Four Past Midnight should be the last of King I read for a while, so I decided to switch things up a little bit and ditch the long novels for a short-story collection. Only thing is, Four Past Midnight is a collection of four novellas, not short stories, and they average nearly 200 pages each anyway so again I got a huge long book to read. None of the stories really have anything to do with eachother so I'll cover them all separately.
The Langoliers- Wow! This started off just awesome. It took something that's not particularly creepy or scary- red-eye flights, and made it creepy as all hell. I don't want to spoil exactly what goes down here, but I'll just state right off the bat that the intro to Langoliers was the best part of the whole collection. It didn't finish up with quite the intensity, but it was overall a very solid novella and my favorite of the bunch.
Secret Window, Secret Garden- I was slightly familiar with this one- it was turned into a movie, Secret Window a few years back with Johnny Depp. I didn't see it but I remember the ads and the setup- Johnny Depp is a talented writer (eyeroll) working on a new book in his secluded Maine home, who suddenly has to deal with a psychotic Southerner who's hellbent on proving that Johnny stole his story and passed it off as his own. I was aware of the big twist, and you might already be able to guess what it is, but there were a few interesting tricks up King's sleeve to make this not a waste of time.
The Library Policeman- Apparently this story came from that dumb fear that some children have about the library- what if I lose the book? Who's going to come after me? How will I deal with that? It seems nonsensical to me now, but I remember being VERY stressed out as a little kid over a book that I was convinced was long lost and overdue, only to find out I had returned it and simply forgotten. I wasn't sure how King was going to be able to make a decent story out of that kinda funny concept, but to his credit he does make the story more than just "scary people come after you when books are overdue!" There's one scene late in the novella when you find out the identity of the Library Policeman, and it's, well... very hard to read. What mostly plods along as a kinda cheesy, goofy story along the lines of Christine quickly turns into something very depressing and gruesome. Not fun!
The Sun Dog- We end with a book that sounds a little too much like it belongs in the Goosebumps series- The Sun Dog. A prequel to the novel Needful Things, which was released a few months later, we visit King's favorite non-Derry locale, Castle Rock, where a young boy has received a Polaroid camera as a gift. The thing is, none of the pictures come out properly and instead seem to constantly depict the movement of a weird dog somewhere. The story was alright, but that hasn't soured me on Needful Things. But that won't come soon; I've posted enough King books on the Blog for now, time to get back into some of the other authors I've been neglecting.
The Langoliers- Wow! This started off just awesome. It took something that's not particularly creepy or scary- red-eye flights, and made it creepy as all hell. I don't want to spoil exactly what goes down here, but I'll just state right off the bat that the intro to Langoliers was the best part of the whole collection. It didn't finish up with quite the intensity, but it was overall a very solid novella and my favorite of the bunch.
Secret Window, Secret Garden- I was slightly familiar with this one- it was turned into a movie, Secret Window a few years back with Johnny Depp. I didn't see it but I remember the ads and the setup- Johnny Depp is a talented writer (eyeroll) working on a new book in his secluded Maine home, who suddenly has to deal with a psychotic Southerner who's hellbent on proving that Johnny stole his story and passed it off as his own. I was aware of the big twist, and you might already be able to guess what it is, but there were a few interesting tricks up King's sleeve to make this not a waste of time.
The Library Policeman- Apparently this story came from that dumb fear that some children have about the library- what if I lose the book? Who's going to come after me? How will I deal with that? It seems nonsensical to me now, but I remember being VERY stressed out as a little kid over a book that I was convinced was long lost and overdue, only to find out I had returned it and simply forgotten. I wasn't sure how King was going to be able to make a decent story out of that kinda funny concept, but to his credit he does make the story more than just "scary people come after you when books are overdue!" There's one scene late in the novella when you find out the identity of the Library Policeman, and it's, well... very hard to read. What mostly plods along as a kinda cheesy, goofy story along the lines of Christine quickly turns into something very depressing and gruesome. Not fun!
The Sun Dog- We end with a book that sounds a little too much like it belongs in the Goosebumps series- The Sun Dog. A prequel to the novel Needful Things, which was released a few months later, we visit King's favorite non-Derry locale, Castle Rock, where a young boy has received a Polaroid camera as a gift. The thing is, none of the pictures come out properly and instead seem to constantly depict the movement of a weird dog somewhere. The story was alright, but that hasn't soured me on Needful Things. But that won't come soon; I've posted enough King books on the Blog for now, time to get back into some of the other authors I've been neglecting.
Not for nothing, but I found this interesting:
ReplyDeleteGoing from most recent to oldest, we've got a book-blogging stretch right now that goes King-King-King-King-Murakami-Martin-Martin-Crichton-Lowry-Lowry-Wolfe-King-Lowry-King.
So I'm glad you're taking a King break for a little while. One of us has to! And yet, it sounds like your next book may well be another "Martin."