Thursday, January 31, 2008

Everything's Eventual



14 Dark Tales, by Stephen King.


Quickie recap: A book of short, "spine-chilling" stories, including "Riding the Bullet", which is apparently notable because it was first released as an e-book, and "1408", notable because they somehow stretched a few pages into an entire (and I'm guessing lame) movie.


Quickie review: This book was completely forgettable. I just finished, and yet I find that I have to thumb through just to recall some of the stories that I read just days ago. The only story that I could recount in any way is the one that left me most puzzled, since it was not "spine-chilling" , or even remotely scary. It was just a dude in a motel room contemplating suicide. And barely even that. And then nothing happened. Nothing. Did King forget to finish it? Or did it fall into the galleys by accident before printing? Nobody knows. The rest are pretty functional cliches for their genre. If this book had one redeeming factor, I would say that the little blurbs that precede the story does give some insight into King's inspiration, or frame of mind when writing each piece, and while I may not be a devoted fan, I'm always glad that someone is getting the printed word down on the page, and as the cover reminds me, Stephen King is a BESTSELLER, and who am I? Just a girl who'd rather be reading Proust.


Quickie recommendation: Nah.

1 comment:

Lorna said...

that's been my reaction for almost everything King has written except what he wrote as Bachman.