Rating: 
Summary: A Good Place for the Ride to Stop.
Review: Stephen King has this kind of novel down to a formula, one he can repeat over and over for the rest of his life, if he chooses. The present incarnation of this book, while more mature than say, CHRISTINE (1983), has its moments, sloppy and predictable though some of them are. King has said as much himself in a recent article in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. I found FROM A BUICK 8 a little boring, and a little tired, but nevertheless I rather liked it, as here, as with many of King's recent works, the "horror" serves as a background and the REAL theme relates to timeless human concerns. But he's done that before, too, and better. Worse, too, hence my 3 out of 5. And if he means it, in saying that this book is a good place to end the publishing spree on, I'm not gonna argue. Because maybe it is.
Rating: 
Summary: From a Buick 8
Review: Stephen King has being saying he's going to retire. I'm not sure I believe it. But I do think perhaps he should retire from writing horror. From a Buick 8 is by far the strongest in its real-world elements. The Pennsylvania State Troopers are interesting, appealing characters (though I wanted to know more about Sandy, the primary narrator). I found myself more curious about their on-the-job adventures, and more drawn to their camaraderie, than excited by the horror element in this novel. Which isn't very interesting. It's the gate-to-another-world thing that King did so much better in Rose Madder. It's not bad, it's not boring, but it doesn't sparkle. I wonder if we might see a new pen name, and a thriller/mystery slant, from Mr. King.
Rating: 
Summary: King lite
Review: It's a real pleasure to read a book by Stephen King that isn't big enough to choke a horse! Although I really love his works, my criticism of his last few books have to do with the extraordinary length of them; books simply crying out for an editor with an active pen. This work, however, gets into the plot and speeds right along, without all of the usual excess verbiage. Perhaps Mr. King is really serious about soon ending his active writing career, and wants to leave us with works that will be remembered for their quality, rahtrer than their quantity. This book tells a riveting tale from the viewpoint of many vioces, and tells it well. There's not a lot of what we would consider "plot", but it is mesmerizing all the same. We get many insights into the human heart and condition, and also are given a quick lesson in the ins and outs of day-to-day work by state policemen. You grow to identify with many of the characters and their idiosyncrasies, and with them experience the terror of the unknown and, in the end, the unanswered questions posed by the unusual Buick that belongs to the barracks. When I read works of this type, I hope that Mr. King changes his mind about retiring, and continues to give us many more years, and many more books.
Rating:
Summary: Why stop now?
Review: Dreamcatcher and Buick 8 are two of the better books I've read. Stephen King continues to get better with each novel, so why stop now? I can understand wanting to take a break "until further notice", but hopefully for our sakes he'll get bored in a while and treat us again.
Rating: 
Summary: King's Latest is Lamest
Review: Well, perhaps not his lamest, but very, very close. As someone who has read and re-read every King book, I was relieved that this hastily slung together rehashing of familiar King territory will be his "last." Then again, King can shine in certain places and his amazing ability to bring you inside a character's consciousness almost makes it worth it to suffer through. The bottom line: if you're a King junky, you're going to read it no matter what.
Rating:
Summary: One of King's Best--In the Same Vein as Green Mile
Review: King's newest is closer in style/tone to his nostalgic books, like _The Green Mile_ or novella _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_. The book concerns a weird car-like thing that is discovered outside a gas station and then moved into one of the garages behind a Pennsylvania state trooper barracks. It looks like a Buick, but it won't hold mud, the wheels don't keep gravel in the treads, and scratches and dents disappear overnight. And then there's the occasional "light storm" followed by strange creatures which appear out of the "car's" trunk. And the occasional person or creature that seems to disappear while in the "car's" presence. The book chronicles the experiences that the troopers in this particular station have had with the car ever since it was first discovered some 30 years before. The son of a trooper recently killed in the line of duty has been hanging out at the barracks, doing odd jobs and learning to be a dispatcher, when he convinces the troopers to tell him the story of the car, which was a topic of particular fascination to his dead father. This is a very entertaining novel, told from multiple points of view and a variety of different narrative voices, and ultimately, it seems to be about the difficulty of finding meaning in life. The troopers never do discover the secret behind the car (is it a lost/displaced piece of alien machinery?) and the story doesn't really seem to have a climax or denouement (although, ultimately, the novel does).
This is a great book and will make a great movie, if the right person picks it up (I can see Frank Darabont being drawn to this material).
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment
Review: This is the worst book Stephen King has written! The plot, if there was one, is silly. He continually leads up to something exciting about to happen which fizzles out to nothing. The terrors are something a small child might dream up. Total waste of money and I was very disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Somehow goes too long!! Even though it's short!
Review: okay, finished this book last night...... took forever. because 150 pages of it [are bad]. . . very repetitive, very boring, all in the past, all stuff we know will not lead to a spectacular outcome. . . could've been summed up in 2 paragraphs but takes 100 pages ... . .
BUT. . . the beginning is great. . . the beginning is so good. everything about the discovery of the Buick and the set up of the police station . . . great. . . the middle drags and drags and drags and drags. . . then there's an incident towards the end where two things happen at once and it's masterfully suspenseful. . . and then it flashes back to the present, has a boneheaded & simple momentary conflict, which gets resolved then flips ahead and has a really really really terrible cheesy plot device , or gimmick you might call it, and then it ends. The first part is sort of like The Green Mile with a modern police station and a car instead of John Coffey. . . so that's what it's about. . . it's okay, but he's done better books. If this were trimmed down to the size of Tom Gordon it would've been classic.
Rating:
Summary: Framing device damages narrative
Review: Stephen King chose to write his latest novel as a story within a story. The framing story--a group of Pennsylvania state troopers telling a story to a deceased trooper's son--dictates that virtually all the action takes place in the past. The framing story is of no interest within itself, serving only to pad out and slow down the "real" story.
For quite some years I have read King only because I am afraid of missing something. You won't miss much if you skip this one. The horror effects are more gross than frightening. One of King's weaknesses has always been that he usually can't come up with any explanation for the events he describes. The best horror writers do provide the reader this closure. King's affectation, and crutch, is his folksy style: when his characters speak in cliches you are supposed to attribute the triteness to realism, not lack of skill or imagination in the author. But when he repeats the tired phrase, "there's never a cop around when you need one" on two pages in a row, it becomes clear that King's writing, not his characters, lacks depth and insight. Two of his best books are Thinner (written as Richard Bachman) and The Dark Half. From a Buick 8 is a book every horror fan can afford to miss.
Rating:
Summary: STEPHEN KING IS STILL THE MAESTRO OF HORROR!!!
Review: As a long time reader of Stephen King's fiction (I started in 1977), this is the one author who I treasure more than life itself. I personally think of him as the "Charles Dickens" of American Literature for the 20th Century and would gladly argue the case with any critic. With Mr. King's newest novel, FROM A BUICK 8, he once again proves that no one can do it better. This is the story of Troop D of the Pennsylvania State Police and the 1954 Buick that they've kept hidden for twenty-two years in Shed B behind their barracks in the rural community of Statler Township. It begins in 2001, the year after Trooper Curtis Wilcox is killed in a terrible traffic accident. His eighteen-year-old son, Ned, begins to hang around the barracks in an effort to keep the memory of his father alive. In time, he discovers the Buick in Shed B and questions Sandy Dearborn, the commander of Troop D, about it. Sandy decides to tell Ned the background history of the car and the part his late father played in it-from the discovery of the abandoned Buick at a gas station by Troopers Curtis Wilcox and Ennis Rafferty in 1979, to the disappearance of Rafferty a few hours later, to the stark realization of just how dangerous this oddity of a vehicle was, and to the hideous other-world creatures that occasionally popped out of its trunk. Twenty-three years later, however, the car is still hungry and decides to go after the son of the man it could never catch unaware. FROM A BUICK 8 takes us into the small family of Troop D and the secrets they kept hidden for over two decades. It's about a car that may be a portal to another dimension...a car that's always waiting patiently for someone to get too close to it at the wrong time. But more than anything, this is a story about friendship, the curiosity that people have for the unknown, and the journey an eighteen-year-old boy has to take in order to become a man. Only Stephen King could write a book in which the characters don't just come alive for the reader, they become your friends in every sense of the word and you care about what happens to them. That's the power of Mr. King's storytelling. You're not reading a novel; you're living it! This book grabbed me in the first few pages and didn't let go till the end, when I felt a deep sadness in my heart for a past that can never be relived. The other night, after I'd finished reading FROM A BUICK 8, I saw a GM commercial on television about the legendary car designer, Harley Earl, and guess what he was standing beside-a 1954 Buick Roadmaster! The whole thing gave me goose bumps. Thank you, Mr. King, for doing it again.
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