By Stephen King
- Pub Date: 2024
- Genre: Short Stories
- Where I bought this book: Barnes & Nobel, Florence, Ky.
- Why I bought this book: If you have to ask ...
It's a collection of stories by Stephen King, so tropes will abound. But aliens? Aliens who save us?
Indeed, some of King's worst flaws -- overwriting, repetition, and echoes of and references to previous tales -- abound and get a little tiresome after a while. An editor could fix that. Perhaps listen to her?
Geography nitpick. If you live in Upper Manhattan, you cannot walk nine blocks to Central Park.
Too many of the stories centered around the fears and meanderings of an old white guy. (OK, some were about middle-aged white guys.) Rattlesnakes, the sequel to Cujo, highlighted this trend. It went on and on and on and on -- and on and on -- sort of like the original.
The bizarre "I had a dream" alibi in the midst of a police procedural led by a bizarre police detective was, well, quite bizarre.
Starting a story about a man named Finn (should have been Fionn) with a nod to the Pogues is brilliant.
Laurie -- an oddly overly detailed story about an old man getting a dog -- may be the worst King story ever written. And yes, I believe I have read them all.
The final two stories, Dreamers and The Answer Man, are easily the best of the lot. They bumped the number of stars to the midpoint.
The title made little sense for this collection. I didn't find any of the stories particularly dark. King has written quite a few, but these don't measure up.
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