Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful collection of King's work
Review: While this is a wonderful collection of stories by King (including one O. Henry award winner as well as work which has appeared previously in The New Yorker) I'd strongly suggest that buyers also purchase some of the wonderful audios which are out there as his works truly deserve to be heard aloud.
But if you prefer to simply read these stories rather than hear them, you won't be disappointed, either. What makes Stephen King's work, even the most horrorific stories, stand apart from others in the genre are the way they touch the spirit of readers and make them ponder the deeper mysteries of life - and death. Future writers will enjoy reading King's own remarks about what he was trying to accomplish with each story. The title story, told from the viewpoint of a teenager, is bittersweet and even touching. Rumors are that King is going to stop writing for good or maybe just for a long while. Don't miss your chance to grab this one while it is available.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite what I expected...
Review: Even if I'm not thrilled with a particular story by King, I still have great respect for his writing style and vivid imagery. This collection is no exception to that rule. As usual, his stories are very creative, even if a few of them don't have the most satisfying endings (maybe it's just me). There are only two real complaints I have. First, I had already heard four of these stories on tape or CD and had read two others in previous publications. Stephen King does say this in his introduction so he really is blameless but I was hoping for 14 stories I hadn't heard before. Second, in "Everything's Eventual," the title story, I would like to mention that UNM is in Albuquerque, not Las Cruces. NMSU is in Las Cruces. You're hearing that from an ex-NMSU student! He, he, he.
Rating:
Summary: Like a kiss in the dark from a stranger...
Review: In Skeleton Crew, Stephen King remarked that a short story is like "a kiss in the dark from a stranger." He goes on to say that although that is not the same as an affair or a marriage, that kisses can be sweet and "their very brevity forms their own attraction." While some of his novels can strain your lower back when you lift them, and The Stand and the Dark Tower series are phenomenal examples of King's prowess as a storyteller, some of the most engaging and entertaining fiction that Stephen King has ever written has come in short story form. When I was a teenager I plowed through Night Shift (the cool cover with its peering eyes and the disturbing inner cover gave me nightmares) and King's short stories led me to the short fiction of Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl and many others. In the introduction to Everything's Eventual King bemoans the fate of short stories and pleads with us to keep it alive with our interest and our attention. His best argument for the continued survival of the form is contained in the stories that follow his introduction. I won't tell you anything about them...you need to go get this book and read them yourself. But don't buy it just because it's by Stephen King...buy it because these kisses in the dark are so worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Short stories from the King
Review: Often, less of Stephen King is better than more! That may seem to be a contradiction, but his later novels tend to go on to almost agonizing length, and cry out for some editing. I understand his new Dark Tower work (as yet unpublished) is 900 pages!!! Anyway, I enjoy a well-written short story occasionally, and this book is full of them. I've read a few of these stories in other places, but they are all uniformly interesting to me, some more than others, of course. It shows that King can write pithily (as Bill O'Reilly would say) when and if he wants to, and that's a sign that the old talent is still there inside of him. If he'd only let it out in his novels1
Rating: 
Summary: bad bad bad
Review: I have read better stories from freshman english students. Ever since Stephen almost became road pizza his writing has been awful. what a shame. If some of these stories were submitted to the New Yorker under another name, other than Stephen King, it would have been met with a rejection notice and a huge laugh. Save your money!
Rating:
Summary: Gunsels and vampires and boomslangs, oh my!
Review: My first exposure to Stephen King, way back in 76, was the short story collection "Night Shift." I knew I'd found something extroardinary. Since then I've snapped up everything in print bearing the SK logo. Along the way, I've learned that every second or third novel will prove disappointing. Compulsively readable, yes, unfailingly entertaining, sure, but self-indulgent or repetitive or stuffed with too much padding. But something about short story writing brings out the craftsman in King. When you walk home with his latest doorstop, you know there may not be much of a pig in that poke; but with his short story collections you just can't go wrong.The new smorgasbord is no exception. Two of the fourteen tales are forgettable. (Bob Dylan once admitted that he named one album "John Wesley Harding" because he hoped it would distract attention from the fact that the song so named had by far the weakest lyrics on the album. I wonder if King's claim that "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" is his favorite story in the collection is an example of the same strategy.) But nine of them are classics. Not a bad ratio. So this tough grader's 4 and a half stars are getting rounded up this time. The ominous cover art had me hovering over each tale, wondering when I'd get to the one the cover illustrated. If you want to go straight to it, it's "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," a tour de force on several levels, not the least being its seamless marriage of low grossout and high elegance. It's the elegance, and the mental rather than the literal mayhem, that will stick with you. The longest story is an out-take from the Dark Tower cycle, which is good news. (Even better news is that the next volume of DT is completed. It appears that - just like Harry Potter - it will be rounded out in seven volumes.) There's nothing in this vampire-story prequel that fans of the series will need to know to understand the Dark Tower cosmos, but it cried out to be set in Roland's universe. It has the same edge-of-the-world creepiness, the same heroic despair, the same vast desolation bathed in the same bright but slanted light. I think what delighted me most about this collection was the variety of voices. We've all grown used to King's standard narrator, his head stuffed with the speech habits and the cultural detritus of the American baby boom. He shows up again, with slightly updated cultural artifacts, in the pimply ex-pizza-delivery boy of the title story, trapped in the world's cushiest and most sinister dead end job. But an older, deeper American tone runs through "The Man in the Black Suit," which plays on rural silences and folklore like Manly Wade Wellman's best stories did with deep Appalachia; and in "The Death of Jack Hamilton", an incident in John Dillinger's life which could have happened exactly like that, and if it had, would have been told in exactly that language. My favorite piece hasn't a breath of the supernatural in it. "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" is a story about the impending death of a travelling salesman, losing a long struggle with clinical depression, who may or may not be saved in the end by his infectious enthusiasm for bathroom graffiti. I admire Miller's portrait of Willy Loman, but in this deftly turned story King made me really care about Alfie Zimmer. And of course the traditional chills are all there, in spades: a hotel room haunted by worse than ghosts, a man helplessly watching his own autopsy in process (which is where that boomslang shows up), a lapsed Catholic's worst nightmare complete with Mother Theresa, a reverse twist on the phantom hitchhiker, and the scariest story about a painting since Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model." If you've ever liked King, you'll cherish this batch. Read one each night, and they'll last you from the full of the moon to pitch darkness.
Rating:
Summary: Everything's Pretty Good
Review: "Everything's Eventual" is Stephen King's fourth short story collection, and his first since "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" nearly a decade ago. King is perhaps the best and most consistent short story writer working in genre fiction today (number two would probably be Lawrence Block). The sheer number of first rate ideas he has cranked out over the course of the four volumes is nothing short of incredible. Having said all that, "Everything's Eventual," while a decent collection, is not quite up to the standards of the previous three (which, for the record are "Night Shift," "Skeleton Crew" and the aforesaid "Nightmares..."). The first thing I noticed was that it is a bit short on actual horror stories, though "The Road Virus Heads North," "The Man in the Black Suit," and "1408" are among his best pure horror stories. Of the rest, "The Death of Jack Hamilton," "All that You Love Will be Carried Away," and "In the Deathroom" are first rate stories (like "Dolan's Cadilac" from "Nightmares...") that belong in the mystery/crime category. "Autopsy Room Four" and "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" are creepy suspense stories that feature no supernatural elements. The rest, including one "Dark Tower" piece, read more like filler material. Eash story gets a short blurb of either introduction or post script, and there's the usual King introduction addressed to "you, Constant Reader." Overall, King deserves credit for continuing to write short stories at a time when the style has continued to decline. As King points out in the introduction, while this collection is sure to be a bestseller like everything else he writes, it is also likely to be the only short story collection to make the list this year. If he gets even a few people ineterested in short fictiona again, it will have been worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: The King is back
Review: Being disappointed in the last 3 or 4 works of SK,I started not to even bother with this one.I'm glad i did.I devoured the whole collection of 14 tales in two days.Vying with Skeleton Crew as his best compilation,there is a lot here for every King aficianado.As usual,SK uses the short fiction to take you back to a previous novel or to give a prologue of a novel to come.Every tale is worth reading and it will be interesting to see where these stories lead in books yet to come.No doubt,King will come up with something weird.Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Yummy Yummy! Scary and fun!
Review: The King is very much alive in this great collection. Some delicious fun is to be had in the Man In The Black Suit and the title story is fabulous! Do yourself a favor and go scare yourself silly!
Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpiece
Review: I am not yet finished with Stephen King's newest novel, I am rationing what is left to make it last until September when "From Buick 88" is released. I am sure I will not be able to hold off much longer without gorging myself on Kings delicious work. Any fan of SK's has to be absolutely delighted with this newest collection of short stories. I have to mention here that so far, Everything's Eventual is my favorite tale. It is an amazing piece of brain candy to toss around and think about during times that I can't read. Among the jewels in this collection are, "The Deathroom" . which is fast paced and nerve wracking. "The Death of Jack Hamilton", which is a captivating fictional account of the Dillinger Gang and "Autopsy Room Four", which provokes ideas that you just don't weant to think can happen. As I said, I don't want this book to end. I am ready to make a deal with the "Man in the Black Suit" in order to assure a constant supply of Stephen King.
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