Rating: Summary: Not his best Review: I'm an avid fan of Stephen King's short story and novella collections, and I snapped up Everything's Eventual as soon as it was issued in paperback. I was somewhat disappointed; Everything's Eventual lacks the creepiness and horror of Night Shift and Skeleton Crew (King's first two collections of short stories) and the rich characterizations and technical detail of Nightmares and Dreamscapes (his third collection, 1993). "Autopsy Room 4", the lead-off story in Everything's Eventual, is quite good and appropriately creepy. It's downhill from there. There's a long short from King's Dark Tower series, a series I've never enjoyed. "Lunch at Gotham Cafe" concerns a psychotic waiter and a divorcing couple in a restaurant; very poor story- the relationship between the waiter's antics and the couples' marital problems never gells. I hope Mr. King returns to form with his next collection of short stories or novellas; I've always enjoyed him more in those literary genres, moreso than his occasionally ponderous novels.
Rating: Summary: From quirky to down right scary.... Review: This book has something for everyone. I have not been a big Stephen King fan so I thought I'd start with some short stories to test the waters. Each story is very different and yet I have yet to find one that wasn't a page turner. If you want to get a taste of the different styles of Stephen King, this book is a great starting point.
Rating: Summary: When you don't want to start a new book Review: Since this book has short stories in it, it is great for when you aren't ready to start a new book, but still want to read something short that will hold your interest. The stories in this books are very entertaining and their subject matter varies greatly. If you like the newer Stephen King stories, you will like this book also.
Rating: Summary: WOW!!!... Review: This book scared, intriguied and amazed me and I loved it I would recommend this book to anyone!
Rating: Summary: Good collection of short stories Review: Stephen King, one of the best pure storytellers of the past couple of decades, is not one to be restricted by a particular story length: he'll write short stories, novellas, short novels (such as the Different Seasons collection), long novels and epic series (the Dark Tower). Thus, he can appeal to the reader with almost any amount of time and can deliver.Everything's Eventual, a collection of stories that King wrote in the 1990s, is designed for the reader who wants a good single-sitting work. King is an author who has had his quality peaks and valleys, but fortunately, these stories were written while he was at one of his peaks. As a result, most of these stories are good and a few are downright great. Although King states the stories were chosen in random order, I noticed the weakest stories seemed to appear earliest. The very first story, "Autopsy Room 4," is not bad but is probably the weakest in the bunch; it is essentially a reworking of an old Alfred Hitchcock TV story and though given the King touch, is not very original. The next three stories, "The Man in the Black Suit," "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" and "Thee Death of Jack Hamilton," are a bit better, but still not outstanding. After that, the stories begin to get really good. I particularly enjoyed "The Road Virus Heads North," a take-off on the haunted picture story and "1408" where King explores another haunted hotel, this one with a single bad room unlike anything found in The Shining. For King fans, this is a must read, but I would also recommend it to other readers, in particular those who enjoy short stories, which are a form of writing that is sadly on the wane. King shows that there is still a lot of good material left in short fiction.
Rating: Summary: Bought because I didn't have anything else to read. Review: I don't really like short story collections so bear that in mind when considering my review. I LOVE Stephen King. He is one of the most wonderfull writers of horror, EVER! However, this book falls a little flat. I did like the one about Roland the the Sisters. It was way creepy. A couple of the other stories were pretty good but most of them just seemed to be ones that weren't interesting enough to be a novel anyway so why bother with them. I know some people like short stories but I do not. I like to be drawn slowly into the characters day to day lives and to be able sympathize/emphathize with them. Mr. King is one of my favorite authors because he can take everyday things, like a closet of clothes and make them some of the scariest parts of the story. If you want a deep horror experience don't by this book. Buy Dreamcatcher or even his Roland and the Dark Tower books. Heck even Insomnia beats this. Sorry, Mr. King, don't send that evil clown to my house, please.
Rating: Summary: Best collection IN YEARS!!! Review: The last couple of Stephen King collections, while still always superior to most of the junk out there, were still not the greatest. NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES for example, had lots of little scraps and stuff that really felt like it had come out of a long-forgotten trunk. Kinda like a collection of B-sides. In EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL, almost every story is terrific, and some are downright fantastic. The weakest of the lot is LT'S THEORY OF PETS (which you can get an audio CD of, with King reading in front of a live audience...it's fun to hear). It's a pretty funny story, and enjoyable for most of it, but the payoff is NON-EXISTENT. The ending is so [bad] I almost thought that either some pages had been left out, or King accidentally merged the ending from another story onto this one. Also, the title story is a little bit unsatisfying. The voice of the narrator, who we're to believe is a teen-age loser, varies from nearly retarded to some flourishes of wonderful prose, and as it's written in the first person, the inconsistency jarred me. Again, the ending is perhaps not terribly strong. It's a nice idea for a story, but frankly felt a little lazy for King. For DARK TOWER fans, which I am one, big time, the novella of an early adventure of Roland's, LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA, is very exciting. The story is well done, if a tiny bit long, and very nicely fills in some shades and gradations to Roland's character. If you haven't read the books, it isn't critical to enjoying the story, but I think it would make the story seem just a little pointless. But if you are a fan, read the book for this alone!! I won't run down every good story in the book, but there are two that honestly, genuinely give me the creeps reading them. One is ROOM 1408, a "haunted hotel room" story that is unlike any other. There's a long setup, where we get the horrifying history of the room, and then, the instant our protagonist enters the room, all reality is skewed. King just absolutely plunges us into it...no gradual building up of suspense. It's nice, creepy fun. THAT FEELING, YOU CAN ONLY SAY WHAT IT IS IN FRENCH is also creepy. Although I think everyone will have guessed the "surprise" ending before it's dropped on you, it doesn't lessen the enjoyment of this "trip to hell" for a couple having a few marital problems, and King very neatly takes the story's staightforward narrative, and begins to skew it little by little. All the other stories are great fun, too, but I won't get into them all. I think everyone will have their own favorites, of course, but the key is that I would say 85% of the book is sensational, and the other 15% only weak in comparison to the rest. GET THIS BOOK!
Rating: Summary: I went to war with King's twisted mind and lost.......again! Review: I threw this book in the trash. Not because I was acting the part of a pious little church mouse thinking, "Harry Potter is the Devil", but more because it scared me. Scared the Holy juices right off my protective little cross necklace I keep around my neck at night. Scared me like an old woman gets scared when she realizes her hubby died sometime in the night as she slept beside him. Thanks a freakin lot, King! Thanks a lot, pal! Throwing his books away because they terrified isn't something of a shocker. I've done it before. I did it with 'It', would have done it with 'Cycle of the Warewolf' if it wasn't owned by the library. This book, Everything's Eventual that is, was thrown away twice, and that's where it sits right now,in the trash, tempting me to pick it up again for another read! This darn book is creepy. The voices heard in room 1408 will soon seem like they're whispering to you. The "hungry" Devil that chats with a nine-year-old near the woods will soon be looking to see what you've caught out of the stream. I only read nine of these stories, all the screamers I'm sure. I didn't go in order but based my selections on titles, starting with the Man in the Black Suit. Scared the pee out of me too, that one did. The Road Virus Heads North is the kind of tale that you know you shouldn't read, the kind of story that you'll regret reading at about 2:00AM when it's just you alone with your thoughts. But dang it, it was so tempting and when I finished it, I was scared completely frozen! I couldn't move, expecting that Metallica fan of a kid with the cannibal teeth to be staring back at me, smiling the same twisted smile described from the story. Maybe I'll give into my impulse and fish that book out of the trash for the second time; maybe not, but that book will make you think that the next time you get up to get a drink at four in the morning and turn on the bedroom light that sits on the nightstand, that demon your mind's created WILL really be staring back at you, smiling an eery grin. Riding the Bullet was intended to be a heart-warmer of a spook story but it still freaked me out. There is a story about Roland as a younger man for those of you who enjoy reading about his ongoing saga. All That You Love Will Be Carried Away is sad and scary at the same time and 1408 is terrifying. Other notables is the way 'LT's Theory of Pets' will make you laugh silly, then sit still in utter shock at the end. Maybe, when you've read five or six stories in it, you'll consider trashing this one too, ridding yourself of the opportunity to get anymore scared than you already are. Maybe, though, you'll fish it out of the trash again and again, reading just one more story.....like I'm tempted to do right now. enjoy
Rating: Summary: King's vivid imagination > 14 tales that please and scare ! Review: Maybe the most prolific, influential writer of our times, his name synonymous with the "horror" genre, Stephen King gives us here his sixth (depending how you count a couple of his books) collection of short stories, a medium for which he makes an impassioned plea in an introductory essay. Of the 14 tales, half are under 30 pages, which will please the folks who like "one sitting" opportunities to finish something. The longest one, "The Little Sisters of Eluria", at 66 pages, surprisingly a prequel to the Dark Tower series, featuring Roland the gunslinger, can still be handled comfortably in one session. It's a good thing, because that one especially had such a compelling, unexpected theme (the sisters were "nurses" with an interesting way of handling blood!) that we couldn't get through it fast enough for the sheer enjoyment. The variety in this collection seemed to us more diverse than usual, from fishing stories with the devil to lunch at the restaurant, to suicide and "death by email". You practically die yourself as the victim squirms in "Autopsy Room Four"; the "happy ending" (a King rarity) made "In the Deathroom" great fun. And King's internet-only-published "Riding the Bullet" makes it into real print herein. Moreover, in a brief set of author's words before or after each story, King gives us some clue how he came up with his idea or some other gem of information about the piece -- of course very interesting and entertaining nuggets in themselves, although a couple that prefaced the story gave a little away we thought. No doubt each reader will have their favorites and think one or two were duds, but here's the master at close to his best, in an enjoyable format -- what more do we want?
Rating: Summary: A truly dark compilation Review: If you're not one of the Stephen King's "Constant Reader", this is a good book to start enjoying his writing. It's a compilation of so-called 'dark' tales, ranging from mysterious stories to sheer thrillers - the best picks from his short stories collections. Different from a common writer, Stephen King does not like a plot at all, but he prefers to let the story grows at its own will - and most of the times, it ends at a totally different place from what he had in mind. And this is part of the excitement of reading his work. Read it for yourself - and be surprised at how the story goes and ends, while enjoying the growing thrills along the way.
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