Night Shift by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

Night Shift is an awesome collection of twenty short stories. I enjoyed all of them and loved many of them. Some of my favorites were Sometimes They Come Back (I grew up watching the movie), Quitters, Inc., Children of the Corn. If you are in the mood for some chilling tales about vampires, killer rats, the boogeyman and much more, then I highly recommend Night Shift. I've said it before and I'll continue saying it: Stephen King is a master at story telling and his most effective outlet is the short story. This is classic King. Read it. Seriously.

Gerald's Gamy by Stephen King

Rating: 4.5

Gerald's Game is a pretty terrifying book. Not necessarily in the way many of his books are though. It's a different kind of terror, more of a claustrophobia I guess.

It starts with a middle aged married couple, Jessie and Gerald, at their cabin in the woods. They are getting a little kinky, with Jessie handcuffed to the bed, when Gerald has his heart attack and drops dead on the floor. That's when the terror starts.

This book really made me cringe. Just reading the blurb, before I even started reading the book, I think I cringed. It's a horrifying scenario to imagine! The book flashes between Jessie trying to escape the cuffs and Jessie as a little girl, during the solar eclipse, when something happens to her that she has never gotten over. And if being handcuffed to a bed in the middle of nowhere isn't scary enough for you, King wrote in a little nighttime visitor that would give anybody goosebumps.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Rating: 4.5

Pet Sematary is a very grim book and not one of King's more action packed stories either. I really enjoyed it though. That's the thing about King; even when his story is on the slow side, his writing and his characters keep me interested.

When Louis and his family move into an old house right off a trucking highway, terrible things are in their future. Between that highway in front of their house and the old Indian burying ground behind their house, they are caught in the midst of some unearthly mayhem. Whether it's a family pet getting run down in the highway, grave digging, or tales of the dead brought back to 'life', Pet Sematary has it's share of morbid moments. Like I said before, it's a grim tale.

Pet Sematary gets you thinking about death and what you would do with the power to bring back the dead. Louis makes that decision several times in this book with results that are less than perfect. This is a spooky story definitely worth a read....as long as you don't mind a touch of the macabre.

The Mist by Stephen King

Rating: 4.5

Imagine this: you are stranded in a grocery store with a bunch of other people, some sane and some not so sane, while a fog-like mist surrounds the store and is enshrouding a mass of creatures that seem from a different dimension. Sound like a creepy story line? It's better than that. Stephen King, the "Master of the Macabre", creates some truly out-of-this-world creatures that lurk in the mist. But....he makes the atmosphere inside the store almost as dangerous as the outside by adding in some human pandemonium. It's all about adaptability. Some people don't cope well and start to lose it. The most fearsome by far is the witch-like Mrs. Carmody preaching the end times and expiation. She believed in a biblical reason for the mist. Others suggested The Arrowhead project, a government preserve outside of town. Whatever is behind the mist, it's classic King!

Misery by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Thrown from the wreckage of his '74 Camaro, Paul Sheldon, author of a bestselling series of historical romances, wakes up one day in a secluded Colorado farmhouse owned by Annie Wilkes, a psychotic ex-nurse who claims she is his number one fan. Immobilized from the pain of two shattered legs and a crushed knee, Sheldon is at Annie's mercy.

Unfortunately for Sheldon, Annie is mad; mad that he killed off her favorite character, Misery Chastain, in his latest book; mad that he wants to escape; and of course, mad in the most extreme clinical sense of the word.

To set the world straight, Annie buys Sheldon a typewriter and some paper, drugs him, locks him in a room, and forces him to bring Misery back to life in a novel dedicated to her. Fear of physical torture is Sheldon's greatest motivation. One wrong sentence and she is likely to smash his legs with a sledgehammer, cut his thumbs off with a hacksaw, or much, much worse. But writers have weapons too. . . . -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
If you've ever wondered what it might be like to be held captive and tortured by an extremely unbalanced ex-nurse then you should read Misery. Even if you've never wondered what it would be like you should still read Misery. I was kept on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what awful torment Annie would visit upon poor Paul next. Misery is a good movie and an even better book.

Duma Key by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
NO MORE THAN A DARK PENCIL LINE ON A BLANK PAGE. A HORIZON LINE, MAYBE.

BUT ALSO A SLOT FOR BLACKNESS TO POUR THROUGH...

A terrible accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. When his marriage suddenly ends, Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived his injuries. He wants out. His psychologist suggests a new life distant from the Twin Cities, along with something else:

"Edgar, does anything make you happy?"

"I used to sketch."

"Take it up again. You need hedges...hedges against the night."

Edgar leaves for Duma Key, an eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico calls out to him, and Edgar draws. Once he meets Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman with roots tangled deep in Duma Key, Edgar begins to paint, sometimes feverishly; many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.

The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural -- Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Edgar Freemantle loses an arm and almost his life in an accident at his construction site. He's left with a 'phantom' limb and an ability to paint. Edgar's wife leaves him and his two daughters are grown so he decides that the change of scenery his doctor recommends sounds pretty good. He's got nothing left to lose....except maybe his sanity. He moves down to the Florida Keys...namely Duma Key. He rents a big pink house literally right on the Gulf Coast and meets a couple of very interesting characters who live down the beach. This is where Edgar discovers his new found artistic talent. This is where he starts effecting reality with his paints. This is where he learns about the Eastlake family from down the beach and how a little girl named Elizabeth once made birds fly upside down and lawn jockeys come to life with her own paintings. Duma Key is magical and horrifying all at once.

Duma Key seems somehow more mature and mellow than his other novels. Maybe it's the change of scenery but this book just seems different. The horror in the novel is more subtle I think and more emphasis is placed on the mystery surrounding the storyline. The storyline by the way is very intriguing....I will file this book under page-turner for sure! I won't go into details about the characters but I will say that the relationship between Edgar and the neighbor man down the beach, Wireman, is beautiful and affecting. Wireman is going down as one of my favorite characters in a King novel. Longtime fans of King as well as people just looking for an eerie and wonderful story should be impressed with Duma Key.

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Once upon a time, in the haunted city of Derry, four boys did a brave thing -- a good thing -- perhaps even a great thing. Twenty-five years later, the boys are now men. Each hunting season the four reunite in Maine. This year, these men will be plunged into a horrifying struggle with a creature from another world. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
It took major effort on my part to actually put this book down once I picked it up. I just lost myself in this story! Dreamcatcher contains a lot of thrills to say the least. There are UFO's, aliens, a strange virus and an even stranger parasite that flourishes in the human intestines. There's a wonderful boy with Down's Syndrome and four boys (who grow to be men) who are connected to him telepathically. The plot of Dreamcatcher is marvelously strange and it works! The character of Duddits (boy with Down's Syndrome) is one I will never forget. He is so beautifully innocent and sweet and yet he holds the weight of the world on his shoulders. Stephen King, without a doubt, shows off his knack for storytelling in Dreamcatcher. A word of warning: beware those of the sensitive stomaches.

Insomnia by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Ralph Roberts has an incurable case of insomnia, but lack of sleep is the least of his worries. Each night he stays awake, Ralph witnesses more of the odd activity taking place in Derry after dark than he wants to know. The nice young chemist up the street beats his wife and has delusions about beings he calls "The Centurions." A madman with a knife is trying to kill him, he's sure. And on the night May Locher died, one of the two bald men coming out of her house had a pair of scissors in his hand. What does it all mean? Ralph doesn't quite know. But the bizarre visions he's been having keep getting more intense, the strange deaths in Derry have just begun, and Ralph knows he isn't hallucinating.

Returning to the town of Derry, Maine, the setting of one of his most critically acclaimed novels, It, Stephen King combines bone-chilling realism with supernatural terror to create yet another masterpiece of suspense. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Horror and suspense at it's best! It's hero and heroine are in their old age. King gives great insight into the pathos of the golden years. The book is very descriptive of what it might feel like to become old. Insomnia takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of emotions. This book has it all, from laughter to tears. And being a Stephen King novel, it also has thrills and horror aplenty. This is one King book you don't want to miss!

Everything's Eventual by Stephen King

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
From the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time, here are fourteen intense, eerie, and compelling stories, including one O. Henry Prize winner, stories from The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet" which, when published as an eBook, attracted over half a million online readers. -from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Stephen King is great at what he considers the (almost) lost art of the short story. In Everything's Eventual there are 14 examples of this art. Most of these stories are really good. And they are very diverse! The first story, Autopsy Room Four, is sort of a comic take on the fear of premature burial. Then there's the story (The Death of Jack Hamilton) about depression era gangsters which isn't really a horror story at all but a testament to friendship. There's a story in here, In the Deathroom, where the reader can almost feel the pain in this South American interrogation room. And of course there are the down right scary stories in this book like 1408 (haunted hotel room) and The Road Virus Heads North (picture that changes). King fans won't be disappointed!

Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
The first scream came from the snowbound railwayman who felt the fangs ripping at his throat. The next month there was a scream of ecstatic agony from the woman attacked in her snug bedroom.

Now scenes of unbelieving horror come each time the full moon shines on the isolated Maine town of Tarker Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next. But one thing is sure.

When the moon grows fat, a paralyzing fear sweeps through Tarker Mills. For snarls that sound like human words can be heard whining through the wind. And all around are the footprints of a monster whose hunger cannot be sated...
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
How cool! An illustrated short horror novel about werewolves. This is a good story (what Stephen King story isn't good though?) about what happens every night of the full moon in Tarker Mills, Maine. You can even see how it ends in one sitting. The book is so short you don't have to wait in suspense for too long. It's well written and jumps right into the story. This is one book that's short and not-so-sweet!