Book Review: Full Dark, No Stars

 By Stephen King

• Pub Date: 2010 

• Where I bought this book: I really do not remember 

• Why I bought this book: I buy every King book as it comes out.

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    So. I was browsing in my local Barnes & Noble store this past week, and stopped by the horror section to see if they had a copy of A Face in the Crowd, a digital book he wrote a while back with Stewart O'Nan. 

    Instead, I came across a copy of 1922, a thin volume about a farmer who conspired to kill his wife in that year. I looked through it and did not recognize the synopsis. Looking further, I noticed it was originally published in 2010 with three other tales in the Full Dark, No Stars collection. I knew I had that copy at home.

    So I grabbed it and started reading the first story, 1922. Still did not recognize it. But I liked it, though it was a bit creepy. The second story, Big Driver, about a serial rapist, I also did not find familiar.

    Still, I was sure I had read this collection before, even if it was more than 15 years ago.

    But apparently, I had not. The next two stories, Fair Extension and A Good Marriage, also seemed new to me.

    I could have forgotten all of them, although I have often caught glimpses of King's past writing in his new works, But in these, nothing. So maybe I had bought the book and put it aside, then on the shelf, without even reading it. But my Goodreads page shows I read it from Nov. 25, 2010 -- Thanksgiving Day! -- to Nov. 27, 2010, about three weeks after it came out. So maybe I lied, or maybe I've read so much King my hippocampus cannot keep them all sorted out.

    *Shrug* I suppose I'll never knew.

    But I'm glad I have now read it (or read it again). The stories were good, if a bit unsettling, even for King.