Rating: 
Summary: Good quartet
Review: "Four Past Midnight" is Stephen King's second book based around four novellas (too long to be a short story, not long enough to be a real book). This one has "The Langoliers", about a airline flight that goes into another dimension, kind of (this story is alright, not King's best). The second is "Secret Window, Secret Garden", a writter with a guilty conscience has a man terrorizing him (this is the weakest story). "The Library Police" is my favorite story, about a man who borrows a book, and then has to pay the over due fine with his soul (by far my favorite story). The last story is "The Sun Dog", about a boy who buys a camera from a store owner in Castle Rock, but there's a dog who comes closer to the edge in each succesive picture (this is a good story, a prelude to "Needful Things"). All these stories are of varied quility, only one of them ("Secret") not really worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Maximum Scare
Review: Hello Dear Readers,I'm just finishing a King novel. I devote myself to just reading one a year. That all my constitution can take. It's not that the writings is bad, but my sanity limits me from reading more. King again frightens me with "Four Past Midnight." Beginning with "The Langoliers," which I had the misfortune to read while travelling cross-country by air, the terror fest mounts. "The Langoliers," which had been made into a fair TV mini-series starring Michael Morse, delves into suppositions concerning rips in time and how it affects unprepared travelers. King's characters rely on their wits and luck to set things right. "The Library Policeman" shows King's power to seek out fright with any subject at any place. How could anywhere as innoculous as the library elict fear? Read and find out. Something truly sinister is involved here. Saturated with horror, "The Library Policeman" also dives deeply in some human foibles too! "Secret Window, Secret Garden," delves into the darker interior of man. King displays his understanding the human psyche into this story. Finally, "The Sun Dog" hit us head on in this tale from King's fictional town Castle Rock. The supernatural is studied as a boy's birthday camera take very unnatural pictures indeed. "The Sun Dog" prefaces King's novel "Needful Things." I enjoy all four short stories and found each were separately scary each in their own way. It would depend on your own threshold and tolerances to determine which frighten you the most. I guarantee each will hold you from the first to last page though. My favorite was "The Library Policeman." I didn't expect that to be so. I almost expected it to be funny! However, it was anything but as the story progressed. I liked "The Langoliers" also because I'm a fan of Science Fiction and King infused some sifi whimsy into it. I think King probably was a fan when he was younger. There aren't any monsters present except that which you invent in your own imagination. The other two stories were in fine style, but didn't bring out as much interest to me. I hope my review helped a little with your purchase. solo.
Rating:
Summary: Two Really Good, Two Really Bad
Review: That about sums up the novel Four Past Midnight by Stephen King. The book contains four novellas, The Langoliers, Secret Window, Secret Garden, The Library Policemen, and The Sun Dog. The first two stores in the novel are the good. The Langoliers is a scary imaginative story that could only come from the mind of Stephen King. The plot is unique as is the theme of the story. Very well written. Secret Window, Secret Garden is a familar story from King. Boy he just loves to reak havoc on those author characters of his doesn't he? I have not read The Dark Half, so I can not comment on how similar the two stories are, but Mort Rainey is a great character and King tells this story well. The final two stories in the novel really ruin the book. The Library Policemen is dumb and really luaghable when you get right down to it. The Sun Dog is done so much better in Cujo that we don't much care for it here, and are bored becuase of how long the story needs to take off. So an overall mix of good and bad here, with a final rating falling somewhere in between there.
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