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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
a fun collection. some were absolute hits and others dragged but overall a solid read.
my favorite stories from this collection:
• the night flier - helloooo i love vampires
• the night flier - helloooo i love vampires
Book that got me into King years ago. Was checking under my bed before sleep, while reading this. Especially suggest for people, who haven't read any King yet.
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
I enjoyed the beginning of this book, but I found the ending anti-climatic and predictable. It wasn't a terrible story, and I enjoyed it somewhat; however it was nowhere near as good as some of King's other short stories.
not a review but spoiler summaries so that I can remember
1. Dolan's Cadillac - ok cask of amantiago type revenge story - 4/5
2. End of the Whole Mess - good apocalyptic unreliable narrator 4/5
3. Suffer the Children - paranoia and insanity 2/5
4. Night Flyer - long 2/5
5. Popsy - tables turned karmic 2/5
6. It Grows on You - decent evil house story done better in the author's Rose Red 3/5
7. Chattery Teeth - love this one. Gonzo; absurd. 5/5
8. grosss body trsnsferrence variant 2/5
9. skipped
10. ghost story 3/5
11. skipped
12. Home Delivery - beautiful. apparently Guillermo del Toro produced a short of this once 5/5
13. Rainy Season - a take on The Lottery, but not as inneresting 3/5
14. Sorry, Right Number 5/5 predestination paradox
15. 10 O'clock People - clever concept 3/5
16. Crouch End - Lovecraft tribute 5/5
17. House on Maple Street - great karmic fantastical 5/5
18. Fifth Quarter - tough guys, simple revenge just ok 3/5
19. Umney's last case - he does one of these in every collection - a magic typewriter story. I love them all.
at the end he talks about how the stories came to be. turns out he loves the magic typewriter stuff as much as I do.
1. Dolan's Cadillac - ok cask of amantiago type revenge story - 4/5
2. End of the Whole Mess - good apocalyptic unreliable narrator 4/5
3. Suffer the Children - paranoia and insanity 2/5
4. Night Flyer - long 2/5
5. Popsy - tables turned karmic 2/5
6. It Grows on You - decent evil house story done better in the author's Rose Red 3/5
7. Chattery Teeth - love this one. Gonzo; absurd. 5/5
8. grosss body trsnsferrence variant 2/5
9. skipped
10. ghost story 3/5
11. skipped
12. Home Delivery - beautiful. apparently Guillermo del Toro produced a short of this once 5/5
13. Rainy Season - a take on The Lottery, but not as inneresting 3/5
14. Sorry, Right Number 5/5 predestination paradox
15. 10 O'clock People - clever concept 3/5
16. Crouch End - Lovecraft tribute 5/5
17. House on Maple Street - great karmic fantastical 5/5
18. Fifth Quarter - tough guys, simple revenge just ok 3/5
19. Umney's last case - he does one of these in every collection - a magic typewriter story. I love them all.
at the end he talks about how the stories came to be. turns out he loves the magic typewriter stuff as much as I do.
I love King, and I even love his short stories, but I finally had to give up on this book. It's bad. It's not that the writing is bad, but every story is a stupid idea given extensive space and earnestness.
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Critical Score: B
Personal Score: B-
Reading Experience: 📘📘(2/5)
This is the third short story collection I’ve read by Stephen King, and the third he released. My thoughts on the other two: Night Shift has pleasantly short pieces, many of them iconic, but I didn’t love it at the time; Skeleton Crew has many overwritten stories, and I hated a bunch at the time, while only a few stood out positively. I think I sort of hated these collections because I wasn’t in the right mood and didn’t have appropriate expectations when I read them. In retrospect, I was being too hard on them and I actually now look back on them almost fondly.
So with this collection, in which the stories are nearly all super long, I lowered and widened my expectations. I went into them because I wanted smaller-portioned, cozy King but nothing special. That allowed me to enjoy this collection a good bit. As a result, this scores higher than the other two collections despite being the weakest of the bunch in a critical sense.
In short, N&D is all over the place and way too long. But there is a lot of great stuff in here to make the bloat worthwhile.
Before I get into my ranking, I’ll comment on the front and end matter. The introduction is a long-winded but genuine reflection on inspiration, with charming anecdotes and fun little carrots of insight on some of his other books. The notes are similarly winding, but interesting enough. Snuck in at the end, “The Beggar and the Diamond” is quite random in what’s sort of an eclectic collection to begin with, and it’s clearly included because King likes it and the editor knows where his bread is buttered. The story itself is fine, I guess? I don’t have much to say about a Christianized retelling of a Hindu parable with a seemingly pliable moral lesson.
Now for my ranking. These letter grades are personal, not critical.
“You Know They Got a Hell of a Band” A-. Fantastic suspense until the third act, which seesaws between silly and cursed; still, this is almost as good as it’s spiritual sibling Children of the Corn.
“The Moving Finger” A-. Domestic horror-comedy done super well. You hardly notice how absurdly long this is for such a straightforward plot. The kind of story to help you mentally wind down after a long day. Potentially really boring if you’re not in just the right mood for this.
“Sorry, Right Number” B+. Cheesy but entertaining, fast, and surprising. The sadness at the end kind of lands.
“Rainy Season” B+. Weakened by a silly take on the creature feature but nonetheless delightfully cozy fun.
“Chattery Teeth” B+. Twists expectations of “the haunted __” premise by giving us instead a tense hitchhiker thriller with an awesome setting.
“The End of the Whole Mess” B+. This is more voice-y than King’s usual style, and I appreciated it. Silly in a fun way. Loved the formal degeneration at the end.
“Popsy” B+. A genuinely disturbing starting point that builds to a twist that, while obvious and I knew it ahead of time, is badass. Points off for the racism though.
“Suffer the Little Children” B+. This felt a bit incomplete after I finished reading it, but in retrospect it works quite well. A nasty little tale.
“Dedication” B. Absorbing. Not nearly as gross as it thinks it is. I usually don’t like his dark magic stories (usually because it puts him in the position to explore race in flawed ways), but this one’s pretty good.
“Dolma’s Cadillac” B. Much better than expected. The middle could be trimmed down a ton, but on the whole this was memorable.
“Home Delivery” B. Except for a complete misfire at subtle feminism, if that’s even what the heck that was, this is a very fun zombie story.
“Umney’s Last Case” B. Not my genre of choice, but since it’s a meta, postmodern excavation of that genre, I’m on board. An homage instead of a satire, but still up my alley. This gradually closes in on an application of the allegory of the cave to literary escapism. Nowadays this would be an sleepy take on a somewhat common twist, but I’m thinking back then, in a pre-Matrix culture, it was fresh, especially for King. Nothing all that thrilling, but deeper than I expected. This is a depressing statement on resorting to fiction to escape the grim realities of the real world.
“The Ten O’Clock People” B. Not bad. The smoking rants are kind of funny, kind of boring. Liked the villains and the mild third act twist.
“Crouch End” B. I’m not super into the Cthulhu mythos (I lowkey despise Lovecraft), and it felt weird reading King do a London setting. I’m so in love with his small town America that anything else is an adjustment, even though he incorporates the setting well here. Despite those two negatives, “Crouch End” is fun and understandably a fan favorite.
“The Night Flier” C+. I liked the premise and the ending, but most of this was super boring and lost my interest. I’m not sure why King chose to make his protagonist spend so much of this piece monologuing up in the air.
“The House on Maple Street” C. This isn’t all that bad, but I don’t read Stephen King for kid-friendly stories, and this one is under-explained, which would work for me if it went a couple steps further into its ambiguous weirdness. Does not stand on its own from the inspiration of the Allsburg illustration. Also, the patriarchal character writing is almost parody-level.
“It Grows on You” C-. Inoffensive but super bare on plot and absent of suspense or motion. At best a mildly interesting showing of small town class tension and the characters who make up a community undergoing subtle, painful change. The magical realism and sexual abuse elements are executed in an underwhelming manner. After some research, I am shocked to find that people find this story to have grotesque scenes in it. Did I miss something? Or is my tolerance for bad things just too high? My other takeaway from researching this piece is that there’s clearly a lot to interpret here, and it’s clear that King is going for a mature literary piece, but the simple lack of intrigue kills my motivation to dig into the tangle of implied horrors.
“Sneakers” D-. Confusing, jumbled, and homophobic. What the hell is King trying to get at? This is an odd and harmful attempt at exploring repression.
“Brooklyn August” D. I’m not a poetry fan, King’s no great poet, and this piece is about his love for baseball…yeah, pass.
“My Pretty Pony” D-. I had to skim most of this. Boring, rambling, and nauseating. Toxic masculinity mixed with cringey “life lessons”. A good representative of the corner of King’s work I loathe.
“The Fifth Quarter” D-. Not my genre, nor the approach toward the genre that I tolerate. Generic, masculine crime nonsense. Exactly the sort of pulp I’d expect to get published in Cavalier (where this piece first appeared).
“The Doctor’s Case” F. I started skimming a few pages in, and then halfway through or so I just gave up. I’ve never liked Sherlock Holmes or the old-school detective genre much. So with this pastiche, I could not have cared less who stabbed Lord Hull in the back, nor why or how they did it. Truly no shits to give in those departments. It’s also usually a miss for me when King tries out a super different writing style and genre, not to say he failed here. My critical score would probably be around a C…taking into account I did not fully read this, which I hate to do so much it makes me itch, because I’m a completist, but life’s too short. Maybe I’d enjoy this if I were in a particular (and patient) mood, but I doubt it. Old-school yawn. After reading an online summary, the ending is a bit slay dare I say; I’m not changing my score, though.
“Head Down” F. I’ll reiterate that these are personal scores, not critical. I don’t care about baseball. This was basically unreadable. No hate, though, just not for me. I will say, though, the fact that this got into The New Yorker says a lot about elitism and cringey bias in publishing.
Critical Score: B
Personal Score: B-
Reading Experience: 📘📘(2/5)
This is the third short story collection I’ve read by Stephen King, and the third he released. My thoughts on the other two: Night Shift has pleasantly short pieces, many of them iconic, but I didn’t love it at the time; Skeleton Crew has many overwritten stories, and I hated a bunch at the time, while only a few stood out positively. I think I sort of hated these collections because I wasn’t in the right mood and didn’t have appropriate expectations when I read them. In retrospect, I was being too hard on them and I actually now look back on them almost fondly.
So with this collection, in which the stories are nearly all super long, I lowered and widened my expectations. I went into them because I wanted smaller-portioned, cozy King but nothing special. That allowed me to enjoy this collection a good bit. As a result, this scores higher than the other two collections despite being the weakest of the bunch in a critical sense.
In short, N&D is all over the place and way too long. But there is a lot of great stuff in here to make the bloat worthwhile.
Before I get into my ranking, I’ll comment on the front and end matter. The introduction is a long-winded but genuine reflection on inspiration, with charming anecdotes and fun little carrots of insight on some of his other books. The notes are similarly winding, but interesting enough. Snuck in at the end, “The Beggar and the Diamond” is quite random in what’s sort of an eclectic collection to begin with, and it’s clearly included because King likes it and the editor knows where his bread is buttered. The story itself is fine, I guess? I don’t have much to say about a Christianized retelling of a Hindu parable with a seemingly pliable moral lesson.
Now for my ranking. These letter grades are personal, not critical.
“You Know They Got a Hell of a Band” A-. Fantastic suspense until the third act, which seesaws between silly and cursed; still, this is almost as good as it’s spiritual sibling Children of the Corn.
“The Moving Finger” A-. Domestic horror-comedy done super well. You hardly notice how absurdly long this is for such a straightforward plot. The kind of story to help you mentally wind down after a long day. Potentially really boring if you’re not in just the right mood for this.
“Sorry, Right Number” B+. Cheesy but entertaining, fast, and surprising. The sadness at the end kind of lands.
“Rainy Season” B+. Weakened by a silly take on the creature feature but nonetheless delightfully cozy fun.
“Chattery Teeth” B+. Twists expectations of “the haunted __” premise by giving us instead a tense hitchhiker thriller with an awesome setting.
“The End of the Whole Mess” B+. This is more voice-y than King’s usual style, and I appreciated it. Silly in a fun way. Loved the formal degeneration at the end.
“Popsy” B+. A genuinely disturbing starting point that builds to a twist that, while obvious and I knew it ahead of time, is badass. Points off for the racism though.
“Suffer the Little Children” B+. This felt a bit incomplete after I finished reading it, but in retrospect it works quite well. A nasty little tale.
“Dedication” B. Absorbing. Not nearly as gross as it thinks it is. I usually don’t like his dark magic stories (usually because it puts him in the position to explore race in flawed ways), but this one’s pretty good.
“Dolma’s Cadillac” B. Much better than expected. The middle could be trimmed down a ton, but on the whole this was memorable.
“Home Delivery” B. Except for a complete misfire at subtle feminism, if that’s even what the heck that was, this is a very fun zombie story.
“Umney’s Last Case” B. Not my genre of choice, but since it’s a meta, postmodern excavation of that genre, I’m on board. An homage instead of a satire, but still up my alley. This gradually closes in on an application of the allegory of the cave to literary escapism. Nowadays this would be an sleepy take on a somewhat common twist, but I’m thinking back then, in a pre-Matrix culture, it was fresh, especially for King. Nothing all that thrilling, but deeper than I expected. This is a depressing statement on resorting to fiction to escape the grim realities of the real world.
“The Ten O’Clock People” B. Not bad. The smoking rants are kind of funny, kind of boring. Liked the villains and the mild third act twist.
“Crouch End” B. I’m not super into the Cthulhu mythos (I lowkey despise Lovecraft), and it felt weird reading King do a London setting. I’m so in love with his small town America that anything else is an adjustment, even though he incorporates the setting well here. Despite those two negatives, “Crouch End” is fun and understandably a fan favorite.
“The Night Flier” C+. I liked the premise and the ending, but most of this was super boring and lost my interest. I’m not sure why King chose to make his protagonist spend so much of this piece monologuing up in the air.
“The House on Maple Street” C. This isn’t all that bad, but I don’t read Stephen King for kid-friendly stories, and this one is under-explained, which would work for me if it went a couple steps further into its ambiguous weirdness. Does not stand on its own from the inspiration of the Allsburg illustration. Also, the patriarchal character writing is almost parody-level.
“It Grows on You” C-. Inoffensive but super bare on plot and absent of suspense or motion. At best a mildly interesting showing of small town class tension and the characters who make up a community undergoing subtle, painful change. The magical realism and sexual abuse elements are executed in an underwhelming manner. After some research, I am shocked to find that people find this story to have grotesque scenes in it. Did I miss something? Or is my tolerance for bad things just too high? My other takeaway from researching this piece is that there’s clearly a lot to interpret here, and it’s clear that King is going for a mature literary piece, but the simple lack of intrigue kills my motivation to dig into the tangle of implied horrors.
“Sneakers” D-. Confusing, jumbled, and homophobic. What the hell is King trying to get at? This is an odd and harmful attempt at exploring repression.
“Brooklyn August” D. I’m not a poetry fan, King’s no great poet, and this piece is about his love for baseball…yeah, pass.
“My Pretty Pony” D-. I had to skim most of this. Boring, rambling, and nauseating. Toxic masculinity mixed with cringey “life lessons”. A good representative of the corner of King’s work I loathe.
“The Fifth Quarter” D-. Not my genre, nor the approach toward the genre that I tolerate. Generic, masculine crime nonsense. Exactly the sort of pulp I’d expect to get published in Cavalier (where this piece first appeared).
“The Doctor’s Case” F. I started skimming a few pages in, and then halfway through or so I just gave up. I’ve never liked Sherlock Holmes or the old-school detective genre much. So with this pastiche, I could not have cared less who stabbed Lord Hull in the back, nor why or how they did it. Truly no shits to give in those departments. It’s also usually a miss for me when King tries out a super different writing style and genre, not to say he failed here. My critical score would probably be around a C…taking into account I did not fully read this, which I hate to do so much it makes me itch, because I’m a completist, but life’s too short. Maybe I’d enjoy this if I were in a particular (and patient) mood, but I doubt it. Old-school yawn. After reading an online summary, the ending is a bit slay dare I say; I’m not changing my score, though.
“Head Down” F. I’ll reiterate that these are personal scores, not critical. I don’t care about baseball. This was basically unreadable. No hate, though, just not for me. I will say, though, the fact that this got into The New Yorker says a lot about elitism and cringey bias in publishing.