first book by Stephen King, and I was not disappointed. I am really not all for horror novels (or movies), but this book gave me just the right amount of creepiness. I enjoyed how the plots were just far fetched enough to make you believe that somelike like this could happen in real life. My favorite in the collection was "Autopsy Room Four," "The Man in the Black Suit", and "1408". I think the first story ("Autopsy") scares me the most, becuase that's one of my biggest fears! Very good read overall.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's really unfair how King can shift from a common, pulp fic appeal to almost high literature. These stories are haunting and incredibly deep. You forget it's King and yet its undeniably him through the whole collection.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    King is the master of short story and novella collections, and this is definitly one of his better ones out there. It has a wide variety of stories so you get a grasp of his talent and capabilities, and they are basically all very entertaining. The novella in this collections named "Everythings Eventual" after the book itself is especially fantastic. A must read for any fan of short stories or King novels. Autopsy Room Four, Road Virus leads North, and Man in the Black Suit are all plain horror and very effective. There is another novella called Little Sisters of Eluria which is a direct prequal to Dark Tower's first book The Gunslinger and was a great added bonus. In the Deathroom, Death of Jack Hamilton, All that you love will be carried away, Lunch at Gotham Cafe, and L.T.'s theory of pets were all great reads that arent horror, just good stories mostly in the suspense/thriller department. The only stories i didnt care much for were That word you can only say in French(deja vu) which i thought was just kind of dumb to be honest, and Lucky Quarter which was a very short read and to be honest it was interesting too, it just kind of felt thrown in there. Man in the Black Suit kind of bored me, but its very popular, a great example of simplicity at its best. On the other hand, Everythings Eventual(another Dark Tower te in story), Lunch at Gotham Cafe, All you love will be carried away, and Autopsy Room Four were all phenmonal, you have pure horror, a great story with humour, and Dark Tower related story, and a plain humour type story all mixed in those favorates i listed. I havent read his other collection yet, i know Nightmares/Dreamscapes, Nightshift, and Four Past Midnight are mainly all horror, this one is more like Skeleton Crew and Different Seaons with a better variety of stories.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Of the several short collections of Stephen King, this is definitely tilted more towards the ?heart of darkness? in the overall themes. I also think this is one of the better collections, and it?s definitely a great example of his writing in the last ten or so years.

    I won?t go into every story, but my personal favorites: ?All That You Love Will Be Carried Away,? ?The Death of Jack Hamilton,? ?L.T.?s Theory of Pets? (which encapsulates the whole collection perfectly imo), and ?1408.? Also of note is ?The Little Sisters of Eluria? which is a Dark Tower prequel story?I single it out because Dark Tower is one of the few Stephen King books that I haven?t read, and I have a hard time getting into The Gunslinger. But I love this short novel.

    Overall?one of his standout collections, and definitely high up on my recommendation list.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Everything's eventual takes a step away from the usual King anthology of short horror stories to drop the horror and just tell stories. Sure, there's horror mixed in, but most of the tales are more focused on telling a story, any story, than delivering a payload of scares. For me, the stories that stuck out most were 'All That You Love Will Be Carried Away' and 'The Death of Jack Hamilton', both not true horror stories yet insidiously creepy and forboding. I find I like seeing King leave his preferred genre. It gives him the opportunity to tell stories that might never be turned into movies starring a slew of A-list celebrities, but are all the more engaging because of it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a vast improvement on King's previous two collections, but still the quality is highly variable. At the bottom of the deck you have The Little Sisters of Eluria. This was so bad it had me wincing in embarrassment for the author. It reads like sub-standard fan-fiction. At the other end of the scale you have things like 1408. The first half in particular has some fine writing. My favourite though is All That You Love Will Be Carried Away. The best piece of grafitti I've ever seen is in the gents' at the Free Trade Inn here in Newcastle. It reads "Whale vaginas are over rated as gloves". I like to think proper research was undertaken.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the book responsible for my return (after many years) to the Stephen King fan club. It leaped off the library shelf and into my hands, demanding my attention. Some of the stories aren't quite as good as the others, but here are my favorites: "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," "Everything's Eventual," "1408," "Riding the Bullet," and--for pure Stephen King-style horror--"The Road Virus Heads North."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    These were quintessential King stories, which were both eerie and fun. My favorites were The Little Sisters of Eluria, Riding the Bullet and That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French. My least favorite was The Death of Jack Hamilton.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Stephen King quotes Amy Tan in his introduction to 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft' that as far as popular novelists are concerned 'No one ever asks about the language' - well, the stories in this collection are all about the language - just as much as the stories themselves.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Stephen King's contribution to the art of the short story is a wonderful mix of his storytelling genius. No matter where my reading takes me I eventually go back to Stephen King! This collection doesn't disappoint. I didn't even mind revisiting 3 of the 14 stories.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This books is filled with many short stories, most of which are entertaining, but which I cannot remember. A minor work.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Some are better than others naturally, but overall a pretty great read. King has the uncanny ability to weave horror so subtly into high literature that the hairs on the back of your neck begin to stand on end before you're entirely sure why.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A collection of 14 stories that range from horror to history. Some are better than others but a few are classic very readable King tales. Stories that are personalized using supernatuaral fears to communicate human weakness and strength.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    These stories are already a nice balance in themselves: eerie and spare, chilling and vivid, full of strong voices and real characters getting a jolt of terror out of an ordinary day. Like the horror writer in "The Road Virus Heads North," who stops off at a yard sale on his way home. Or the divorcing couple who get the true measure of one another in a bloody encounter with a maitre d' in "Lunch at the Gotham Caf?." Or the woman in the acidulous marriage whose sense of d?j? vu keeps getting sickeningly stronger on her second honeymoon in "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French." One of King's least favorite stories, (his choice when asked), that was first published in "The New Yorker," reveals the roots of an old man's fear in a boyhood encounter with the devil on an idyllic stretch of trout stream in rural Maine. Another "New Yorker" story, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," is a poignant, haunting tale of a lonely traveling salesman whose graffiti collection engenders a life or death dilemma.

    Not one of the fourteen stories disappointed me; they were varied: humorous, reflective, and scary. This book is really for King fans who've read all of his other works. If you haven't read the classics, read those first, then read this book - otherwise you'll never know how good King really is.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Overall pretty good, but the "Dark Tower" story in the middle was only appealing to fans of that series and too long for the rest of King's fans to enjoy. What I did like - Autopsy Room 4 (loved), 1408 (actually not as scary as the movie), Everything's Eventual, LT's Theory of Pets, and The Road Virus Travels North.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I don't think Stephen King was very inspired when he wrote these stories and he indeed more or less says so in the afterword of each one. They are not bad, just not very exciting. Routine exercises. The best one is the first because of the humour.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This particular anthology is actually the author's first collection of short stories to be published in almost a decade. According to the introduction, Stephen King is an extraordinarily prolific writer who understandably loves his craft. Apparently, he and his wife also own two radio stations in their hometown of Bangor, Maine - one station is entirely dedicated to sports, and the other one is dedicated to classic rock music. It was while trying to decide how best to boost ratings for the radio station that Stephen King had an epiphany about his own writing career - about just how much he enjoys 'pushing the envelope' with his own writing.While his subsequent attempt at writing a radio play didn't quite work out the way he had expected, the experience served as an education of sorts - as much as a refresher course in the different styles of writing: writing for ebooks, magazines, journals and digests. In choosing which stories would actually be included in this particular anthology, Stephen King turned to a deck of playing cards to help him decide which stories would appear in the contents. He used the entire suit of spades plus a Joker card and shuffled them; the order in which he dealt the cards turned out to be where he would place a story in the contents. The contents features fourteen short stories that range from "the literary stories to the all-out screamers."I must say that in my own opinion, this compilation of stories were all rather different from each other. The synopsis of the book claims that Stephen King takes the reader down a road less traveled - and for a very good reason - and I do have to agree with that particular claim. I found this book to be if not easy reading, certainly relatively fast reading. I would give this book an A!To be perfectly honest, while there were some stories that were middle of the road for me, I also liked quite a few of the stories as well. I suppose that the two that would stand out the most for me would be: 'The Death of Jack Hamilton', which was about a subject that I don't usually like reading about: gangsters in the 1930s. The second story that I really enjoyed - I may even call it my favorite one of the anthology - was actually the twelfth story in collection: '1408'. I also have watched the 2007 movie that stars John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    International bestselling author Stephen King is in terrifying topform with his first collection of short stories in almost a decade. In this spine-chillibng compilation, King takes the readers down a road less traveled (for good reasons) in the blockbuster ebook "Riding the bullet". Bad table service turns bloody when you stop for "Lunch at the Gotham Caf?", and terror become d?j? vu all over again when you get "that feeling you can only say what it is in French" - Along with elevent more stories that will keep you awake until daybreak. Enter a nightmarish mindscape of unrelenting horror and shocking revelations that could only come from the imagination of the greatest storyteller of out time.