The Mist

THE MIST is my favorite short story by Stephen King. I first read it as part of SKELETON CREW (1985). I remember thinking, "It's the perfect length for a movie, without leaving out any details," since movies based on King stories are rarely as good as the books. (However, the movie has a much more brutal ending, in my opinion.) To this day, I'm not quite sure why I love this story so much...maybe the contrast of monsters: the ones outside and the ones inside. If you're a horror fan, you're probably familiar with this story, but, just in case...

Following a monster of a thunderstorm, a mysterious mist spreads across a small town in Maine. People who were shopping at the local grocery store soon realize they need to stay inside. Eventually, the survivors find out about a military experiment called "The Arrowhead Project," which is believed to have brought numerous leviathan creatures into existence.

Of course, the nightmare doesn't truly kick off until the town's religious fanatic forms her own cult within the store, and the people who still have fully-functioning brains realize they need to get the hell out of there, regardless of what is hiding within the mist.

Even if you watched the movie, I'm still recommending this novella. Readers will be able to get to know the main characters on a very personal level, in a way the film could not provide.

Mist is ok but too long. this is not vintage King, or master of the genre King. It is ho hum 3* King. But... But... As is fairly common there is a preview of a new book at the end of Mist. Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream is a complete story from his book to be released May 22, 2024. This story is King at his best, telling a story of a psychic dream that Danny has that forces him to try and do the right thing as a result. It is a modern retelling of the theme from Les Miserable and so satisfying. I am looking forward to the rest of you Like It Darker.

There was a lot going for this story. Plenty of monsters, both man-eating and human. A father working diligently to keep his son safe. Claustrophobic setting. What keeps this story from five stars is actually the ending. King even writes that the narrator’s father would say it is a bad ending. Is that supposed to be like an acknowledgment that not everyone will find the conclusion satisfying? Possibly. That doesn’t make the ending any better, though. I think the fact that this is a novella rather than one of King’s novels makes it a little more forgivable, but it almost feels like he ran out of imagination for what might happen next. Having watched the film ahead of time, I must say that it has a better ending, though not one I would have wanted to read either.

All Stephen King books, short stories, cautionary tales … whatever medium and whichever genre he chooses to display his writing … are eminently readable. The characters are as well drawn, as realistic, understandable, and as relatable as those any author ever dreamed and translated onto pages, and more so than 99% created by all other writers. This is a novelette, true unadulterated horror and not his best, yet once I read the first sentence I was as captivated, drawn in and unable to put it down as I have been by his best —- and by the best of all other great writers. More often than not his genre is cheesy, however Stephen King is a great writer, and even the least of his offerings exceed the best books and stories of the 99% I referred to earlier. If you get the opportunity, read anything and everything he has written, this story included.

At the end, I felt cheated in two ways.

The first is that, in the words of King's own first-person narrator: "But you mustn’t expect some neat conclusion. There is no 'And they escaped from the mist into the good sunshine of a new day; or 'When we awoke the National Guard had finally arrived;' or even that great old standby: 'It was all a dream.' It is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called “an Alfred Hitchcock ending,” by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were 'cheap shots.'"

Well, yeah, his father was right. This is unprofessional storytelling. He started to write a story and couldn't figure out how to end it, but because he's Stephen King, and because lots of people would rather read a lousy Stephen King book than no Stephen King book, he gets away with it.

You can enjoy the flow of storytelling and his evocation of horrible events--like the sounds approaching monsters make in the dark. It keeps you reading to find out what happens next. But nothing makes sense and everything is left hanging.

The second reason is that when "The Mist" ends, you're less than halfway through the Kindle book. You have paid full price for half a book. The rest of the book is a partial sample of a book entitled "You Like It Darker." Sample chapters are annoying. But when the sample preview is half the book, that's not annoying, that's dishonest.

So, 1) the preview is unsatisfying, because is an unfinished book, but we all know that going in. 2) "The Mist" is unsatisfying, because it may be all he wrote, but it's an unfinished story. And he says so himself. But we don't know it in advance, he springs it on us at the end.