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Summary: Fun is fun and done is done
Review: This is the thirteenth reason to read this collection. When it came out as an ebook I did not care for it so much. I do not like the clicking to turn the pages. I like the crisp feel of the paper pages. This story is absolutely great. You will fall into its traps at least four or five times. And you will end not knowing what is real and what is not. It sure is a funeral service for one's mother, but it is a lot more than that. It is the vision of life and death through the eyes of a heart-attack victim. Everything is blurred and every recollection is a piece of guilt you are paying for right now. It is this deep sense of guilt which is pervading the story through and through. It is marvelous. The reflection on death is only secondary, because we have to die anyway, though no doctor, no ghoul, no preacher, no soothsayer can tell us when. So why live in anxiety because we are going to die, and everyone is going to die? The only important thing is how, when and where. And that we can hardly know.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU...
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Summary: When you reach twelve, you wonder if it is Judas!
Review: The twelfth reason to read this collection is the twelfth story, "1408". It is a banal story about a haunted room, in a banal New York City hotel. When we start reading it we think: "One more story about..." But we do read it and discover it is not one more story about... It is not even a rewriting of the haunted room in "The Shining" or some other haunted room or house King uses so often. It is different. Not different in what happens inside the room. But different in what happens before and what happens after. Before we have a description of all the evil things this room has caused. And this is spooky, but after all it might only be coincidental. But after it is different because then we have the description of a survivor, of one who has lived something horrible through and has survived it. And this is not spooky anymore but only realistic and true. The state of the body and the mind of the survivor is what anyone can check and even touch any time in psychiatric wards or in burntvictims wards. And this is so real, so true, that it makes the story itself true and real. And that is spooky. Are we supposed to accept all the tales those survivors tell us? Are all those survivors really crazy or have they really lived through something horrible? Both probably and we cannot sort out either. A strong and powerful experience can put your body and brain akimbo on both side of an immense hole that attracts and rejects you at the same time. Oh, how sweet it could be to just jump into that hole and get lost into its darkness of its light, according to the moments and the fancy you may have in your head. Rush and read it. Even if this story dedicated to the number 13, to a room situated on the 13th floor of a hotel (even if it is numbered 14), and whose figures sum up to 13, has not been set as the 13th story in the collection, though it deserved it. But after all it is the twelfth story and has to be Judas in flesh and bone and his twenty silver pieces. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
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Summary: The ninth reason, the Devil's reason
Review: The ninth reason to read this collection is the ninth story, "The Road Virus Heads North", and nine is the number of the Devil. I had liked this story in "999", but here I love it. it is pure suspense, pure fear, pure fright. It is an opening in the basement of the world out of which the fiery blood of all creatures of the night springs in the shape of a car, a vampire, a bomb, a werewolf, ... And Stephen King is one of the best at sending such plagues onto us, his faithful and regular readers, and we like it. So rush and read, and eventually drool with unfathomable scared horror. The end will let you panting with no relief and hardly able to breathe for fresh air. So, just go out and enjoy the moon in the sky, but don't forget your scarf: there is always a virus travelling along some road, to the North or the South, who cares, or who scares? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
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Summary: The eighth reason to read this collection
Review: It is "LT's Theory of Pets". It is funny how pets are both love presents and divorce tools. A cat versus a dog, a man versus a woman, or vice versa in both cases. Pets lead to divorce just as marriage and love lead to pets. But one offers a pet to his/her love because one likes the pet and somewhere maybe hates his/her partner. And pets are aggravating circumstances because they do all they can to break asunder the two partners who pretend to love each other, and they probably do, both the partners love each other and the pets break them asunder. But the end of the story is not that funny because of the interference of a serial killer in the business and a deadly and bloody ending. Rush to it. You will love it. Yes, Dear Abby is right, the giving of pets "is an exercise in arrogance". And we all fall into the trap one day or another, one way or another. Why don't we stick to flowers and plants? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan.
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Summary: The seventh reason to read this collection is heavenly
Review: Stephen King does not hesitate to explore socially-oriented situations and the short story "Everything's Eventual" is in the best tradition of "The Dead Zone" or "Firestarter" or even "The Stand". If you have a special power and you are recruited by an organization whose aim is to clean up the planet of pacifists and progressive people, and you finally find out their aim, what do you do? Sit still and enjoy the fringe benefits, or destroy the tree that nourishes you? The dilemma is important and real. If you know someone who is crazy enough to press on the red button and that someone is going to be elected or is elected to the red-button-pressing-power-position, what do you do? If you have Hitler in front of you before he seizes power, and you know what he is going to do, what do you do? Does any individual have the right to straighten up the wrong he knows is going to happen? This story is definitely a mind-raker and a consciousness-enhancer. Go read the collection, if you don't want to miss an essential milestone in our consciousness. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
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Summary: Each story is one more reason to read the collection.
Review: The sixth reason is "The little Sisters of Eluria" in which you will recognize Roland Deschain of Gilead, just starting on his long pilgrimage to the Dark Tower. He is still naive and innocent, or is he really innocent? He gets into a strange abandoned city with a bizarre population of mutants and nuns of a new type: they don't like gold nor God, they are hospitalers and use some bugs as doctors, and they love their customers, their sick people for their deepest and funniest nourishment. This will encourage you to buy all the Dark Tower volumes and read them as fresh water on a hot summer day. The naivety of Roland in this story is so important that you will smile and that will give you a taste of what Roland is not and will never be in the Dark Tower novels. Rush! The Little Sisters of Eluria may not wait for you. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
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Summary: King has done it again!
Review: Once again, King is at the top of his game! I really missed his short story works and this book brought me just what I needed. Everyone will have their favorites, for they are all gems in their own right. My personal favorites are "The Road Virus" (VERY creepy! I still can't get that painting out of my head!), "Everything's Eventual" (very interesting twist on the whole Firestarter concept...e-mail gone deadly), and "That Feeling..." (everyone has their own version of what "hell" must be like...it's interesting to see how King perceives it). A MUST READ!!! If you haven't read King before, this book will get you hooked (and up late reading!) :)
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Summary: A fifth reason to read this book
Review: The fifth reason is "In the Deathroom". This confrontation of the hero to "private" interrogation in the cellar of the Information Ministry of some dictatorship is the acme of fear and resourcefulness. There is always a way out from this ordeal. Most of the time it is death. Some of the time it is spitting it all out (rarely). And if a miracle happens it is by escaping. Stephen King chose the most improbable solution, but the only interesting thing is how. Read the story to know. But the worst part of it is the unfathomable damage such an experience can leave behind in the mind of the happy victim. Isn't it better to die in such circumstances? Stephen King should now write the other side of the story: the torturing methods our democracies use to impose squareness to those who have lost or have never had the concept of a straight line and prefer going through the rabbit hole along the way to discover what is off limits. But any reader can just imagine what torturing can be in a civilized world where electricity is not used for such endeavours. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
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Summary: King raises the short story from the grave!
Review: What a fun book. Every tale is different. Some horror, some imagined history, some down right disturbing, and 2 tales related to the dark tower--all with a little bit of the Kingian humour. About halfof the shorts were okay, not brilliant, but fun; but the other half were very moving: The Man in the Black Suit
This could be an ancient fable about innocents and evil colliding. It won the O. Henry award for best short. Great read. Everything's Eventual
My favorite of the bunch. A look at what happenes when we let others look after us and assume that they have our best interest at heart. Usually they don't, and the consequences that develop can be just as disturbing as, say a Stephen King story. The Road Virus Heads North
Is the only written story that I can remember being completely wigged out by. It is inspired by a picture that Stephen King hangs in his office, and the description of this picture alone is creepy. (narrator shutters) The Little Sisters of Eluria
A good tale from Roland's younger days. Not great, but fun and for you gunslinger fans, any thing about the Tower is a blessing. (By the way,Mr. King has just officially finished writing the last Dark Tower book, #V will be out in Nov, #VI in the following June, and #VII in the next Nov. Yeah!!!) LT's Theory of Pets
King's favorite of the bunch, goes from being very funny to very disturbing, a story that anyone who has had a dog or a cat will find very amussing. I love the short story format. It is great that Mr. King has not abandoned it. He calls them one night stands instead of a long love affair, like The Stand or IT. Thanks for the fun.
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Summary: Excellent!
Review: I am not a big fan of Stephen King novels. His long form books tend to be a bit tedious to read, in my humble opinion. However, the few short stories I had read by SK really impressed me, which led me to this book. After reading, and re-reading this collection, I can see where he gets his reputation as the Master. The short stories here are pure art, a form that gets rarer all the time. Do yourself a favor, pick up this book!
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