Lucid Dreams and Saturn Skies The Life and Writing of Andrew Kincaid

Tag Archives: Stephen King

Time to Try Something New! Well, to Me Anyway.

September 25, 2012 5:29 pm / 7 Comments /

Well folks, it’s been a good run, but it’s time to pack it in.  This whole self published author thing isn’t working out for me.  I published well before I was ready to do so, and only now do I have to perspective to sit down and admit it.  Trying to run a business on a shoestring budget (which is code for no budget whatsoever) is not the way to go about it.  My books were nowhere near where they should have been in terms of quality when I published them (although I thank all of you who gave me such kind reviews!) and I was in severe need of an editor but unwilling (and now unable) to pay for the services of one.  I was embarrassed by my own work, which should have been a hint that I wasn’t going about things the right way.  It’s been a painful decision to make, but I think it is the right one.  Clicking unpublish gave me a sense of relief, like a proverbial albatross fell off my neck.

Now that the depressing part is over, let’s get to the good stuff, shall we?  You might be thinking that I’m giving up on the writing game for good.  You would be mistaken, my friend.  This all started when I finished draft one of my fantasy novel Aral-Kahn.  I got to thinking that a work of that length would require extensive editing, and that it wouldn’t be something I could do myself (not that you should ever try to go it alone where editing/copy editing is concerned).  Freelance editors of any quality are well outside my price range at the moment, being unemployed and all, and even if I did find work I’m not sure it would make good economic sense to stake that much money on a maybe.  Plus, I’ve always had this dream of being a big fantasy author published by Tor, alongside the likes of Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, and Robert Jordan (my love of writing the horror genre is a relatively recent development).  My dad decided, what the hell, he was going to give submitting his manuscript to Tor a shot.  That put the idea back in my head, where it has festered for months now.

Are there difficulties in traditional publishing?  Of course.  Self pub and trad pub are both difficult, just in different ways.  Writing is a difficult industry all the way around.  I’ve put a great deal of thought into the matter, and I have decided that I will try to pursue the traditional publishing route.  Will I succeed?  It depends how you measure success.  I personally expect a whole pile of rejection slips, because the gates barring entry into the trad pub realm are so high (which is why self pub is so popular).  But if you have a hard head and keep smashing it against said gates for long enough, you just might break through.  That’s a success in and of itself.  Not that breaking through and getting a book published really means much from a monetary perspective (for those who measure success in dollars earned), since most books by new authors don’t sell out their advances.

That’s simply the reality–self pub isn’t any better, as most books sell only a handful of copies and then get lost in the sea of poorly edited, crudely constructed crap flooding Amazon.  Trust my personal experience on that.  Neither option is a magical panacea that will pour heaps of gold coins and scantily clad women (or men, if that’s your preference) into your lap.  Whoever tells you that is lying through his/her teeth and you should punch them in the throat (Note–this author does not condone violence…maybe send them a strongly worded letter or something instead).

The fact is you don’t usually make it big by publishing one book or series, the Stephanie Meyers of the world notwithstanding.  Most don’t make it big at all, but if you want to make a living off your writing, which is nearly as remote as making it big, you have to keep cranking out books.  Your first book probably won’t make bank, but your tenth might net some return.  Or not.  But then we writers don’t write for the money, do we?  I don’t know about you, but I’d be scribbling silly stories whether I got paid or not.  Unless you can say that with complete and total honesty, you have no business trying to publish by any means, traditional or otherwise.  For a writer, craft is king.  Business is something that maybe, hopefully gets your word out to others.  Money is just a nice side effect (for people like Stephen King and Stephanie Meyers, a REALLY nice side effect).

So, I’ll make a go of it.  How it turns out, I have no clue. It’ll be an adventure, won’t it?

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Life in a Small Town Isn’t Always What It Seems. Or Is It? (It Isn’t).

July 6, 2012 4:55 pm / 3 Comments /

There are two conflicting pop culture cliches concerning life in a small town.  One is the idyllic, Norman Rockwell portrayal, where a small town is portrayed as something like a little slice of heaven on Earth.  This is the stereotypical, baseball and apple pie American ideal that most small towns aspire to with varying degrees of success.  And then on the opposite pole there is the portrayal of small towns favored by Stephen King and other horror authors since time immemorial–the Norman Rockwell-gone-wrong where on the surface everything seems fine but like a white washed tomb the pleasant exterior conceals corruption.

Having lived in a small town my entire life, I’m in a position where I can judge the truth of both these extremes.  Both are true, to a certain extent.  There are wonderful people in small towns, people who will do anything for you and who still live by the Golden Rule.  The down-home feel and old fashioned spirit are both still alive and well in America’s small towns (at least the ones I’ve been in).  Where I live, it’s safe to go out at night and a lot of people still leave their doors unlocked (I don’t, but that’s because I have anxiety problems and a lot of portable electronics).

However, that is not the whole story.  Horror is a popular genre not because it talks about terrible things that can never happen, but because it helps us to deal with the terrible things that do happen in a safe way.  The horrors of the world are not far away in a small town, no matter how friendly or safe it might be.

Certainly, there may not be as much crime and violence in rural areas as in a bigger city, but while the frequency of such events might be lower they are often more horrific simply because they happen in smaller, close knit areas, where everyone knows everyone.  I can think of several terrible things that have occurred around my area, senseless and bizarre crimes that still echo in the local memory years, even decades, later.

By way of example, in my own town two local boys in the 90′s went on a killing spree.  The story goes that they killed an old lady in the next town over by crushing her head with a brick.  They killed two more people before finally being caught in Oklahoma.  They’ve since been executed.  When asked why they did what they did, one of them responded that they were bored.  Even creepier, one of them worked at a local grocery store and he carried out for my mom a week before he and his friend went on their spree.  The woman’s body was never found.

I covered another example in a previous post.  Cletus T. Reese killed three men on his farm the next county over, spurred by voices in his head.  He did the deed by braining them with a heavy branch.  His story went on to become the subject of local folklore, which portrayed him as a cunning serial killer rather than a sad, mentally ill man haunted by inner demons who destroyed three lives as a result of his delusions.

So, by way of my own experiences, the Stephen King-esque cliche of the white washed tomb town is very much true.  But then so is the 1950′s Norman Rockwell stereotype.  It’s rather like when you see the ugly side of a person, say when the lose their temper and say something that shouldn’t be said.  Often the response will be, “So now we see who you really are!” (or the like).  Well, no.  And yes.  Really, it can be both at once and neither at the same time.  Kind of like how grey is neither black nor white but a mix of both.

That, in a nut shell, is life in a small town.

 

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The Car (1977)

May 28, 2012 2:59 pm / 2 Comments /
The Car was a 1977 horror/thriller starring James Brolin about a killer, driverless car terrorizing a small town in the Southwest

“Is it a phantom, demon, or the devil himself?”

Historically, I only review movies that I enjoy, for the obvious reason that if the movie is truly bad (and not good bad or fun bad), I don’t finish it.  The last truly awful movie I reviewed was Philosophy of a Knife, mostly because it was downright offensive and I couldn’t contain my aggravation.

The Car is not a truly awful movie, and it is not offensive in any way shape or form.  It is the story of a demonic (maybe) car that haunts a small town in the American Southwest, killing anyone who comes close to it by running them over or, in a couple of instances, running them off a bridge.  It is up to the local sheriff, played by James Brolin, to try and stop the titular car’s rampage.

Now, this is a goofy premise for certain, and it’s one that probably sounds familiar.  Stephen King’s Christine is basically the same story, although Christine is possessed by a demon while the reason for the vehicular manslaughter in The Car is never revealed.  As far as I know it isn’t, anyway.  I didn’t stick around to see; the movie was only about halfway finished and it felt like I’d been sitting there for hours on end, a sure sign that I was watching a lousy movie.

That gets to the heart of the matter.  When I sat down to watch The Car, I expected goofy fun akin to Christine.  What I found instead was boredom.  The movie was just plain boring!  It dragged and dragged, to the point where I thought the ending was coming at about the midpoint of the movie.  When I checked the time, I thought there was no way they could pad out the next forty odd minutes and make them interesting in the least.  It was about that time that I clicked “Back to Browsing” and watched another episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent instead.

But then B-movies are a mixed bag.  Some are so bad they’re good, some are at least goofy enough to be entertaining, and others stink like roadkill in the hot summer sun.  I wouldn’t say The Car stunk to high heaven, but it wasn’t good by any means.  I’d give this one a skip if I were you.


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Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

May 21, 2012 3:46 pm / 1 Comment /

Full Dark, No Stars is an anthology consisting of four stories by Stephen KingI’ve said it before and I will say it again: some of Stephen King’s best works are his shortest.  It was with that in mind that I picked up Full Dark, No Stars sometime last year, but it sat on my bookshelf since.  Now that I basically have nothing but time on my hands–being both a graduate and unemployed–I finally got a chance to read it.  Let me tell you, it was certainly worth the wait.

Full Dark, No Stars is an anthology consisting of four novellas, each one dealing with the theme of retribution.  1922 is the first of the bunch.  It is set in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, and it follows a father and a son who commit a terrible crime motivated by greed and pride.  Their crime does not go unavenged–it is a Stephen King story after all–and things go from dark to pitch black really quick.  I’m thinking 1922 is my favorite story of the bunch, although they’re all good.

Next up in King’s collection of horrors is Big Driver, where a mystery writer gets a great deal more than she bargained for after a speaking engagement when she runs into the titular Big Driver on a lonely stretch of road.  If 1922 was brutal, Big Driver takes things to another level; I found some parts difficult to read, fair warning.

The next story, Fair Extension, was the weakest of the bunch in my mind.  A man with cancer comes across a mysterious stand near an airport, where a strange man sells “extensions”.  It’s less gory than the preceding novellas, but in its own way it is still rather gruesome.  I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say that jealousy can get the better of anyone, even the best of men.

The final story in the collection was A Good Marriage.  A house wife learns the hard way that sometimes, monsters can lurk behind even the kindest of faces.  That, and that you can never truly know the inner workings of another person, no matter how close you become to them.  I should add that this story is very much inspired by true events; King himself says as much during the epilogue.

King was very much in the Bachman state of mind when he wrote Full Dark, No Stars; that is to say, normally King’s works end on something of an up note, but not here.  The title is apt as these are four of the darkest pieces King has published under his own name.  They’re true as well, as true as fiction can get at any rate.  If you want to see the master of horror at his best, give Full Dark, No Stars a look.  You won’t regret it.


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Pet Sematary (1989)

April 9, 2012 8:53 pm / 9 Comments /
Pet Sematary was a 1989 horror movie based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Directed by Mary Lambert.

“Sometimes, dead is better.”

I’ve seen a lot of horror movies based on Stephen King novels and short stories.  From these experiences, I’ve come to the conclusion that adapting the master of modern horror’s work to the silver screen can be tricky business.  Many movies based on King’s works are, to put it mildly, pretty awful.  Just look at Thinner and you’ll see what I mean.  Still fun in their own way, but objectively bad movies (especially Maximum Overdrive…but boy is that movie a blast!)

Every now and then though you get someone who knows how to handle a Stephen King story.  If you translate his stories directly to the screen, it just doesn’t work. His characters are too big, and they just become corny.  Rob Reiner is one of the few who can do King well, as he showed with Stand By Me and Misery.  Another who did a good job with King’s material was Mary Lambert, who directed Pet Sematary.

Pet Sematary follows the story of the Creed family, who move to a new house in Maine only to find a mysterious pet cemetery lay at the top of a trail that opened behind their house.  Beyond the cemetery, in an old Indian burial site, something evil lurks in the Earth. Waiting.

The movie followed the book quite well, although of course with a few changes that took little from the story itself.  The movie is downright creepy.  It is as if the best bits of the book were picked out and strung together on screen.  The sometimes goofy mannerisms King’s characters exhibit are present, but they give the movie a kind of charm.  Especially Jud Crandell, who some may know better as the guy who played Hermann Munster, and his heavy Maine accent and tendency to chain smoke.  That being said, the movie doesn’t devolve into the silliness that sometimes a Stephen King movie can drop into.

Pet Sematary will probably look dated to modern viewers, although to my surprise it’s younger than I am.  I suggest those who enjoy Stephen King give it a look, even if they don’t like old horror movies (and if you don’t, shame on you! You’re missing out!).  It certainly isn’t the best movie based on King’s works, but it can certainly stand on its own as a solid horror movie.


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999

January 9, 2012 3:37 pm / 1 Comment /
999 is a collection of short stories edited by Al Sarrantino. Stephen King, William Peter Blatty, and Neil Gaimen among others contributed stories for the anthology.

A collection of 29 stories by some of the best in the business.

As most of you probably know by now, I’m a fan of horror.  I have found in my explorations of the genre that something about horror lends itself to the short story format.  It’s a bit like the story of Goldilocks – not too hot, not too cold, but juuust right.  Or in this case, not too short, not too long, but juuust the right length to keep up the intensity and suspense.  Sometimes a horror novel can be too long – one complaint often lodged against Stephen King is that his stories end long before the book does.  Sometimes a good story can end way too soon, leaving the reader unsatisfied.  But every now and then you find a story that hits it just right, be it a novel, novella, or novelette.

999, edited by Al Sarrantinio, has a mix of stories that more often than not hits it just right.  Several authors including heavy hitters like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and William Peter Blatty (the author of The Exorcist) are represented in the anthology.   The stories within vary widely in content – from ghost stories to zombies to monsters to tales of love gone wrong.

Like any short story anthology, the book was a bit hit or miss here and there.  More often than not I enjoyed the stories, but now and then one fell flat.  Especially one called Des Saucisses, Sans Doute – it was supposed to be “funny” but I thought it was just disgusting.  And the Neil Gaiman story called Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story was…interesting…but certainly not my favorite in the book.   And I was surprised to find that William Peter Blatty’s Elsewhere has so far disappointed – I haven’t yet finished it.  Something about his writing style – possibly the gratuitous use of adverbs or the fact that few if any of the character’s are likable – has put me off of his haunted house story.  Still, there is enough intrigue there that I keep plugging away at it, bit by bit.  I’m getting the feeling that something awful is going to happen that will justify my continued faith in the story – that or it will all collapse into a miserable mess and turn out to be the worst of the bunch. Either or.

Now that I’ve all but turned you off of the book for the badness within, let me point out some high points.  Stephen King’s story was good – as his novellas usually are.  It was called The Road Virus Heads North and it involved a very peculiar painting.  The Catfish Gal Blues by Nancy A. Collins was a fun story of magic, greed, and jealousy set along the Mississippi River.  The Grave by P.D Cacek was a delightfully creepy look into the mind of a dowdy Kindergarten librarian who lives with her mother – I highly recommend this story if you like things that screw with your head.  Another favorite of mine was Mad Dog Summer, where an old man recollects a summer of horror from his childhood.  I seriously couldn’t put it down–Joe R. Landsdale did a wonderful job with this novella and I’d highly recommend horror fans take a look at this one.

999 is an older collection – published back in 1999 – but the stories still hold the same power they had thirteen years ago.  Horror fans would do well to have this book in there collection.  There are some low points, but the high points more than make up for the lack.  I only listed my favorites here – there are other wonderful pieces in this anthology that I don’t have the time nor space to talk about.  Give it a look–you won’t regret it.  Well, until the nightmares begin anyway…


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Different Seasons by Stephen King

January 2, 2012 6:56 pm / 3 Comments /
Different Seasons by Stephen King is a collection of four novellas by one of America's most prominent authors. The stories aren't technically horror stories, but they contain horror elements. Out of the four stories, three have been made into movies.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. Seriously.

Every now and then you pick up a book that is a game changer.  It changes how you view your genre of choice, fiction, and if you happen to be a writer it changes how you view your craft.

I’ve read a few such books in my lifetime, and Different Seasons is another entry onto that list.  It was a book of four novellas written by Stephen King way back in 1982, and it inspired two of the most famous and well regarded movies in the last thirty odd years.  I would imagine that you’ve watched them, or if you haven’t then you’ve at least heard of them – Stand By Me (based off of “The Body“) and The Shawshank Redemption (based off of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption).

Each of those movies are worthy of their own reviews on this blog, but suffice it to say you will be doing yourself a great disservice by missing out on them.  The novellas that inspired the movies are at least as good as the films they spawned, if not better.  The Body follows a group of four boys from a small town in Maine who go on a trek to see a dead body, while Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption follows a banker who is sent to prison for his wife’s murder.

The remaining two stories are The Apt Pupil and The Breathing Method.  The Apt Pupil follows a precocious teenager and a former Nazi concentration camp supervisor who fall into a mutually parasitic relationship that goes to appalling heights.  This story really screws with your head – it explores the depths of evil a human being can fall into, whether they’re compelled to by their state or by mere curiosity.  There was also a movie inspired by this story – also called The Apt Pupil – which I can’t comment on because I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.  I hadn’t heard about it until a friend mentioned it to me, so it seems it wasn’t as well received as the other two movies Different Seasons spawned (I was amazed that one book could spawn three movies. That has to be some kind of a record).

Oh and The Breathing Method was a story within a story about a group of men who would get together in a mysterious apartment building and tell stories of the bizarre.  The Breathing Method concerned itself with a very…let’s call it unorthodox…childbirth.  I have to say it was one of the strangest stories I’ve ever read, although it was my least favorite of the four in the book.

Different Seasons was and is a masterpiece by one of the masters of modern American fiction.  It was one of those rare moments when everything good about a great book came together all at once to make something truly special.  This book is a work of art, and well worth a read for anyone, even those who aren’t fans of horror or Stephen King (actually it isn’t technically a book of horror stories…it sort of transcends classification).  Give it a read – you won’t be sorry!


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Creepshow 2

December 19, 2011 12:41 pm / 3 Comments /
Creepshow 2 is a horror anthology from 1987 directed by George Romero. It featured three short films based upon works by Stephen King

Creepy skeletal guy? Looks legit!

Creepshow was a a fun movie–all kinds of EC comic goodness translated into movie form (note to self–try to find some of the old EC comics.  They look like they’d be a fun read).  Especially good was Stephen King’s performance in “The Lonely Death of Jordy Verrill”, where he literally brought to life one of his own characters.

So, when I heard about Creepshow 2 and I heard it was a very “special” movie, I had to watch it.  And I really had to watch it when I saw that it was on the instant queue on Netflix.  I have to say that it didn’t disappoint–it was the cheesy, goofy fun I’d expected from a sequel to Creepshow.

The movie consisted of three stories set within a frame story about a little boy who gets his issue of Creepshow and then gets attacked by bullies.  Each of the three stories are supposed to be comics within the book the kid got (mind you, the comics were flung at him from the back of a cube truck by a demonic looking old guy–a legitimate source of horror comic goodness if there ever was one).

I should stop here and point out that each of the three stories were written by Stephen King, and boy does it show.  I’ve noticed that oftentimes, especially if King is involved directly in the project, the characters in his stories are played exactly as they are written.  And it doesn’t usually translate very well–they turn out to be really, really cheesy.  Something about his characters, who really come to life on the page, become just goofy when they’re put on film.  For some examples of what I mean, compare movies where King was involved to movies based on his stories that actually did well critically and at the box office.  For example, compare Thinner, The Stand, IT, and Creepshow 2 to The Shining, Misery, 1408, and Stand By Me.  The difference is night and day, let me tell you (although the first three are fun, don’t get me wrong).

Anyway, back to Creepshow 2.  The first story in the movie is called “Old Chief Woodenhead”, about a wooden Native American statue who wreaks vengeance against a trio of hoodlums who rob a quaint general store in a dying Western town.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the statue when it came to life–it was just so goofy looking.

Story number two is called “the Raft” and it involves a group of four college kids (one who insisted on wearing a horrible yellow mankini, which truth be told was the most horrifying image in the entire movie) who go to a lake to swim and engage in general college kid shenanigans (i.e. smoke dope and have sex) but wind up being attacked by something that looks like a giant floating trash bag that dissolves its prey using slimy looking digestive fluids.  One of the funniest moments, I thought, was when the yellow mankini guy claimed he didn’t believe in oil slicks because he hadn’t seen one.  It’s so ludicrous and silly, but that little gem of dialogue fits perfectly with the feel of the entire movie.

This is what you call a “mood-killer”.

There was another moment that was kind of…disconcerting.  It had nothing to do with the slimy trash bag critter; instead, it involved the nerdy pre-med student and the Eighties pretty brunette girl.  She falls asleep and the pre-med kid starts feeling her up and sucking her nipples.  The scene was way too rapey for me and I found it pretty disturbing–although the next moment when the monster dissolved her face got things moving away from it pretty quickly.

And, last but not least, we come to “The Hitchhiker”, where an extremely Eighties business lady is on her way home from a tryst with a man-whore and she runs down a hitchhiker on the side of the road.  The hitchhiker comes back for revenge, constantly groaning “Thanks for the ride lady!” as he doggedly endures the horrific amount of punishment Eighties business lady inflicts on him.  This one is just silly, even sillier than the last two.  The hitchhiker is the least threatening Revenant I’ve ever seen, and his repeated groans of “Thanks for the ride lady!” are more funny than frightening.  Then, that’s probably the point isn’t it?

I’d recommend Creepshow 2 for anyone who likes B horror movies, is a fan of Stephen King or George Romero, and for anyone who is a fan of Eighties cheese.  This is a very “special” movie and a must watch for any horror fan.


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“Nightmares & Dreamscapes” by Stephen King

December 5, 2011 8:08 pm / Leave a Comment /

This isn’t the first time I’ve read Nightmares & Dreamscapes, but it is the first time I’ve read it in its entirety. When I first cracked it open a few years ago, I wasn’t a big fan of the short story format.  It took starting my own short stories and discovering HP Lovecraft and his wonderfully weird world to really pique my interest in this type of literature, and since then I’ve really taken a liking to it.

This renewed interest lead me to take another crack at Nightmares & Dreamscapes.  King is pretty famous for his work in the “long-story” format.  “Long-story” meaning a novella, a story that’s too short in word count to be a novel but too long to be a short story.  His novels can run a little overly long, but his shorter stuff is often right on the mark. Not always, but often.

That was the way with this collection as well.  I found the earlier stories in the work to be the best.  I enjoyed “Dolan’s Cadillac”, a revenge story featuring a teacher, a gangster, and a really big hole in the ground.  “Suffer the Little Children” was the third story in the collection, a nice Twilight Zone – esque story with Stephen King’s uniquely gory touch. It involves a teacher who starts to lose control of her class bit by bit, when the children begin to act very oddly.  The climax of the story will stick with you for a very long time, let me tell you.  “The Night Flier” is darkly humorous in its own way, featuring a vampire with a single engine plane.  Stephen King answers some questions about vampiric bodily functions in his own unique way…I won’t reveal how but it’s pretty entertaining.

I felt the quality of the stories started to go downhill after “Chattery Teeth”, a story where some novelty store teeth quite literally take on a life of their own.  “Dedication” was…weird. And kind of slow.  The next few were kind of hit or miss, although I did enjoy “Home Delivery” because it was an interesting take on the zombie sub-genre, and worth a look to any zombie lovers out there.  The next story was a “weird small town” archetypal story that kind of felt like another episode of the Twilight Zone.  It was followed by “My Pretty Pony” which wasn’t so much a story as a scene.  It didn’t really go anywhere, and I was pretty disappointed by it.

Later in the book there were a couple of others like “My Pretty Pony”, ones that didn’t quite fit King’s typical works.  At least they were actual stories.  One was a kind of gangster thriller that was mildly entertaining.  A couple were detective stories, one a Sherlock Holmes case where Watson takes the lead and another involving a hard-boiled private eye who quite literally meets his maker.  They were okay – well written but not really my cup of tea.

The last two entries in the collection were non-fiction works about baseball or some such.  I honestly didn’t read either because baseball bores me to tears.  Once I had to do a book report on a prominent historical figure in Ohio.  I picked Cy Young, because I didn’t know anything about him and I live in his alleged hometown (just so you know, he wasn’t born here).  The biography I picked to read was only 110 pages long, and it literally took me three weeks to read it because it was so BORING.

Oh and I got so wrapped up in the horrible memories of that book that I almost forgot something about the one I’m reviewing–there was a screen play in there that I didn’t read…the format was just way too unfamiliar and I couldn’t get into it.

So, what was my overall impression you ask, Constant Reader (to steal a phrase from King)? Overall I enjoyed it.  But as is typical of King, it was hit or miss.  There were some really good stories in there, and some stories that were well written but still just fell flat.  At times it felt a bit self indulgent,especially the baseball junk and the screenplay.  I would say that if you like King’s works, you’ll like this book.  If you haven’t read much King, but you like horror and especially short stories, give it a look.  You might be surprised.  And you’ll learn an interesting bit about vampire physiology to boot!


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Just After Sunset by Stephen King

September 12, 2011 7:40 am / 5 Comments /
Just After Sunset by Stephen King is a collection of novellas and short stories by the horror master. It is not his best work, but there are some solid stories therein.

A collection of novellas by the genre’s best.

As some of you may or may not know, I write horror.  For the moment I write novellas and short stories exclusively (although one of these days I intend to write a novel) and I draw a lot of inspiration from the great novellas of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.

I’ve been on the hunt lately for collections of King’s short stories, and thus I came across a fairly recent one called Just After Sunset.  If I could sum up my feelings toward the book in a few words, it would be “Eh, it wasn’t bad.”

In many more words, I felt the quality of the stories was pretty hit or miss.  Some of them weren’t so much stories as they were narratives or in one case what amounted to a single scene that might have been the beginning of a longer story.

The first story in the book was “Willa” which was well written (of course, it IS King we’re talking about here) but I felt it didn’t really go anywhere.  It was nifty in its own way, but at the same time seemed to drag.  I liked the next story, called “The Gingerbread Girl”.  There was a nice use of symbolism relating to the action of the story and its title, and the story itself grabbed me from start to finish.  It involves a lonely stretch of beach, a McMansion, and a psychopath.  It’s definitely a story that’s worth a look, and I would say it’s King at his best.

The next few stories are largely forgettable: “Stationary Bike” is kind of interesting, but at the same time like “Willa” there were stretches it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere.  “The Things They Left Behind” is also mildly interesting, maybe even more so now as it involves the 9/11 attacks, but like the others in this particular cluster of stories it isn’t the greatest.

By about the middle of the book, after “Graduation Afternoon which was little more than a scene, my interest was starting to flag.  I started “N.” nevertheless, deciding that I’d hang on and give one more story a chance.  “N.” and the next story, “The Cat From Hell” turned out to be the two best stories in the book.

“N.” is a kind of shout out to H.P. Lovecraft (who had a very strong influence on King’s work) and involves a strange circle of stones and a severe case of OCD…that’s contagious.  Kind of.  It’s an interesting story that fans of Lovecraft will eat up like candy.  “The Cat From Hell” is pure old school King, and it’s about a hit man who is asked to perform quite the unusual hit.  Some of the stuff in this story literally made me cringe, especially the ending. It isn’t for the faint of heart, and it might make you give your fuzzy feline friends a wary look!

The next three stories are merely okay.  The last story in the book is called “A Very Tight Place” and is one of the best stories in the book.  It’s pure gross out claustrophobia, and a very entertaining read.  If you ever wondered (with a cringe and the taste of bile in your throat) what it would be liked to be trapped in a turned over port-o-john, King will tell you in graphic detail.

Finally, King closes the book with notes about the creation of each story.  It’s interesting to see the thoughts of the master as he conceived of and wrote each story.  It isn’t something he normally does, so it’s definitely worth a look.

Overall, Just After Sunset isn’t one of King’s best books.  Most of the stories are fairly forgettable.  But, King being King, when he’s good he’s good.  The few stories in here that I really liked I count as some of his best.  I think that fans of short horror and especially fans of King ought to give this collection a look.  It might be a little hit or miss, but even the misses are solidly written and at least worth a look for the quality of the descriptions and characterizations.


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