Reviews

Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King

Only show reviews with written explanations

jeremygibbs's review against another edition

3.0

This book was unsteady, as I find most of King’s short stories. “Dolan’s Cadillac” was quite good, but my favorite was the last - a nonfiction essay about little league baseball called “Head Down”.

jagussow's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

aziraphales's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

SPOILERS ABOUND

dolan’s cadillac - 4/5

lmao i was just thinking how poe this one was and then dolan literally goes for the love of god, robinson! while he’s getting essentially bricked in under the interstate…

the end of the whole mess - 4.5/5

i love when i finish a short story and i don’t really have any thoughts other than “good!!!!!!!!!!!” in mikaela’s caitlin doughty voice

suffer the little children - 5/5

HELLO???????

the night flier - 3.5/5

DWIGHT RENFIELD???? anyway this one had a good vampire and i wish he would write another vampire book!! i know it’s hard to top ‘salem’s lot but at least try!!

popsy - 4/5

damn he really followed up with another vampire story right after i said that

Then a hand, more like a talon than a real hand, smashed through the side window and ripped the hypo from Sheridan’s grasp - along with two of his fingers. A moment later Popsy peeled the entire driver’s-side door out of its frame, the hinges now bright twists of meaningless metal. Sheridan saw a billowing cape, black on the outside, lined with red silk on the inside, and the creature’s tie…and although it was actually a cravat, it was blue all right - just as the boy had said.

[...]

“We came to the mall because my grandson wanted some Ninja Turtle figures,” Popsy whispered, and his breath was like flyblown meat. “The ones they show on TV. All the children want them. You should have left him alone. You should have left us alone.”

it grows on you - 3.5/5

points for castle rock but points lost for not really going anywhere

chattery teeth - 4.5/5

kooky! fun!!! i love a silly goofy story tbh!!

dedication - 2/5

uhhhhhh… no i don’t think so

the moving finger - 5/5

really really excellent but um there’s a lot of puke in this book 🙁

sneakers - 5/5

rad! love the interpretation of ghosts here!! will be stealing!

you know they got a hell of a band - 5/5

WOOHOO martian chronicles!!! how fortuitous that i just finished it!! silly goofy but SOOO good!!

She had a horrid suspicion that this was how men almost always got their way: not by being right but by being relentless. They argued like they played football, and if you hung in there, you almost always finished the discussion with cleat-marks all over your psyche.

[...]

She took her hand away, but he paused a moment longer, looking at her. “Only if you’re sure,” he said.

And that was really the most ludicrous thing of all, wasn’t it? Winning wasn’t enough for a man like Clark; the vote also had to be unanimous. She had voiced that unanimity many times when she didn’t feel very unanimous in her heart, but she discovered that she just wasn’t capable of it this time.

[...]

You didn’t have to see the town’s only watering hole to know that it would be called The Dew Drop Inn and that there would be a lighted clock displaying the Budweiser Clydesdales over the bar. The parking spaces were the slanting type; there was a red-white-and-blue barber pole turning outside The Cutting Edge; a mortar and pestle hung over the door of the local pharmacy, which was called The Tuneful Druggist. The pet shop (with a sign in the window saying WE HAVE SIAMESE IF YOU PLEASE) was called White Rabbit. Everything was so right you could just shit.

[...]

Never mind Ray Bradbury’s hellish vision of Mars or the candy-house in “Hansel and Gretel”; what this place resembled more than either was The Peculiar Little Town people kept stumbling into in various episodes of The Twilight Zone.

home delivery - 5/5

🥹🥹🥹

rainy season - 4/5

It was a big yellow dog of no particular make or model. Its paws lay directly beneath one of the rocker’s curved runners. The old man took no notice of the dog, seemed not even to realize it was there, but the runner stopped a quarter of an inch from the vulnerable paws each time the old man rocked forward. Elise found this unaccountably fascinating.

my pretty pony - 4/5

docked a point only because i got a tiny bit lost in the sauce as to what mr. stephen was trying to say…

sorry, right number - 4/5

fun little screenplay format for a very coherence-style thing!!

the ten o’clock people - 1/5

ehhhhhh no not really…. i was there and then i was not :/

crouch end - 4/5

straight up cthulu mythos but i liked the ending enough to give this an extra point

the house on maple street - 5/5

YAAAAAAY THE BURDICK STORY

the fifth quarter - 2/5

good but like… i don’t know it just didn’t hit for me babes

the doctor’s case - 5/5

HURRAY IT’S HOLMES TIME!!

We left. The parlor door was open, but I kept my head down as we passed it. Holmes looked, of course; there was no way he could not have done. It was just the way he was made. As for me, I never saw any of the family. I never wanted to.

umney’s last case - 5/5

i almost gave this a 4 but i really do like… like the whole shape of it, if that makes sense

head down - 5/5

nonfic!! wowza!! dude i think i’m crying abou baseball!!

brooklyn august (for jim bishop) - 4/5

baseball poem <3

notes

Isn’t that - the risk of being bitten - one of the reasons you picked up this book in the first place? I think so. And if you get thinking of me as your kindly old Uncle Stevie, a sort of end-of-the-century Rod Serling, I will try even harder to bite you.

it’s soooo refreshing to have an author reflect on their work and go yeah that wasn’t it!! (Let me tell you something, friends and neighbours: I hate explaining why things happen, and my efforts in that direction [such as the doctored LSD and resultant DNA changes which create Charlie McGee’s pyrokinetic talents in Firestarter] aren’t very good.)

the beggar and the diamond - 4/5

ending good as hell