Night Shift

The Night Shift was the first collection of Stephen King short stories. Unlike most of the later collections, these are all true short stories. The longest is 34 pages and most are just 10-20 pages. As you might expect, some stories are more impressive than others, but almost all of them are good, and several are outstanding.

Jerusalem's Lot: It could be argued that this is a prequel of sorts, to

Of King's 4 collection of short stories, I'd have to say that I like 'Night Shift' the best. It's definitely the most consistently horror oriented of them, and the non-horror stories are particularly compelling. Also his tendency to overwrite hasn't displayed itself yet. It's got a few weaker stories, such as 'Gray Matter', 'I Know What You Need' and 'The Lawnmower Man', in particular, but the good ones more than make up for these few short comings. (It's too bad that 'Suffer the Children' got cut instead of 'Gray Matter'. 'Suffer the Children' would've been one of the better stories here, while 'Gray Matter' is probably the worst.) The tales also tend to be more straight forward and conventional than his later ones, but sometimes the older stories really are the best ones. (It still get pretty damn weird at times, no doubt about it, but it's got nothin' on the level of 'You Know They've Gotta Helluva Band' or 'The Moving Finger'.)

'Jerusalem's Lot' is unabashed Lovecraft homage. It can't quite match his best work, but it's excellent and manages not to be too utterly derivative. 'The Mangler' is a strange one, as it's about a possessed industrial dryer/folder thing. It's got an unintentionally black-comic vibe to it, along with perhaps the most gruesome, disturbing violence in anything I've read from him. (Being killed by one of those things would involve being crushed and scalded to death simultaneously. Not pleasant, I'm sure) 'The Graveyard Shift' which was made into an amusingly bad movie, is surprisingly effective. The story focuses more on the conflict between Hall and his supervisor, Warwick, and keeps the rat stuff in relatively small, if still fatal, doses. 'Sometimes They Come Back' is probably my favorite story here. It's puts a few new twists on the old revenge from beyond on the grave theme, and is just one of the most powerfully moody pieces King's ever written. 'Strawberry Spring', a story about a series of murders on a college campus, has a fairly predictable ending, but has enough atmosphere to be a fairly remarkable story anyway. 'Children of the Corn' and 'Trucks' were both made into ill-conceived films, but they work well as short stories. 'Children of the Corn' is the better of the two, focusing more on the desolate town than on the children themselves, and it also has some nice gruesome imagery towards the end. 'The Woman in the Room' is one of the non-horror stories, but it's still one of the darkest things here, and is really almost unbearably sad. (It's about a man's attempt to euthanize his fatally ill mother, and obviously reflects upon the slow death of King's mother.)

I weary of discussing these individually, but suffice to say that they're almost all excellent. In a modern world were the novel has completely supplanted the short story some major King fans may be hesitant to check out these works. Don't make thsi mistake. This is some of his best stuff.

I sometimes forget what a terrific short story writer Stephen King is, so when I read this anthology, I was reminded again of his genius. 20 short stories of various topics and lengths fill the pages. I enjoyed them all, some more than others. After reading them, I also enjoy finding the movies that were based on these stories, or even entire movie series that were created. Can you say CHILDREN OF THE CORN? Excellent reading!

Children of the Corn is in this book. When I was a kid i watched the movie (not sure why I was allowed to as I was clearly not the target audience). I was completely petrified by it as we lived surrounded by cornfields and a very old graveyard as our neighbor. To help myself fall asleep when I was stewing over being terrified I would pretend I was on the movie set and think about how everyone was actually just acting…it helped…. a little.

I never read the actual story until yesterday and was glad I did (and glad I waited to read it until adulthood). Anyways I’m looking forward to reading these a little at a time. I’ll probably sandwich in reading some stories by other non scary authors so I don’t end up sleeping with all the lights on.

A fun bunch of stories. Mostly dark and wholly without light so recommended for pure horror lovers. Not, however, his very best writing. This is because one of his great strengths is his character development and in a short story that’s hard to do. Also, endings are very hard. Not all of his endings are satisfying in these stories. Still some gems include: 1) Lawnmower Man; 2) TheLedge; 3) Quitters Inc.; 4) Children of the Corn and 5) The Woman in The Room.

It’s important to remember how new and fresh these stories must have seemed in the late 60’s early ‘70’s when they were first published in magazines and the context of the type of horror popular at that time. Well worth the time to read for any horror reader or SK fan.

I'm finally getting to the rest of King's 70s work. I’ve read his work from pretty much every era, so I think going back to the start is a neat look at the origins of some of his ideas. I enjoyed this collection overall since it has way more hits than misses.

"Jerusalem's Lot" 4 Stars King takes Stoker's Lair of the White Worm and elevates it with some Cosmic Horror. The epistolary style is well crafted, and I just like the blend. It's a prequel to Salem's Lot.

"Graveyard Shift" 3.5 Stars A harrowing journey into the darkness of corporate power and greed. Apparently, there aren't enough rats.

"Night Surf" 3 Stars I like the sentiment, but I hate the POV characters. I'm just torn because I think the POV character's meanness might be part of the point.

"I Am the Doorway" 4 Stars Cosmic Horror + Body Horror = I'm in!

"The Mangler" 4 Stars High concept demon possession! I'm also in!

"The Boogeyman" 2 Stars Boring with a really crap twist ending.

"Gray Matter" 4 Stars High concept body horror with a tremendously atmospheric setting.

"Battleground" 2 Stars Visceral, but kind of stupid.

"Trucks" 2 Stars Also visceral and very stupid, that's made all the more confusing by trying to have an ecological message at the end... I think?

"Sometimes They Come Back" 2 Stars Maybe King had worse students than I have? While this plays a little on the repeated faces, modes, and student types that a teacher has, it's also rather silly.

"Strawberry Spring" 2.5 Stars I like some of the ideas, but the ending was predictable, and the idea of the fog never really came together.

"The Ledge" 3.5 Stars This one is adapted in the anthology film Cat's Eye, and I prefer this version. The other one is too stretched out. This one is concise and serious. I actually liked this one quite a bit.

"The Lawnmower Man" 2 Stars Um, okay... I guess the concept is interesting. No, I haven't seen the movie, and I know it's basically completely different.

"Quitters, Inc." 2 Stars This one is adapted in the anthology film Cat's Eye, and unlike "The Ledge," I like the filmed version of "Quitters, Inc." more. I think it's James Woods putting a bit more life into the piece. Otherwise, it's just rather lame and silly.

"I Know What You Need" 3.5 Stars The ending really helped this one. It's confused and it grapples nicely with the inherent unfairness of life.

"Children of the Corn" 1.5 Stars The last part in the corn was somewhat creepy, but hanging around a couple whose marriage is disintegrating is not fun, and that's most of the story. No, I haven't seen the movie.

"The Last Rung on the Ladder" 2.5 Stars It's nicely written and has some beautiful sections, but it just felt too insubstantial to me. It's trying to deal with guilt, but treats the resolution like a horror cliffhanger.

"The Man Who Loved Flowers" 1 Star Love is a form of madness and other clichés by Stephen King. I really didn't care for this nothing of a story. Worst in the collection.

"One for the Road" 4 Stars A cool little vampire story that is technically a sequel to Salem's Lot. The worst part is the summary of that book, but the rest is atmospheric vampire awesomeness.

"The Woman in the Room" 4.5 Stars This is my favorite of the bunch. The horror of real life often dwarfs what people can imagine. Dealing with death is tough.