Stephen King

The Shining
10/10
Arguably King at his finest. The tension erupts at the beginning and remains a trapeze wire throughout.

Jack Torrance broke his three year old son's arm.
Jack Torrance has got a job at The Overlook Hotel. He has to look after the hotel throughout the winter. The winters' get bad up here. Snowed in. No escape. Another caretaker got cabin fever. Killed his family. Jack already has a history of alcoholism, domestic abuse, grievous bodily harm. What does Wendy Torrance think she's doing taking their young son to stay with the man who broke his arm?

Danny Torrance is five years old. Danny shines. Dick Halloran shines too, but no one shines as bright as Danny. The shine makes the hotel want him. The hotel wants Danny to itself. It wants the power that makes Danny shine. For the hotel to shine like that? Danny has to die. The best way to get Danny is to get his weak ass*d father first.

Jack wants a drink. The hotel is happy to supply, but there's a price he has to pay and it's not in cash. Jack has to give Danny to The Overlook.

Rage

9/10
I can't see that Charlie Decker was such an angry young man. He was definitely a product of his environment. Decker is an example of what is going on in America right now. Guns easily got hold of by kids who are getting bullied by preceptors, parents or peers, taking the firearm into the school and blowing people away. That Charlie listens to his classmates tales certifies that he is not a lunatic. I guess the really scary part of the story, apart from the fact that America makes it far too easy for this to happen with frightening regularity, and it does, is that any one of those kids had the belief that they had a reason to pull the trigger.

To find out why - read the book.

The Stand
10/10

For an incredibly long book, King ticked all the boxes with this tome. It took the better of two weeks of a road trip to cover in audio but was well worth the listen.

The book opens where a biological weaponised form of influenza escapes a laboratory. For all the army's efforts, they can't contain the bug. (This sounds eerily familiar doesn't it? If he had called the book 2020 we could have given King the power of foresight.)
The book then follows the survivors of the flu. Those who are immune. But in King style, he pits good against evil in a fight for survival in a new world.
On the good side we have Mother Abigail. A one-hundred-year old woman who calls to the survivors in their dreams and asks them to come to her.
We follow their separate survival stories across the USA to meet with the fabled dream world conductress. During the journey we get to know our heroes pretty well. We follow Stu Redman, the guy the army hated as he escapes the testing compound. Nick Andros a deaf mute. Tom Cullen a simple but sweet man. Larry Underwood who had just hit fame when the virus struck, and pregnant Frannie Goldsmith, who becomes Stu's love interest.
On the bad side we have Randall Flagg. An evil entity that wants world domination and pulls some of the good guys over to the bad by calling to them in their dreams. Much the same as Mother Abigail.
When our heroes get to Boulder and Flagg's baddies get to Las Vegas, the real fight begins.
Flagg does everything in his power to destroy the good guys, but does he succeed?

The Long Walk
8/10
I hated it. I saw it coming and somehow was still surprised.
So, you're probably wondering why I gave the book an 8 out of 10 when I hated it? Because King hit my "ick" factor. I don't scare easy. In fact most people would say I don't scare at all. But, I do have an "ick" factor and this is it. Needless, senseless violence is my 'ick'.

Ray Garraty and ninety-nine other boys sign up for The Long Walk. The prize is anything you want for the rest of your life. The winner is the last man standing. The rule is you have to maintain a steady four miles an hour. If you drop behind, you get a warning. If you get three warnings the soldiers shoot you dead.

The Boogeyman.Batteground.IKnow

FireStarter
10/10
Again King at his finest. The tension erupts at the beginning and remains a trapeze wire throughout.

Andy McGee and his sweetheart get paid 200 dollars to be test subjects to see if they have latent psychic abilities for a government agency called The Shop.

Fast forward a few years and Andy is on the run from The Shop with his daughter Charlie. Charlie, born of two parents who were both given Lot 6, has a latent ability to start fires. Charlie is pyrokinetic. The Shop and the government want to harness her power.

Agent John Rainbird catches Andy and Charlie and pretends to befriend the isolated child in order to be the one to kill her when the tests are completed. Evil has a face and this one wears an eye patch.

The Dead Zone
8/10
I was hooked all the way through but the end was a bit of a let down IMO.

John Smith is an ordinary guy, or so it seems to his girlfriend. Right up until he can't lose at the wheel of fortune. But! All that good luck comes with a price to pay and after an accident John remains in a coma so long his muscles atrophy.

When he wakes up, the precognition has taken on a life of its own. Now he can see everyone's futures. In most cases nothing good can come out of this curse.

To find out what happens you will need to read the book.

Roadwork
6/10
This book was not a horror, if anything it is immensely sad. The story is about Barton Dawes. The city have decided to build a road firstly right through Bart's workplace (a commercial laundry) and then through his home. When he refuses to find a relocation for the laundry and everyone loses their jobs, everyone turns on him and his wife leaves him. But it's his house that is the clincher. In his mind he intends to try to stop the road from progressing through the home where he lived and made memories with his little boy Charley who has died of a brain tumour. Bart does everything in his power to stop the city from tearing his house down. Will he succeed? You will have to read to find out.

The Running Man
5/10
I hated it. In all honesty I might be in the minority here and as there's a movie about the book I probably am, but I truly hated it. The Long Walk was bad enough but inhumanity to a man who is just trying to pay doctor's bills and get medicine for his daughter absolutely knocks me sick.

The worst of it was that I read it in October 2023! The month after it was set, right in the middle of a terrorist attack on civilians.

It's King. It's well written. It's so full of suspense that it gave me bouts of anxiety on Richard's behalf. I hated it. It's not horror as in frightening, it's horror as in horrific. If I hadn't read some of King's later work in my youth I would right here, right now shelve reading the King collection. I had to give it 5/10 because it is the master of suspense and to give it any less would be a misnomer. I can't give it any more because it's not my general reading matter of choice and if I never read anything like it ever again, it will be too soon.
King, if you intended to make me sick to my stomach with worry, you did your job well.

Short Stories

The Man Who Loved Flowers
2/10
I didn't get this from the off and it's only that it's King that I knew the ending would be horrific. It did not make sense. I get that something happened in his past, but I'm still clueless as to what. Unless you're reading the King collection you might want to give this a miss.

The Woman in the Room
9/10
Yes the story is horrific. More so because no one wants to see a loved one suffer.
Johnny contemplates putting his mother out of her misery with painkillers. This story is critically told. My heart bled for Johnny as he argues with himself over the morals of committing matricide and the fear of the repercussions.
Does he do the deed? Well, you have to read to find out, and it's well worth the read. The only thing that could have made it a ten was it being told in the first person.

Graveyard Shift

7/10
Warwick is the foreman of an old mill in the process of a revamp. One of the workers 'Hall' bears the brunt of Warwick's bullying. Hard faced rats make an appearance and Warwick orders Hall to investigate the basement. Do any of them get out alive?

Well worth a read for the shiver down the back, cringe factor. The cherry on top is the 'haha'.

To find out why, read the story!

Sometimes They Come Back
6/10
Jim Norman relives the murder of his kid brother over and over in his dreams, even sixteen years on. As a teacher he takes over a class of dropouts. One by one the drop outs form the group that murdered his brother Wayne. The bullies have returned from the grave to get the one that got away. But, will they?

Fantastic premise, but for me the story fell a bit short. I wasn't as invested in the main character as I usually get. It might have something to do with the subject matter and detachment. Most other people who have read this story love it so, as always, please read the story.

Quitters Inc
10/10
Are you looking for motivation to quit smokng?
Then join Quitters Inc.
For a full run down of the treatment, read the story.
You won't be disappointed.
You'll never smoke again.
They guarantee it.

Jerusalem's Lot
4/10
I had thought this was a precursor to Salem's Lot, but I'm not so sure. The dead man and his niece in the basement were called "Nosferatu" but I still don't see how they were vampires. The story raised more questions than it answered, and I just couldn't get into it. Four out of ten is stretching it and I'm more inclined to three. A whole load of people love the story, but I'm not one of them. That's not to say you won't be. Read it and see.

Night Surf
7/10
Set in the post-apocalyptic world of The Stand. After the virus A6 AKA "Captain Trips" has wiped out most of humanity. A bunch of kids believe they are immune because they all had A2. Then they find a man with the A6 virus. Instead of putting him out of his misery in a humane way, they burn him to death. Captain Trips puts in an appearance.
Anyone who has read The Stand will get this. You need to read the big book first before this short story.

The Last Rung on the Ladder
10/10
This is sad rather than horrific. A man recounts saving his sister from death when a ladder breaks from under her when they were children. His sister tells him she knows he will always be there to save her.
**Spoiler alert** Only then he isn't.
You need to read this for the 'Hits You in the Feels' factor.

The Boogeyman
Lester Billings attends a psychiatrists office to unload the tale of how The Boogeyman murdered his children. Billings is not a particularly nice man. He has little care for any of the deceased children except for one-Andy. Therefore, it's easy to assume that Billings killed his kids. But did he? Or does The Boogeyman really exist?

This short story is part of the Stephen King collection Night Shift.

7/10

The Mangler
10/10
For me this story is the epitome of horror. A demon possesses a massive sheet folding machine. The machine needs blood sacrifice. Lots and lots of blood sacrifice. A cop tries to exorcise the demon, but he really should have done his home work as he's about to make matters one-hundred times worse.

Cobbett's Literary Rides

Sit back, relax and read...

Stephen King

Short Stories