First let me say that I loved the movie '1408' but having read the short story I have to say it is the best read ever, at least in my opinion. I'm not wild about reading to begin with, but this was a very good read. I've only voluntarily read two other books before this one and that was only because I had first seen the movie and liked it so much. I saw 1408 a few years ago and have really loved it so much that I finally decided to read the book.

Just to be clear, this book is actually a collection of short stories from Stephen King. I still haven't read the other stories yet. 1408 was such a great story and was very creepy. Had they made the movie into a short film it would have been better, but I still like the movie very much. There's a lot in the movie that was never in the book which is understandable since the movie is nearly 2 hours long. I thought the book version was much scarier and far more interesting. I highly recommend this to anyone whether you like to read or not, or even if you don't particularly like horror stories I still think you will find this quite interesting.

I've been a Stephen King fan for many years. His ability to make the most mundance events or setting terrifying, and his keen grasp of human nature and human foibles place him near the top in pure literary genius. That he happens to write horror is only incidental, and in a way unfortunate, for the mass market appeal of his novels and stories has prevented King receiving due credit as one of the great American writers of modern times. Perhaps King's legacy will begin to change with "Everything's Eventual". This is an eclectic and versatile collection of short stories, in which his talents are generously displayed. It has been a while since I've read Stephen King, and I couldn't help but notice a subtle change in style - a melancholly wisdom and maturity I've overlooked in any of King's earlier works. "All that you Love Will be Carried Away" is a beautifully sad, yet darkly humorous story that captures this theme of resigned fatalism. "The Man in the Black Suit", while as terrifying a story as King has ever writen, has a depth and moral undertone that transcends King's familiar "Good vs. Evil" story line. For shear gut-turning terror, it doesn't get much better than "Autopsy Room Four": leave it to King to have the reader not wanting to turn the page, yet unable to overcome the morbid curiosity, while at the same time finding humor in an autopsy about to be performed on a very-much-alive patient. "The Death of Jack Hamilton" tells a tale of the John Derringer gang, and "In the Deathroom" finds an American reporter caught in a brutal in a south American interrogation chamber. "The Road Virus Heads North" is told from the roughly autobiographical viewpoint that King does so well, and who but King could make even a yard sale ominous? There isn't a bad story in the lot, though I found "The Little Sisters of Eluria" playing on themes a bit too familiar. But I suspect diehard "Dark Tower" fans may find it one of the best in the collection. Other tales of divorce and marriages gone bad, a sinister conspiracy, and a haunted hotel room reflect classic King morbidness, yet also build on this deeper, philosophical undercurrent. Each story is either introduced or closed with a brief vignette by King. While typically I find editorial inserts annoying, In "Eventual" I found them interesting and instrumental to the overall success and flow of the book. In summary, a must read for Stephen King fans, and a great way for the unintiated to get introduced to him.

This Short Story collection is King's best work in recent years. Unlike Nightmares and Dreamscapes it only has 14 stories, but most are high quality stories that are fascinating for how easy the stories flow. I have this novel twice in softcover and once in hardcover. Here is a story-by-story breakdown.

1 - Autopsy Room Four - A man is paralyzed after getting bitten by a rare snake on a golf course. Everyone thinks he is dead, which is the reason he is in an autopsy room. This story has the uncomfortable feeling that you would also get from being buried alive. King is a master at getting his readers to feel what his main characters feel. This is a top-notch story and a great way to start out the book. Story Grade - A+

2 - The Man In The Black Suit - Imagine meeting the devil in a very real-world setting. This is basically what this story is in a nutshell. It comes off much better than it sounds. King won an award for best short fiction for this story and it is well deserved. Story Grade - A+

3 - All That You Love Will Be Carried Away - An unsettling story about a traveling salesman on the verge of committing suicide. This is a story that makes you wonder if we all have a preset destiny or if we can change the way our lives go. An interesting story, not the best but certainly not among the worst either. Story Grade - B

4 - The Death Of Jack Hamilton - This story is based on the true story of the death of a member of John Dillinger's first gang. Normally I don't go for western, or outlaw stories, but King drew me in with this one. It was a great story and I was glad to read it. King does a great job of telling the story from the first-person point of view. Story Grade - A

5 - In The Deathroom - An unusual King story that has a happy ending. Still throughout much of the story it doesn't seem like it will go that way. A former reporter for the New York Times is captured by a South American government. The reporter is held in what is known as "The Deathroom" where he is repeatedly interrogated about a Communist insurgancy that he has been supporting. Despite his captor's claim that he will be set free if he reveals all, the ex-reporter knows that is not in the plans. He stays calm despite the tortures he faces and strives to fight back and survive his terrible ordeal. Again King makes you feel like the lead character feels. He makes the situation relatable and horrifying. Story Grade - A+

6 - The Little Sisters Of Eluria - This is a Dark Towers-related story. I do not follow that series so I never read this story. Dark Towers is too fantasy based for my taste so most of the stories related to that series I tend to not read. I'll skip the story grade because I did not read this story so it would be wrong to grade it.

7 - Everything's Eventual - This story is one of King's best ever in my opinion. It's about a boy who has been bullied, until he realizes his powers and fights back against the bullies. Unlike Carrie or Firestarter, this is a boy with superpowers. The lead character is a bit of a nerd, but he is easy to feel sorry for. Recruited by the government he sets about using his powers to writer letters or emails to people causing them to committ suicide. For this work he is given a free house, a car, almost anything he wants by way of the cleaners that come around once a week. He does not contact them in person but leaves messages on the fridge for what he wants, from food to an copied painting by Rembrant, to an autographed picture of Nichole Kidman. He also gets cd's & movies before they are released to the general public. Dinky (the main character) also gets paid, a whopping sum of $70 a week and uses the money for trips to McDonalds, the movies, gas money etc. It's not about the cash though, it's about the benefits. One thing is that Dinky must begin the week broke and end the week broke. You might wonder why he has to shred the money or toss the change down a sewer drain. But there are good reasons for everything. The story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I would like to read a sequel to this one day. Story Grade - A+

8 - LT's Theory Of Pets - A fascinating story about the breakup of a marriage and how similar the relationships between dogs and cats are to a married couple. The main character (LT) is pretty lighthearted throughout much of the story, but throws a surprise towards the end. This story takes you on an emotional roller-coaster and is the kind of story to be told around a campfire. Like Everything's Eventual, this story is one of King's best works ever. Stroy Grade - A+

9 - The Road Virus Heads North - This story is basically another inspired by a painting King has. Those paintings that seem to move before your very eyes. Unlike those drawings/paintings, this one haunts the author who bought it at a yardsale. After awhile he tries to get rid of the painting only to have it come back and haunt him and the driver of the car in the painting follows the author's trail. Richard Kinnell (the writer) hears of the brutal death of the woman who sold the painting to him. The story basically says that we are all destined to our own fate. Story Grade - A

10 - Lunch At The Gotham Cafe - This story is about a couple getting a divorce and how much of the ordeal is a waking nightmare. As the couple argue over petty things, the maitre d is going crazy and stabs the wife's lawyer. Most of the crowd escapes unharmed, but the couple is faced with having to fight off a crazed maitre d in the kitchen. This is a story that is twisted, but you can imagine something like this happening. Another great story in this collection! Story Grade - A+

11 - That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French - Deja Vu. A woman traveling with her husband experiences a repeat of events from flying on an airplane (that crashes and blows up) to traveling in a limo to the airplane. This story shows how repeating events could be very tiring, but still a good story nonetheless. Story Grade - B

12 - 1408 - This is a haunted hotel room story King started in his novel On Writing. It was basically to show fans how to writer a story that's been told a thousand times but do so in a way where it comes off as new & original. You almost can feel that this story takes place in one of the rooms of the Overlook hotel (The Shining). Anything more would spoil the story. Story Grade - A+

13 - Riding The Bullet - Originally it was an online book. A simple tale of a character facing death. He is hitchhiking to visit his mother who just suffered a massive stroke. He falls asleep in a cemetary, unknown to him that the headstone he sleeps near is the next driver who will pick him up. Alan Parker (the main character) is forced to face the death of his mother. If he doesn't choose her to die it will be Alan himself who dies. A great story that reminds us that we are not immune to death and neither are our loved ones. Much much better than that pathetic movie adaptation in 2004. Story Grade - A+

14 - Luckey Quarter - A woman is tipped a lucky quarter from a man in a gambling hotel. She envisions herself gambling the quarter and winning over and over again. The woman is the mother of two children, her teenage daughter and her sickly young son. She is poor and when the fantasy ends she gives the quarter to her son who was visiting her at work and he precedes to win when he gambles it. Just like her fantasy he wins over and over again. The woman is left to say to herself "Lucky me, lucky me"

One thing I didn't get about the story was that King made it sound as if the boy was very young, so what is he doing gambling? A nice positive story, which is rare for King. Not one of the best and not one of the worst. Story Grade - B

I have this book twice in softcover and once in hardcover. I highly recommend it. One of King's best works ever!

Stephen King hasn't done a short story collection since Nightmares and Dreamscapes a decade ago so I jumped on Everythings' Eventual. First the good, Little Sisters of Eluria is downright creepy. From the moment Roland the gunslinger arrives in town with a sick horse you know things aren't going to go well for him. Even non Dark Tower Fans will enjoy this. The Death of Jack Hamilton shows once again that King is the master of the old fashioned 1940s noir style crime/jail story. The Road Virus Heads North builds up tension so fast you really have no idea of how it's going to end and it has a sly poke at some of King's nuttier fans. The Man in the Brown Suit was terrifying. Anyone who ever had an unpleasant childhood encounter with a strange adult will find it unforgettable. Everythings Eventual is terrific until the climax. Kings personal political feelings got in the way and that led to a somewhat weak ending. Now for the not so good news. If you're a King fan you've already read Riding the Bullet, Luckey Quarter and All that You Love Will Be Carried Away . You've probably already bought the Blood and Smoke tape and the L.T. tape. These stories all came out last year or so. It's too soon for them, as good as they are, to be in a written collection. It made me feel like King was just padding the book. There was one clunker in the collection and it's the one about the highly unlikable middle aged woman who slips into her own private vacation hell. Luckily this one is very short. Was this King's best collection. Nope. That honor probably goes to Nightmares and Dreamscapes or perhaps Skeleton Crew but it is enjoyable and if you're a serious King fan you've got to have it. Kimberley Wilson

In the near thirty years that Stephen King has been writing, he has undoubtedly proven that he is a writer of excellence. He has honed his craft from the "horror" genre into just being a darned good story teller. And even when his stories ultimately fail (such as in "Cujo"), one can't deny his power as the writer of the century (20th). As much as I admire King, though, I wish he hadn't totally abandoned what he did best: out and out scary tales that made you shudder when you read them--the vampires amid the seeminly normal "Salem's Lot"; the bond of childhood friendship and the impending horrors of "It,"; the doomed people greedily seeking their gluttonous fantasies in "Needful Things,"; the evil car in "Christine,"; the victimized "Carrie"; and all of his other truly scary stories. While I have enjoyed his short stories, most notably in "Skeleton Crew" and "Night Shift," I never fully enjoyed "Nightmares and Dreamscapes," nor this current collection of fourteen "dark" tales. It seemed as though King was insistent on being a literary force, one who would be taken seriously as something other than a "horror" writer. I feel that King's status as a horror writer is what has made him the force he is. So with that in mind, let me say that I only read thirteen of the stories, as I never could get into the Dark Tower series. The stories I read have a varying mixture of plot and character studies, and King continues to reign supreme with some of the characters he gives us in this collection. The narrator in "L.T.'s Theory on Pets" is a brilliant narrative, that is both funny and eerie. If L.T.'s wife was really killed by the Axe Man, where is her body and who is the Axeman? All of the stories have something of merit, but not all of them were truly scary or unnerving. "The Road Virus Goes North" is a spooky tale, but is reminiscent of the Night Gallery episode in which Roddy McDowall sees his fate change on the picture. That still doesn't negate the terror in this story as the writer knows his fate is coming after him. It's one of the best in the book. "Riding the Bullet" is unsettling in that it really doesn't explain itself truly. The hero's encounter with the dead driver is quite frightening, but its denouement offes little other than that the boy's guilt over the death of his mother haunts him; what IF he had stayed with the crotch-grabbing, pee-smelling old man? One of my favorites is "This Feeling, the One You Can Only Say is French". This deja vu thriller works on several levels, and its conclusion is haunting, it's one of his best I think in years. "Lunch at the Gotham" is out and out gory slapstick, that gives us a crazed maitre'd, with King's underlying theme that no one really pays attention to what goes on around them. And do we ever really know why the wife left her husband? "Luckey Quarter" (and why is the luckey mispelled?) is a hopeful story that shows a mother's love and faith in her children---but scary? Dark? Not really. The opener "Autopsy Room Four" is a blatant rip off of an old Twilight Zone episode, which King readily admits. His method of discovering the cataleptic corpse is however very up to date, sexually oriented, I'm sure, to please our current marketplace of readers. "1408" is a wipeout in my opinion. We get this guy held by a foreign country for his contributions to a drug lord; he gets out, and makes it back, so what? This book also has several significant subplots involving smoking; I wonder if King has some kind of hidden agenda in this one? At any rate, King's fans won't be totally disappointed in this collection. He knows how to write; I just wish he would continue to let us see how much he knows how to scare!! RECOMMENDED

I'd already seen the 2009 film, but Dolan's Cadillac is an even better read. A little far-fetched, but still gripping. 4 stars

The End of The Whole Mess: Was the solution worse than the problem? 4 stars

Suffer The Little Children: 1 Star

Night Flier: Saw the mediocre movie, and have now read the mediocre story. 2 stars

Popsy: Revenge and a monster. Simple, but effective. 4 stars

It Grows On You: Apparently, this serves as an Epilogue to Needful Things, which I have seen on film, but have yet to read. It was quite random and meandering. 3 stars

Chattery Teeth: I saw this in the film Quicksilver Highway, and it was quite goofy. So is the short story. 3 stars.

Dedication: Weird and gross. 2 stars

The Moving Finger: This was great. Read just like a comic book. It seems familiar. Not sure if I saw it on film. It was apparently on a show called Monsters in the 90's so maybe. Found it on youtube after a search. Definitely have seen it. 5 stars

Sneakers:: Not scary, too long. 2 stars

You Know They Got A Hell of A Band: Rock n Roll Will Never Die. Found it was the last episode of Nightmares & Dreamscapes tv series. Only on youtube. 5 stars

Home Delivery: Very good sci-fi/zombie story. 4 stars

Rainy Season: Toads! 3 stars

My Pretty Pony: A non-scary story about time. 2 stars

Sorry Right Number: Kinda depressing 2 stars

The Ten O'Clock People: More drivel about smoking than the bat people. 2 stars

Crouch End: A Lovecraftian story that started well, and fizzled. 3 stars

The House On Maple Street: A spaceship in a house. 3 stars

The Fifth Quarter: A gang shootout. 2 stars

The Doctor's Case: A modern Sherlock Holmes tale that is kinda stupid. An elaborate murder plan ruined by the fact that the person stabbed in the back screamed? As if no one would ever do that. LOL 3 stars

Umney's Last Case: Painfully long author kills a character story. 1 star

Head Down: Non-fiction about his kid's little league that others have reviewed as boring. I'm not bothering with this one. 1 star

Brooklyn August: A story fragment about baseball. 1 star

The Beggar And The Diamond: A brilliant closer that proves to me that God can use anything, even Stephen King to speak to you at the exact right time. 5 stars

Overall a 2.75 average. Most of these stories seemed like leftovers dropped into a recycling bin. Didn't like this book. Mostly not scary.

"I've never told anyone this story, and never thought I would - not because I was afraid of being disbelieved, exactly, but because I was ashamed...and it was mine. I've always felt that telling it would cheapen both me and the story itself, make it smaller and more mundane, no more than a camp counselor's ghost story told before light's out. I was also afraid that if I told it, heard it with my own ears, I might start to disbelieve it. But since my mother's died, I haven't been able to sleep very well. I doze off and snap back again, wide awake and shivering. Leaving the bedside lamp on helps, but not as much as you'd think. There are so many more shadows at night, have you ever noticed that? Even with a light on there are so many shadows. The long ones could be the shadows of anything at all, you think.

Anything at all."

Stephen King's maligned a lot, both by elitists and people who I doubt have read a book in the past three years. He's got (occasionally mortal) flaws in his writing, and anyone who says that he hasn't declined post accident is deluding themself. That being said, you can always tell which of the haters have actually read and dismissed Stephen King and which of them have skipped the first step and just dismissed him. Those detractors say that he doesn't care about characters, that his books are just fast paced noise with no higher goal than shock factor and body count. While I won't deny King's occasional love of shock horror, the other parts of the typical King criticism are as close as you can come to being objectively wrong while making a subjective statement.

King's character development and prose are what keep me coming back to him. He has the ability to step into someone's head and write in style that is distinctly human from the first paragraph of any character's point of view. Unfortunately, due to his meander-happy style of no-outline writing, his later books just wallow around for a few hundred pages before coming to a closing so unsatisfying that it boggles the mind. Everything's Eventual, despite consisting of short stories, none of which clock in at over ninety pages (and that's the highest by a significant margin), is the most blatant example of this that I've yet seen.

[Two notes on the coming review:

1. I did not read the story The Little Sisters of Eluria. It's a Dark Tower story and, seeing as I'm planning to read the Dark Tower this year, I'd rather appreciate it in its proper context.
2. This review will contain SPOILERS for several stories in the collection; The Man in the Black Suit, Lunch at the Gotham Café, and Autopsy Room Four, to be specific.]

King hasn't lost his gift for characterization. Almost every voice in the collection is perfectly captured. The gullible, overwhelmed thoughts of Dink (Everything's Eventual) are as vivid as the despondent world weariness of Alfie (Everything That You Love Will Be Carried Away). King also hasn't lost his obsession with character created euphemisms. For the most part, these are well done and endearing, though the endless parade of eventuals in the title story, standing in for awesome, gets horribly old.

Unfortunately, the prose can only enchant you for a few pages. After that, you start looking for content, and that's where the collection disappoints again and again. The failures can basically be broken into two categories.

The first of these categories is the nonstarter. These stories read like the opening chapters of a novel, where the main event is still a good hundred pages away at the least by the time you've turned the last page. The best example of these is The Devil in the Black Suit. The story depicts a young boy going fishing a short distance from his house. While fishing, the boy encounters the devil. Now, in the notes section, King says that a friend's grandfather insists that, one day, he met the devil and had to not let the devil know that he'd caught onto the deception. This reminds me of a section in the excellent How Not to Write a Novel entitled Why Your Job Is Harder Than God's. See, in real life, meeting The Man in the Black Suit could be the defining event of your lifetime. In a Stephen King short story, on the other hand, the reader's reaction is more like: and then?

And it's that and then? that's really missing here. The kid talks with the Devil, tries to hide that he knows it's the Devil. The Devil says that the kid's mom died. The kid starts running away. Alright, the reader thinks, we're getting somewhere. Not really, because he gets away without all that much trouble. He goes home, and his mother is...still alive? Okay, wait, his father doesn't believe him and the two are going to head down to spot and see what happened, so I guess there's still space for something to happen, right? Wrong. They get there; it smells faintly of sulfur. The end. Let me see if I can sum up the major events of the story: kid has a dream. Oh, and the place smells of sulfur. Forgive me if I'm not shaking in my boots yet. Now, the story's not a total wash. The voice is perfectly captured and a joy to read. There's one genuinely disturbing image. And...well, no, that's it. I'm sorry, Mr. King, but a good prose style and one paragraph aren't enough to salvage thirty pages of nothing.

The majority of the stories, however, fall under the second, even more disappointing, category, the one where you get what seems like an interesting set up before everything nose dives so badly it's sometimes hard to watch (as King said in Riding the Bullet: Well begun, too soon done). The best example of this is Lunch at the Gotham Cafe. The story opens with a man being left by his wife. We get ten pages of good characterization, inhabiting the more-than-slightly shell-shocked shoes of Steven Davis. At the eleven page mark, Steven and his wife, and his wife's lawyer, sit down at the café for lunch. Without warning, the maitre d starts screaming about some invisible dog and draws a knife.

Let's pause for a second, as the set up's now over. Writing Excuses often talks about how the beginning of a story is a promise to the reader. So, looking back over what's happened so far, let's pick out those promises. First of all, the divorce. We need some form of resolution there in order to make the first ten pages not feel like a total waste of time, be the resolution painful acceptance or happy reunion or something in between. Second, and more immediate, we need to figure out what the hell's wrong with the maitre d. There're some secondary threads hanging around - such as Steven's attempt to quit smoking - but those two are absolutely essential, and I can't imagine a good ending without those being resolved.

And, just so you know, neither can Stephen King. The maitre d's insanity, and the following fight, are, at first, surprising and odd enough to be unsettling, but the bastard's built like some form of table waiting super-zombie, and he just does not die. After what feels like a lifetime of reading about this guy getting mutilated again and again, the maitre d finally manages to die (in a manner less climactic than several already attempted non-deaths) and the story just fizzles out from there. The reason for the guy's insanity? Unless screaming Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee counts as a rational motive, the guy resembles a windup toy with a knife more than an actual character. The divorce? The main character really might as well have been in there alone.

You know the joke that, if you can't figure out how to move the plot forward, you just throw in a man with a gun, hoping that you can shift things around while the audience's captivated by all the bright lights and loud noises? Well, that kind of feels like what happened here. The people sit down, but King doesn't know where to go, so he introduces a nice distraction to jump start the plot. Problem being, he still doesn't know where this thing's heading, and after wasting as much time as he could (seriously, I don't think I've ever seen a fight scene that can best be summed up as "meandering" before), he just realizes that he better just slap a nice THE END on. Oh, and I'm somewhat perplexed that the cop's don't feel any need to speak with the primary target, not to mention the killer's killer, after the whole scene, but whatever.

After seeing an endless stream of novels and short stories from the man, many people are understandably curious as to whether he's actually got anything fresh left in him. Unfortunately, Everything's Eventual is no more satisfying in originality than it is in consistency. I'm fine with an author putting his own spin on a tired cliché, but the number of stories whose notes have a variation of "this is my attempt at a [insert horror cliché here] story" is just ridiculous. These are, for the most part, predictable from the first (stale) note to the final (disappointing) let ring.

Let's look at Autopsy Room Four. This is King's take on the standard buried alive drill; the protagonist wakes up on the autopsy table. You can see the tension gathering with every step the doctor's take as they prepare to cut into him, but seeing isn't feeling, and the knowledge that this's supposed to be a nail biting moment doesn't quite make it one. You know the guy's going to get out okay from the get go, and that just makes you want the doctor's to hurry it up and discover him already. In the notes, King says that he wanted a more "modern" take on the whole thing, with the doctor's discovering the patient's living status by his erection. You know what? That might've been just amusing enough to save the story. But saying that's what happens is a bald faced lie. The erection isn't discovered until afterwards, what saves the patient is another doctor jumping onto the stage and giving a painfully implausible info dump right before the scissors start cutting. It's something that would be unbearably convenient in some amateur's first stab at writing, and King's treatment is no better.

The connection isn't a total wash, mind you. There is one decent horror story, The Road Virus Heads North. It's another of those aforementioned my take on stories, with the victim this time being your standard moving picture tale. Still, despite all the warning signs to the contrary, the story manages to hit some scary, though predictable, notes. Standing above that is Riding the Bullet, the collection's one story that's actually, genuinely, good. The story's horror aspect is actually somewhat reminiscent of The Man in the Black Suit, but the chills are the least important thing here. Riding the Bullet is a portrayal of sorrow and guilt that manages to be almost touching enough to make up for the rest of the collection.

Almost, but not quite. This collection has fourteen stories, out of which I've read thirteen. Out of those, one was good, one was decent, and eleven ranged from lackluster to cringe worthy. I've read a lot of newer Stephen King - hell, my first book by him was Cell - and this is the first time King book that I can truly classify as bad. Get Riding the Bullet and ignore the rest.