The first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nightmares & Dreamscapes nine years ago, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet," King's original e-book, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade.
"Riding the Bullet," published here on paper for the first time, is the story of Alan Parker, who's hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In "Lunch at the Gotham Café," a sparring couple's contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maître d' gets out of sorts. "1408," the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards" or "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses," and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn't kill him, he won't be writing about ghosts anymore. And in "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French," terror is déjà vu at 16,000 feet.
Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the fourteen dark tales assembled in Everything's Eventual. Intense, eerie, and instantly com-pelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time.
In his introduction to Everything's Eventual, horror author extraordinaire Stephen King describes how he used a deck of playing cards to select the order in which these 14 tales of the macabre would appear. Judging by the impact of these stories, from the first words of the darkly fascinating "Autopsy Room Four" to the haunting final pages of "Luckey Quarter," one can almost believe King truly is guided by forces from beyond.
His first collection of short stories since the release of Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993, Everything's Eventual represents King at his most undiluted. The short story format showcases King's ability to spook readers using the most mundane settings (a yard sale) and comfortable memories (a boyhood fishing excursion). The dark tales collected here are some of King's finest, including an O. Henry Prize winner and "Riding the Bullet," published originally as an e-book and at one time expected by some to be the death knell of the physical publishing world. True to form, each of these stories draws the reader into King's slightly off-center world from the first page, developing characters and atmosphere more fully in the span of 50 pages than many authors can in a full novel.
For most rabid King fans, chief among the tales in this volume will be "The Little Sisters of Eluria," a novella that first appeared in the fantasy collection Legends, set in King's ever-expanding Dark Tower universe. In this story, set prior to the first Dark Tower volume, the reader finds Gunslinger Roland of Gilead wounded and under the care of nurses with very dubious intentions. Also included in this collection are "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French," the story of a woman's personal hell; "1408," in which a writer of haunted tour guides finally encounters the real thing; "Everything's Eventual," the title story, about a boy with a dream job that turns out to be more of a nightmare; and "L.T.'s Theory of Pets," a story of divorce with a bloody surprise ending.
King also includes an introductory essay on the lost art of short fiction and brief explanatory notes that give the reader background on his intentions and inspirations for each story. As with any occasion when King directly addresses his dear Constant Readers, his tone is that of a camp counselor who's almost apologetic for the scare his fireside tales are about to throw into his charges, yet unwilling to soften the blow. And any campers gathered around this author's fire would be wise to heed his warnings, for when King goes bump in the night, it's never just a branch on the window. --Benjamin Reese
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Some standout, some skippable:
[close] I read this book when it first came out, long before 1408 was turned into a feature-length film starring (somewhat unpredictably) John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. The story is excellent, creepy in a disorienting fashion. It lacks the preachy overtones added by the film, and the weird subplot about the author's daugther. I have learned to become increasingly concerned when people are allowed to adapt King's short stories, more often than not what they are forced to add to make time just confuses... more info
Not Free SF Reader:
This most recent Stephen King collection is excellent, which puts it ahead of Skeleton Crew and behind Nightmares and Dreamscapes for quality. It it less erratic than the former, and not as eclectic as the latter. In the intro King states he likes to write short stories to show he isn't a sellout, and to keep his hand in so he remembers how to do it. He worries that they are going away, but thinks poetry is ahead of them, survival-wise? No idea if there are any best selling poetry collections, but I'd... more info
The Perfect Stephen King "Sampler":
Upon purchasing this novel, I was eagerly anticipating another collection of Stephen King short stories to equal his "Night Shift", "Skeleton Crew", "Four Past Midnight", and "Nightmares And Dreamscapes". Instead, I was surprised to find these tales ranging from the unexpectedly humorous to the truly frightening. Included are stories which touch upon such topics as covert government operations, and the grimly realistic horrors of an American trapped in a foreign prison; the terror of premature burial is... more info
King's Most Rewarding Collection:
The introductory essay on short story-writing is worth the price of this collection alone; fans of King's "On Writing" book will want to pick this up for that reason. General fiction fans may find the O. Henry-winning story "The Man in the Black Suit" to their tastes, while more diehard fans will delight over the "Dark Tower" novella included. Add to that the short story "1408" (the basis for the John Cusack movie) and other rare King bits such as the eBook-only "Riding the Bullet" and you have King's most... more info
